I felt my stomach drop as if I were falling from a great height. My surroundings disappeared and then my body imploded. I could feel everything in a way that I had never felt before.

Just as suddenly as I felt it, the feeling vanished. I was standing in a dark void, not dissimilar to where I had initially met Chronos. After a few seconds, I realized I could move my body, so at least I wasn’t dead quite yet.

“Aww, is the big bad man scared?” An annoying voice taunted.

I swiftly spun around but didn’t manage to catch a glimpse before he vanished again.

“Oh, I’m going to like playing with you.” The voice laughed. Snap.

As soon as he clicked his fingers, I was unable to move. I silently stared straight ahead as the voice slowly appeared in front of me. He seemed to be a normal goblin, except for the strange apparel he was wearing. A pointy leather hat covered his head, with long straps holding metal loops attached to it hanging down over his face. He wore a long tunic, covered in scarves. All of the clothes were colored light pink, with shades varying between the pieces.

His eyes, however, were a sight to behold. Abyssal black sclerae housed light grey pupils and were lacking irises.

“I am The Great Toodles, and y~o~o~o~u agreed to play my game! There are several rules you must follow, and if you break them, you’ll die! Isn’t it wonderful?”

“The game is v~e~e~e~ry simple. You must figure out which of your buddies is actually me! But if I get hurt, all three of you will die. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that,” The goblin scrunched his nose, “Dying isn’t fun from my experience.”

Another snap and I went through that same painful movement as before, his laughter echoing in my ears. Once I arrived back, I promptly emptied my stomach on the ground. That transition was terrible. I regained my focus and scanned my surroundings.

Hale was squatted, breathing hard. I could nearly see the green on his face. Camille was straightening herself up, apparently already recovered for the most part.

“So. We have quite the problem now, don’t we?” I started, drawing Lament and stepping back unsteadily as the last remnants of nausea drained from my system.

Camille raised her eyebrow, looking confused.

“Yeah…” Hale managed, finally recovering enough to speak. “We’re out here in the woods somehow, and I’m slightly terrified of the way you’re pointing that thing.” he nodded towards my drawn sword.

Still wary, I lowered my sword and began to take in my surroundings. We were in a small clearing in a luscious forest. There were a couple of logs that stood up in front of an unlit campfire, acting as temporary seats. There were exactly three of them, placed evenly around the fire pit.

“Wait wait wait. One of you is the goblin, right?” I asked.

“What are you talking about? We passed the doorway, accepted the thing you told us to, then appeared here. Right?” Hale replied.

Camille nodded in confirmation.

As soon as she finished nodding, she stood still while staring straight behind me. Noticing where she was looking, I whirled around. My eyes frantically scanned the dark woods behind me, moonlight only barely outlining the freakishly tall trees.

“Penalty. Participants alerted to the task. Beginning Reset…” A mechanical voice sounded from everywhere surrounding me.

I doubled over, gasping when the teleportation process hit me again. ‘One of those stupid rules the goblin forgot to mention, didn’t he?’ I thought, angered. Standing up, I saw Hale in his previous position of squatting, his face turning a nasty lavender green. I idly scratched my chin, thoughts flying through my head. ‘So this being either has the power to send me back in time, I’m in a simulation, or it’s borrowing the power of the System. I would assume either the second or the third.’ I glanced at Camille, noting that she was staring at me curiously. ‘Toodles, I assume his name is, is one of those two. Camille is acting somewhat suspiciously, but I didn’t know her before the apocalypse. I suppose I’ll have to keep an eye on her.’

“It is likely that ‘Toodles the Mad’ sent us here as a part of the game we accepted to play in. For now, I don’t see an objective, so let’s get a fire going before it’s too dark,” I declared. The moon was bright, casting an ethereal glow over the campsite, but I noticed clouds moving to cover the only source of light we had.

I sent Camille to gather kindling from the woods, with directions to shout if there was any trouble, which left Hale alone with me. She seemed almost… happy… to get away. ‘Strange’. I sat down on one of the logs, motioning Hale to sit down on one as well.

“So. This is as good a time as any to get to know more about you,” ‘and to figure out if you’re a goblin.’

“What do you want to know? I played lacrosse for a few years, did water polo…” Noticing my bored expression, he got slightly more personal.

“I like reading, and enjoy hiking,” he glanced up at me, making sure that I wanted to hear this. Noticing my approval, he went on.

“I have lots of friends back down in Florida.” Grimacing, he corrected himself. “Had. had lots of friends in Florida. I don’t know who made it or who didn’t, but the tiny aliens kidnapping me makes it seem a little unlikely that they were spared from a worse fate.”

‘Tiny aliens?’ I wondered before I realized that he probably hadn’t realized what they were.

“Those are goblins. Small cowardly green creatures that obey monsters higher on the food chain, not aliens.”

He looked at me curiously.

“Like in DnD?”

“DnD? Hmm...ah yes, Dungeons and Discord. Yeah, like that game.”

Comprehension dawned on his face.

“Oh! Wait. So how did they come here? How do they exist? They were only something humans made up, right?”

I chortled.

“Listen. Just think of the word, ‘Status’,” I commanded.

It took a second, but then his face widened in what appeared to be utter fascination.

“No way! That’s so cool!”

A loud rumbling from our stomachs erupted in unison, reminding us of the situation at hand, and bringing me back to the original purpose of this conversation.

“If I may, what state were you born in?” I eventually asked.

“Born and raised in Florida, never lived anywhere else,” was his response.

I pretty firmly marked Hale off of my suspicions, leaving only Camille. I decided to wait to interrogate her before deciding.

A couple of minutes later, I heard the snapping of twigs coming in our direction. For a second, I was ready to draw my weapon, but then realized it was probably Camille coming back with the kindling.

She walked into the clearing, arms completely full of twigs and assorted flammable materials. Camille dumped it into the fire pit, then looked over at me.

“Is this enough?” she asked.

“It should be,” I replied, before pulling a lighter out of my pack and lighting the fire.

After a minute or two of tending to the fire, I pulled back and sat on a log. All three of us stared into the blazing chaos, its unrelenting desire to devour captivating me. Several minutes of silence followed, not a sound uttered save for the crackling of the wood as it was consumed.

“What… what happened to the world, Seamus? You came from there too, but… you are so tense and ready to fight,” Camille asked.

I kept my gaze fixed on the inferno as I answered.

“The apocalypse has come. I don’t know how many died, but I would guess that very few people you knew made it. The survivors… they can sometimes be worse than the monsters,” I shivered, a memory resurfacing.

A man, caked in his own blood, crawled out of a portal. I recognized what was left of his face. Remus, the strongest of humanity. One of the few bastions of hope we had left. I had watched him, like so many others, enter the dungeon. His cracked and bloodied lips only managed one sentence, before he passed.

“Watch… out…” he coughed blood. “... for-”

A foot came down on his head, smashing it to the floor.

“Me.”

A faceless man stood above him, pinning his head to the ground. His unblemished mask turned towards us-

“Seamus!”

The memory abruptly stopped.

“Seamus!”

I tasted dirt in my mouth, and I could feel the grass on my face.

I groggily picked myself up, still confused. Hale was crouched beside me, shaking my body. Seeing that I was returning to consciousness, he pulled back. A few seconds later, I realized what had happened, and I could feel my face flush beneath the dirt.

“What happened?” Camille inquired.

“Nothing, I just got lost in memories,” I replied, unsure as to why that particular memory had surfaced.

We settled back down for a few moments, while they tried not to shoot glances my way before I noticed a smidge of smoke curling up from beneath Hale.

“Hale? You’re burning,” I pointed out.

It took him a second before he stood up and began to pat his bottom. It was a little strange how he didn’t notice it, but I paid it no mind.

“I think we should turn in for the night. It’s getting too dark,” I started, before realizing that we didn’t actually have a place to sleep.

“You know what? Scratch that,” I declared.

“Hale, can you go gather some large leaves?” I emptied my backpack on the floor, “You can use this to hold them.”

“Uh, sure. Nothing dangerous in these forests, right?” he chuckled nervously, before grabbing my bag and wandering off.

I waited until he was out of earshot, then began my interrogation.

“So. Who’re you? Tell me about yourself,” I led.

“I don’t really feel comfortable talking with you about that,” She replied, becoming slightly fidgety.

‘Hmm, unwilling to respond.’

“Okay, then tell me what you liked doing most back before the apocalypse.”

“I liked playing games,” she answered hesitantly, as if unsure.

‘Alright. I’m now positive it’s her. She has avoided questions and seems unsure of herself when lying to me. Didn’t know the goblin would be this bad at lying, but it makes sense.’ I concluded.

I attempted to make some amount of small talk before Hale returned but Camille, or should I say, Toodles, wasn’t having any of it. He pretended to be scared of me, playing it up to give himself an excuse to not have to come up with answers.

Around half an hour later, Hale comes back with a full backpack.

“Hale, come over here for a minute,” I say, a smirk playing on my lips.

He comes over and sits down on a log, a little bit confused. I let the silence sit for a minute, but then I made my guess

“Alright game, this is it. You have replaced Camille, I’m sure of it.”

The world froze once more.

“Answer Denied,” is the only response I receive.

While the world is still, something changed. I whirled my head to look at Hale, just as a maniacal grin stretched itself over his lips.

The boy shifts, his body turning into one I recognize. The goblin sat upon the log, still wearing that absurd smirk across its face.

“You were so sure it was her too!” he chuckled to himself, before being consumed in a peal of all-encompassing laughter.

Eventually, he calmed down and snapped his fingers. There, at his feet, the real Hale appeared, frozen.

“Well, you got it wrong, and the rules are the rules,” he said.

He placed his palm on top of Hale, then began to squeeze. A few seconds later, a sickening ‘POP’ erupted from what used to be Hale.

“Apparently, you only knew these people for a few minutes too. Made it almost too easy to convince you I was him, and that girl was the real fake.” He gestured towards Camille.

“She was so obviously terrified of you, and you just kept pressing in,” he laughed, “Poor girl just didn’t know what to do!”

He stood up from his log, gore still splattered across his leather clothes. I sat still, unable to comprehend what just happened. ‘I… was wrong?’

I looked back up once more to witness Toodles, grin still etched upon his face, snap his fingers again. I could once more hear the crackling of the fire, but I could also hear Camille gasp upon noticing Hale dead on the floor. She snapped towards me, glaring accusingly, just as I saw Toodles severing her head.

Her cold eyes continued to bore into me as her head fell forwards, almost as if to tell me that I had caused this. Which, I had. I entered the dungeon. I saved those two. I trusted Toodles, of all things, not even my own fellow human. ‘Heh. Guess I won’t be the savior of the human race, now will I?’ I chuckled to myself despite the situation.

Toodles stepped towards me slowly, as if to milk this moment for as long as possible.

A moment of inspiration took me. I do have a way to fight, don’t I? I lunged for my blade, mentally chanting [Enhancement Magic] as I did so. There was a brief moment where I could almost feel the magic course through me before something similar to an adrenaline spike hit me. I felt powerful.

I grabbed Lament, drawing it from its sheath as I pointed it at Toodles’ disgusting grin.

“It’s always more fun when they have a bit of fight in them…” he trailed off, before somehow grinning even larger. His teeth shone in the moonlight, uncannily clean for a savage as these goblins were.

Suddenly, he disappeared. My trusty instincts flared as I dropped to the floor, just as a purple fist passed above me. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite clear it in time as the hand clipped my head, knocking me to the ground.

I felt a hand pull on my shirt, drawing me up. I flailed, trying to strike behind me.

“Goodbye,” Toodles declared. I felt a sensation on my neck unlike one I had ever felt before. It was cold and sharp, and then I could feel my head beginning to slide-

Before I was decapitated, a sudden wind filled me. [Last Stand]’s power coursed through my veins, as I broke free of his grip.

“Ohoho, strong now, aren’t we? I guess I’ll have to end it.” He grinned, before disappearing once more.

I spun, prepared for him to appear behind me once again, before feeling a cold claw slide between my ribs.

“Good try,” I heard him whisper.

You have died.