“Who are you talking to, pet?” the demon asked as he twisted his fingers in the air, sending Rosalyn’s nerve endings into a fresh wave of pain.

She didn’t know what kind of magic he wove, but it was doing something to her body that was otherworldly awful, as if all of her muscles had a charley horse at the same time. She squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth.

“Nobody is coming to save you.” His voice was like thorns wrapped in silk. “The heir is hiding in a cave with his tail between his legs, and the King has wiped out any threat to his crown. There’s not a shred of good left in this world.”

Rosalyn’s head spun. The heir? The King? There had been no information about this game. All she knew was the title, King of Demons, and the face of a demon on the disk. She’d spent so much time staring at that face—this guy wasn’t him.

“Please...” she groaned. She didn’t even know who she was talking to anymore. She just wanted this nightmare to end.

“Are you ready to answer my questions now?” the demon purred.

A sick crack echoed, and for a second Rosalyn had the mental image of one of her bones snapping, except there was no following burst of pain. She’d never broken a bone in her life, so she didn’t know what it felt like, but she assumed it was excruciating. Well, up until a few minutes ago, when she’d been squeezed to death by a bunch of slimy monsters.

She began to rise...no...the ground began to rise, and she instinctively flailed, realizing she’d regained use of her limbs. Whatever magic the demon had used to keep her still had gone. She briefly imagined scrambling away and running into the woods, but squashed the thought immediately. She wouldn’t get very far with his monsters running around, and when he caught her...

Rosalyn’s body still throbbed in the aftershocks of whatever he’d been assaulting her with. She didn’t want to know what he would do if she tried to escape. She figured it was best in this situation to just comply with his wishes, answer his questions as best she could, and hope that he let her leave afterwards in one piece.

During this thought process, she realized it hadn’t been the ground that was moving, but large roots breaking free of the dirt below. At least, it looked like tree roots--the bark was smooth and smelled earthy, several tendrils weaving around each other to create a high-backed seat. She stayed stiff as a board, pressing her back against the wood.

Magic tree roots were intimidating, but not so much as the wizard demon perched on his own seat across from her. He hung one leg over the other, his robes parting to reveal cloven feet. His calves were so thick that the hoofs themselves were almost as big around as her head.

Rosalyn’s heart hammered as she imagined one of those hoofs popping her skull like a melon, and then swallowed hard, painful in her sandpaper throat. “What do you want to know?” she asked hoarsely.

The demon’s large mouth curled into a victorious smirk, as if proud he’d managed to batter her into submission. “What are you?”

“I’m a human.” She wasn’t sure if that was the answer he was looking for, or if humans even existed in this world. Game. It’s a game, she reminded herself. Except, did it matter? If she’d been sucked in, then this game was a world on some plane of existence. If she existed with in it, that made it real, didn’t it? Her head spun.

“And what is a human?” he asked. “Some kind of immortal species? You’re not a witch. Or at least, your magic isn’t prevalent on any kind of frequency I am able to detect.”

Rosalyn took in a deep, ragged breath. “I...I don’t know how to explain what a human is...I’m not, like, I don’t know, familiar with the way things work here. I’m not a witch, not magical. I’m just...not from here.” She winced at the wafting ammonia scent from her pants, a harsh reminder of her pure fear, her inability to deal properly with this situation.

“From where?” the demon asked, drumming his obscene fingernails against his knee. “There are no lands in Rol’Guul I haven’t been, and you certainly not from the Under.” He laughed, a low cackle that reverberated in her guts.

Rol’Guul, she thought, chewing over the name in her head. Guul, she furrowed her brow. The game company was called the Guul Corporation.

“So where do you come from, little...human?” he pressed.

Rosalyn blinked, forcing herself to meet his gaze, widening her eyes to plead with him to understand. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. This is all just as confusing for me...I live somewhere very different from here, and then I was...transported, somehow.” She linked the fingers of her hands, squeezing and massaging them, a feeling of pins and needles overcoming much of her body in the aftershocks of whatever he’d done to her. “I thought I was just dreaming all this until...” She shuddered, lowering her gaze.

“Until my lovelies killed you?” He licked his lips. “Where you come from, are you immortal there, as well?”

She shook her head, massaging up her forearms where gooseflesh had begun to crawl, the chill of the forest beginning to seep in. “No,” she rasped. “No, definitely not.”

“So this is a power you’ve inherited from the transport,” he mused. “How?”

She took in a sharp breath. How was she supposed to explain that this was a video game, and player characters could respawn upon dying? How could she explain video games? Or computers? Or anything? “I don’t know,” she finally said.

“Will you keep it when you transport back?”

“I don’t know.”

“How will you transport back?”

“I...” Rosalyn’s breath caught in her throat, panic gripping her chest. “I don’t know.” Her voice came out thick, and she struggled to keep from bursting into tears. “Don’t you think I would have done it if I did?”

The demon studied her, an amused but intent expression on his face, as if he were searching inside of her skull. She withered beneath his gaze, hating the feeling of pure vulnerability. The feeling like he could see all of the ugly things about her, the feeling like he could rip her flesh from her bones without even touching her, the feeling like she was his plaything and there was nothing she could to do stop it.

“You owe me a life,” he finally said.

Rosalyn startled. “What?” she blurted. How did she owe this guy anything?

“It takes thirty moon cycles to create optimal breeding conditions for my pets,” he explained, leaning back in his tree-root seat casually. “Only one can be pregnant at a time out of the whole pack, and the gestation period is twenty-two moon cycles, plus however many to get to a full moon which is the only moon to trigger the birth. Even then, only one in four survive.” He drummed his fingernails again, his brow darkening as he focused on her. “Pinky was the result of much hard work for me, and now he’s been trampled to death. Because of you, transporting in and making an enticing meal of yourself in my carefully controlled grounds.”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She closed it again, opened it again. A little squeak of indignation escaped from her throat, and seemed to bolster her confidence. “Are you...are you fucking kidding me?” she finally ground out. “I didn’t choose to be here. I don’t even know how I got here. You’re the one breeding bloodthirsty monsters in an accessible forest to interdimensional transportation and you’re blaming me because they trampled their own young? Also—they killed me!” She clenched her fists. “Isn’t that a life enough for you?”

He raised a perfectly-sculpted brow, that tongue darting out again to run over his thin devilish lips. “No, it’s not enough.” He sat up straight, and when she flinched away from him, his mouth curled into a smirk. “You’re indebted to me until I deem the debt paid. And your ability to die as many times as necessary to fulfil that debt makes it all the sweeter.”

Electric fear zigzagged up Rosalyn’s spine. This was bad.

But maybe...maybe it wasn’t. A thought occurred to her, that maybe this was the first quest of the game. Maybe she’d spawned in, been attacked by monsters, and this was the first NPC she was supposed to meet. Maybe this whole exchange was the first unskippable long-as-fuck cutscene in a nineties video game and once he told her what he wanted from her she’d be free to get away from him. If he was the antagonist, then surely after this she’d meet the good guys she was supposed to align with, right?

Her head spun with possibilities. Of safety. Of a place she could get back in the chat and talk to KC and figure out how to get out of this.

Hope blossomed in her chest, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke at the fire that suddenly tore through her body.

She shrieked as the semi-comfortable tree root chair disappeared back into the earth, sending her sprawling across the ground. Flickering red and orange filled her vision, but the white-hot pain licking her body disoriented her and she couldn’t tell what was going on.

“If you’re telling the truth and you’re not from this world, then you don’t know about all that’s transpired in recent cycles,” he said, voice as casual as if he were discussing the weather.

She was vaguely aware of where he was in relation to her body, the thuds of his footsteps—hoof steps?—circling her with a slow, deliberate gait. The flaming pain localized to her torso and she flopped onto her side to try to ease it somehow, try to get away from it, digging her fingers into the dirt to try to crawl.

“The King of Rol’Guul is a usurper, a demon I put there because his beliefs for the future align with my own.” Thud, thud.

The fire ebbed slightly, constricting around her chest and stomach, like ropes lashing and coiling tight.

“The only surviving heir of the coup is in hiding, and though it is unlikely he would ever cause any issues for me and my vision, it would give me a delightful sense of completion if he were to be squashed.” THUD.

Rosalyn caught her breath, propping herself up on her elbows, as the burn subsided but the feeling she was being held somehow remained. “What did you do to me?” she gasped.

“In simple terms, you’re bound to me now,” the demon replied. “No matter where you go, how far you are away from me, all I have to do is pull.”

Rosalyn pitched back, flying up from the ground, and staggered back on her feet next to him. She whirled and backed away, her mouth hanging open as she patted herself down. There weren’t actual ropes there, but that’s what it had felt like he’d done. Yanked on a harness made of fire.

“The heir has a disgustingly bleeding heart,” he continued, shaking his head. “The whole blasted family was so hung up on honour.” He spat a stream of dark saliva into the dirt, where it hit with a wet slap. “I’m sure he won’t be able to resist offering protection to a fragile little creature like you.”

She pressed her palms against her chest and belly, as if trying to shield herself from his heinous spell.

“You find him, bring him out in the open, and once he’s dealt with, I will free you.” He spread his hands. “Take too long, and I’ll pull you back here and kill you a few times to remind you of the debt you owe. Then you can try again. How does that sound?”

Rosalyn gritted her teeth. “Fucking horrible,” she bit out, and he threw his head back in a loud guffaw.

“Lovely,” he drawled. He cocked his head and tapped his chin pensively. “Perhaps, while you’re gone, I can figure out how to get you back to where you come from.”

She shivered. As much as it would be great to have a way home, she wasn’t sure she wanted this asshole to know how to do it. What if he could go, too? What if somehow she unleashed demons on the world.

Focus Rosie, no use in inventing extra problems right now, she thought. She had to get away from him, regroup, figure out everything in the now, first.

“Can I go?” she asked hoarsely,

He clucked his tongue. “Eager little thing, hm?” He flicked his wrist as if dismissing her. “Go on, pay your debt. And mind my pets. Would be a shame if you popped back up in this spot again so soon.” His sneer told her that it wouldn’t be a shame for him at all, and she backed away until she hit the treeline.

As Rosalyn turned to flee, she swallowed back sobs. Later. She had to get out of this forest, and if she cried too much and filled her sinuses she wouldn’t be able to smell the nasty creatures when they got near her.

She picked a direction, hoping it wasn’t leading her straight to her last death, and blinked long enough to make sure the chat was still there. Colours flitted past her vision, users upon users yacking away. She wondered how many of them thought this was some elaborate show.

Wouldn’t that have been nice? She picked up the pace, choosing a light jog that wouldn’t burn her out too fast. She needed to save her strength for if she really needed to outrun something.

“Hey, party people,” she said, forcing her tone to sound light even through her huffing breaths. It felt good on her tongue to say, gave a weird twisted purpose to this madness. “Looks like I have my first quest.”