The trees began to thin out a touch, and Rosalyn slowed down. She resisted the urge to stop completely and huff, bending over and hugging her knees.

“Fuck, I’m out of shape,” she gasped. “If I get out of this, I’m buying a standing desk.”

She slowed to a walk, pushing the fear still pulsing through veins into the back of her mind. She had to stay focused and alert to get through this, and giving in to the horror would turn her back into a blubbering piss-covered mess. She wrinkled her nose, still painfully aware of the dampness in her underwear and pyjama pants.

With some luck, she’d be able to find somewhere safe to wash up and get some new clothes.

“I can’t walk around with my eyes closed,” she said, keeping her head on a swivel. She also made sure to sniff the air frequently, since that seemed to be the best way to herald the arrival of those slimy monsters. “I’ll catch up later, but if KC hasn’t made it to my place yet, can someone ask him to make me a map? I can’t bank on anyone selling maps that are buyable...I still don’t know what kind of game this is. Presumably there should be a world border or something...”

Rosalyn chewed her lip as she looked around. What would a world border look like, since everything was so realistic in here? Would she die if she crossed some kind of invisible line?

She shivered.

“And I need to figure out how to set a new spawn point,” she continued, running her hands up and down her bare arms to warm them a little. “If I die again, I don’t want to end up back in this death forest.”

The feeling of flaming ropes coiling around her midsection suddenly flared, an echo of the deed that had bound her to that place. It didn’t really matter where she spawned, because whats-his-face could call her back at any time with his spell.

Spells. “I wonder if I can use magic, too,” she murmured. “I wonder if the game worked properly, what the player character would be. Would it have been a useless human, or an unnamed demon character that has to level up and become stronger in all of the magic that guy had?” She shook her head. “I hope I’m giving you guys a lot of theories to snowball on. I really need all the help I can get, here.”

She was so tempted to stop and close her eyes, but she really didn’t want to be caught off-guard. She knew she wouldn’t be able to read the chat anyway, since it was always going so fast, but it would at least make her feel less alone.

There was a pang in her gut when she realized that feeling wasn’t particularly new. How many times had she done an impromptu stream or sat and scrolled video comments for hours because she didn’t want to feel alone? She had KC in her life, but with him also working online, they spent most of their time interacting through the internet. And aside from the cashiers at the nearby grocery store or the baristas at the cafe down the street, Rosalyn didn’t interact with the outside world much. Didn’t connect with real, in-the-flesh people.

Instead she played this persona, this larger-than-life character that was a badass and could slay any monster and complete any quest. From the safety of her office. With a keyboard and mouse instead of a sword.

She swallowed back the panic threatening to rise in her throat once again. How was she going to do this? How was she going to do anything in this game if she had to use her actual real body to do it?

Focus, focus, focus, she chanted in her head. Can’t give in to the fear, don’t fucking think about it.

The trees thinned even more, and she also realized that the sky was tinged a pinkish red in the distance.

“If this world is modelled after ours...” She slowed her walk and panned around, making sure that the light from the sunrise was only coming from one direction. “Then that way is east. I guess even if it’s not specifically modelled after ours, we can use cardinal directions to make a map that makes sense to me.”

She picked up her pace again, not wanting to linger too long. She was torn between wanting to stop and see if KC was there, and putting as much distance as she could between her and the monsters.

“I keep trying to tell myself that this asshole gave me a task, and if he really wants it done he won’t fuck with me while I’m trying to do it,” Rosalyn babbled, her hand absently reaching up to rub at her sternum where some of the burning magic ropes had been. “But I don’t trust logic on this...” She ran her tongue over her teeth, fighting off a shudder. “He’s an NPC and clearly programmed to be a sadistic fuck.”

She stopped short at the sight of flickering light in the distance.

“There’s something up there,” she whispered, tilting her head into her microphone before realizing that there was no microphone there.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, ice settling in her spine. She’d almost forgotten she wasn’t still sitting in her chair. She focused on the light, trying to ignore her pulsing thoughts.

“I think it’s fire.” She kept her voice low, healthy fear over whether or not whoever—or whatever—was up there was friendly.

She shuffled closer, wincing as one of her slippers shifted through some dead leaves. Bending down, she stepped out of the comfy plush bunnies and gripped one in each fist. The ground was cool against her bare feet, and a lot more forgiving than the first time around when she’d been stubbing her terrified toes on tree roots running for her life.

Rosalyn kept her knees bent, trying not to make any noise with her steps, but the balls of her feet still made small crunches that sounded like gunshots in her strained ears. She froze, and then slowly lowered her heels to the ground, coming down from her tiptoes. She looked down and tried to avoid leaves, moving her feet flat in the dirt and on roots so she had balance and equally-distributed weight. This seemed to make far less noise, and she felt lighter than when she’d been creeping along like a cartoon villain.

She felt a bit silly trying to sneak so hard, because even if she got a look at what was ahead, she probably wouldn’t know what to do anyway. It’s not like she could look at someone in this world and just determine that they were safe to approach.

It just felt good to be in control of something—and in that moment, her control meant seeing what was ahead before it saw her. What she did with the information provided was future Rosalyn’s problem.

She reached a tree trunk wide enough for her to hide behind, and it seemed to be the last one before the foliage would be so sparse she wouldn’t be able to go unnoticed anymore. She flattened herself against the bark and leaned, peeking around the edge.

Below a gentle slope, firelight flickered. It came from what looked like a chunk of wood, abandoned on the ground. There was nothing else around, just the torch, sitting there.

She ground her teeth. Future Rosalyn had become present Rosalyn, and she didn’t know what to do with the information provided. Clearly, someone had been there—someone who had the limbs and knowledge to light a torch. And recently enough that the torch was still lit.

But they’d left it there.

Her first thought was that they had been fleeing something, in which case she also very much wanted to flee. But on the heels of that, she wondered if that someone had been fleeing her, since her sneaking hadn’t been exceptionally sneaky. Rosalyn knew she wasn’t a threat, but someone wandering the spooky monster-infested woods hearing her slipper thuds might have thought otherwise.

She pressed her forehead against the tree, taking in a deep, ragged breath. She still clutched the silly bunnies for dear life, and not because they held any kind of sentimental value or because they were good footwear. She just couldn’t bring herself to let go of them. Something from the real world.

“What do I do?” she breathed the words, barely audible, her eyes fluttering closed.

The chat whizzed by, faster than ever before, she she couldn’t help but briefly wonder how many people had tuned in to the stream at this point. Had word spread about the wildly realistic shenanigans that RosieRainbow and KCxbone were pulling off together? Did anyone believe that it was real?

A donation splashed across her vision. BriGuyMonster: Go grab the torch! You need resources!

Immediately followed by, KCxbone: Get out of there, go north, find water

“KC,” she whispered, relief flooding her that he was there, there and not cursing her out. Had he made it to her place? Had he heard her pleas to shut down the game? What was he seeing on the other side of the monitor? She wanted to ask him all of those things, but it wasn’t the time nor the place.

She took a deep breath. If she were playing the game the actual way, with her damn keyboard and no consequences, for sure she would have gone for the torch. She could see where BriGuy was coming from. Fire would be useful, as a weapon and for warmth and eventual cooking, especially if she’d have to figure out how to light it the old-fashioned way. She doubted this world had barbecue lighters. Or barbecues.

However, she didn’t trust whoever had dropped the thing. With her body still reeling with the aftershocks of being tortured, she shook her head, stepping back from the tree. The sun was rising, which meant that she had the entire day to find shelter and warmth and food. KC was right, finding water should be priority. She needed to start treating this like a survival game, because for now, that’s what it was. A demon pulled her strings, but she was still human and needed to take care of herself to stay alive.

At least, she thought she did. Everything else seemed hyper-realistic, so it would make sense that she still had to eat and drink otherwise she’d die and end up back at the spawn. Despite not feeling particularly dehydrated, she was thirsty, and not willing to take the gamble that she didn’t need to consume sustenance in this world.

Rosalyn backed away from the tree and faced the sunrise, turning to her left before moving. She tiptoed for a few steps before wincing and remembering to distribute her weight evenly for less noise. After a few minutes, she glanced over her shoulder to see how far away from the torch she was, and then froze, her gut sinking down to the dirt when she saw it was gone.

Was it just out of sight? Her heart rate tripled, and she leaned to the left and right to see if there had just been a little hill or something obstructing her view.

“Hello,” someone said, so close that their breath warmed her ear.