Face Your Food

My mind was blurred by pain and confusion.

I could feel myself being batted around, twisted and spinning. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I was underwater. The maniac roar of a rushing current filled my ears as I was thrust along in its wake. I couldn’t breathe. As I was flipped upside down, I felt liquid pour into my upturned nostrils and the hot sting of water forced into my nasal passages. My sinuses burned and I felt the water hit my lungs, forcing me to cough and shooting another mouthful in to choke me. I saw a thin aqua line in my vision, staying centered ahead of me. I couldn’t focus on it as I rammed into something hard.

FUCK!

The rest of the air I’d been holding on to shot out of me as my back collided with what felt like a huge boulder. I saw flashes of color in my vision. My body rebelled against the feeling, and the pain echoed through my whole body.

I badly needed air, but I was still trapped in the undertow. It didn’t seem like I’d be able to break free. I tried to bring my arms up to cover my head from more assaults, but it wasn’t enough. I hit another rock and my elbow cracked soundly against it and pushed my arm away. My face struck the same obstacle, and I felt a searing heat explode under the skin of my brow and nose. I was instantly nauseous.

This is how I die.

I closed my eyes because of the sting of the torrent of water pummeling me and felt myself spinning again. Silently, I prepared for my life to end.

Whoever had said drowning was peaceful was a goddamn liar. This was the single worst pain I’d ever felt. I couldn’t imagine it getting worse. Then I hit my head against another rock, proving myself wrong. The pain was so intense that the light left me. I felt myself slipping into a bleak, black vacuum.

I could hear the water rushing around me, but I realized through a painful, ragged throat that I could breathe. I sucked in the sweet, delicious, life-giving air and held it in my lungs, then released it when I couldn’t hold it anymore, drawing another breath. I did this a few times, closing my eyes as I tried to focus on my body. I needed to do a physical inventory of how it felt before I would be brave enough to survey the damage. I could feel a mild discomfort everywhere and pain in other parts. My left arm was numb and throbbing.

Wonderful!

I opened my eyes—well, eye—to look around. It seemed my left was swollen shut, so I used my good one to peer into my predicament.

The first thing I noticed was the river. Wide and powerful, it was driving from my right to my left. Almost two hundred feet away was the far bank, a scraggly grey shore dotted with fallen trees, plants, and stones. Back beyond it was a lush, green forest filled with healthy conifers. Behind the trees was a large cliff face climbing up into the horizon, protecting the river and its denizens. Birds chirped in the morning light.

How in the hell did I get here?

I looked down.

I was laying in water up to my waist. My bare feet were floating, fighting the river’s current, my legs covered with the tattered remains of my jeans. My chest was as bare as my feet, with tatters of it still clutching to my arms and back. Dangling from a strip of thin leather from my neck was the ring from my pocket.

How had that happened?

With a start, I realized all my skin had an unhealthy green bruising. In fact, there wasn’t an inch of flesh that hadn’t been completely enveloped in a seafoam pigment.

Gross.

I looked over to my left arm and found it wedged underneath a broken log. It was bent at an unnatural angle and had a vaguely purple hue to it even with the sickly green bruising.

That’s just great. It may have saved my life, but now my arm is functionally useless.

I wanted to cry, but I knew that wouldn’t help me in my current endeavor no matter how badly I wanted to. Also, what if Lina saw me crying? I’d be so embarrassed.

Lina.

The awful creature, the attack, Lina being forcibly taken into the weird rift, Anubis leaping in behind her all flashed violently from my memory. My heart dropped into my stomach and I felt adrenaline flood my blood. I was hot. My body trembled with rage. Etched into my mind’s eye was Lina’s terrified expression as she passed into that swirling vortex, her eyes locked on mine, her arms stretched out to me. I was going to kill that creature, whatever the hell it was! I was going to drag it across a mile of broken glass and rip its head off with my bare hands—eye sockets first!

My chest heaved, and I made to sit up a bit more. My body felt broken as the agony washed over me like a tidal wave. The swelling ebbed a bit in my left eye, and I strained to open it. My eyelid yielded, but only barely. There was a pulsing red flash in my vision as I angrily pulled on my arm to wrest it from beneath the snare. My wrist was pressed tightly between the rocks of the shore and the grimy, wet bark of the log.

As I pulled, my arm shifted and I felt a pop and watched as my arm slid back into place with a loud crack. I’d realigned the bones on accident and relocated it. But I only had a moment to register the pain because a small message box appeared abruptly in front of me.

New Skill Learned: Medicine [ Level 1 ]!

This skill allows you to diagnose wounds, utilize healing items and even stabilize fading comrades.

“Uh...what?” I asked aloud, looking around for some kind of clarity. My mind seemed to click into place as if something I’d long forgotten had been returned to me. An aura washed over me the moment the message appeared. It felt euphoric, as though I was now more knowledgeable.

The message stayed in my vision for a moment before fading. The rage and pain I felt before left and I lay there in stunned silence, the irritating and throbbing red flash still in the vision of my left eye. But then I realized that was no pulsing vein.

I saw numbers. The flashing red was an indicator. A short, squat bar floated there radiating red.

Low Health! 5/50 HP remaining!

A health bar? Like from a video game?

That settled it. I had smacked myself into simplicity. My brain must have taken too many strikes in the river, and now I was witnessing my first full-blown dive into a broken mind. Soon I’d be stumbling around, sputtering incoherent phrases and begging strangers to change my diaper.

“Screw this,” I said as I wiggled my newly-repaired elbow. I attempted to dig my wrist into the rocks to slip my hand out from beneath the log. I wasn’t going to die out here, defeated by a plant!

I could still see the flashing health bar above me, pestering me with some strange concern. I closed my eyes and dug the back of my hand into the sand and rock and shloop, my wrist was suddenly free!

“Ha!” I exclaimed, and kissed my hand—a weird thing to do even in celebration, I realized almost immediately after I did it and slid to my hands and knees to get upright.

New Skill Learned: [ Sleight of Hand - Level 1 ]

This skill allows you the ability to attempt to misdirect, escape from manacles or even pickpocket others! Be careful, however—if you steal from other players, they might notice and become angry!

Other...players?

This was just great. My obsession with video games had finally done exactly what my overprotective parents had always warned about: become full-blown psychosis. I was unable to see the distinction between reality and my imagination. I was probably seeing all of this because of my damaged grey matter, and I was actually just wandering around the streets of my neighborhood right now bumping into parked cars.

But I couldn’t deny that I again felt as though some hot bit of learning had wormed its way into my mind. I genuinely knew I was more deft and capable than I had been a moment ago.

That couldn’t be real though, could it? It definitely felt real. The creature. The river. The pain. I definitely felt trapped under that log. Was I some sort of hostage, placed in VR?

Tentatively, I reached up to my face. All I felt was the stabbing pain of my crushing contact with the rocks. I looked at my green-tinted digits and saw a dab of blood smeared into my fingerprints.

“Oh boy, Vale. What have you gotten yourself into?” I may as well talk out loud since I was 100% losing my marbles at this point. I sighed and leaned forward, cupping my hands and dipping them into the cold rushing water. I noticed a pool of still water around the base of the log where it met the river.

May as well survey the damage.

I climbed over to face my reflection. My eyes found themselves in the mirror staring back. They adjusted, and I froze.

I was a monster.

My face was contorted. My regular features had been changed drastically, twisted into something else, something...strange. My normal low cheekbones were now high and sharp, creating a contour with a piercing chin and jaw. My pupils boiled golden in their sockets, the white of my eyes painted with granular veins of red irritation. A prominent brow that might have been considered comely was broken open right above the left eyelid and was the source of the swelling.

My teeth were straighter, my nose was longer and my hair was an odd ashen color, cut roughly and angular, undercut on one side. Thin braids hung down on either side of my temples, framing my face and shining light on my most notable features: my ears. They jutted out from my head like a fox.

“Why do I look like an elf?” I asked, gingerly touching my ears. I went all the way to the top and could still feel my fingers. That sensation was real.

I sighed.

All in all, some might call this an improvement.

I glanced down at the rest of me and drank it all in. I was thin and muscular.

Nice!

I’d never been in terrible shape necessarily, but I definitely hadn’t been winning any swimsuit competitions. Less beach bod and more beach bum.

But now I was kind of shredded. At least, in the same way as one of those lean, scrappy trailer park dudes getting into arguments about cigarettes outside of a gas station.

What I had thought was bruising I now realized was just my skin. I had mottled, tattoo-like patterns cascading down my limbs, fingers, and toes and it was very green. The markings themselves looked a bit like leaves or petals and--honestly, seemed pretty cool. I’d never gotten a tattoo before, but now it seemed I didn’t need to.

If you had asked me yesterday how I’d react to being attacked by a maniacal monster and then shot through a portal into an episode abusive river in the middle of a forest and my physical appearance literally transformed—I would have said “badly”. It may have been the shock, but there didn’t seem to be any culminating mental break down on the horizon. I was surprisingly calm.

I was the Buddha.

I stood up and looked around me. Everything hurt and the meter above my vision kept flashing at me.

Low Health! 5/50 HP remaining!

Well, how do I fix that? In this strange new existence where there were apparently video game rules, how might one go about navigating? It all seemed highly improbable and more than a little illogical.

Now that I was standing I could see this side of the shore better. There was a raised, rocky bank ledge that stood a few feet from the ground. It traveled up and back into a wide stretch of hard granite that finished out into a healthy treeline perhaps two hundred feet away.

In the center of the stretch was an abandoned campsite—a couple of stout logs gathered around a cluster of black char and a long-cold fire.

I smiled at my luck. If I could get the fire started, I could dry myself, at least get warm, and maybe even cook something to eat. I could feel my stomach rumbling as a new notification popped up in my field of vision.

You need to eat! Going without food for too long will lead to negative effects on your Skills, Abilities, and Stamina!

Okay. So that made sense, if this world was, in fact, based around video game rules. I just needed to find something to eat. Then, maybe some of my strength would return.

As I reached the ledge, the closeness of the ground was jarring. This new form was much shorter than my real body. The crumbling stone ledge couldn’t have been more than five feet, but it was level with my eyes. It may as well have been a privacy fence. Back in my old body, I was five-foot-ten inches, so I was much smaller in this new form.

Much of the rock here on the edge had cracked due to erosion and was loose as I applied my mass. I knew I’d need to be careful or I’d have a nice fall onto the jagged pebbles below—a death sentence probably with my remaining health. However, with a smaller body came less weight and I found that I was able to slip easily up the broken rock face and over the edge onto the raised, porous stone.

Dusting myself off, I cautiously approached the site and examined the firepit. It was cold. I’d need some fresh wood to replenish the blackened sticks. Making a fire would be a bit more difficult, but, this would give me a chance to attempt the friction method from scouts almost twenty years ago.

A breeze brushed across my skin. It raised goosebumps all over me, and I shuddered. I’d need to get this going soon. It wasn’t nearly as warm as it looked, and the last thing I wanted to do here was die of hypothermia before I’d gotten a chance to figure out what was going on.

As I moved around the site, I kept my eyes peeled for both useable kindling and anything that might lessen the wrench of hunger overtaking me. I realized that my limbs felt numb. The cold and lack of energy forced me to shuffle along, unable to move very quickly.

I stepped on something soft and looked down. Peeking out from beneath a pile of broken granite was some sort of blue fabric. I reached down and tugged at it with my right hand. It was wedged pretty firmly but I felt a little give. Grasping it in both hands I set my stance wide and pulled hard.

Aw hell.

I had misjudged and landed hard on my ass. Instant dull pain shot up through my tailbone and spine. But I had the fabric.

I held it up against the grey sky while I lay on my back recovering. It appeared to be a billowy blue vest. The trim of the piece was covered in patterned stitching that resembled letters. It didn’t seem particularly warm.

You've received

[ Torn ] Vest!

[ Clothing ]

Rarity: Common

Durability: 9 / 30

Looks light and breezy.

Just what I need to combat these shivers.

Equip [ Torn ] Vest?

Yes/No

Why not?

I reached out and to my surprise I was able to select the “Yes” option and press it. There was a mild, tactile sensation in my selection, an electric fuzz of warmth that reminded me of touching the screen of an old tube television while it was on.

I accepted, and the vest appeared on my body. It hardly covered anything at all, but it was better than walking around with my titties out.

Another indicator appeared in my field of vision—a green bar of stamina. It screamed at me to rest.

Your Stamina is low! 0/100 remaining! You may need to rest or eat before it will return to normal. Check to make sure you’re not over-encumbered from carrying too much weight!

I chuckled and looked down at my mostly-naked form. Weight probably wasn’t the issue. I felt like I would benefit from a warm meal, a hot bath, and a dry nap.

Come on food! Show yourself!

Perhaps my extra concentration helped because I noticed slow movement to my right. I glanced over at the large rock next to me and saw the careful trawl of a little sunbathing lizard, stretching out to move into the sun from beneath my shadow. It seemed otherwise unaffected by my presence.

Yikes. Am I gonna have to kill this little guy and eat him?

I saw his tiny body reposed and settle in a sunny spot and then very cutely yawn.

Could I even kill him and eat him?

I felt my stomach rumble again, and the pain was immense.

Absolutely.

I looked around for something to do the deed with. My eyes rested on a fallen branch. It was about two feet long and seemed pretty dry and solid. It also looked like it would burn well.

Well, two birds, one stone. Or rather, one lizard, one stick.

I sighed and lifted the branch up above my head. Its width was a bit unwieldy in my grip. Now that I was armed, a small, yellow bar appeared above the creature’s head. It may have been his HP. I gulped. The lizard was unmoving, enjoying his afternoon respite.

Well, I suppose if you have to go, mid-nap is the way to do it.

TWACK!

I came down on the lizard with as much force as I could muster. The yellow color of the bar shook and dropped down, quickly fading to a red sliver before disappearing. The lizard’s smashed body remained as I lifted the club. As I focused on the carcass, a prompt flitted in front of me.

+25 EXP!

Curiouser and curiouser.

So Experience was awarded as was typical for a game.

What could I allocate the points to? Would the improvements in skills make me better at them?

I recalled the feeling of euphoria from learning new skills earlier and smiled. Hopefully.

Then another prompt appeared.

Loot [ Sungecko ]?

Yes/No

Well, I didn't come this far in killing a helpless creature just to let it got to waste.

I selected Yes again, enjoying the feeling of the there-but-not-quite click as I did so. Another little square menu with a single item listed in its content lines sprang up as I did.

Sungecko Meat [ x1 ]

Take | Discard | Hoard All | Leave

I selected “Take” and the box disappeared. A little message swam in front of me.

Sungecko Meat [ x1 ] added to Inventory!

I watched as the little menu disappeared.

That easy, huh?

Then, another message sprang up in front of me, instantly filling me with the same sense of wholeness from learning Medicine and Sleight of Hand.

New Skill Learned [ Blunt Weapon Fighting - Level 1 ]

This is a COMBAT SKILL for specialization in clubs, cudgels, hammers, and other miscellaneous objects used for bashing.

That was neat!

I began mentally assessing how likely I’d continue using a bit of wood to defend myself if something better came along. Extremely unlikely. Then, another message arrived.

New Skill Learned: [ Survival - Level 1 ]

This skill allows you to forage, hunt, and track animals. It also helps aid you in constructing shelter, finding water, and keeping your orientation in the wild. Be careful out there!

I was so desperately missing Lina and Anubis. I needed to find them, and fast. If I had somehow stumbled into a world comprised of video game law, and I wasn’t just fabricating all of this, it would be very, very bad for them.

I took a breath. Honestly, Lina was smarter than I was, and she’d have probably figured out what was going on a lot faster than I did. She caught on to rules quickly, had already been excelling at tabletop games long before I met her, and I was always trying to get her to dive into some RPG or MMO because I always believed she’d enjoy it. She wasn’t interested though.

There was a hard pit in my stomach as my anxiety began to rise. What if she or Anubis had been slammed hard against the rocks as well? What if they were just a pair of bloated corpses sailing along in the current of the river? I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time. I tried to think about something else.

“Let’s see if we can get this fire started,” I said, more to reassure myself of sanity than anything else. The smear of gecko meat was gone from the rock, and I could only assume it was somewhere on my person. I hefted the thick branch that was my recently-acquired weapon and rested it against my shoulder. I zeroed in on the small campfire and approached. A new message greeted me as I stepped within five feet of it.

[ Campfire ] Would you like to activate?

Yes/No

I shrugged my shoulders to no one and selected in the affirmative. Instantly, the branch I was holding disappeared, and I watched as the two halves of it fell out of thin air into the circle of the fire pit. I heard a scraping noise from somewhere and the two pieces of wood immediately ignited. A fire materialized.

“That’s actually super fucking cool,” I said aloud. The fire felt nice and warmed my cold, green skin. There was so much I would have to get used to.

I saw the campfire had another indicator above it and I focused on it.

[ Campfire ] Would you like to activate?

Yes/No

I chose yes again and a few options appeared.

> Stoke

> Cook

> Put Out

The first option, Stoke was grey. I’d need to get more wood to stoke the fire. Instead, I selected Cook and watched as an additional menu expanded. It must have been my inventory. Several tabs rested at the top, but the one open said “Ingredients.”

Equipment | Weapons | Quest | Items | Ingredients | Junk | Gifts

I saw the Sungecko Meat, but there were no other items on the list. I tried to select another tab but found that I couldn’t.

“Guess I’ll have to figure out how to open my inventory some other way.” I quickly selected Sungecko Meat [ x1 ] and saw a description.

Sungecko Meat [ x1 ]

A lean protein with an earthy taste and a tough texture. Best prepared over an open flame.

“Not like I have much of a choice,” I chuckled, “unless I’m going for sungecko sushi.”

Sungecko Meat [ x 1 ] Cook?

Yes/No

“This is getting tedious,” I said.

I clicked yes quickly in frustration.

“This better not be how everything works.”

A slim skewer about eight inches long appeared in the rock in front of me and rested on the edge of the hearth. Bloody raw meat sat lanced on the tip of it, slowly roasting on the fire.

I watched for a few moments until the meat began browning, and then instinctively, I flipped the skewer over so that the other side could cook. The aroma of the searing meat was lovely, and my stomach responded in kind. I couldn’t wait to eat—I was starving.

After a few more moments, the meat looked cooked through, so I removed the skewer from the fire.

You have cooked [ Okay ] Sungecko Kabob [ x1 ]!

A tasty treat for the adventurer on the go! Make sure you blow on it before you scarf it all down! Replenishes 15 HP and 30 Stamina.

Wonderful. I’d be a little bit less likely to keel over then! But why was the kabob only “okay”? That hurt a little. I was pretty sure I did everything correctly. I mean, it wasn’t rocket surgery!

Then another message popped up.

Skill Level Increase: [ Cooking - Level 3 ]!

Your skill in Cooking has increased to Level 3! You can now cook and prepare more complex meals with a higher chance of success! You have access to White Ribbon Level Dishes!

That was good news! But wait—why was my default cooking skill so much more advanced than others? Was there some system that transposed my real-life abilities into the game world? I was a bit offended that I was only considered a Level Two until now. This game was broken.

My stomach growled again, so I decided to finally try my “okay” kabob, and blew on it from a few inches away.

“I’ll show you an okay kabob, you stupid fucking game,” I said, scowling. I brought the meat to my mouth and took a tentative bite.

Fuck.

It was only okay. I’d cooked so much better grub in my life. The meat was a bit charred, indicating that I should have pulled it off sooner. It was also pretty gamey and definitely needed some seasoning. Even just salt would have helped the flavor tremendously. But I was so hungry, I devoured the whole thing in just a moment and even gnawed some of the charred, inedible-looking remains plastered to the skewer.

With a pleasant rush, I felt some of my strength return. I glanced at the HP gauge in the corner of my vision and saw it grow from a blinking red 5/50 to a solid yellow 20/50. I was almost halfway! Many of the cuts on my body turned to scabs, and the dark bruises faded, becoming lighter. Scrapes disappeared completely. I watched as my Stamina shot up to thirty, and I felt as though I’d gotten a short nap.

What an interesting place!

I made up my mind not to think about it too much and just accept this new reality, at least for the moment, so that I wouldn’t succumb to a psychological fracture. Luckily, I’d spent a good portion of my life lying to myself, so this would be a cinch.

I relaxed, rested my back against one of the logs, and gazed up at the sky. It was mostly grey and cloudy, but patches of blue would occasionally meander lazily by. I sat for a bit, warming my frozen feet at the fire and picking meat out of my teeth with the skewer.

Eventually, I drifted off.