Riley recoiled, then pushed herself backward with her heels, scrambling away from the center of the room in pure panic.

  “What the hell is going on!” she shouted, her voice cracking with horror.

  The floor answered her.

  It pulsed. A soft blue ripple spread across the stone like light gliding over water. Then, with a faint hum, a glowing message unfolded from thin air, hanging in front of her eyes.

  ? Union Complete

  ? Welcome

  “Union? Welcome?” Riley breathed out shakily. “Welcome to what?”

  Then something happened that felt impossible and yet strangely familiar.

  Her eyes darted left to right and top to bottom.

  Her mind recognized the layout and something felt strangely familiar about what she was seeing.

  “Is this… is this a main screen?” she whispered.

  Another prompt flickered to life.

  ? Introduction Y / N

  Confusion blended with an unexpected comfort. She had not seen a screen like this in what felt like forever. It felt like the beginning of a new real-time strategy game. The style was unmistakable, and even the font was familiar enough to make her cautiously excited.

  But this was not a game.

  This was real.

  Riley focused on the glowing Y, narrowing her eyes. The slight action selected it.

  The message expanded.

  ? Welcome, Warden. You now govern this tower. You have been chosen.

  ? Do not take this journey lightly. Few are chosen and fewer still survive this challenge.

  ? Your first task is to restore this lowly tower to its former glory.

  ? Beware: not all will want you to succeed. Use your time wisely.

  The message dissolved.

  “Warden? Of what, the world’s worst Airbnb?” Riley mutter.

  A new interface appeared, wide and faintly translucent. It looked like an entire main screen with several greyed-out tabs. The default tab was:

  ? FOCUS TAB

  ? Gather Resources

  ? Restore Structure

  Riley selected Gather Resources.

  ? Resources

  ? Food: 0%

  ? Wood: 0%

  ? Stone: 0%

  ? Ore: 0%

  ? Coin: 0%

  Her shoulders loosened. Her lungs relaxed. She backed out of the menu and chose the next option.

  ? Restore Structure

  ? Main Door

  ? Walls

  ? Roof Access

  A calmness settled over her. It was thin and fragile but real. She understood this system. This was familiar territory. This was a racket placed in the hands of someone who knew how to swing. A battlefield her brain had trained for through years of gaming.

  Survival stats, as if some unseen hand was tallying her strength, her hunger, her non-existent reserves.

  The corners of her mouth lifted in the first real hint of a smile since she arrived in this place.

  No sooner had it formed than reality clawed its way back.

  A cold shiver slipped down her spine. Her stomach growled loudly. A chill crept under her tunic reminding her that she was hungry, filthy, exhausted, freezing, and completely alone.

  This glowing menu would not warm her. It would not feed her. It would not tell her how to go home. It was of little use to someone who was lost in a world filled with predators and uncertainty.

  Those HUD images were a puzzle she might have picked apart once, back in the comfort of her old world, when mysteries were games and time was hers to spend. But the sharp growl of her stomach cut through the haze. She didn’t have the luxury of playing detective. She needed fire—something to chase away the cold, to cook whatever food she could find and to keep predators at bay.

  Bigger problems came first.

  The tower could wait. The system could wait.

  Her survival could not.

  Riley sat on the cold stone floor, rubbing her raw palms and staring at the pathetic little pile of grass and twigs refusing to be anything other than a pathetic pile of grass and twigs. She had tried every angle she could think of, every grip, every rhythm. The only thing that seemed to ignite from all that effort was her mounting frustration.

  She tried again.

  After almost an hour of struggling to coax a flame, she finally hurled the spindle stick aside. It clattered across the floor and struck the overturned table.

  “Arrgghhh!” The cry tore from her throat as she threw her head back, as if begging the heavens for a break.

  Something so simple in her old world had become an insurmountable mountain now. In the comfort of her former life, a fire meant a switch, a lighter, a button on a stove. Now it felt like trying to thread a needle in the dark.

  As she sat there contemplating her next move, she scanned the room. The tower seemed larger in the daylight. She realized that she had been so focused on survival tasks that she had barely had a chance to inspect the place properly.

  Time for a distraction, even if it was just to keep from crying out of frustration.

  Riley walked the perimeter of the room, running her fingers along the stone walls, feeling the ridges and fractures. Near the far corner something cold dripped onto her forehead. She stiffened, wiped it away, then slowly looked up.

  A trapdoor.

  A square wooden hatch set into the ceiling beams. And next to it, a loop of rope hooked over a metal peg. If released, it might drop down far enough for someone to climb up.

  Her eyes widened. An upstairs. A second level. Something that was not bare stone and useless furniture.

  She looked at the helmet on the floor and an idea sparked. She emptied the flint shards onto the ground and held the helmet by the chin strap.

  This was stupid. It was ridiculous. It was exactly something she would try.

  She stepped under the trapdoor, tossed the helmet upward, and jumped out of the way as it clanged back down beside her.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Miss.

  She tried again. And again. And again. Each time the helmet smacked the trapdoor with a hollow thud, bounced off, and rolled across the floor.

  On the fifth attempt she stepped too slow and the helmet hit her shoulder on the way down. She winced and cursed but retrieved it again.

  She glared up.

  The rope hook mocked her silently.

  Three more tries.

  Four.

  Her arm was tired. Her patience thinner than tracing paper.

  She took a deep breath, tilted her head back, and threw with every ounce of strength she had left.

  The helmet struck the wooden trapdoor, rattled, and finally caught the metal hook. The rope jerked free and dropped down in a loose coil, swaying softly in the air.

  Riley froze.

  Then a gasp of triumph escaped her. She could not help the small laugh that followed.

  She hurried to grab the rope. The texture was rough and surprisingly solid. She gave it a tug and felt resistance somewhere above, like something heavy was secured at the top end.

  A real win. A small win, but a real one. It felt like her whole body lit up from the inside. She had done it. Something had gone right. She did not know what waited above, but it was something she could reach. Something she could climb to. Something she could explore.

  Without thinking, she wrapped her hands around the rope and pulled herself up.

  The rope slid through her palms almost immediately, sending a shock of pain through her delicate skin. Her hands were not built for this. Not even close. She spent most days on her phone or laptop, not climbing gym ropes or swinging through trees. Only her thumbs and index fingers had any calluses at all, and those had been grown battling digital monsters, not real ones.

  Her arms trembled with the effort. Her shoulders screamed protest. She tried pulling again, gripping tighter, but her grip faltered.

  She made it a few feet off the ground before her body betrayed her. Her arms failed at the same time her right hand slipped. Her weight dropped suddenly, pulling her down.

  Riley hit the floor hard on her hip.

  Pain exploded along her side, sharp and immediate. She let out a loud, involuntary cry. The kind that echoed through the tower and made dust fall from the ceiling beams.

  She curled onto her opposite side instinctively, drawing her knees up and pressing her forehead to the stone floor. Her eyes squeezed shut as she breathed through the pain.

  She was so tired.

  Everything hurt. Everything was hard. Nothing was simple here.

  After several long moments, she opened her eyes slowly. Frustration swept through her like a tide. Why did everything have to be this difficult? Why could nothing just… work?

  Her breath shook as she exhaled.

  She pressed a palm to her forehead and let her thoughts drift unwillingly back to her old world. Her real world. The one she had somehow lost overnight.

  She remembered her bed. Soft sheets, warm blankets, memory foam pillow. A mattress that never hurt her back no matter how she sprawled across it. She remembered falling asleep after hours of scrolling on her phone, waging war on mobile games until her eyes drooped shut. She remembered waking to the smell of coffee, to a fridge full of food, to a sink with hot running water.

  Hot water.

  The thought of it almost made her emotional. Hot water had been so normal, so automatic, that she had never once appreciated it. Now she would have sold her soul for a warm shower.

  Here there were no creature comforts at all, only creatures.

  Every time she stepped outside she risked being eaten by something big enough to swallow her in two bites. This place’s entire menu seemed to consist of exactly one food item: berries. Berries that did not fill her for long and might poison her if she ate the wrong variety.

  What did this place have to offer? A cold stone floor, a bucket, a helmet, a creepy forest, and a ruin filled with more problems than answers. And now she was its “warden” whatever that meant.

  Wonderful. Sign her up. She imagined marketing it as a resort. The brochure practically wrote itself: Come to the wildlands. Enjoy starvation, hypothermia, and the constant threat of being eaten alive. No wifi. No electricity. No hope of rescue. Packages start at never.

  She snorted weakly. Humor was all she had left.

  Camp Crystal Lake had nothing on this nightmare.

  Riley slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing as her bruised hip protested. She rubbed the spot gently, muttering under her breath.

  She looked up again at the rope. It twisted slightly, swaying with the leftover motion of her attempt. The trapdoor above remained closed, silent, waiting.

  She wanted to climb it so badly. To see what was up there. To know if this tower held anything useful at all. A bed. A weapon. Supplies. Anything that could make survival less miserable.

  But her arms trembled even when she used them to push herself off the ground. There was no way she could climb the rope now. Not without resting. Not without building some kind of grip strength. Not without something to help her.

  She let out a long sigh.

  The room around her felt colder now. The air pressed in heavily, carrying the weight of her failures. She had no fire. No food beyond a handful of berries. No clue where she was. And no ability to climb up to what might be the only useful part of the entire structure.

  ***

  It felt like every time she inched forward, something invisible grabbed her by the collar and yanked her two or three steps back. The word frustration did not really cover it. Frustration was when a level would not load, or a boss fight kept wiping you out. This felt deeper. Heavier. Like the universe had quietly decided she was the punchline to a joke she did not remember agreeing to.

  Her thoughts drifted, uninvited, back to her phone.

  Had anyone messaged her? Had her alliance started a rally without her? She wondered if the game had thrown any alerts up, the kind she usually cleared in seconds. A shield expiring. A scouting report. An event starting.

  She craved a solid session, not just a casual couple of hours, but a real shift. The kind where time vanished and she only realized how long she had been playing when the sun had moved from one side of the sky to the other. There had been weekends where she barely moved from her chair, fingers tapping, brain running battle math in the background while music played.

  She smiled faintly as she remembered the last expansion she had pushed through. New buildings, new troop tiers, new tech trees. She had spent the entire weekend banging out that expansion to her build. That was what she and her online friends called their accounts. Their builds. Their cities. Their empires.

  She had played other games before, of course. Dozens. Hundreds, if she counted all the short-lived ones. Once a game ran its course and died, displaced players would scramble to the latest, greatest offering. They would spill into a new world together, brand new avatars in brand new maps, everyone starting at zero again.

  The idea had always been both horrifying and thrilling to her. Horrifying because of all the time lost, all the effort poured into a build that vanished with a server shutdown. Thrilling because she could start with everyone else again, but this time with experience. With knowledge. With an edge.

  That was the thing about starting over. You lost everything and somehow still carried all of it in your head.

  The stray thought about her gaming sparked something new in her mind, a chance to start over.

  She narrowed her eyes slowly and looked around the room. The rope still hung from the ceiling, swaying just a little. The trapdoor above it seemed to stare back at her, smug and unreachable.

  Did it really have to be unreachable?

  She walked over to the overturned table. It was not very big, but it was solid. The chair lay on its side nearby, one leg slightly splintered but still intact.

  She grabbed the table and dragged it under the trapdoor. It scraped loudly against the stone, leaving faint marks behind. She straightened it and stepped back to judge the height.

  Still too far. But not impossibly far anymore.

  She lifted the chair and set it upright on top of the table. It wobbled a little, so she adjusted its legs until it settled into a more stable stance.

  All right.

  She climbed up onto the table first, moving slowly, careful not to jostle the chair. Then she put one foot on the chair seat. The wood creaked under her weight, but it held. She placed her other foot beside the first and slowly straightened.

  Her heart beat faster.

  From here the trapdoor did not look quite so impossibly distant. She reached up experimentally. Her outstretched fingers brushed the rope.

  A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.

  She was now only about an arm’s length away from her prize.

  With renewed confidence, Riley wrapped her fingers firmly around the rope. She took a steadying breath, then pulled herself up. This time, she was not trying to climb from ground level. She had already closed part of the distance.

  The rope bit into her sore palms, but she gritted her teeth and shifted her weight off the chair. Her shoulders protested, but she drew her knees up and squeezed the rope between them, hugging it tightly. Her feet left the chair, and suddenly she was hanging in the air, suspended only a short stretch below the trapdoor.

  She did not give herself time to think about falling.

  Using one arm and the grip of her legs, she freed her other hand and reached up. Her fingertips found the trapdoor’s underside. She pushed. It resisted for a heartbeat, then gave way with a dull scrape and swung open enough for her to wedge an arm through.

  Cool outside air washed down over her face.

  She took a breath of it and pushed harder, using her shoulder now. The door opened wider. She shifted, braced, and with one last awkward wriggle, managed to get her head and upper body through.

  Sunlight hit her full in the face.

  Riley squinted and reached to grab the sides of the trapdoor frame. She pulled herself up onto the roof, rolling onto solid stone. The rope swung beneath her legs, but she was safely clear of the opening.

  She lay there for a moment, chest heaving, staring up at the open sky.

  She had done it.

  She was on top.

  Riley laughed softly. It sounded a little wild and breathless, but it was real.

  She rolled to her knees and then to her feet. The wind picked up as soon as she stood, catching her hair and blowing it back from her face like an almost triumphant salute. The air up here felt cleaner somehow. Sharper.

  She took a few steps forward until she reached the edge of the tower top.

  A low parapet ringed the roof, stone blocks arranged in alternating high and low sections. She placed her hands on the nearest merlon, fingers curling around rough, cool stone. She felt its solidity under her palms. It grounded her.

  In her heart, this felt like a small, solid checkpoint in a day full of failures.

  She closed her eyes for a second and let that feeling soak in.

  Emotionally, she had needed this. She had needed something to go right, something that proved she was not entirely outmatched by this world.

  Her stomach, of course, chose that moment to grumble again, long and loud, reminding her that emotional victories did not fill bellies.

  She snorted softly and rested her chin on her hands, leaning into the stone. Food would have to be her next priority. More berries, maybe. Maybe some kind of trap. She would deal with that soon.

  But first she wanted to see.

  This was the first time she had been high enough to look over the treetops. Until now everything had been trunks and branches and patches of sky. She had no idea what kind of world stretched beyond the immediate forest, no sense of distances or landmarks. Without a map she might as well have been dropped onto a blank piece of paper.

  Now that secret was finally going to reveal itself.

  She lifted her head and straightened her back, eyes scanning outward.

  The wind tugged at her clothes and hair. The stone beneath her hands felt steady, patient, as if it had been waiting years for someone to stand here again and look out.

  Riley inhaled slowly, bracing herself for whatever she was about to see.

  Whatever lay beyond the trees was her new world.

  And for the first time since waking in the grass, she was about to get a glimpse of it.