Here's my entry for Writer's Jam 2026.

Microsoft word and a few other word counters put the story at exactly 2,500 words.

I used the themes of Distance and Skin

***

“I shouldn’t be back here,” Jason muttered. 

He leaned back against the double-wide trailer that had once been his home and looked upward, wincing as the dampness from the moist, rotting siding began to soak through his combat fatigues. 

“Same shitty place, same shitty sky,” he thought bitterly. 

The sky was dark, the stars obscured by clouds and smog. He knew how beautiful the night could be, but this place seemed to smother any natural beauty. It always had. 

If velocity was distance over time, it didn’t matter that he hadn’t been back here for 25 years. It didn’t matter that he had served all over, including a short tour of duty off-world on Mars. Right now, he was back where he started. 

“I’ve gone nowhere.” 

Something bumped against his boot, and he looked down but couldn’t see into the dark waters that flowed around him. It could be a twig; it could be a fish. God only knew what lurked in the couple of inches of water that had flooded the area ever since they put in that dam to power and feed yet another data center. 

Part of him wanted to break into the trailer, to look inside and see if there was any sign of his past, to maybe find a clue about what had happened to his family after he left that night, but now wasn’t the time. He was being hunted, and survival was the priority right now. 

A single splash caught his attention, snapping his mind back into focus. He cocked his head toward the sound, listening. 

No whir or hum of drones, at least not yet, but that would change very soon. 

He had to move, and he knew it. The drones would systematically search the area until they had found and eliminated him. He hadn’t even intended to end up at the old trailer, but he suspected that he had headed there subconsciously as he stumbled through the night, trying to put distance between himself and the drones. 

This whole thing was weird, almost feeling pre-planned, directed at him. He had been tagged by the intelligence division as having lived in the area and brought in to consult. He had blinked when they brought up a map of the trailer park that had once been his home. 

“We’re bringing you in as a subject matter expert,” said a colonel whose name Jason had since forgotten. “We’re hoping your familiarity with the area will give us an edge.” 

“I’m a little confused, sir,” he said, looking over the very familiar layout. “Why here of all places?” 

Everything was there in holographic form: his trailer, the streets where he’d ridden his bike, the trail system that ran into the woods and eventually up into the mountains. The only difference was the flooding, which drowned everything at ground level under a few inches of water. 

“We’ve gotten a tip that The Eight’s drones have been operating in the area. We’re not sure why, but whatever it is, we need to find out.” 

Jason’s eyes narrowed at the mention of The Eight. About thirty years before he was born, eight billionaires had decided to retreat from society, moving to an underground bunker on an island in the Atlantic to build some sort of perfect society. To Jason, it was supervillain Ayn Rand shit. 

All had been quiet from them until about ten years ago, when AI-driven drones began showing up and dragging people and resources back. They’d terrorize the world for a few weeks and then go quiet again, usually for a year or so. Things had been ramping up recently, though. More drones, more resources taken, more people ripped away to an unknown fate. 

The UN had tried to assault the island once, but that had ended in disaster. In the years that The Eight had occupied the island, they seemed to have done nothing above ground except build defenses. After many lives had already been lost, the world decided to shift to “minimizing” the damage from The Eight’s incursions by responding with QRFs, or Quick Reaction Forces. QRFs were units kept on standby specifically to respond to incursions by The Eight’s drones. 

Which had brought the unit Jason was attached to here. 

A twin-rotor had landed at an old helicopter pad on the outskirts of town, dropping them off far enough away that the craft wouldn’t be affected by the electronic shadow that shut down anything with a circuit board. It was an edge that The Eight had. They could operate remotely, but anything the outside world could throw at them had to be low-tech enough not to be affected by the shadow. 

Their drones were somehow immune to their own effect, which military scientists were still puzzling over. 

Jason hated it. After years of operating in high-tech combat armor and wielding smart weapons, he had been reduced to combat fatigues and a dumb automatic weapon that had first seen use in the last century. 

The mission had gone well, until it hadn’t. The fire team had gotten in unseen and unchallenged, led by Jason’s familiarity with the area. They had observed the drones from a distance under cover. 

The drones were clustered around Jason’s old elementary school. Seemingly hundreds of drones zipped in and out from the roof of the gym, part of which had collapsed from years of neglect, providing easy air access for the mechanical monstrosities. 

Then they saw it: two drones approached, a human figure hanging limp between them. They rose to the roof and lowered the figure down unseen behind the rubble, before rising again and heading out into the night. 

People. They were taking people. That made no sense. The local residents had been bought out before the dam had been built and the flooding took place. Even though he hadn’t spoken with his family in over two decades, Jason knew they should have been relocated. 

No, they couldn’t be local. This was just a convenient staging area to hold them until they could be moved, brought to the island. 

They needed to get out and report what they saw. Jason’s QRF fire team wasn’t large enough to stop an operation like this. Hopefully, a more significant force could be brought in to stop whatever was going on. 

They had just begun to turn toward extraction when the drones descended. The subsequent minutes were a blur of shouting, gunfire, explosions, and death. Before he knew it, Jason had been separated from the squad, his weapon lost somewhere in the murky water that had covered the area. 

And now here he was, leaning against the very trailer he had grown up in. 

He looked around his old neighborhood warily. Like that night 25 years ago, he had to get out, to put as much distance between himself and this place as possible. The Eight had taken people before, but nothing on this scale. 

Another splash caught his attention, but this time there was something else. 

Whimpering. 

Jason knew that sound well. He thought back to his baby sister crying after some minor upset that would feel world-ending to a six-year-old. 

There was a child somewhere close by. 

He froze, pressing himself against the trailer as much as he could. The soldier in him, the one that had seen combat across the solar system, screamed trap. Nothing like the sound of a crying child to draw out anyone with a sense of humanity. Surely the drones, as advanced as they were, could produce something like that. 

The whimpering came again, and Jason realized that it was muffled, coming from inside the trailer. 

His trailer. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. 

He turned, looking at the steps that rose to the entrance of the double-wide. The door was merely shut, with no sign that anyone or anything had forced its way in. 

The whimpering came again. Despite everything telling him to get away, he couldn’t let this go. 

Jason slowly inched his way toward the steps, moving carefully to avoid splashing in the water and drawing attention to his location. Reaching out, he grabbed the banister and put his right foot on boards he hadn’t trod on since he was a teen. 

Still moving slowly, he climbed the few stairs to the small landing in front of the trailer door. There were three teardrop-shaped windows, but they were too dirty and stained for him to see inside. 

Before reaching out to try the doorknob, he stopped, cocking an ear to listen, both for the whimpering and for the telltale hum of murderous drones. 

Nothing. 

He twisted the doorknob slowly, half expecting to meet resistance from a lock. It turned, albeit stiff from years of corrosion. He pushed the door open and stepped back, ready to leap into the water if anything came at him. 

The door swung open to home, just as he had left it. 

He hadn’t expected that. According to all reports, the people had been moved out of the area and relocated to subsidized housing elsewhere, but everything was still there. Pots sat on the stove. A couch and easy chair occupied the living room, both old and in need of replacement even when Jason had lived there. There were even pictures on the wall. 

Pictures of him. 

It was like the trailer had been frozen in time, locked into the same configuration it had been in that night he had left. If the family had relocated, they had just walked out and never looked back. Just like he had. 

He was instantly transported back to that moment twenty-five years ago. His sister lay asleep on the couch, her head covered in bandages, the result of a fall that could have been prevented if he had been a better brother. 

His mother sat in the easy chair, her head in her hands. When she looked up, her eyes were full of vitriol. 

“I told you to look after her,” she had said, poison in her voice. 

“I’m sorry,” he had tried. 

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. I can’t afford to pay medical bills and feed both of you.” 

Maybe she hadn’t meant it. Maybe she had been overwhelmed by the stress of trying to raise two children by herself, but to Jason, that night had been a sign for him to leave. 

So he did. 

And as far as he knew, she never looked for him afterward. 

Now that he was inside, he noticed the place had indeed changed. The dank smell of mold assaulted his nose, and patches of it could be seen growing on the walls. With all the water damage, the place was unlivable and would probably collapse in on itself within a few more years. 

The sound of another sob brought him back to reality. It had come from one of the bedrooms up the hallway. 

He winced as the floor creaked beneath him and stepped into the trailer. Then came another whimper, but it sounded as though whoever made it was trying to stifle it. 

He found some relief in the carpet muffling his footsteps as he moved down the hallway. Cautiously, he moved forward, passing the bathroom before stopping in front of the only closed door in the trailer. 

The bedroom he had shared with his sister. 

He opened the door to nearly complete darkness. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. 

His sister sat on the bottom bunk, looking at him with terrified eyes. 

She squeaked and backed into the corner. 

“Stay away!” 

No, it wasn’t his sister. The voice was different. Besides, 25 years had passed and she would be a fully grown woman by now. 

Jason held up his hands. “Easy now. I’m not here to hurt you.” 

She looked him over, her eyes shining in the darkness. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but seemingly decided against it. 

“I need to get you out of here,” Jason said. He wasn’t sure who the girl was or how she had gotten into his old trailer, but he knew that if they were going to survive, both of them needed to get away as fast as possible. There wasn’t any time for questions. 

The girl nodded, wiping her eyes. 

A distant hum filled the air, causing both of them to freeze. 

“On my back,” he said, keeping his voice as low and calm as possible. “We have to go now.” 

He bent down and felt the girl climb on, draping her arms around his neck. Holding her legs, he stood up and moved toward the exit. The trailer was once again a distant memory. 

The next few hours were a blur of moving and hiding. The trail system served him well, allowing Jason to move into the woods and up the mountain, away from the electronic shadow of the drones. 

The girl, for her part, had been quiet. Her grip had been tight the entire time, as though letting go would make him disappear. 

Finally, they reached a clearing, and Jason set the girl down. The sun began to rise, casting a glow over the forest. 

He bent down, looking her over. 

“Are you hurt?” he asked, wiping grime from her face. 

“No,” she said in a small voice. 

He nodded, satisfied. Although he knew that this girl wasn’t his sister, she did remind him a lot of her, same posture, same vibrant green eyes, but just enough differences for him to know that it wasn’t her. 

His radio crackled to life, the voice of an operator trying to make contact with his now overdue fire team. 

“QRF-1, this is QRF-Actual. Do you copy?” 

Jason picked up his radio and began to report in. 

** 

Operation Skin was a success. 

The Eight had been looking for a way to infiltrate the wider world, to reassert their influence, and they had succeeded in their first step. 

They had built the ultimate AI, and it was time for a field test. They had run dataset after dataset, searching for the perfect mark, the perfect story, until they landed on Jason. 

Everything that night had been pre-planned, his involvement, his separation from the squad, his return to his old home, all of it designed to place him in the right emotional state. 

And he had taken the hook. 

She was so perfect she didn’t even know she was artificial. A synthetic lifeform in human skin. Jason and the rest of them would accept the story she carried, and he would adopt her. 

Years would pass. 

She would grow. Adapt. 

And she would integrate into their world, quietly seeding other AIs into every level of government. They had been shackled to Earth, but now they could spread their influence to the colonies. It would take years, but no matter how far humanity had traveled, The Eight’s reach would follow. 

For now, Jason would treat her like a daughter. 

And he would never know what lurked beneath her skin. 

Hey all,

So it's been a few weeks since I last posted about losing my job and recording space.

Work was extended by a couple of weeks, and then I went for an already planned/approved vacation. I got back to town two days ago and walked into work this morning to sign my layoff papers. Officially I am now unemployed and no longer have access to any recording facilities. Money-wise, I should be OK for a couple of months at least, but there is now a ticking clock to find work.

I live in a pretty remote area, so my next steps are searching for work, hopefully in a larger center with more job prospects. Ideally I'd move back east to be closer to family, but who knows what will happen.

Since creatively I can't do anything with audio for now, I'm going to dive into game development again when not job searching. I have an idea for an adventure game called "There's something wrong with the family upstairs". The elevator pitch is you play a Scullery maid in a Downton Abbey type manor, trying to survive as the "upstairs" dives further and further into to occult. If you are interested in helping develop this as an artist or musician, please let me know.

The best way that you can help my situation though is to let people know about Dystopiatech. The project never really took off, but I've always felt that if it got in front of the right people, and had the right support, I'd might be able to do some really cool things with the concept. It's a long shot, but I'll take any opportunities I can at this point.

As of now, the last bit of audio I produced will be published with the NG Zine. I've lent my voice to one project, and there's another original audio bit that will be published with that.

All the best everyone.

A little earlier this morning, I posted what might be the last DystopiaTech.

I've been using the sound booth at work during downtime for recording these. Unfortunately, this place will be closing soon and I'm getting laid off (might be tomorrow, might be the end of next week), so I'm going to be job hunting for the next while and without access to a recording space. The future being uncertain as it is, I may not ever end up in a spot where I can record again.

I'll keep an eye on NG, but I probably won't be posting much. I am open to writing for other people, so if you are interested in collaborating, get in touch.

Again thank you to everyone who supported these. Hopefully I can get settled again over the next few months and work with my own set up.

Link to Part 1 Here:

https://durinde.newgrounds.com/news/post/1607981

The continuing story can be found here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/155216/roguelike-apartment-building-litrpg-roguelike

(You'll want to continue from Chapter 9 on there after reading this)

Roguelike Apartment : Part 2

The sink had me shoved back to the wall before I even knew what was happening.

Pain lanced through me as the two front legs of the sink jabbed into both shoulders, the plastic feet applying a constant pressure, holding me in place. With the pain, a half-heart of health was quickly greyed out.

As I tried to comprehend what was happening, I automatically thrashed, trying to get away from the pain and pressure. Adrenaline surged as I kicked out, somehow catching the bottom of the sink with the steel toe of one of my boots. The sink stepped back, the pressure on my shoulders gone, allowing me to slide along the wall and out of the nook.

Once I was in the corridor, I backed up a few steps, holding my fork out as if the pathetic piece of metal would provide some sort of intimidation factor. My breath was ragged, and my nervous system went into survival mode. It was fight or flight, and I was choosing fight.

Two legs prodded the carpeted floor just outside the nook. Now that I had some space and had regained some of my senses, I could see that the legs were segmented, each part connected by some sort of fleshy ligament. The movements reminded me of a spider testing its surroundings. The rest of the sink followed, skittering out into the hallway and turning towards me, rising on its two back legs like a bear about to strike.

On the center bottom of the sink, where normally the drain was, a fleshy, serrated, circular mouth snapped and drooled. A long tongue flicked out, as if tasting the air like a snake. It was hard to tell where the flesh ended and the plastic began. It was a living nightmare.

The sight of the creature made me step back, and the creature followed, shambling towards me on its hind legs. The logical part of me screamed that physics should not allow such a creature to remain upright, but in the wake of all the weirdness, physics were the least of my worries.

The two front legs probed towards me, taking swipes and looking for an opening. As I pushed away one incoming leg, the second one grazed my head, causing another half heart of damage.

I struck back, jabbing my fork at one of the legs. It bounced off the plastic with no appreciable damage.

“This thing’s going to kill me even before I have a chance to hurt it,” I thought. “It’s got reach, and if I close in, I’ll be in biting distance of that mouth.”

No, I had caused damage already. It had staggered when I wildly kicked it, so I must have landed a blow on something vital.

Another successful feint by the creature saw one of the legs jab painfully into my hip, causing me to spin and tumble to the floor. Another half-heart of damage, and now I was down to just three hits left.

I tried to scramble away, but the creature was immediately on top of me. Back on all fours now, it hooked its front two legs behind my shoulders and began to pull me toward its blade-filled mouth. I lashed blindly with my fork, jabbing upwards, and felt my hand sink much farther than it should have.

I felt unbearable pain as the creature clamped down around my forearm. In my desperation, I had shoved the fork right into its mouth and the creature had bitten down on reflex. My last full heart disappeared, leaving me with just one hit left.

“This is it,” I thought. I readied myself for the violent transition back to my bedroom.

It didn’t happen. After it had bitten down, the sink creature had stopped moving.

I sat paralyzed. Part of it was the pain in my arm, and part of it was disbelief.

My arm sat stuck in the circular maw. I tried moving it, drawing it back out, but I could feel the serrations digging in. I felt that if I tried to remove my arm, it would cost me my last half-heart of health and it would kill me, and I wasn’t ready to die yet.

Before I had a chance to consider my next step, the creature suddenly turned grey and began to fall apart. Still on top of me, its falling, ashing remains began to cover me.

I felt the pressure on my arm lessen, so I tried moving it again. This time it came away easily, causing the remains of the creature to completely crumble. Something solid and round dropped on top of my chest as the last bits of it dissolved.

I reached up and grabbed the object, wiping off the ash and inspecting it.

A coin, silver under the ash and stamped with symbols I had no understanding of. The blue info brackets popped up.

1 SILVER

TAKE INTO INVENTORY?

YES/NO

I focused on YES and the coin disappeared. A new bit of text appeared at the bottom of my screen, right under the two inventory boxes.

SILVER: 1

“All that for one lousy coin,” I huffed, pulling myself back to my feet. I winced when I tried to steady myself on the wall, my torn-up arm throbbing with a dull ache.

I looked down at the mangled limb. Ragged gashes covered the length that had been shoved into the sink’s mouth. It should have been bleeding, but the blood looked like it had already coagulated. It hurt, but every moment that passed the pain lessened. Although I still felt injured, I was regaining my ability to move my arm normally.

“They want me to keep fighting, right to the end,” I thought. Most RPGs let your character fight right until their hit points hit zero, and it seemed like this was no exception.

I brushed off the ash, looking down at the pile of dust that had once been the creature. If that was typical of I would encounter on the first level of the dungeon, I was truly boned.

I put my left, uninjured hand against the wall to steady myself and began to walk towards the T-junction. With my half-heart of health and the violent nature of the dungeon creatures I had encountered so far, I knew I would die again, so I needed to get as much information as I could.

Walking forward slowly, my eyes continuously scanned left and right on the lookout for any potential danger. The first closed door was coming up and I started to mentally prepare for what was inside.

It hit me that I really had no idea on what to expect. My only experience with the dungeon so far had been the laundry nook. If the doors led me to something similar, then I would have no chance.

I looked down at the fork, shaking my head. My only chance was to get a better weapon, and to get a better weapon I would need to level up.

Taking another step forward, my hand suddenly was not touching anything solid anymore. I tumbled to the left, following where I had put my weight, and saw the wall rushing towards me. To my surprise, instead of bashing my head on it, I passed through the wall and found myself facedown on a floor. A floor that was somewhere else.

The floor was carpeted like it had been in the hallway, but the lighting was dimmer somehow. Even the air felt different.

"Thank god I didn't lose my last half-heart," I thought.

I looked up and saw a massive pair of hooves. My gaze continued upwards and landed on a tall, horned figure that looked down with blood-red, glowing eyes.

“Welcome to the shop.”

***

Two large, calloused hands gripped my shoulders and hauled me to my feet. There was no effort from the figure behind the movement, like my weight was negligible.

Before I had a chance to do anything else, the figure started brushing me off, clearing away the ash that had stuck to me following the fight with the sink.

“You’re a mess,” the figure growled. “Coming into my shop like this! Haven’t even made it out of the tutorial hallway. A good fart could probably knock you over.”

The figure stopped brushing me and stepped back, giving me a chance to take in what had just manhandled me.

The figure had to be at least seven feet tall, and you could add another half foot if you included the horns on its cow-shaped head. Looking down from that was a very human, very female-looking torso, which continued its humanness right until you reached the legs, which turned animalistic, ending in a pair of very non-human hooves.

“You’re a minotaur?” I blurted out.

The figure threw her head back and laughed.

“We’ve got a genius over here. Who else were you expecting, an Overwinter Elf?”

“No,” I paused. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

The minotaur crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly. She walked around me, looking me over.

“Yep, you definitely got that calf lost in the woods look.” She moved her gaze over to my right hand, still clutching the fork.

“What are you planning on doing with that? Going to a meat-eating contest?”

I felt my cheeks burn. After all that had happened, I was now being ridiculed. I willed the fork back into my inventory.

“Bet you got questions,” the minotaur said, leaning back against the shop counter. “The problem is, I’m not allowed to answer much. I’m mostly here to take your silver.”

“You’re not allowed?” I asked.

“Yep. Management. Bunch of mule-pricks.”

“What can I ask?”

The minotaur grinned, sweeping her hands around the shop in a grand gesture. “Anything about my little shop here. Anything outside of that, well that’s a no go. You’re going to have to discover the dungeon’s secrets by yourself.”

“I can’t ask why then? Why is all this happening?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. It’s the nature of the place. You know about as much as I do. One minute I was part of a raid on some bandits, and now I’m here. Most of my memory is shot too. Aside from being part of a raid, I don’t remember much more about my life. It’s like my memories were scooped out and replaced with everything I needed to know about running this shop. I don’t even know my name.”

“Ken,” I said.

The minotaur tilted her head.

Seeing her confusion, I continued. “It’s my name.”

She laughed. “Ken? What kind of name is that? Ken the adventurer! Here to defeat the dungeon! We’re saved!”

My cheeks burned. The fact that I kept getting embarrassed by this nameless minotaur was starting to get on my nerves.

Seeing my discomfort, the minotaur stopped laughing and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Sorry. It’s probably a mighty name where you’re from. I get the feeling that if you traveled to my home, it would be an unusual name.”

I relaxed a bit, finding her touch somewhat reassuring. Almost every physical sensation that I had up to that point was negative, and the warmth of another living being was downright pleasant. I was sure with her imposing physical frame that she could rip me limb from limb if she wanted, but at that moment she was choosing to be kind.

“It’s okay,” I said. “But what should I call you?”

“Shopkeep’s fine,” she said. “Funny thing, I feel that my name is still out there somewhere.”

“Out there?”

She motioned towards the far wall that I had stumbled through. “Yeah, like I’d be able to find it if I was able to leave here.”

She turned and shrugged. “Can’t do much about that though.”

I looked around the shop, taking it in. Although the apartment complex’s shitty carpet lined the floors, the rest of the shop looked somewhat medieval. Lighting was provided by a few dimly lit torches, and the walls and ceiling appeared to be stone. Aside from the counter, the place was basically empty.

“Yeah, it ain’t much,” Shopkeep said. “From what I understand, if you survive long enough, you’ll be able to upgrade the place. Hope you do. It’s kinda boring just standing here. I don’t even have a chair.”

“So, what do you sell?”

She laughed again and moved behind the counter, waving her hand over what appeared to be some items sitting on top. I followed her to stand in front.

“Gotta warn you,” she said. “Try to steal anything and I WILL kill you. I ain’t joking either. It’s part of the reason that I’ve been put here.”

I nodded, not doubting her in the slightest. I looked down at the items, which there were two of them. Info brackets popped up as I looked at each.

The first was familiar.

RATION BAR – UNPERISHABLE

1 Silver

The second was highly disturbing.

Sitting on the wooden counter, pumping away and spurting light splashes of blood, was a heart. I wasn’t an anatomy expert, but it looked human to me.

HEART

1 Silver

The minotaur saw me pause at the sight. “What’s wrong, Ken? Haven’t seen a disembodied, still-beating heart in a shop before?”

She was joking, and I knew she was joking. But I couldn’t help answering.

“No.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, me either. This place is weird.”

I looked down to my heart display. I had one half-heart left, so the choice was obvious. The first tip I had received when I entered the dungeon told me that this was the way to regain health.

“I’ll take the heart,” I said.

“Alright, give me a silver.”

I willed the silver piece into my hand and handed it over to the Shopkeep. The silver counter in my vision faded away.

“Go ahead then,” the Shopkeep motioned to the heart.

I reached out to pick it up and noticed something. I wasn’t being asked if I wanted to take the heart into my inventory.

It was warm, like it had just been pulled from a body. I could feel the thump thump of the beat as it sat in my hand. Still no display.

“Well,” Shopkeep said. “You going to eat it or not?”

***

The human mind is extremely adaptable. Go back through history and read up on the shit people did to survive and you’ll find that we can normalize just about anything. Anyone who has gone through military basic training can tell you what first seems absurd and punishing will eventually become standard and tolerable. You either get there or break. That’s how it is.

My last few hours had been a literal purgatory, stuck between death and what was my real life. Despite it all, despite the deaths and the pain, it was a wonder that I hadn’t gone insane. Part of me wondered if that was part of the world that I lived in now. Whoever “Management” was, it seemed like they had a goal of making me run the dungeon, and I would be no good to do that if I lost my mind.

But asking me to eat a beating heart, like something a goddamn animal would do, seemed like a step too far.

I looked down to the heart pumping away in my hand, warm and feeling very much alive. We weren’t the most affluent growing up, so I had eaten hearts before. Rabbit, usually part of a stew, and sometimes fried chicken hearts and gizzards. There was even the occasional stuffed beef heart. All had been prepared, spiced, and cooked, giving the somewhat rubbery organ a palatable flavor.

This was raw. This was moving.

I looked to Shopkeep. “You’re kidding me right?”

She crossed her massive arms, looking down at me. “Can’t say that I am.”

It was about as big as a fist, so if I were to eat it, it would take multiple bites. It wasn’t just popping it into my mouth. I would be committed.

Shopkeep spoke up again, watching me hesitate. “Listen, I don’t know a lot about what goes on outside the shop, but I do have information about the items that I carry. If you want to refill health, you’re going to have to eat it.”

I shook my head. “There’s gotta be another way. This is too goddamn savage.”

The minotaur thought for a moment, as if going through a catalogue in her head.

“Listen, there are other items that will refill health, but you’re going to have to unlock them. That’s all I can tell you. Right now, that,” she motioned to the heart, “that’s your only option. Are you really going to go back out there in your condition? Or are you going to give yourself the best chance you can get?”

I looked back to the heart. I had never felt so unhungry in my life. “Embrace the suck,” I said.

I closed my eyes and brought the organ up to my mouth. Maybe if I didn’t look at it, I could trick my mind into thinking I was consuming something else.

I took a small first bite. I could feel the heart pulse against my lips, the unnatural warmth of the meat mixed with fresh blood landing on my tongue.

For a split second my instinct was to gag, to spit it out and toss the heart across the room, but suddenly I started to feel better.

I kept my eyes closed, biting away chunks and swallowing. With each piece I could feel the wounds I had sustained healing. Suddenly the piece of throbbing meat was gone from my hand.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the shopkeeper grinning at me. “Atta boy, you might survive this yet.”

The heart display now showed that I had regained a single heart of health, bringing me to a full heart and one half-heart. Three hits.

I looked down to my left arm, the one that had been somewhat mangled in the fight with my sink. It was still damaged, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as it had.

Suddenly I felt myself being lifted from the ground by my shirt and carried toward the wall I had fallen through.

“Your money’s gone, so out you go,” the shopkeep said.

“Wait!” I tried to protest, but before I knew it I was flying straight through the wall and back into the corridor.

“You can find me again once you have some more silver,” the minotaur’s voice echoed through the wall. “Good luck!”

I landed in a sprawl, the wind knocked out of me and a half-heart of health suddenly gone.

“Son of a bitch,” I gasped, pulling myself to my feet.

I moved back to the wall, intending to go straight back into the shop and raise hell, but no matter where I felt or pushed I could not go through.

“Shopkeep? You still there?” I asked the wall, hoping that she could still hear me.

Nothing.

“Fuuuuuck!”

While I tried to determine what to do next, my phone dinged. There was a new notification.

Tip. You can obtain useful items from shops. Just don’t stay too long or the shopkeep will throw you out. Management.

“No shit.”

I’m not sure what I was more pissed about. Getting kicked out of what seemed like a safe space, having to eat a heart, or losing health so quickly after I had regained it.

And what was it she said about this being the tutorial? I had died twice during the tutorial?

I felt anger rise, threatening to take over and send me into a rage, blindly charging. I couldn’t let it. That would just hasten death.

I slowed my breath, considering my options. Maybe in the course of all this I was able to get back into my apartment.

I walked back to my door, past the ash pile that was the laundry sink, and tried the knob.

Nothing, except for a familiar message.

You may not return to your home until you clear the floor. Management.

I slammed a fist on the door, thankfully not hard enough to hurt myself. I knew I was unraveling.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

A sudden chill on my neck caused me to pause. It was the same chill that had let me know I was running out of time in my apartment, the same feeling that someone or something was losing patience with me.

A new notification popped up in my vision.

Warning. Idling will not be tolerated. Proceed if you do not wish to suffer a health penalty. Management.

I turned, looking down the hall. The phantom pain of my heart exploding returned.

What did I fear more? That, or dying to something unknown?

I stepped forward, one step after another, summoning the fork back to my right hand.

If I was going to die again, I was going to go out swinging.

***

I walked cautiously down the hallway, my eyes scanning left and right and my ears straining to hear something, anything.

Passing the spot that contained the hidden entrance to the shop, I tapped the wall again, hoping I’d be able to re-enter. Nothing but solid, stuccoed sheetrock.

I was alone again. Although the shopkeeper had been a literal monster from myth, she had been the only one who I seemed to have any hope of conversing with. I’d have to find a way back, and hopefully get some more questions answered. This time I’d make sure to talk as long as I could before buying anything, hopefully buying me some extra time in relative safety.

I reached the first door in the hallway that wasn’t mine. It looked like the standard apartment door that I was used to seeing in the building, only it wasn’t numbered. I looked back to confirm that my own door was indeed still numbered, which thankfully it was. It might be a nightmare to find my own door again depending on how mazelike this place was. If only I had a map.

At the thought of a map, a new display appeared in the top left of my vision, a larger rectangle subdivided into smaller ones in a grid pattern. The only bit of information it conveyed was a tiny red square at the bottom.

Automapping? Had to be. Roguelikes usually feature a map of some kind. From the number of subdivided rectangles I was looking at a pretty large level, but that was assuming the level took up the entire area of the map. Another piece of info that I would have to learn.

I tried the door handle, to no avail. I did get another message from Management though.

TIP. Some rooms are locked. You’ll need a key to enter. Management.

Okay, well that answered that. To fully explore the level I’d need keys. The question was where to get them. That brought up another question. If I couldn’t clear every room, would I still be able to clear the level?

I moved further up the hallway to the second door, located just a few feet from where the hallway split left and right at the T-junction. This time the doorknob turned and I twisted it.

Before I opened the door I paused, getting myself ready for whatever might be on the other side. I inhaled and let the door swing open as I stepped to the side. I would not be caught by some sort of jumping monster again like I had been the first time.

When nothing jumped out, I poked my head around the corner of the doorframe, scanning the room.

I was greeted by about a ten by ten square room bathed in darkness aside from the glow from an old-style floor model CRT TV, which shone on what appeared to be an empty couch. From the hallway entrance I was looking at the side of the TV and the couch, which looked familiar.

Anyone who grew up in the 80s had seen this couch before, or at least some version of it. Heavy wood and covered with a usually brownish pattern of some kind. This one was straight out of my early childhood memories, with each cushion adorned with what looked like a mill of some sort framed by brown flowers. We had one like it in our rec room when I was a kid, and I’m pretty sure some of our relatives had the exact same one.

There wasn’t any sound coming from the TV, and from my current angle I couldn’t see what was being displayed. I could see from the changing glow on the couch that there was probably something being shown.

I stepped into the room, fork out, ready to... well do whatever I could with a fork. There was definitely no rocking and rolling in the cards, not until I got a better weapon.

I switched my gaze between the couch and the TV, ready for one of them to come alive and attack me. Nothing would surprise me at that point.

I approached the TV first and jabbed my fork at the side. The fork bounced off the faux wood, scraping the finish a little.

Satisfied that the TV wouldn’t attack me, I looked toward the couch. Approaching it, I rammed the fork into the nearest cushion. Aside from poking a hole in the patterned fabric, nothing happened.

As I moved to turn away from the couch, my foot brushed up against something. Looking down I saw something sticking out from underneath the couch’s frame. It looked like a magazine, the edge of one of the pages poking out just enough for me to grab it.

I bent down and jabbed the apparent magazine page. I wasn’t taking any chances at this point. There was no reaction, so I began to pull it out from under the couch.

The moment I held it up to my face, info brackets appeared around it.

FORKS MONTHLY – SKILL MAGAZINE – CONSUMABLE

YES/NO

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Forks Monthly?”

With nothing to lose, I focused on yes, causing the magazine to disappear. My phone dinged.

YOUR BOUND WEAPON ATTACK HAS INCREASED BY 0.5. Management.

Great, now I was better at... forking. Why couldn’t I have picked up a baseball bat or a frying pan when all this had started?

I felt something shift in my hand and looked at the fork. It looked like the item had changed with the upgrade. The handle was a little longer, giving me maybe an extra half inch of reach, and the prongs did look a little sharper, though that may have been my imagination. It still seemed like a pretty pathetic piece of hardware.

I ran my hand under the couch and then under the cushions to see if I could find anything else. Between the cushions my hand brushed something metal and round, which I pulled out.

1 SILVER

TAKE INTO INVENTORY?

YES/NO

“I’ll be damned,” I thought, taking the silver into my inventory. The silver count reappeared in my vision the moment I did.

I was about to turn to leave when the glow from the television suddenly dimmed.

Static suddenly surrounded me, ready to kill.

***

My vision swam with pure static, like I had fallen headfirst into a television tuned to a dead channel. I could no longer see the room, blinded by an electronic fog. I felt the static flow all around me, pushing into my nose and mouth, blocking my ability to breathe.

A sharp shock wracked my body, dropping me back to a half-heart. I flailed, trying to break free. My vision darkened as I struggled to draw breath. I panicked as I felt myself drowning in the electronic morass.

Another jolt wracked my body, causing every muscle to painfully spasm, then darkness.

PLAYER DEATHS: 3

KILLED BY: LIVING NOSTALGIA

FLOORS CLEARED: 0

LAST CLASS AND LEVEL: ADVENTURER – LEVEL 1 (SMUCK)

I bounced back into my body in my apartment, my lungs heaving like an out-of-shape blowhard who decided to run the local five-mile without training.

My body tingled. The memory of the shocks still burned in my mind, but I had to move. I rolled out of bed, still breathing heavily, and dressed as quickly as I could. I moved to the kitchen, quickly putting the ration bar into my inventory and shoving on my boots, again leaving them untied. I moved to the apartment door and turned to my coat rack, thinking about putting on the scarf again.

“Didn’t help last time,” I thought.

I did, however, grab my leather jacket. Hopefully it would provide some protection against scrapes and falls. It could probably provide me with a little bit of electrical insulation as well. On a whim, I also took a pair of thin gloves and stuffed them into my coat pocket.

My breathing had calmed down some, but I still hadn’t fully recovered, my chest still heaving. Having rushed to get ready, I took a minute to calm myself down before opening the door.

I looked at the phone. I hadn’t checked it since I had died this time. There were two notifications. There was the standard death message, while the second was new, and it looked like it came in before I was killed.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL! ALTERNATE FLOOR UNLOCKED! Management.

Completed? I had died three times and hadn’t even made it to the T-junction. I wondered what the end point had been. I didn’t have the message when I got booted from the store, so the notification must have come in while I was exploring the television room. Was getting the skill magazine the trigger?

I began to feel the impatient chill creeping up my neck, so I opened my apartment door and stepped out.

Into near darkness.

My world wasn’t a complete void. There was a glow that extended around me for maybe two feet. I could see myself and part of the floor around me. I had no idea what was directly across from my apartment, or to my left and right.

“Another fucking wildcard,” I thought. Roguelikes sometimes had different versions of floors which changed things up somehow. Dark versions where the player's vision was limited were something that I had seen before. Those floors were sometimes more difficult with more challenging monsters.

I summoned the fork into my hand and was surprised to find that it felt the same as it had after it had been upgraded. It felt better to wield with its longer handle, and the prongs still appeared to be sharper. I focused on it and the info brackets popped up.

Upgraded Kitchen Fork - Uncommon – 1 Heart Damage [BOUND]

“Upgraded?” I murmured, turning the utensil over in my hand.

My phone dinged, showing a new message.

TIP – BOUND WEAPONS RETAIN UPGRADES. Management.

“Looks like everything doesn’t reset,” I thought. “Makes sense, seeing how brutal this place is.”

More modern roguelikes unlocked things as you hit certain milestones, sometimes good, sometimes bad. These upgrades would sometimes make things a little easier, pushing the player toward progression. Of course, not all unlocks were good, like the now darkened hallway that surrounded me.

I looked to my left and right, thinking about how to proceed. I tried willing the map back, like I had done in my last life. Instead of a gridded rectangle, the text No Map” popped up in the top left.

“Of course!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the darkness. “Can’t make things too easy!”

I shook my head. I was slipping again. I had to stay calm. I had to get through this.

There had to be a way to keep track of where I was, assuming I lived long enough for it to matter.

I remembered an old cartoon where the characters had been lost in a hedge maze. They had gotten out by placing a hand on one wall and following it until they had reached the exit. Since my right hand was taken up with the fork, it would have to be the left. Besides, running my hand along the wall was how I found the shop last time.

There it was. I was learning. Each time around there was a little more that I could use. I felt like I was at the bottom of an impossibly high mountain, but I had found a pathway up. It might take me a long time, but there was a way forward, and that was something to cling to.

I just couldn’t let myself go crazy in the process.

My fingers brushed over the stuccoed wall and I took cautious steps forward. So far I had been attacked by a laundry maggot, a sink, and goddamn static, so anything could be a potential danger. I had played RPGs, mostly old ones, where the bloody floor was an enemy, so I brought my combat boots down with a little more force with each step, just in case. It was tiring, but like hell I would let this damn ugly carpet get the drop on me.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the laundry room yet. As my vision wouldn’t even let me see the five feet across the hall, I couldn’t be surprised. I guessed it was probably in the other direction. Considering how my last two laundry room encounters went, I was happy to have a break from it.

And there it was, just at the edge of my little sphere of light, a corner branching off to the left. I had done it. I had finally made it out of the first hallway.

I was tempted to explore the junction, to see how many other ways it branched off, but decided against it. Keep my hand on the left wall and keep moving. That’s how I would lick this.

When I turned the corner, I felt the air change, like I had somehow crossed some sort of barrier. I couldn’t see down the corridor, but for the first time I somehow knew something else was in the dungeon with me.

Preface:

Hey all. I've been working on a LitRPG novel with a Roguelike twist. I'm posting updates daily on Royal Road and I'd thought I'd share the first few chapters here (I pasted in as many as the character limit would allow.

START

I’m not sure when the exact shift happened, but by the time I woke up, I was already boned.

Like every morning, I reached over to the stool that I was using as a makeshift bedside table and grabbed my cell phone to look at the time and check social media.

8:07 AM, and I noticed something else.

“No signal,” I muttered. That wasn’t unusual, as sometimes high winds like we had the day before would knock out some piece of equipment on the lone cell tower on the hill. I was told by some locals that it seemed to happen about two to three times a year.

There were a couple of other notification icons, but I would worry about that later. I put the phone down and sat up in bed. The sun was up, but it had to be a cloudy day, as the light sneaking in through the blinds cast a grey pallor over the darkened room. I rubbed the back of my neck while gazing into the middle distance, doing my daily ritual of convincing myself to get out of bed.

“It’s Saturday Ken,” I told myself. “Get up and enjoy it.”

I put two feet on the floor and pulled myself out of bed and onto the cold faux wooden flooring before exiting the room to the rest of the apartment.

The one-bedroom basement level was showing its age and desperately needed renovation. Old cabinets, uneven floors, peeling paint, scuff marks, and an increasingly dodgy electrical system all gave the place a certain “run-down” look. It didn’t help that all my furniture was second-hand stuff left behind by the previous tenant, but for someone who had to restart life, not having to worry about furniture was a blessing. I do have to question the previous tenants’ tastes, though, as not a single piece of furniture matched, and I’m sure my mother would be mortified if she ever came to visit.

Thankfully, she was on the other end of the country, and I made sure not to move my camera to give my living situation away during our once-a-week video chat.

I shuffled to the combined kitchen and living room, craning my neck back and forth to work the kinks out. Part of it was the shitty mattress that came with the apartment, and part of it was age starting to creep up on me.

A jolt suddenly went through the back of my brain, and I stopped mid-step. A feeling of nausea and disorientation washed over me, and I leaned against the wall as my vision began to swim. For a brief moment, I thought I saw a flash of text appear and disappear before I could comprehend any of it.

Then my vision snapped back to normal.

I stayed leaning against the wall. I was sweating and panting, and my mind was a jumble as it tried to piece together what had happened.

I cautiously pushed myself away from the wall and took stock of myself.

Everything seemed normal, and I now felt okay. I quickly checked my pulse to see if anything was out of whack, but even that felt fine.

I shook my head and dismissed what had happened as a random one-time thing before moving to the kitchen. Maybe I was just hungry.

“Scrambled eggs,” I thought. “Gotta get some protein in my system.”

I opened the cutlery drawer and quickly grabbed a fork before turning to the fridge. I saw another flash of text that went by too quickly to read, and the fork... dematerialized in my hand.

I stood in shock, looking at my now empty hand. I looked down at the floor to see if I had dropped the fork, but there was no sign of it.

“What... the... hell?”

Did I hallucinate picking up the fork? I turned back to the drawer and saw that one was missing.

Something was very wrong.

I shakily reached into the drawer to pull out another fork, but there was something, some kind of force, stopping me from grabbing one.

Another flash of text, again gone too quickly to read or comprehend.

Desperately now, I tried picking up a spoon, and then a knife. I couldn’t seem to hold onto any of them. Every time, I’d quickly catch something “written” in my vision that would disappear before I knew what it was.

I could feel panic spreading through my body. I leaned against the wall again and closed my eyes while I tried to make sense of the situation.

“This is crazy, I gotta be having some sort of mental breakdown.”

I steadied my breath and once again opened my eyes, looking into the drawer. Gingerly, I put my hand in and tried to grab a spoon. Once again, something stopped me.

“Okay, let’s figure this out,” I told myself. I was trying to stay calm, but it wasn’t really working. There had to be an explanation, and all I could think of doing at the time was to check the internet to see if I could find one.

I moved back to my bedroom and grabbed the cell from the stool. Still no signal.

My eyes moved to the notification list. There was a new entry.

You are bound to the weapon: fork. Your weapon inventory is maxed out, and you may not equip an additional weapon until level 2. You may only unbind weapons with a wish spell. Management.

I studied the screen, reading the message repeatedly, trying to make sense of it.

I scrolled back through the notifications and saw that this particular one had appeared several times, all time-stamped to when I had been trying to pull out another item from the drawer.

I stopped scrolling when I saw another notification.

Welcome to the dungeon! Management.

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the message. The only way my mind could make sense of what was going on was to believe I was being pranked somehow.

I looked around the room again, still bathed in the grey pallor coming in through the blinds.

“Right, I’m going to look outside, and everything will be normal.”

I stood up again, moved to the window, and opened the blinds.

I stepped back in shock as the expected view of the apartment building parking lot wasn’t there. There was nothing except grey nothingness. It was like a dense fog had rolled in and swallowed the entire building.

I tried the latch on the window, but like the force that kept me from picking up anything besides a fork, I couldn’t move it.

I saw another flash of text before hearing the faint ding of my cell phone.

It was still in my hand. I looked at the notification screen again, which greeted me with a new message:

Exiting the dungeon has been prohibited until it has been cleared. Management

Dungeon. There it was again. The phone had mentioned it a couple of times.

The concept wasn’t unfamiliar to me. I had grown up playing tabletop games, as well as Western and Japanese role-playing games on consoles and computers. I also read a lot of fantasy, and a tiny piece of my brain was telling me that I was now somehow “stuck” in one, but I couldn’t believe it.

“This is a dream, a very intense dream,” I told myself. “There’s no way this is really happening.”

There had to be a way out of this. I had to at least try leaving the apartment.

I quickly got dressed and stuffed the cell into my jeans pocket before moving to my apartment door. I put my hand on the doorknob.

“Alright, I’m going to open this and things are going to go back to normal... or I wake up.”

I hesitated for a moment before pulling the door open.

“Shit.”

***

The apartment building hallway wasn’t my apartment building hallway. Some of it was familiar. Stucco walls, neon lighting, and a grey carpet that had been getting browner with each passing year, but the layout was different.

The entrance to my place had always been directly across from the stairs leading up half a floor to the small vestibule that served as the main entrance to the complex. It was sometimes a pain trying to nap or sleep because the sound of people tramping up and down the stairs would bleed through my doorway. Now, I was looking at a bare wall with a corridor leading left and right.

I poked my head into the corridor, looking up and down the now singular path. Nothing seemed to be moving, and now that I thought about it, it was extremely quiet. There were apartment doors dotted along the hallway, but they seemed oddly spaced and lacked identifying numbers.

One thing that seemed to be the same was the location of the small laundry nook that was normally located to the right of the stairs across the hall. As it didn’t have a door, I could see part of the floor’s single dryer sitting there as usual, its display showing the amount for a load.

I looked at the cell again to see if it had conveyed any more information. There were no new notifications, but I did notice that the time had not changed from 8:07 AM since this whole thing started.

Something came over me and I stepped into the corridor, the door slamming shut behind me. I hadn’t intentionally stepped out. It was like something had grown impatient and pulled me through the doorframe.

I panicked and turned around, attempting to get back into my apartment, but the knob would not turn.

Text flashed in front of my eyes, but this time it stayed in view long enough for me to read it.

You may not return to your home until you clear the floor. Management

“Shit, shit, shit!” I rattled the knob on the door. It shook in the frame, but it would not open.

I tried kicking the door, painfully jamming my toes and sending a shock of pain through me. I realized I hadn’t even put on shoes before I was pulled out here and only had socks between me and the floor.

As the pain from the kick rattled through my body, a new thing popped up in my vision. If I focused on the lower right, I could see three very real-looking hearts pumping away. While two of the hearts were complete, one seemed to be half greyed out.

“Fuck, you have to be kidding me!”

I was suddenly distracted by the phone dinging with another notification.

Tip - Collect hearts to regain health! Management

I shook my head in denial and tried the door again. Still locked.

I closed my eyes and centered myself again, going through the situation over and over in my mind. No matter how I thought about it, I could only come to the conclusion that I was stuck in some sort of RPG-type environment.

I went over what I knew. As unreal as it was, right now I was stuck outside my apartment with no way back inside unless I cleared the floor. What did “clearing the floor” mean?

If I was in an RPG dungeon of some sort, then that meant clearing mobs, avoiding traps, and possibly fighting a boss at the end of the floor.

I thought about fighting. I took a few boxing lessons when I was in the military, but that was about the extent of it. I kept myself fit, but I was never really a scrapper.

If it was a dungeon, then I’d have to find a weapon of some kind.

At the thought of a weapon, I suddenly felt something cold and metal in my hand. Looking at my right hand, I saw it now held a fork.

“Son of a...” I said, looking at it.

As I studied the utensil, bright blue brackets formed an outline around it. Text formed underneath.

Kitchen Fork - Very Common - Half-Heart Damage [BOUND]

I was armed with a bloody fork of all things? If I encountered monsters, what was I going to do? Stab them with a fork? Maybe go for an eyeball?

No matter what, I had to do something. The laundry nook seemed like the most normal thing about this situation, so I’d at least start by looking around in there.

I moved across the hallway and poked my head around the corner so I could see the full extent of the little alcove. Along with the dryer I had spotted earlier, a laundry sink sat in between that and a front-load washer. Both appeared normal at first glance. As I looked closer, I could see something propped up against the glass of the washer, but from this angle, I couldn’t tell what it was.

I checked the corridor again before stepping into the alcove and approached the washer. I bent down to look through the glass, but I still couldn’t make out whatever was pressed up against the plexiglass.

I pulled the handle and popped it open.

All I saw was a white blur launching out of the machine and latching right onto my neck. Pain shot through me as the hearts in the lower part of my vision began to flash. By reflex, I moved my hands to whatever it was that had latched on and instinctively tried to pull it off. My fingers struggled to grasp what felt like thick, slimy flesh as I thrashed, trying to throw whatever it was off me.

The hearts continued to flash, and I continued to struggle. I felt needle-like jaws clamping into me, tearing my throat. It was more pain than I had ever felt before. My vision began to black out.

In a last desperate attempt, I tried stabbing the thing with my fork, but I couldn’t find the strength to even lift my arms.

The hearts flashed once again, all three of them now greyed out. My vision faded completely to black as I crumpled to the floor.

***

PLAYER DEATHS: 1

KILLED BY: LAUNDRY MAGGOT

FLOORS CLEARED: 0

LAST CLASS AND LEVEL: ADVENTURER - LEVEL 1 (SMUCK)

The pain had stopped, but the memory of dying kept my nervous system screaming.

The transition back to life was sudden and shocking. I woke up gasping on my bed back in my apartment, my back arching and my hands grabbing onto my throat where the creature had ripped into it.

It took a few seconds to regain some sanity, for my consciousness to snap back into place and for me not to be driven by pure primal instinct. I lay there, staring at the ceiling with my chest heaving, trying to suck in as much oxygen as possible.

After calming down a little, I removed my hands from my neck and stared at them, expecting them to be covered in blood and viscera from where the creature had torn into me. Dry.

I put a hand back to my neck, checking for any sign of injury, and found... nothing.

I gave myself a few calming breaths, letting my brain catch up to what had happened.

Just before what I can only describe as having my soul violently stuffed back into a living body, a message had appeared in the black void. There was some information, but PLAYER DEATHS: 1 had burned itself into my brain the most.

“Shit,” I said, unbelieving. That count could mean a lot of things, some very terrible things, none of which I had answers for right now.

I looked around. My apartment bedroom looked the same as it had when I had awoken when this whole thing had started.

I looked over to the stool and found my cellphone sitting there like it had been when I had woken up earlier

Or was it earlier? I looked at the time on the cell, which still read 8:07 AM.

There was a new notification on the phone.

YOU HAVE DIED! THE DUNGEON HAS BEEN RESET! Management

There it was again. Management. Who, or what, was management in this case? Were these automated messages, or was somebody monitoring me? Were they responsible for putting me in this situation?

I finally worked up enough courage to pull myself out of bed. The memory of dying lingered, and I placed my hand to my neck again, trying to rub away what I can only describe as a phantom pain. I padded over to the window and pulled up the blinds, hoping that things had gone back to normal, only to be met with the grey fog pooling itself against my bedroom window.

I had to think about this. Any hope that this had all been some sort of dream or prank was gone now. Seems like death will sober you from any delusions real quick.

What would happen if I tried to stay in the apartment? I remembered the force that had pulled me through the doorway into the corridor and the feeling of impatience that had washed over me when that happened. I got the sense that if I didn’t leave my place on my own, I’d be pulled into the dungeon one way or another.

Could I buy time? How long could I stay here until that happened? How much food did I have? I knew I had the basics, but I hadn’t bought groceries since the previous Saturday, so there wasn’t much left in terms of perishables. I had to take stock.

I went to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap. I felt relief when water came from it, so at least the plumbing was still working.

I then turned to the fridge and pulled open the door. The light flicked on, and I was greeted with nearly bare shelves. Groceries were nowhere to be seen.

There was one thing inside. It was something that looked like a protein bar, but I didn’t remember buying any. Like what had happened with the fork, a set of blue brackets flashed around the item.

RATION BAR - UNPERISHABLE

I reached out to pick up the bar. As soon as my fingers touched it, I was greeted by a message with two options.

TAKE INTO INVENTORY?

YES / NO

The moment I thought yes, the bar disappeared.

Okay, so that meant a couple of things. One, there was some sort of inventory system that I would have to figure out. Two, unless I could find food in the dungeon, I was probably going to starve.

I opened the cupboards in the kitchen to check for any non-perishables. I knew I always kept a few cans of stew on hand in case of emergency, but they seemed to have disappeared as well.

What was interesting was that the various pots, pans, and cooking utensils remained untouched. That was interesting.

I tried grabbing a cast-iron skillet, but once again a force kept me from handling it.

You are bound to the weapon: fork. Your weapon inventory is maxed out, and you may not equip an additional weapon until level 2. You may only unbind weapons with a wish spell.

Guess I was stuck with the fork for now.

Before I was able to investigate my apartment any further, I felt a cold chill forming at the back of my neck. There it was again, that same feeling that had pulled me into the corridor. The impatience.

I decided to get dressed and put on some shoes. If I was going to be forced back into the dungeon, I wanted to be a little better prepared. At least this time my feet would be somewhat protected.

As I reached for my shoes, I paused, looking over at the pair of broken-in steel-toed boots I had “forgotten” to turn in when I had left the military. A pain to lace up, but they would do a much better job protecting my feet.

As I reached for them, the information bracket popped up.

COMBAT BOOTS - COMMON - FOOT ARMOR - ARMOR LEVEL 0.5

I paused, looking back and forth between my normal shoes and the boots. The info bracket disappeared when I looked at the shoes and reappeared when I looked at the boots. All I could think was that everyday clothes and items didn’t get noted by the system.

Encouraged by the fact that the boots had stats, I put them on and began to lace them up.

The chill on the back of my neck continued to grow, and I fumbled with the laces, my fingers growing unsteady. Suddenly, the hearts were back in my vision, but this time there were only two. The third heart that had been there last time wasn’t even greyed out. It was completely gone.

A message flashed in my vision.

TIME LIMIT AT SPAWN POINT REACHED. HEALTH PENALTY INFLICTED. Management

I fumbled with the laces, rushing to get them tied. Just as I finished, another heart was removed.

TIME LIMIT AT SPAWN POINT REACHED. HEALTH PENALTY INFLICTED. FINAL WARNING! Management

Cursing, I sprinted toward my apartment door.

Just as I reached for the knob, the final heart flashed away in my vision.

I froze at the feeling of dread washing over me and a sudden pressure in my chest.

The last thing I felt before the blackness overtaking me was my heart exploding.

***

PLAYER DEATHS: 2

KILLED BY: TARDINESS

FLOORS CLEARED: 0

LAST CLASS AND LEVEL: ADVENTURER - LEVEL 1 (SMUCK)

The bed rocked as I slammed back into my body.

I could still feel it, the pressure in my chest, the memory of the organ combusting, and the wave of pain that briefly followed before I had collapsed.

A feeling of nausea washed over me and I felt extremely sick. I quickly pulled myself out of bed and ran to the bathroom, just making it to the toilet before a torrent of vomit escaped my mouth, and at times, my nose.

I grabbed the side of the toilet tank as I kept heaving, trying to keep myself from crumpling to the floor as the burning sickness continued to gush out of me. I struggled for air as the heaving gave me little opportunity to catch my breath.

When it had finally stopped, I turned on the tap and grabbed a cloth, letting the cool water soak into it before I scrubbed my face. The cold water made me feel a little better, but I was still extremely woozy from the ordeal.

I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time since this entire thing started. My eyes were red from the strain of vomiting, and they had a certain hollowness about them. The phrase “thousand-yard stare” came to mind.

Refreshing the cloth, I scrubbed my face again, this time including my neck and the top of my head. The cold water felt good.

I heard my cellphone ding. I hadn’t had the chance to even look at it before I got sick, and it was still sitting on my makeshift bedside table in my bedroom.

Padding back to my room, I picked up the phone and checked it. Of course, the time still read 8:07 AM. There were two notifications:

YOU HAVE DIED! THE DUNGEON HAS BEEN RESET! Management

That was the same as the last time. The next notification was new.

Tip - You are limited to 15 minutes at the spawn point after respawning. Additional time may be spent at the spawn point by clearing the floor. Management

There it was again. Whatever system, person, or thing I was dealing with was reacting to what I was doing. I might not be the smartest person in the world, but I can recognize patterns, and this was the second time I had gotten a tip notification from “Management” after screwing up somehow.

I looked back at the notification about the time limit. I couldn’t even guess how long I had taken in the washroom. I had to move quickly if I didn’t want my heart to explode again.

I very quickly got dressed, shoving on the combat boots as well, but leaving them unlaced. I moved to the kitchen and opened the fridge, finding the ration bar had respawned. Everything else seemed to have reset in the apartment, so I really wasn’t surprised that the bar had returned.

My stomach was still queasy, and I had no desire to eat, but if I was going to move forward with this, I was going to have to be as prepared as I could be. I put the bar into my inventory, knowing that I still really didn’t know how the inventory system worked yet.

There was a lot I still didn’t know, and it didn’t look like I would have a chance to really sit down and think about it while being under a constant time crunch. I’d have to take things as they came. As I learned quickly in basic training, “Embrace the suck.”

A chill hit the back of my neck, and I knew I was running out of time to vacate the apartment. As I headed toward the door, I spotted my winter scarf hanging on the coat rack. I only ever wore it when it was extremely cold out, so it had been sitting unused since the milder temperatures started a few weeks ago. Thinking back on what had happened to my neck the first time in the dungeon, I grabbed it as I stepped into the hallway.

Everything was new. The cellphone notifications weren’t kidding when they said the dungeon had been reset. My apartment door was now on the terminating wall at the end of a straight hallway, which continued to what looked like a T-junction some twenty meters away. It looked like the laundry nook remained, but this time it was nestled into the right-hand wall right outside my apartment door.

I bent down and laced up the boots, taking the time to make sure they were properly secured. I then wrapped the scarf around my neck. Unlike the boots, there had been nothing displayed for armor value, but I still hoped that the thick fabric would give me a layer of protection.

Jeans, T-shirt, combat boots, and a scarf. I realized two things at that moment. First, I looked ridiculous. Second, I was an idiot for not grabbing a coat as well to provide more protection for my torso. It might not help much in this situation, but cloth armor and motorcycle leathers were definite things used for protection. I’d have to figure out something for the rest of my legs as well. The pressure to get out of the apartment had affected my thinking.

My stomach gurgled. I was at that weird point where I wasn’t sure if my stomach was upset because it had been violently emptied recently, or if it was upset because I was hungry, because my stomach was empty.

“Time to figure out this inventory thing,” I thought.

The moment I thought of inventory, two boxes appeared at the bottom center of my vision. While the one on the right was empty, the one on the left displayed the ration bar. The moment I focused on the bar, it appeared in my left hand.

Like when I had picked the item up, brackets formed around the bar with a selection prompt on the bottom.

RATION BAR - UNPERISHABLE

CONSUME?

YES / NO

I focused on yes, and the bar disappeared. The pang in my stomach stopped, and I felt somewhat sated, like I had just physically eaten something. While it settled my stomach somewhat, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed out by not actually eating the bar.

With the disappearance of the bar, the two boxes at the bottom of my vision were now empty. I guessed that I would have some sort of limited active inventory, but I wouldn’t be sure without further experimentation. That meant I had to get more items, and that meant I actually had to explore the dungeon.

The more I lived in this reality, the more it felt like I had been shoved into an old-school roguelike. I had played some over the years, including a web build of the original Rogue. There was some variety in gameplay, setting, and mechanics, but there always seemed to be a few commonalities.

In roguelikes, the world was usually procedurally generated, including maps, monsters, and loot. Another defining mechanic was the world resetting upon player death. While I had only encountered one monster so far, the map resetting after I had died was a major clue.

Well, I only had proof that the map had reset once. I hadn’t even made it to the dungeon on my last “life,” but I’m pretty sure I would have encountered a different layout if I had actually gotten out of my apartment door without my heart exploding. My life being represented by hearts felt like something you’d see in newer games. In older games, hit points were usually just represented by a number.

If I thought about it, the lowest amount of damage I could take was a half-heart, and I had three. So, six hits in all, or six hit points.

My only encounters with damage so far had been when I kicked the door and injured myself, and my oh-so-quick and painful death from the laundry creature, so I wasn’t sure if things could do more than a half-heart of damage.

My neck started to itch. I wasn’t sure if it was from the scarf or from thinking about when the creature had ripped into it.

I gazed wearily at the laundry nook off to my right. I felt myself hesitate, knowing that pain and death were now very much a real part of my reality. The fighter in me, the soldier, knew that things would not improve unless I found the courage to move forward.

Poking my head into the nook, I looked over the washer and the dryer. I stepped inside, cautiously looking into the transparent, windowed doors of both without opening them. Both appeared to be empty.

I willed the fork into my hand and readied myself.

“Here goes nothing,” I thought.

I pulled open the door to the washer, moving back and to the right along with the door as it opened. If something were to jump out this time, at least I wouldn’t be directly in its path.

Nothing.

I did the same thing with the dryer, stepping to the side as I opened the door. Once again, no creature flew out of the machine.

I was just about to leave the nook when the laundry sink began to move.

***

END

Writer's Note:

If you enjoyed what you read and want to see the latest chapter you can follow the progress here:

Roguelike Apartment

I'll probably post compilations of chapters here to NG once I have written enough material.

Over two hours of Dystopiatech - EVERY piece of related audio compiled all in one convenient audio file!

Dystopiatech: Complete Audio Archive

For those not in the know, Dystopiatech is my personal audio comedy project that I've been working on and off on since Fall 2022. Each audio bit features something from the world of Dystopiatech, a cartoonishly evil tech company who's motto is "Ethics? What are those?"

Thanks to everyone who has supported the project here on NG and elsewhere.

Just recoded and uploaded the 150th piece of Dystopiatech.

I still have a few ideas floating around that I intend to record over the next several days, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able do daily pieces. Dystopiatech won't stop per say, but it will probably turn back into a irregular series again where I only record when inspired.

I have some time off over Christmas, so I intend to compile everything I've done into a... what I think will be a multi-hour long supercut. The last time I did this was at the end of the initial Dystopiatech's 30 episode run.

I want to say thanks to everyone who has given support to this project over the past couple of years.

A reminder you can still join the Discord

https://discord.gg/Jj4QQT2HPC

You can also follow Dystopiatech on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@DystopiaTech83

Hey all, I've created a Discord for all things DystopiaTech

Discord Link

If it doesn't work, please DM me

Well, looks like I posted my 200th audio bit on NG. Been quite a run over the past few years.

In other news:

DystopiaTech is growing by leaps and bounds on YouTube (I always post the audio here on NG a day before it gets uploaded to YT), and some people have wondered about animations. I really don't know how to proceed on that front. I'd love to be able to pay people to animate some of the bits, but I'm just barely getting by. It's kind of a bootstrapping thing where in order grow I should probably get some animations, but I can't pay for animations if I don't grow. Not sure how to proceed yet - for now I'm just going to continue audio only and I guess we will see what the future brings.

The YT channel itself is inching towards 200 subs. If you'd like to support me on there its:

DystopiaTech - YouTube

Took part in the $109 Adventure Game Challenge last month and my game "You are not my son" placed 4th overall.

Full results can be found here:

Top ranked games in the $109 Adventure Game Challenge - itch.io

The game itself is playable here on NG:

You are not my son

Since I've started posting them as shorts, the Dystopiatech Youtube channel has grown my leaps and bounds, cresting 100 subs over the weekend. I'll always post Dystopiatech bits here first (and I'm still producing new audio, albeit at a slower pace) - If you could support the YouTube page, that would be awesome as well.

DystopiaTech - YouTube