It was raining hard. Harder than it had ever rained in the history of Utah. It even blacked out the sky, literally! It had been that way for a few days now. So most people started carrying around lanterns and flashlights, especially people who had to go outside.

Throwing in the last empty bucket of barley in the bed of the truck. Marlow looked over his handy work with his lantern in hand. The pig’s trough had broken after momma Lucy wanted some alone time from her litter. She thought a safe place, a great place to ‘hide’ was in the trough.

Hours later we found her sleeping on a fresh pile of new fire wood. Looking at the metal trough, Marlow was proud that it had managed to weld his old school locker into something useful. Taking one last look at the barnyard he smiled.

Hay was of course everywhere, the crop was ready to be harvested on the morrow, the cows had just started to come back home. Getting in his idle truck he drove off and merged onto the freeway little did he know, that would be the last time he ever saw his family farm.

“I’m here today to tell you some serious news”

The radio crackled against the storm in the otherwise silent truck. Little did I know that this one message by President Musk would change the world, cliche! I know I still have a hard time believing it myself.

“It is imperative that everyone go to a government building and is issued a government data core”

President Musk announced, followed by rustling of fabric, as the radio droned on.

“Within the next month this world is going to become a dangerous place”

Switching on a blinker Marlow signaled that he was getting off the freeway. Heading into his all too familiar hometown. He began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Staring at his windshield wipers that couldn’t swipe fast enough.

“For that reason we and the world at large have prepared a refuge: A safe haven to weather the impending storm, until we can tame this new reality. It will be impossible for us as a people to survive on earth.”

Then the radio erupted with a cacophony of sound as many people began talking over each other to try and get their questions answered. With that Marlow turned down the radio in hopes that it hadn’t damaged his remaining speaker in his truck. One voice was just barely heard over the disgruntled crowd.

“All of our troops, all government employees, all people, who want to survive longer than one month. Please go to your nearest government built-”

A gigantic bolt of purple lightning shot across the sky and held. The sky Illuminated a huge tornado pulling apart Mount Timpanogos silently. Quickly pulling over to this side of the road Marlow got out of the truck and pulled out his phone. Already speed dialing his dad. One, two, It picked up on the third ring.

“Hi, ya sport, what is going on?”

“Hey Dad c-can you turn on the news?”

“Already have son, do ya believe this crap? ``The world is going to be a dangerous place’ like what are they going to sell us this time?”

Other cars had stopped in the middle of the road. With people getting out many of which held their phone out taking pictures of the horrific event taking place.

“Dad, it's real.”

“Well why would you say that.”

“You may want to go outside.”

“One second, these old bones aren’t. Great googly moogly!”

The tornado was pulling the mountain apart chunk by chunk. Moving without making a sound. The silence was only pierced by the rain which drowned out everything, then the lightning vanished leaving a loud boom setting off every car alarm.

“I’ll buy into this let’s go get ourselves a what-cha-ma call-it core. Jessy! Margaret! get in the car we're going now! We’ll meet ya over at the Post Office.”

With that Marlow hung up. Traffic had suddenly become a huge issue. People had crashed their cars when they saw the tornado. The pile of cars had only built up as time went on. Most of which didn’t even notice, due to the horrifying and oddly interesting destruction.

Marlow debated whether to wait it out or not. After all, the Post Office was only like twenty-ish blocks from the grocery store just right around the corner from where he was. Then he heard someone screaming and looked behind him, he saw something that would haunt him for the rest of his days. A beast unlike anything he saw before defying nature in every possible way.

That was all it took to convince him to run for it. Quickly grabbing his lantern and wallet both on the dash, he hopped the barrier and fell the six foot drop to the ground. Marlow attempted to duck and roll, just like in the action movies he loved to watch, however Marlow was neither a professional stunt man nor an athlete.

Landing uncomfortably on the ground below, he got up running and never looked back. Dashing like his life depended on it, which it very well did, he ran through a local parking lot. With people running out of buildings and heading towards their cars, others just ran like he did, most even piled into open cars which probably weren’t even theirs.

As Marlow entered the loose ring of various businesses. A limousine came barreling into the parking lot. It swerved and stopped twenty feet from Marlow, it opened its door letting people inside.

Getting to the limousine’s door revealed a small, but obviously wealthy family inside now being overwhelmed with strangers. Hesitating for only a second Marlow leaped into the dry limo, landing face first on the floor.

“GO, Alfred, GO!” Said a much lower and deeper voice.

The door slammed shut and they were off. His heavy, and labored breathing was evident that Marlow hadn’t run since what, his senior year? He rolled over and got a good look at his rescuers. There was a teenage girl dressed in all black wearing a choker hugging a dog who was happy to meet some new friends today. Then there were her parents both dressed in very fancy clothes that could have easily been a couple thousand dollars.

“Oh my goodness are you ok?” said the wealthy woman already getting on the floor.

“Um ya just had a little fall.”

“Well it doesn't look like a little fall to me!” She pointed at my foot which felt completely fine until he looked at it. Just looking at his misshapen foot made him want to throw up. However the pain was so much worse forcing him to stay awake when he just wanted to lay down and sleep this nightmare away. Instead of facing forward it was facing mostly backwards. She grabbed Marlow’s twisted foot, causing a searing pain to run through his leg, and looked at her husband.

“Hey, now can you look at me son. What is your name?” Said the rich lady.

“Can you tell me where you were running to?”

“I was heading to the Post Office to meet my family THERE!” Marlow screamed as the woman set his twisted foot, tears already flooding down his face.

“Ok then, Alfred head to the Post Office.”

“Very well, then Mr. King!” The muffled voice of Alfred came, barely being heard over the den of people.

“Thank You so much. My name is Marlow by the way.”

“So tell me Marlow what do you know about this game called Eternium”

Apparently ‘Eternium’ was an MMORPG or in other words a hyper realistic massive multiplayer online game. Whose graphics were so realistic that you couldn’t tell if you were in the real world or not. Little known streamers had become internet famous in a matter of days. More information had hit the web making it the most amazing game anyone has ever played.

Marlow hadn't heard of it, but was glad he'd be forced into the game, it sounded like fun? As Mr. King finished ranting about how his son had got into the game on opening day and everything he did, the limousine rolled to a stop. Getting out of the nice car I looked and thanked them once again.

“No problem, we’ll guess we’ll see you on the other side.” People piled out of the car and went into the post office without a word. Delighted to get their hands on salvation.

“Jenna, I want you to go with them. Your father and I need to make a few phone calls before we go inside.” Jenna agreed and got out with Marlow already getting inside before the door closed.

Then they pulled away silently in their fancy car. Not waiting a moment longer to see if their guests got into the building. He hobbled and was greeted by a woman with teeth so white and straight it was unnatural. With no one around, in the empty building. His footsteps echoed.

“Why Hello? You must be here for a free data core.”

After being ushered to the back room Marlow pressed the cold stone to his head. As he did, the lights went out. Leaving the room in darkness except the text message that now illuminated Marlow’s vision.

Do you want power? [Yes / No]

“After all, who doesn’t want to have power in their life?” Marlow said as he booped the ‘Yes’ button. Which had faded into existence from the blank abyss.

Do you know what is about to happen? Have you read the terms and conditions*? [Yes / No]

There was a link to the word ‘conditions’ without really thinking about it. He opened it up, quickly scrolled to the bottom, exited out and chose ‘Yes’.

Excellent Prepare to die. Yes or Yes

That was a little spooky. After all this was going to be humanity's safe haven for a couple years. So might as well fully commit. He pressed the ‘Yes’ button then the room suddenly began flooding. With an orange goo.

“HEY LADY, IS THIS GOO SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!” Marlow shouted, pounding on the door to be let out. Finding no handle on his side and that the door was sealed shut.

Of course, playing games most of the time, one doesn’t spend much time preparing to run away from orange goo. It poured in from every crack in the wall flooding the room in a matter of seconds. It completely covered Marlow, and when it felt like his lungs were going to give out. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He was no longer in the white room. It was completely black except for a new prompt.

Welcome to Eternium. There is no saved data for your profile. Would you like to make a new character? Selecting ‘no’ will lead to true death. [Yes / No]

Well then, he didn’t want to die again? Pressing ‘yes’ for the fourth time in a row he got a feeling this would go on for quite a while.

Great with that you will legally become dead. Make sure you make wise decisions. Would you like to select a starting class? Or undergo test and trials to see wha-

Just looking at the first option was just so bland, so he pressed the second option before it even finished loading. Hopefully this didn’t come back to bite him in the butt later. Suddenly with a flash of light he was in an old dark cave lit by uneven torch light. Another prompt poofed into existence accompanied with a shout both saying the same thing.

Run!

“Run? Why should I-” The sound of wood splitting followed by a big kaboom was all it took. He sprinted forward a few feet, before chancing a glance back. When he did, he saw a gigantic boulder from the Indiana Jones movie, which only encouraged him to run faster. Soon the boulder was gaining on the small unathletic man.

“Alright I’m probably going to get crushed, what can I do!”

Looking around for anything, anything that might save him from this big old round rock, in this cave with uneven walls and waiting, holding his breath. Adjusting his run he bolted to the wall. An idea formed. Squeezing his eyes closed, slammed his body into the rock wall and prayed that the boulder would bounce away and miss him entirely. He hoped against hope that this was the solution to this puzzle.

Opening up an eye he saw that he was no longer near a rough rock wall. But was rather in a savanna. A mostly empty savanna with two key things standing out. One there was a jeep on fire and two, a tiger that looked like it had seen better hunting days.

“What in the world is going on?”

A few moments later a prompt popped in with one word on it: Survive. Well. Okay, but did that mean to survive from the tiger or survive by making a shelter? Or what if he could do both?

“Hi there, can you speak?” Of course the tiger said nothing, the beast continued to stare down Marlow from its perch. Well since talking his way out wasn’t going to work, might as well try to appease the hungry beast. Crouching down making himself seem physically small, and hopefully uninteresting, he began to crawl away from the powerful cat. Slowly edging himself towards the burning vehicle to hopefully find something useful.

Getting to the blazing jeep he found that the jeep itself wasn’t on fire, but rather the seats were. Fully standing up from his hunched position got a good view of what was in the car; there were fit aid kits, a pistol, a backpack, net, some rope, and a wet brown paper bag. Without a second thought and many years of wisdom walking out the door, he snached the backpack and paper bag from the scorching car. Quickly jogging away to check his loot and not at all due to the smoke inhalation. In the bag there was a slab of raw beef, meanwhile the backpack held nothing. Boo.

Crouch crawling back to the ever patient tiger he slowly stood up and carefully pulled out the beef waving it in the air like a treat. The Tiger reacted instantly to the fresh food. Getting ready to leap on the frail human and wonderful hunk of meat. Of course, panicked by the Tiger standing up, Marlow threw the slab like a frisbee. It landed perfectly in the tiger’s mouth.

However Marlow didn’t see this because he was covering his face thinking that it would crush him shortly after. However Marlow didn't see this because he was covering his face thinking that it would crush him shortly after. He waited. then waited some more slowly, lowering his arms.

‘Do your best’

“Um, May I please get a pencil?” No pencils were provided in the classroom he found himself in. so Marlow just answered the questions allowed, hoping that nobody nearby would cheat off of his ‘best’ answers. Hours came and went, it felt like weeks went by in this cramped and opened classroom.

He answered everything from history to modern architecture, government to religion, biology to literature, and movies to computers. When it was all over he felt like his brain had been boiled and was dripping out his ears.

The only fun thing during that experience was when a video popped up and explained trigonometry poorly. However the message at the end of it made Marlow’s heart jump out of his chest.