The sea of players moved around us as a single organism, pushing and pulling like a mob at a concert. Hushed voices and whispers filled the air around us as we all stared up at the monstrous face smiling devilishly down upon us.

“As I said. My name is The Ripper. I am now your ruler, and as such, I will explain a few things to you. First, you will see that you are no longer able to log out of this world.”

“Bull!” someone shouted from beside me.

“Try it,” The Ripper countered calmly. “Go ahead.”

I turned to see a mage scrolling through his interface to the log out button. He pressed it, and I watched as his body began to dissolve into an infinite number of small purple dots. Next, he would be pulled away into portal space and back into the real world. But seconds later, his body reformed, and he found himself standing in the same place he was before.

Someone shouted in fear, and the whole crowd erupted in panic.

Quickly, I pulled up my in-game interface and scrolled down to the log out button. With two fingers, I pressed it, and instantly was whisked away into portal space.

Come on, come on, come on! I begged as the portal twisted around me. The familiar sound of rushing water coursed through my ears, but just when I expected to feel the soft padding of my bed at home, I felt hard stone under my feet and looked down to find myself back on the plateau surrounded by players.

“I can’t log out!” someone screamed.

“I can’t either!”

“We’re stuck here!”

Players dematerialized and rematerialized all around me. It had to be a joke. Some sick and twisted game being played on the server population by the game’s staff. It couldn’t be possible!

“Silence!” The Ripper’s voice boomed again. It was so loud half of the crowd actually jumped and stared back at the sky. “It’s no use trying. No matter how many times you try, the result will be the same. You are stuck here. Carrethen is now your home.”

“D,” I hissed. “Do you know this guy?”

D had been a Beta player and mentioned knowing a few of the developers from the message boards, but he slowly shook his head.

“No…”

“The developers of this game were fools,” The Ripper said with an evil smile. “Their weakness has allowed me to take over. I am in full control. No one is coming to save you.”

“This can’t be happening…” I muttered.

“You will be unable to leave until one of two conditions are met,” The Ripper continued. “The first condition, is that one of you defeats me. But as you may have already deduced, I am max level. One hundred and twenty-six. Some of you may be thinking that’s not too bad. The power levelers among you are thinking that you can just start grinding nonstop, and to an extent that is true, but as I said, I am in complete control here, and a couple things are going to change.”

“Come on,” I told D. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. We were packed in like sardines, but everyone was so stunned at what was going on, no one seemed to notice as D and I brushed past them.

“First,” The Ripper continued. “From this moment on, if you die in Carrethen, you die in the real world.”

That stopped both of us in our tracks. A hushed silence came over the crowd. Then, the whispers began.

“What!?”

“Is he serious!?”

“It can’t be! That’s not possible!”

“It is possible!” The Ripper’s voice roared. “Well, let me re-phrase. You won’t die. Something arguably worse will happen to you. The Wellspring device projects your consciousness into this world. When you log out, your consciousness is returned to your body. But from now on, when you die in Carrethen, your consciousness will not return, but will be forever lost in the electronic void.”

Whispers around me, “The electronic void?”

Panicked, I turned to face D who was already looking at me. He always kept his cool better than I did, but even he was looking concerned.

“Is that possible?” I asked him, praying he would tell me it wasn’t.

D shrugged slowly. “The body cannot live without the mind.”

Another movie quote, but this time instead of mildly annoying me, it sent shivers down my spine.

“So, I guess technically you don’t die,” The Ripper mused. “Brain dead would be more accurate.”

“That can’t happen!” someone shouted confidently. “You’re lying!”

“Am I?” The Ripper chuckled. “Hmmm...I hadn’t anticipated skepticism. Perhaps a demonstration is in order?”

The Ripper raised his hand and someone screamed behind me. I turned around to see a player, wearing nothing more than starter clothes, rise up into the air as if being pulled by invisible strings.

“H—help!” he screamed, thrashing about helplessly like a fish on a hook. “Help me! Somebody do something!”

He struggled hard, but it was useless. His wand fell from his hands and landed somewhere in the mass of bodies below him.

“There’s nothing they can do for you,” The Ripper said menacingly. “I truly am sorry it has to be you, but someone needs to be the example. What is your name?”

“Ch—Chris!” The player stammered, giving out his real name instead of his character name.

“I truly am sorry, Chris,” The Ripper replied. “But you can’t make an omelet…”

Chris was at least one hundred feet in the air and still rising. But then, suddenly, as though the invisible wires had been cut, he fell.

People screamed and threw themselves out of the way as his body came plummeting down from the sky.

I couldn’t see him hit from where I was, but I could hear the reaction.

People were shouting in horror. Some started to cry. I looked at D, still in disbelief, wondering if all this could be actually happening.

“It’s not real…”

“He’s not really dead. He just woke up at home!”

“He’s back at his Bindstone!” a tall knight shouted.

“In a way you are correct,” The Ripper replied, addressing him directly. “His character model has returned to a special Bindstone I have constructed, deep at the center of this world, but he has not.”

A platform formed in the sky at the center of the crowd.

On it, a character model began to materialize. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach as it began to solidify and heard a synchronized gasp from the crowd as it did. It was Chris, but now I understood what The Ripper really meant—It wasn’t really Chris.

“It’s him!”

It was his character model, but it stood there lifelessly like one of the decommissioned hosts from Westworld, moving with an unnatural stillness that only a video game could emulate.

“Why isn’t he moving!?” Someone shouted.

“He’s dead, you idiot!” Replied a panicked voice.

I thought everyone would panic, but everyone simply stood there, frozen, staring at the horror above them. The Ripper reached out and summoned Chris’ body to him. With a wave of his hand, it disappeared, back to his graveyard at the center of the world.

“Now that you understand what I am capable of, let me tell you about the changes I will be making. To begin with, I am returning everyone to level one,” The Ripper said. He waved his hand carelessly across the crowd and I heard everyone start to mutter as they opened their character sheets.

I opened mine to see all my stats, all my attributes, had returned to what they were when I started to play. And my level—level 1.

“And I know you are already thinking you will all just band together to defeat me, so I have something else in store for you,” he said, a smile twisting at the corners of his lips. “I am making the entire server Red.”

A thin red mist appeared from nowhere and washed over the plateau, sweeping through all of us. Instantly, the pale white auras around everyone’s character that indicated their PK status, turned Red.

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“We have to get out of here, now!” D hissed from beside me.

“No arguments here!”

D pushed through the crowd and I followed after him, shoving people out of the way with all my strength. I had no idea where we were going but sticking around in the middle of a massive crowd of Reds was the last place I wanted to be.

“Don’t fight!” someone shouted. “That’s what he wants us to do!”

“Just stay calm!”

Someone in front of me had their sword drawn. In all the commotion, they lost their footing and stumbled backwards, completely out of control. Their blade arced out and slammed right into my chest. Half my health vanished instantly.

“Oh, shit!” he gasped. “I’m so sorry!”

As fast as I could, I grabbed an Inferior Health Kit from my inventory and tried to use it to restore my health, but another player spun around and his mace slammed into my face, interrupting the heal. I stumbled and fell to my knees as more of my health fell away.

“Jack, come on!” D shouted, reaching back for me. I snatched his hand as he pulled me through the bodies.

Cattle, I thought. We’re packed in like cattle…

“Oh, there is one more way for you to leave this world if you are able to complete a task for me,” The Ripper’s voice called out. “There is a player among you. His name is Jack.”

I froze. My mind went blank. I saw D looking at me like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

He can’t be talking about me… I thought. How many Jacks are there in the world? It can’t be me!

But then—I froze.

I couldn’t move. Nothing except my eyes.

A pillar of light formed in the sky above me and projected down around my body like a spotlight, isolating me from the rest of the crowd. The people around me backed slowly away as though the light might harm them.

Slowly, like a marionette on its strings, an invisible force spun me around, forcing me to look up at The Ripper, standing high and monstrous above us.

“This is Jack,” he said with amusement. “And I would like him dead.”