Liam trudged through the hell-pit that was the candy cane forest. Delicious and glossed stripes of white and red hid the true danger of this horrible place. Since spawning in the world, Liam had faced nothing but constant strife. His arm wrapped in cloth, the grim result of an attack by three fucking gummy bears. With giant pointed white teeth.

Worse, he worried that the sugary creatures left him with an infection. His wounds smelled awful, and any time he peeled back the sickly-yellow bandages, he’d saw red veins streaking down his arms.

Awful. Horrible. It’d been an average day at work—carefully mixing chemicals at his bench as part of a project for a new experimental biological agent project for pesticide control.

He took a break, walked through a door, and found himself here.

At first, he wondered if he’d inhaled some strong fumes. Something a little too powerful for him to handle. Then he wondered if he’d died. Finally, after hours of striding through giant candy cane the size of pine trees, he’d concluded this wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.

Liam rubbed his eyes, feet aching as the sunset reflected over the pure white glossed surface, damn near blinding. He leaned down and scrounged on the ground, grabbing a handful of the chocolate dirt and stuffing it in his mouth. There was one thing for certain—he wouldn’t starve. Well, not from calories. He highly doubted this chocolate provided sufficient nutrition for long-term survival.

He forced it down his throat. Already sick of the taste. At this point, he’d trade teeth for a carrot or something. Better—meat, a nice seared steak.

Liam groaned. If he slipped too far, he’d die. Slowly, he unwrapped the cloth around his arm, catching his own flesh's noxious and rancid smell. Well, it seemed like he didn’t have any choice at this rate.

Those gummy bears had no fat. Just sugar. No way to make soap. No way to disinfect the wound.

Hopeless. And that annoying fucking blinking in the corner of his vision.

[150 experience points accrued]

What the hell did that even mean? Ever since killing those damn rainbow bears, the same awful comic-sans letters and numbers harassed the corner of his vision. Annoying. So annoying. This whole place. Was this hell? Had he been sent to hell? No flames but obnoxious amounts of sugar and candy as far as the eyes could see? There wasn’t any way out of here.

“Damn! Damn you, god!” Liam pulled out the gummy bear-tooth knife, fastened to a broken twig stolen from a candy cane tree using a strip of his shirt. He stared at it. The point was sharp enough; one quick jab into his jugular would end this suffering. Either that or walk until his body withered away—or worse, come across another roaming pack of gummy bears. He'd be too weak to defend himself, and they’d tear him apart limb from limb in this hell-hole Candyland.

Christ.

Liam brought the point to his neck. His fingers shook. Maybe this was all one big long horrible nightmare. Just a quick stab and he’d be back; he'd fallen asleep on his break. Yeah. That was it. The pain was imaginary! Nothing! Just a vivid, awful—

The ground shook as a candy cane tree slammed into the ground not far away. Liam's eyes went wide, and he turned in his spot, more shaking. It was coming right towards him. What the hell was this? He stood up, swaying slightly. His head was woozy from the fever of the infection. The forest was dark, casting menacing shadows as far as the eye could see. He tensed in place, not sure to run, cry, or beg for god’s forgiveness.

Then a horrible roar radiated out from the night, sending shivers down his spine. More cracking—rushed feet. Liam began to run away, stumbling in the dark as he fled from whatever was causing the noise.

Not fast enough.

His foot caught in a patch of chocolate turf— spilling him across the ground; with wide eyes, he turned, clutching the gummy-bear knife in both hands.

A twelve-foot-tall behemoth of fused gumdrops formed into a vaguely humanoid shape snarled at him. Wide awful teeth rotted away in its horrible smashed face, like a goddamn gumdrop troll. A club made of a shard of candy cane bigger than himself was in its hand. “What the hell are you!” Liam screamed, shaking and trying to push himself away.

Of course, the gum-drop troll didn’t bother to answer. Instead, barreling toward Liam and closing the little distance between them.

Liam threw his makeshift dagger—surprised as the point dug into the thick sugary hide. Unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing to stop the gumdrop troll from raising the candy cane tree trunk above its head.

This is it. There wasn’t fear in him. Which, he didn’t quite expect. No, he felt relief. It was over. This hellish nightmare land was about to disappear. He’d wake up.

The club smashed down, wrecking his body and cracking bones in a violent smash as it buried Liam’s face into the chocolate ground, stuffing his mouth with that awful off-brand dark chocolate one last time before he could feel the sweet relief of oblivion.

[Health: 0/100]

⬽ — ~ ☼ ~ — ⤘

Welcome to Candyland!

You have died for the first time! Congratulations!

You’re in for an absolute treat.

Liam opened his eyes. Expecting to find himself back in the comforting beige lounge of the company campus. Nope. Instead, he still smelled a sickening sweet. As if someone took everything with sugar in their fridge, stuffed it in a pan, and melted it together to form an unholy dessert. But there were no longer those nightmarish peppermint trees.

No.

He was in a cave, the walls seemingly made of rock candy. Its reflective light-blue surface played off a central fire, where a figure hunched over. A kid? With a red cap? Liam took him in—the figure was distinctly humanoid. Not one of those awful gummy bears. The kid was grinning at him. Creepy. Dark cave. Weird kid. Yeah, fuck this. Liam turned around, intending to slip away from whatever layer of hell he’d progressed to before anything awful happened.

“I wouldn’t do that!” the kid said, voice light and airy.

Liam turned in his spot—expecting the kid to have sprouted fangs. But no, the kid still had that creepy ass grin on his face, eyes almost too large. “What the hell is this place?”

“You saw the message when you died! Welcome to Candyland! The best place in the entire universe!”

“Uh huh. Yeah. No thanks. I’m leaving. How do I get back to Astro-Tek?”

“Hahahahaha! Wanna play a game, Liam?”

Oh. Fuck no. Liam took off into the dark, running away from the kid by the fire. He’d seen enough horror movies to do anything but run at a line like that. Nope. No way. It didn’t seem like the kid was chasing him; he kept running, less afraid of the rock-candy cave than whatever fresh hell that was.

He turned a corner and entered a small cavern, the same light-blue one from before—the kid grinned at him from behind the fire.

“Don’t be silly! There’s no escape!”

I really am in hell. He took one last desperate look around. No weapons. Still, in tattered lab stuff—the gummy-bear knife was long gone. What did I do to earn this? I lived a good life. I kept to myself. I was mostly honest— Liam’s breath grew rapidily, his face starting to go numb as he felt the onset of a panic attack.

“Quit it.” The kid stopped smiling, eyes digging into him. Somehow, seeing that face not smiling was even worse than that creepy ass grin.

“This is hell, yeah?”

“Will you play a game with me?”

“I—“ If I don’t, what will it do? It may have seemed like a kid, but he didn’t trust that for a fucking second. Something was off about this thing. Demon? Was this a real demon? “Uh—okay. What kind of game…”

“The most fun kind! It’s called murder.”

“Ah.”

He braced. Expecting the kid to leap up and sink its fangs into his neck, snap him in half. Sprout tentacles from its body and choke him to death. Really, anything. Instead, the kid tilted its head. The red baseball cap bobbed slightly as the grin took over its face again. “Well? Wanna know the rules?!” The kid leaped to its feet, bouncing in place. It’d be adorable if it were a regular toddler. Not some who the fuck knows what, asking about awful things.

“…Yes…” Liam glanced around, not sure what to expect.

“Wonderful! There are five rulers! The Shortcake Slayer, the Gingerbread Genie, the Butter-Finger Beast, the Chocolate Colossus, and lastly, High-Queen Honey! Murder them all, and you win the prize!”

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck—

“Now! It won’t be easy! But don’t worry! If the game weren’t fair, it wouldn’t be so much fun! I’ve given you a couple of gifts so you can play! Isn’t that nice of me!?” The kid smiled wider—showing rotten teeth. “But I can see it in your eyes! You don’t believe me! Don’t worry you can trust me, Liam!”

Holy father above please help me—

The kid waved his hand, and suddenly Liam saw the same message from before, the one he thought was a signal that his nightmare had ended. Not that it’d just truly started. An obnoxious blue box flooded his vision.

Congratulations! You have gained access to the “Hephaestus Exceptional Learning Link”!

Checking for experience points…

You have accrued 150 experience points!

Scanning…

Name: Liam Holland

Race: Human

Class: None!

Oh, that doesn’t seem right! Guess we have some work to do!