The door doesn’t open.

My heart drops, body suddenly frozen, fear locking up my muscles. ‘No,’ I think to myself desperately, forcing my body to move, and I shove again. The door stays closed. ‘I can’t die here!’

This close the shimmering light from behind the door is almost blinding. It hurts to look at but something in my chest is nearly sobbing at the sight. I know if I can make it inside I will live. More than live. I need to get on the other side of the door. I have to because-

I almost forget about the monsters chancing me, until a roar echoes down the hallway. The first of the lizard creatures has rounded the corner, it will be on me in seconds.

“Fuck,” I mutter to myself, shaking my head to clear my thoughts and closing my eyes to shield myself from the magnetic allure of the light. “So much for being resistant to charm effects stupid system!”

I can hear the familiar ding telling me the system is giving me a window, but I don’t open my eyes, just push against the door. I’m out of options. Between curse and death, I take my chances with curse every time. “Please just fucking open already!”

Throwing all my weight into the next shove, I push-

“SNAP!”

Something breaks on the other side of the door and for a second nothing happens until it swings open with a crack, hinges squeaking as it slams into the wall.

“It’s open…”  I mutter, shock rushing over me for a second.

“HISS!”

“Fuck the monsters!” and I dive through the open door, tumbling into an awkward roll as I safely fumble my way through. Definitely not one of my more graceful landings, but I was in a bit of a rush.

I spin around just in time to see one of the lizard-porcupines get its nose over the threshold of the room.

“Oh no you don’t!” and I lunge back, throwing my body into a shove, slamming the door shut in the monster’s face with a satisfying crunch. The beast howls in pain, and I grin in victory. I did it. I survived.

The door creaks, pushing open a few inches before I shove back, holding it closed. I reach up to scramble for the handle and curse under my breath to find it broken. ‘Of course! I broke down the door to get in!’

“BANG!”

The door rattles as another one of the monsters rams into it. My palms are sweaty, and I can hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears, almost loud enough to drown out the snarling outside.

There’s another heavy push, stronger than the last, I claw at the stonework, wedging myself into the doorframe, pushing back as hard as my exhausted body can. All I can do now is keep my place, using my own body as a makeshift lock to keep the door closed. The spear uselessly falls from my hands, rolling across the tile further into the room.

The terrible sound of claws scraping across wood echoes in my ears as the monsters try to rend the door into wood chip sushi. My heart stutters in my chest, and I wedge myself even further into the doorway, every musicale bowstring tight as I brace. There’s only a few inches of wood separating me and being gutted by an angry monster.

Serval more bangs and slams follow, each time the door rattles and slides a few inches before I manage to scramble back and re-brace.

For 30 minutes, me and lizard-porcupines play this sick game of tug-a-war, until they finally start to get bored. There’s still low growling echoing from under the door and the now hauntingly familiar sound of claws clacking across cobblestone as they move around outside, but for the most part, they have stopped throwing their bodies at the door and trying to shard the door apart like a kitty post.

My muscles ache so I carefully shift my position to get a better hold. My mace barely scrapes against the ground but it's loud enough to whip the monsters back into a frenzy, slamming into the door and howling like a pack of the strangest wolves known to mankind. I mutter a long string of curses under my breath, filthy things I know Zeke would scold me for days for even thinking let alone say, but he’s not here right now to protest. And if I ever want to have him protest then I need to find him, which means I can’t give up to a bunch of overgrown lizards.

The door rattles and creaks, but somehow by some miracle holds strong. The lizard monsters are quicker to lose interest this time and the sounds of their shuffling softly fade away.

I want to let go and ease my protesting muscles, but I keep still, bracing the door as I slowly count the minutes, making sure I don’t hear any more of them prowling around outside. Things continue to quiet and slowly my heartbeat stops ringing in my ears. I can tell they are still outside, prowling around for a tasty Nova snack, but they probably won’t try breaking down the door again.

Slowly I get up off the floor, my knees are a little weak, but I manage to stand with a little help from the wall.

“Damn I need a nap,” I mutter, rubbing at my shoulders and cringing at the flickers of pain from my strained muscles, I’m definitely going to be sore for days after this.

No longer fighting for my life I risk a glance around the room.

I stumble back into the wall with a hiss, covering my eyes with my hands. Whatever the fuck is going on in this room it's for sure able to affect me. I already feel the weird tugging, which is made worse when I can’t even really see what’s causing it.

“Damn it, why can’t I turn these off?”

Ding!

I risk a peek down at the blue system window.

[Would player like to turn off the effect from [Gaze of an Unfilled Dream]?]

“Are you kidding me?” I groan, “I could have turned this off the whole time?”

It doesn’t answer just repeats the message. [Would player like to turn off the effect from [Gaze of an Unfilled Dream]?]

“Yes, god damn it,” and I close my eyes as I reach out blindly to slap the screen.

There’s another cheery ding, and though I can’t really tell a difference with my eyes shut I know the strange ghostly sight is gone.

Slowly I open my eyes again. No blinding light. No weird compulsion. No monsters.

“Well, that’s better.”

And I lean back against the wall, more tired than I want to admit, but I can’t rest until I’m sure this place is safe. And based on the glow-y, mind-control light, chances are likely this place is very bad.

But I’m going to be stuck here for the next foreseeable future so better get used to whatever strangeness is here.

The room is… just that, a room.

There are a few lanterns hanging from the walls, but unlike the classical metal lanterns that hang in the winding corridors of the castle dungeon outside, these are made of a bright glittering metal, silver I assume, or maybe something even more expensive. Bright white flames glitter inside of them, and their light casts strange shifting shadows on the floor, ones that glitter like the night sky and flicker in and out of view like ghosts. For a moment I'm reminded of Night, and the living shadow at his back, the man I “saved” according to Hacker, but I watched whatever his soul is get torn apart and restitched together, no one lives through that.

I shake the memory away and continue scanning the room, already on guard for whatever made this room impossible to see without my strange vision and what was making the weird feeling that I had to be here grow inside of me. But there’s only one thing in the room. Sat square in the middle its hinges sparking like gold, is a plain, unassuming wooden chest.

Zeke was always the one far more into video games and fantasy than I was, the rare times he did convince me to play with him it was fighting games where I just had to mash a few buttons, but even my estranged knowledge of RPGs tells me this is VERY bad. I was there in the room when Zeke happily ran up to a treasure only for the treasure itself to eat him. A “mimic”, he called it at the time through a few tears as the single monster killed everyone in his party and he had to restart the whole dungeon again.

I have no idea how to check if it’s an evil chest or just a normal one. It sitting alone in a magically concealed door, points towards it being real or the designers of the system being absolute jerk-wads if it's fake, and after all my experience with the system so far….

“It’s totally a monster,” I grumble to myself, glaring at the chest. “if I leave you alone will you leave me alone?”

Shockingly, the chest does not answer. I’m not really sure what I was thinking asking it a question, the lizard-porcupine things certainly couldn’t talk, don’t see how a living chest would be any more likely to strike up a conversation.

“System, you have anything useful like a monster list or a map?”

With a ding, the blue window appears, [Please pass the tutorial to unlock additional features!]

“Great, really helpful as always.”

‘Well,’ I think to myself gently and softly sitting back down on the floor, leaning back against the door to keep it closed, ‘this might be a stupid idea but I’m out of options.’

I glare at the chest one last time, but it doesn’t seem like it’s moving at all and it's certainly not doing anything when I look at it, so with really no other options left, and starting to suffer from an adrenaline crash I take my chances. Getting as comfortable as I dare, I lay my mace in my lap and my spear next to me, keeping a light grip on each as I quickly slip into sleep.

Though I swear just before I fall unconscious, I hear the creak of hinges.

I’m just awake enough to think ‘Getting killed by a chest is a loser way to go,’ before I’m asleep.