I feel something warm in my arms. It’s really nice to hold… I’d like to just sit here for a while and enjoy this. Why does it have to be so bright in here?

“Um… Ashley?” A girl’s voice says.

I open my eyes. It turns out that the something I’m holding is Kimmie…

“Oops, sorry about that,” I say quickly, retracting my arms and blushing.

She smiles. “It’s okay... we can’t control what we do when we’re sleeping, now can we?” She winks at me.

I’m not sure how to follow up this enigmatic response. I look around the room. Tasha and Maria are already awake and dressed.

“What time is it?” I ask them.

“Breakfast in ten minutes,” Tasha explains. She doesn’t seem to want to look me in the eyes for some reason. Well, what I did was very suspect… I need to be more careful for the rest of camp.

“Darn, I overslept,” I say. “Better get moving!”

These three were my roommates for Spring Break church camp. Tasha and Maria I knew from school. Tasha is a bespectacled black girl with wavy hair that she usually keeps tied up. Maria is a plump hispanic girl with a whole lot of hair that trails behind her back and always gets blown around in the wind. Kimmie is the only one in our room who’s not from El Dorado. She’s also black, and small in stature, with hair that seems to naturally keep itself tidy around her shoulders. Being the only white girl in the room is a bit unusual, given that my city is over 60% white. But still, there are weirder things…

You’re probably wondering why you’re seeing this. The truth is, I don’t really know either. Nothing really makes sense right now.

Anyway, Kimmie and I are able to get ourselves dressed and ready, and we make our way to lunch. The cafeteria is a short walk away from the cabin we’re staying in. We’re served fruit and crappy scrambled eggs. On the back wall is a “list of sins” provided by our camp, which for some retarded reason contains “ Dungeons & Dragons .”

Oh right, I can’t say that, it’s a slur. Well, I didn’t know that when I was in sixth grade, so sorry.

“Hey Maria, do you want to trade your peach for my banana?” I ask her as we sit down. No response.

I look over at her, and she has her eyes closed and she’s mouthing something… Oh, duh, she’s saying grace. Forgot about that...

“Oops, sorry about that…” I whisper.

“Am I the only one who’s starting to get a bit homesick?” Kimmie says as she sits down herself.

“No, you’re not,” Tasha says, having just finished saying grace herself.

“I am looking forward to getting back to practicing,” I say as I start shoveling scrambled eggs into my mouth. They taste just as bad now as they have all week.

“Practicing what?” Kimmie asks, curious.

“Oh, my french horn!” I explain. “I need to get back to that ASAP, because I’m the best player in my grade. I’m already able to hit a high G. Of course, I’m already really good at reading music because of my training on piano. I had to learn to transpose, but that’s not really that hard. So I was able to learn how to play a lot quicker than the rest of the class. Most of the other kids have difficulty hitting the right harmonics, but like…”

“Um, Ashley?” Tasha interrupts me. “You do realize that none of us are in band, right?”

“So?”

“So, we… don’t really care that much.”

I look at the other two to back me up, but they’re concentrated on eating their food.

“Alright, fine,” I say. To recover from the awkward moment, I start peeling my banana. It’s already all bruised…

Why’d she have to be a bitch and cut me off like that, huh? I don’t care about half of the shit that Anja rambles about, but I still listen, now do I?

Well… I guess the cases are a bit different. Anja rambles on about stuff because she just really feels strongly about it. I was doing it to try and boost my own ego… I guess I was kind of being a bitch too.

What does it matter, though? I’ve changed since then.

I’m laying on my back on the floor. I feel something small standing on my stomach. I open my eyes to see Ted peering over me.

“Hey, watch where you stick your face!” I shout in surprise, sitting up and knocking him off.

“My apologies. I did not mean anything by it.”

I get to my feet and try and take in my surroundings. I’m in some sort of hallway, with three different ways to go. Like in the previous chamber, the floor is covered by a red carpet, and there are paintings on the wall with solid gold frames that depict angelic beings, which are thankfully not as creepy as those damn statues.

“Where are the other two? Anja and Nova?” Ted asks.

Anja and Nova… they… oh fuck.

I whirl around, and I see a door just like the one we entered through.

“How did I get here?” I ask him.

“Just now, you walked in through that door and collapsed onto the floor,” he explains.

“I… did? So, how did you get in here? Where were you in the last chamber?”

“The last chamber?” he asks, frowning. “The front door led directly to this room…”

“No, it didn’t. The three of us ended up in this endless hallway… we tried to get to the end, but the other two went insane… I think I might have a little bit too.”

I reach for the door and try to open it. It won’t budge.

“FUCK!” I shout, kicking the door in anger. “We have to get them out of there, Ted.”

“I know. It sounds like the room is cursed in some way. We must look around for a way to deactivate the curse.” And without further ado, he starts down the left hallway.

“Hold the fuck up,” I say, following after him. “What makes you think we can just… turn this off? How were we able to get through it and not them, anyway?”

“Well, how did you get through it?”

That’s a good question. I try to remember what happened…

“I just… kept walking. And for some reason I started thinking about… um… something that happened earlier in my life.”

“What emotions did that bring up within you?”

“...Why? What’s with the impromptu therapy session?” I ask, as we turn a corner.

“It may be important to understand the curse.”

“Well, okay. Basically, I… lost all of my friends a few years back, before moving here. And I always thought it was because of one reason, because of something that wasn’t my fault. But then… well, I kind of realized there might have been a different reason too.”

“And what reason was that?”

“Well… I used to be pretty self-absorbed. I imagine that it got on their nerves. Maybe if I hadn’t been like that, they would’ve stuck up for me. Or maybe not. I’ll never know, I guess.”

“And you don’t believe yourself to be self-absorbed anymore?”

“No… and what exactly do you mean by that question, mister?”

However, he suddenly comes to a halt and shushes me, pointing in front of us.

In front of us, there’s an opening to a large room, with a massive chandelier. In the room, I see two large figures, which, like everything else here, gleam with gold. (Why does everything in the Metaverse have to have a matching color scheme? Well, at least it’s prettier than the purple/red outside…)

“You think we can take them?” I whisper to him.

“We don’t know anything about these shadows. I have no way of knowing.”

“Well, it’s like my mom always says. If you don’t try, the answer is always ‘no’...”

He looks apprehensive, but nods in agreement anyway.

And so we march out into the hall. Now that I get a better look at them, they appear like knights of some sort. Like me, they’re covered in armor, though they also have metallic heads, making them a bit more robotic. They’re over double my height, they must be about thirteen feet tall. Naturally, they notice Ted and I as we stride into the room.

“Ah, look who’s come to pay a visit. Are you two members of our fan club?” One of them says as he turns towards us. His voice sounds like a typical human baritone voice, except slightly roboticized, like he was put through bad autotune.

“We’re looking for a way to free our friends from whatever curse that chamber put on them,” I announce. “I’m open to your suggestions. Otherwise, stand aside or be destroyed.”

“That’s very funny,” the other one says, yet he says it in a flat voice. “So, you two survived the Chamber of Judgement, eh? Very impressive. I hope you learned a thing or two about your sins.”

“I don’t have time for your damn small talk,” I snap at them. “Just step aside if you’re not going to be helpful.”

“I’m sorry, who are you supposed to be? Some teenage girl thinks she’s Joan of Arc or something.”

“You know what, I think I’ve seen this girl before! She was on one of those Japanese cartoons!”

These two have officially annoyed me, which means it’s time for battle.

It’s been like forty pages since I’ve actually fought something (more than that if you’re ready this on RR,) so I need to review what my Persona can do. First of all, being in this world grants me a noticeable buff to strength, speed, and durability. Not like I’m not good at those things normally (marching band really gives you some nice thighs), but here they’re better. I also have some sort of magic attack that can temporarily slow down opponents, though I’m not sure how useful that’s going to be at the moment. I probably have other abilities, but for the most part I’ve been focused on swordplay. However, I can’t help but worry that swords won’t do much against these walking armor mechs…

I figure it makes sense to start with divide and conquer, so I take the one on the left. He doesn’t seem to have any weapons, but given the size of this thing I don’t particularly want to be punched by him.

“Oh what, are you going to fight me? Ah, kids these days. There’s so many things that they don’t understand…” And without any further warning, he kicks out its foot straight at me, which I’m only narrowly able to dodge.

This thing is surprisingly agile, so I’m going to need to keep my distance and look for a weak point. While he is still off balance from the kick, I run forward and slash the other leg, mostly to test the sword’s effectiveness. It does scratch the armor, but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as I would’ve wanted. I run out of the way in time to avoid the counter punch.

“What are you going to do with that puny thing? You can’t penetrate me!” He taunts.

This is immensely frustrating to me… surely I must have something up my sleeve.

He aims a big punch at me. I try to stop it with my hand, but I end up just being knocked back straight against a wall, where I fall onto the floor on my butt.

Then, my foe begins to do something troubling. His eyes start glowing, and he speaks in a terrible voice, one which is his own layered with other, lower pitched voices: “Have a taste of your final fate!”

He claps his hands in front of him, which released a shockwave of bright white light that shoots straight for me and… I feel absolutely nothing.

“Hmm. My final fate actually isn’t looking too bad,” I mock, jumping to my feet. I notice that some of the light has lingered around me, seemingly circling around, and this gives me an idea. Struck by inexplicable inspiration, I reach out my hand towards him, shooting the light back at him like a whip… and then I clench my fist.

This does noticeably more to help my cause than the sword did. He gives a surprised grunt and stumbles backwards. I can now see dents all across his armor. I am pleased at this, but it also seems like my spell was a limited time offer- the light around me has entirely diminished.

In addition, it seems like I pissed him off. He starts attacking me with serious vigor. I duck and roll out of the way of a punch, then sidestep a kick, but the third time’s the charm, and I caught in the back of the head with a punch so strong that I would’ve lost a significant number of brain cells has this been the regular world. I also get knocked flat on my face, and in the shock of the blow I lose my grip on the sword and it clatters onto the floor.

He sticks his metal foot on my back. Well, that just won’t do at all, now will it?

I push myself, and it seems like I’m able to throw him off balance purely based on the element of surprise. Without any time to think of a plan, I end up just blinding running into him like a savage and wrapping my arms around his neck from behind.

He repeatedly punches my arms, but I ignore the pain and focus on trying to hear his stupid head off. For a brief, idiotic moment, I get an image in my mind of a scene from SpongeBob…

He runs backwards and slams me straight into the wall with extreme force, then steps back forward. This crushes my body so hard that I feel like a crumpled up newspaper, and I collapse straight onto the floor yet again.

He turns around for another attack, but then is interrupted by a huge blast of fire which sends him flying into the wall. Looks like Ted saved my ass yet again…

“You can finish him off!” Ted shouts. I look over, and he moving his hand towards me as if caressing the air… A warm feeling fills me, and I feel a considerable amount of my previous pain fade away…

The other knight recovers, and Ted has to divert his attention back to him. I jump to my feet and turn to face my own, who is also getting back on his feet. Somehow, I feel like I was more than just healed… I feel lighter as well.

“You can kiss my shiny metal ass!” The knight yells at me, incensed.

“I’m not much of an ass-kisser,” I explain. “I prefer to make my own way in life.”

He charges towards me, but with my increased agility I’m able to handily jump to the side… I pick up my sword from the floor, and furiously slash at him… maybe now that he’s been weakened, I’ll be able to finish him off the old fashioned way…

He aims another punch, but I sway to the left, jump into the air and stab my sword straight into his chest. I catch an existing dent just right and manage to puncture straight through. The momentum carries us straight forward, until the sword gets partially buried into the wall. The force of the collision also sends me stumbling backwards.

Surprisingly, I see blood begin to pour from where I cut through him. He seems remarkably unperturbed by this, showing no emotion other than pouting that he lost.

“Hold on a sec!” I hear Ted call from behind me. I turn to see him dashing towards me on all fours. The other knight is nowhere to be seen, so he must have already won his side of the fight.

“While he is still alive, we can get information out of him!” Ted suggests, as he sidles up next to me and gets back on his hind legs.

I turn back towards my defeated foe. “Alright, have any helpful advice now, dipshit?”

“The curse of the chamber can be deactivated using a hand of blessing,” he explains.

“Okay. Where do I get one of those?”

He gives me a bewildered look. “You can’t be serious. Do you know anything at all?”

I grab the handle of the sword and twist it further into him, causing more blood and bits of organ to spew out (which is really gross). I was hoping this would hurt him, but he once again doesn’t really have a reaction to it, he just continues to look at me all condescending.

“You used it on me during our duel!” he elaborates. “Honestly, child… Can you not see what is right in front of you?”

After this, he starts to fade away… though it’s a little bit different than it usually is when the shadows usually fade. Instead of evaporating into the air around him, his form condenses into a dark, ghostly form, which then proceeds to fly upwards, through the ceiling and out of sight.