As the brightness quelled and my vision returned on my right I was greeted with a lush forest reaching as far as the eye could see and on my left a winding river, teeming with merchant boats and fish, on either side of me were mountains pointing their peaks to the sky as if trying to poke holes in it. My feet rested on a road of cobblestone covered in moss and in front of me a bustling city of creatures and humans alike.

“Excuse me sir” I heard as a carriage, pulled by a enormous pig trotted right past me elegantly, the man that held the reigns with one hand took his straw hat off ordered the pig to stop and gave me a nod, the pig followed suit.

Driver: “Over yonder be your folks, the great Flummox be blessed”

The pig blew air out of its nose shooks its butt, and off they were, towards the city.

Kane: “Well that’s new”

Valery: “ A Piggums, a fairly common creature, friendly, however it will devour anything so never fall asleep anywhere near it’s enclosure, might meet its teeth or the mafia”

Kane: “Why would I do that?”

Valery: “To meet your family of course” He gave off a raspy computerized laugh and a badumtch sound blared out.

Kane: “I walked right into that one didn’t I, so why the name”

Valery: “Horpig and pighor were taken so we just settled on this one, I don’t know I don’t make the rules, let’s stop wasting time, we need nourishment you wouldn’t notice it with your heightened adrenaline”

We walked towards a Stone Hedge like circle next to the forest, there lay a tall black monolith in the middle, it flashed different randomized symbols, the area was surrounded by cottages, the likes you would find next to a lake made of big old logs and I could see smoke rising from their chimneys. When we approached two girls and a man ran to us, the man was holding some sort of self made wood weapon in his hand. They all had white garbs on and looking down I realized I was wearing similar ones. How did I not notice?

Valery: “You got the clothes when you came through the portal, and yes I know what you are thinking I can read your mind”

Man: “Hey stop who are you and where isa stephanie”

His brow was furrowed and his black eyes didn’t have a lick of fear….I knew this man, from college, it was Frank from Cameroon a buff womanizer in his time and a brother in arms, but why did he look younger like he was around 18 and his accent was thicker.

Kane: “Frank old pal… tell me bud what the fuck is going on”

Frank: “Kane….Kane” All the anger was gone and his jaw relaxed and he smiled, he was the most gentle looking man when he was smiling, I could imagine a bluebird sitting on his shoulder, he ran to me and gave me a bear hug, tapping me on the head as he lifted me with one hand, laughing in that long slow laugh like a train taking off.

Kane: “ Can’t…. breath” I pushed him with one hand and he was taken aback as I pushed him off easily. Something I couldn’t have done in college.

Frank “ how, ehh what da fuck, u strong buddie”

Kane: “my bad really, maybe cause I leveled up”

Frank: “Level up, where”

Kane: “Your forearm AIs of FAIs didn’t tell you anything”

Frank: “No only that this iss new globe, a paradise, need to hunt, gather berries maybe make some snuu snuu hahah”

The two girls stared at each other quite concerned, the one on the left with blonde hair, blue eyes and dimples as she smiled embarrassingly looked weirdly familiar.

Kane: “Come on man, we haven’t even had our first bottle of vodka yet”

Valery: “Another Alcohol San…great, the FAIs as you called them seem to be slowly integrating them to the area with bits and pieces of information here and there a logical choice as a few cycles ago...

Other Valery: "Stop"

Valery "about a thousand landed here and we told them everything, the monsters, the system, the real death and they seemed to handle the information well at first. Then the night came and with it silence and with silence the whispers of helplessness and mayhem, the night became a waking nightmare. Chaos ensued, women were used for everything they were worth, the town was set on fire as the men with hollow eyes laughed, death stalked the land, some ran out in the wilderness, Jericho who I was supposed to teach chopped his hand off laughing and jumped into the river, it was mayhem and to the evil ones it was rapture”

All of us stared at Valery in disbelief, there had been others and they had retreated to a state of pure instinct. Pure concentrated evil. This wasn’t a game I played, this was real, too real. We stood there silent for a while, listening to the leaves rustle with the wind.

Kane: “You seem to be a bad teacher Valery”

A faint chuckle, we hoped it would ease the feeling, the feeling of not knowing what would happen next, there was a gooey darkness that clung on us showing us the future, almost certain death sat like an old friend on our backs.

Valery2: “Now you’ve done it Valery1”

Valery1: “No that’s Valery 3 I’m Valery1”

Valery2: “Oh, sorry Valery1, Valery 3 you’re a dumbass”

We laughed now as hard as we could to push the tension off of us and it worked.

Kane: “How about that bottle now, you know these Valeries get drunk right”

Frank: “hahaaaaaaa I wonder if mines got a tolerance” He bellowed.

Girl: “I don’t really drink because Jesus said it was bad and I guess this is afterlife, so if there is alcohol maybe I could have a sip or two”

Kane: “Wait…. Jessy from Highschool, no fucking way, what is going on here”

Jessy: “Heh, I’m glad you remembered oh and by the way have you seen stephanie, she had a red shirt on and a pair of glasses she went looking for help”

End of Part 3

(So this was written pretty fast but it almost wrote itself so there might be some mistakes I apologize for, thank you so much for reading, I’ll go back chapters and fix stuff that might not sound as good to me as it did when I wrote it but the plot will be the same so no worries, looking for somebody to draw a picture for the end of the parts, let me know if you’re one and up for it, but again thank you) Remember to like :D