By C.O. Bonham
Flashes of memory assaulted me—wandering alone in a blizzard, standing on the edge of an icy sea, the word “DEAD” flashing in the air. And always, waking up in the same place.
Everywhere I looked, prismatic light reflected off a sparkling surface. And the cold crept into my bones.
However I’d arrived, at least I was dressed for the weather. Thick gloves covered my hands and made bending my fingers hard. A fuzzy hood shielded my head, and thick goggles protected my eyes. I reached up to take them off.
“Stop!” a deep voice said from beside me. “Leave the goggles on or you’ll be snow blinded.”
The man, muscular and dark-skinned, had thick facial hair. I rubbed my own smooth face. No wonder I was so cold. I untucked a scarf from my coat and pulled it over my nose.
“I’m Tundra,” said the Inuit. “Let’s get you home.” I wished I could see his eyes. But they, too, were covered by thick, dark lenses.
“Where are we? How did I get here?”
“That doesn’t matter. Right now, we need to head east.”
I shielded my eyes as I searched for the sun above the horizon. It hung low in the sky. Dawn or dusk? I had a fifty-fifty chance of choosing the right direction.
“Wrong way,” Tundra announced.
“It must be sunset. Sorry.” I turned and gaped at another sun.
“You’ve never seen a sundog before?” He chuckled merrily. “Walk towards one and you’ll end up miles off course.” He pointed at the sundog. The false sun was smaller and not as round as the real sun. His hand panned back to the spot before me. “That way.”
The sun was almost behind us when we reached the end of the world, and I stared at the vast expanse of water before me. “You said we had to head east to get home, but this is as far east as we can go.” I rubbed my arms. Despite its thickness, this coat was not keeping me very warm.
“Do you see that slim line at the horizon?”
“Yeah?” I blinked. Had that been there before?
“That’s where you need to go.”
“You want me to swim across a freezing ocean?”
Out in the water, what looked like a slender pole breached the surface. It could have been the periscope of a submarine or the long tooth of a narwhal. But as the thing approached and flopped onto the icy beach, I realized it was a walrus.
I shook my head. How did I confuse that for a narwhal? These goggles made it so hard to see straight.
In my head, that word flashed over and over again. DEAD. Was I dead? Was this the afterlife? Or… we’d walked east, so maybe this was Russia, and Alaska was on the other side.
DEAD. There was a town in Alaska named Deadhorse.
As I gazed out at the strip of land, a structure materialized on the other side. It began as a blurry collection of squares that resolved into a towering castle made of ice. This felt so real, but words don’t flash in the air, and castles don’t materialize.
“This is a game!” My hand shook as the pieces fell into place. “The last time I was here, I lost a life in the storm. The game reset, and now I need to get across the sea before the storm hits again.” I found myself laughing, because if I didn’t, I knew I would cry. And in these temps, I couldn’t risk that.
“You think this is funny?” Tundra crossed his arms.
“Honestly,” I crossed my arms to mock his own movements, “it’s boring.” I took a deep calming breath before continuing. “This is the world’s most boring game. It’s just walking and cold and an old Inuit who doesn’t help much.”
He didn’t deny that this was a game.
I reached up to remove the snow goggles.
“No!” said Tundra. “You must get to the castle first. Storm’s coming.” As if at his command, the wind picked up, and the once-blue sky clouded over to a dull gray.
I stared at the water and raised my hand. Held it out. “Since none of this is real, I summon a magic unicorn whale to take me across.”
Tundra nodded as a majestic ivory horn breached the surface. Water spewed from the whale’s blowhole as it swam up to the ice break. I climbed on the narwhal’s back and rode it like a surfboard across the sea. When the whale slowed, I made a huge Mario-style jump onto the ice before me.
The castle was constructed of perfectly square bricks stacked on each other like pixels. As I crossed the threshold, a new word flashed in the air. WINNER.
I ripped off my snow goggles and blinked away the icy images to reveal a stark white hospital room. In my hands, I gripped a pair of VR glasses.
I took in the hospital room. An IV fed into my arm, and a heart monitor emitted a steady beep. What was I doing here? I thought it had all been a game. I should be at home, lounging on my couch.
“Andie, you’re awake!” said a voice from my left.
“Diana?” I stared at my computer nerd sister, her blond hair up in pigtails like some anime character. “What happened?”
Diana pushed her thick glasses up on her nose. “You were testing my new game. Then something went wrong, and we couldn’t wake you up. I was so afraid you wouldn’t make it. You’ve been in a coma for over a day.”
“I wouldn’t have made it without Tundra.”
“Who?”
“Tundra… the Inuit NPC?”
“Andie…” Diana gave me her my-sister-is-a-weirdo face. “There’s no Tundra in my game. No Inuit for that matter. You were playing Lava Surfers. It takes place in Hawaii.”
Can you guess which song inspired this story? (This month it could be any time period, any genre.) Share in the comments!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fun twist on the idea of Virtual Reality!
Thanks, some of my favorite stories are about people trying to determine what is real. This was my attempt to capture that.
Nice, you make us feel the cold.
Thank you. I had a lot of help from the awesome havok editing team.
Unexpected ending! And surfing on a narwhal’s back – great visual.
Thanks narwhals are one of my favorite animals.