A long time ago, I got lost in the woods. I was very young and afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find my way home, so I wandered through the wilderness till it got dark. My body ached from the cold and my fear, while my throat felt scratchy and painful because I was so thirsty. I had no tears left. I couldn’t muster the strength to scream anymore. I wanted to eat, drink and sleep, I wanted to be saved, go home and see my mom.

I didn’t know much about mushrooms and berries. I just knew that some could be poisonous, so I endured my hunger. The fear of death was stronger than any hunger pangs.

But then I came to a small meadow and I saw the only berry I recognized: a strawberry. I picked a handful of them, using the moonlight to see, but suddenly, a cloud blocked the only source of light.

Darkness took over the world.

The wolves howled and it sounded like they were very close by, so I started running as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I stumbled on a snag and fell, miraculously managing not to spill the berries I’d collected.

“Share some of those with me, little boy…” I heard someone plead, sounding barely alive. “I’m so hungry…”

A few steps away from me sat a man, leaning back against a tall, old pine tree. He was covered head to toe in a black raincoat. I couldn’t see his face; it was hidden within a deep hood.

He stretched his hand out toward me. Strangely, despite the total darkness, I could see his flabby palm.

“Share some with me, little boy…” the old man repeated, sounding even weaker than before.

“Here…” I blurted in a trembling voice, while giving him half of my food. And then I couldn’t believe my own eyes — the stranger’s pale palm was enveloped in a dark smoke, and the strawberries disappeared.

“You helped me. Thank you…” he said, his voice a little stronger than before. “Now I’ll help you. I will give you some great advice: don’t fear the dark, little boy; it’s nothing to be afraid of. Darkness only adds to the light, makes it brighter. Darkness usually gets filled with the horrors spawned by human imagination. Get rid of that fear and you’ll find the way.”

The old man waved goodbye and disappeared. And then, in the darkness of the night, I saw an especially dark strip: a path that ended up leading me out of the forest and to a village.

The search party didn’t find anyone in the thicket that night. I got home by myself and collapsed into a deep sleep on the porch.

***

“G-r-r-r-a-a!!!” roared a huge, green orc, while jumping from the looted monastery’s wall. With a wave of his axe, he immediately launched an attack.

I was already waiting, ready to counter it. It wasn’t the first time I’d passed by this spot on the map. Something nasty always happened here. I dodged the strike by shifting my body weight onto my right leg. After activating the “Wrath of Light” skill, I slashed the enemy’s side with a glittering sword. His blood splattered on the unnaturally green grass.

You have dealt 170 points of damage.

Great, let’s keep going!

While I kept moving around the orc, I thought about how lucky I was. It’s no wonder people always said: ‘You haven’t lost until you give up!’ I’d believed that a good job opportunity would turn up, and my temporary financial crisis would finally end. And so it did. It was as if fate itself had stuck a flyer around the handle of my front door with an offer to send a resume and apply for the ‘beta tester of virtual capsules and applications’ position. After that, there were a couple of group interviews, then individual interviews, and I was here, in a virtual capsule and before this miracle of technology was even on the market! I was experiencing the marvels of this latest innovation, battling the orcs, and getting paid for something so enjoyable, to boot. Amazing!

Yes, I had to be very healthy. It’s the first thing that my current employers looked at, along with my extensive experience playing video games, of course. At one point, I’d gone into debt to buy a full-fledged virtual reality helmet.

“Ow!” I screamed, as I failed to dodge one of the orc’s attacks. Although the level of pain was set to 10%, it was still unpleasant to get hit with an axe. This didn’t apply to virtual helmets and regular computers, which weren’t capable of simulating the pain of the character for the player to experience.

Of course, in the future, the option to turn off pain will be there. But all of the capsule’s capabilities were being tested on me.

Suddenly, the Orc’s axe was enveloped in a scarlet haze, the enemy growled and then hit me from above. Squeezing the handle of the sword more tightly, I prepared to block the attack. But to my surprise, I didn’t have to: the light went out as the world was immersed in darkness. It was as if I were watching TV, and someone had turned the power off without a warning.

Except the ‘TV screen’ was still all around me. That’s why I couldn’t see anything now, even my own hands. I tried to feel my own body, but the kinesthetic sensations had also been turned off.

“Hey!” I was sure that I’d said that out loud, but no sound came out. After a moment, I realized that it had only been a response to my thoughts. My mouth had apparently also disappeared from the surrounding virtual reality.

Only consciousness remained.

And there was nothing around me except darkness.

But I wasn’t afraid. I hadn’t been afraid of darkness since childhood. There must have been some kind of malfunction. The contract had specified that these kinds of situations could happen, and if they did, I would receive additional compensation.

So all I had to do was wait for them to fix the capsule. Of course, the situation wasn’t exactly comfortable, and there wasn’t much I could do. Oh well, it’s a job. Maybe I should try to leave? I had the right to do so twice per shift.

“Display the application menu!” I uttered a phrase that I’d memorized in advance, but nothing happened.

After a few seconds, I heard a reedy voice coming from everywhere around me, interrupting my thoughts:

“We meet again, boy… I see you’ve already accepted the darkness. Now it’s time to start your journey. Help me again and I will make it up to you. Survive, become stronger, and we’ll meet again. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions for me by then. In the meantime, I can give you one piece of advice — let the darkness live in harmony with the light. Don’t shine a light on it unnecessarily. The less people know about your strength, the longer you will live. I believe in you, boy. Go on now…”

The world spun around like laundry in a washing machine and I found myself in the middle of a golden field. I looked around with amazement. The villagers were harvesting the grain with pitchforks and rakes, the birds were singing and the sun was about to set. What in the world was going on?

“Hey Bon, why are you just standing there!? We have to make it back to the landmark by night time!” Someone to my left growled. I turned and saw a man approaching me. He had a frown on his tanned face and was obviously talking to me. “Don’t just stand there like a scarecrow, Bon! Get back to work!” He shouted, clearly annoyed.

Who the hell is that? Flashed through my mind, and a grey description immediately appeared over the man’s head:

Chief Jason, Level 10.

And a little below that was a green bar that showed ‘354/354’.

So, it appeared that I was in a game, but a different one this time. Maybe the technicians had fixed the capsule and quietly launched some other application? I didn’t like this.

“Display the application menu!” I hissed, while looking up at the sky for some reason.

“What’re you saying, Bon?” The chief sounded concerned. “Has the sun gotten to you? Are you ill?”

I ignored his questions while trying to understand what was happening to me. I came up with all sorts of explanations. I thought that maybe there’d been a glitch in the virtual capsule, and I’d been thrown into one of its games, without the ability to log out. Just like in all those popular fantasy books or that one anime, where in order to come back to reality, you’d have to defeat the main villain…

This was crazy. Had technology actually gotten so advanced that it could trap the human mind in a game, even by accident? I’d been given a brief explanation about the functions of the capsule. It was connected to the medical module, with a separate battery. In an absolutely critical situation, it was possible to cut the electricity off, and thanks to this module, the body inside would be able to handle the sudden stress…

Or had I been lied to?

Shit… Oh well, let’s try to look on the bright side. The game with orcs in it had suddenly been shut down, and after that, I heard the voice… To cut a long story short, he’d said that my journey was about to start and I needed to become stronger. Then he would contact me again. I’d come up with the crazy theory that I would be able to come back if I just kept fighting and winning. Turns out my theory had made sense.

“Bon, you’re scaring me!” The chief clapped me on the shoulder. He was surprisingly strong. Staggering, I almost fell over, but managed to lean on my pitchfork just in time. A pitchfork? Oh yeah, I was probably in the body of one of those peasant workers.

“It’s alright, Jason” I said, and noticed that my avatar’s voice was much rougher than my own.

“Jason?” The man frowned. “Getting smart with your own father, are you? Just wait till I…”

I never found out what my newfound father had been about to do. He was interrupted by a panicked screech that swept over the field. The chief and I turned toward the noise, along with the other peasants.

“Run!!!” A girl shouted, while running like hell from a group of riders.

But how was this possible? One of the riders had cut her with his sword, splattering the dry wheat with her blood, and after she fell, he had his horse trample the unfortunate girl. I couldn’t even see the poor thing anymore. She was hidden from view by the sheaves, but for the next few seconds, her chilling, agonized cries were all that I could hear.

And then the girl fell silent. The rider made his horse rear up, steered it so it would trample the girl’s body one final time, and then rushed in our direction to catch up with his comrades.

The riders were hurling toward us at full speed.

“Hurry up! Come on!!!” Jason shouted while grabbing my sleeve and pulling me in the opposite direction.

Of course, I didn’t argue with him. A few seconds ago, I’d checked two of the attackers. I saw their names, and most importantly, their levels — 50 and 56; I also saw that their health totals were in the four-digit range. I hadn’t had time to learn what my body was capable of, but I figured my level would be lower than the chief’s. There’d be no point in me acting like a hero.

Jason and I ran as fast as we could. It was a bit scary. I had no idea of what to expect from this unusual game and if I would respawn if the riders caught up with me. They were gradually getting closer, all the while methodically slaughtering the other fleeing villagers.

Dammit, how had this happened? In normal games, there were sandboxes of sorts at the start. Places where you could get to know how things worked, get used to the interface… and where you would definitely not get attacked by high level killers. Besides, why were they doing this?! They didn’t look like bandits. There were too many of them and their armor was all the same. They had black, scale armor beneath their coats; their helmets looked like the samurai kabuto helmets of old, with a mask covering the lower part of the face. It was definitely an organized unit. Was it an enemy army sowing chaos in their foe’s back line? Right now, it didn’t matter. The important thing was to run.

But they’d managed to encircle us. There were almost no living villagers left, and now Jason and I had no way to escape. Two of the riders were coming right at us!

“Well, come on then, you filthy creatures!” The chief roared and raised his pitchfork in front of him “In the name of the Gre…” his battle cry was cut short when one of the riders sliced his throat open. Clutching at it and choking on his own blood, the man fell to his knees. Another rider appeared and ended the life of this unfortunate soul with another slash. The father of the body I was playing in collapsed face down in the dirt.

I glanced at him and, for a moment, I was amazed at his luck. Jason was alive, although his health bar showed: “1/354”.

However, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed it. I got the impression that the riders had been ready for this and weren’t surprised at all. One of them pulled back on the reigns of his horse, making it rear up, and then smash the chief’s skull with its front hooves. This time he was truly dead.

Both riders turned in my direction. Knowing damn well that I couldn’t beat them, I did the only sensible thing:

“I give up!” I said, and as I was getting ready to throw my pitchfork away, one of my enemies spurred his horse onward and directly at me.

“We don’t take prisoners,” the other one chuckled, as he quietly watched the show.

Using all the ‘combat’ experience I’d gained in games through a virtual reality helmet, I was able to turn halfway to my left and even graze the side of the horse with my weapon. I did a few points of damage, and then, with a single thrust of his sword into my back, my foe brought my health down to 1.

You have been defeated by Clarence.

I collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, but immediately felt as if I were soaring above the ground. The sensations were exactly the same as they’d been before my transfer here: I saw what was happening, but not with my own eyes. I wasn’t even a spirit, but rather disembodied, invisible air. Where my back should’ve been, I felt a burning, maddening sensation. Hmmm… Although, now that I could see it, there was a terrible, bleeding wound on my back. And I could feel it? Damn… that hurts… Admittedly, it looked like my suffering would be over soon. The horse had raised its hooves above me.

You have been killed by Clarence Gleam. 10% of your afterlife energy has been lost. You will now be taken to your respawn point.