The Earth is My Prison

by Richard Sean Clare

  Code stood by a blank painting on the wall. She gestured and it changed to show different images.

  “Tag,” she said, “are you ready for some heavy exposition?”

  “Hit me.”

  “In the beginning Ember was much like Hell. Players would risk their lives, battling demons over a variety of different Hellscapes. The only sanctuary was Greenvale where the player would rest and resupply for their next mission. As the War broke out and the real world became unliveable, a group of five people made up of Mr. Matthews, a game dev and three high level players banded together and sought refuge in the Gameworld.”

  “Question?”

  “Yes?”

  “Weren’t there any nicer games?”

  “Ember was the largest, most well maintained game world on the planet. It was the logical choice.”

  “I see, please continue.”

  “It being a hell dimension did present some problems. We had to make things more cosy before we moved in. We deleted the more sinister enemies, sealed off the dungeons and removed things like yearly fire rain.”

  An image of a peaceful village appeared onscreen.

  “Greenvale. The world hub, where they player could, rest, resupply etc. And it just kept growing. Ezekial begat Hebron, Hebron begat Zachariah, you get the idea...”

  Greenvale grew in size, the castle being built at the centre.

  “With each generation the people grew up a little, culturally and technologically. The Knights of the Round were formed to keep them safe and give a gentle hand to their development.”

  I put up my hand to ask another question.

  “You don't have to put up your hand, Tag.”

  “Sorry, but, if their real bodies were in the real world wouldn't they still need food and water and all that stuff.”

  “Ah that was a tricky one alright,” said Matthews, “the original team finally realised the only way to get around that was to sever the connection with their flesh and blood bodies. So, they made the ultimate sacrifice.”

  I was shocked to see images of desiccated corpses in chairs.

  “Don’t worry,” Matthews said, “right now your body is in a state of metabolic hibernation. It will be weeks before you have to face a choice like that.”

  “And the other people,” I asked, “the game people, do they know this world is fake?”

  “No, we protect them from that truth, which would probably destroy them. How would you feel if your life was just a story written by some nerd?”

  I nodded.

  “Life was good. Our ancestors had survived the War and made a new world for themselves. But there were complications with paradise.”

  On the viewer was a forest with what looked like a misty hole cut into it, giving way to nothingness. Code took over.

  “We called it the Glitch. Just a small area at first, about the size of a postage stamp. But it kept getting bigger and bigger, until it was several miles wide.”

  “What was it?”

  “We still don't know. The leading theory is the program ran out of memory and started dumping assets as a life-saving measure. Of course, that doesn't explain the things inside it.”

  Dark impossible shapes moving behind the mist.

  “There were anomalies...things that shouldn't have been there. Things we thought we deleted. Things that weren't even in the base game. We were afraid of what would happen to our people if they got out. So, we went in.”

  Images of the original Knights, let by Matthews, popping out of existence as they entered the void.

  Matthews cut in: “We were arrogant. We thought there was nothing in this world that could surprise us. We were wrong.”

  Chaotic, hard to decipher images. I thought I recognised the Knights who had entered the Glitch, but only barely.

  Mattews: “I was the only one to make it out. We lost everyone. But it was worth it.”

  A moat of deleted content surrounded the Glitch, keeping it at bay. Code:

  “We couldn't heal the wound but we could stop the rot from spreading. It has remained stable ever since. Nothing going in and nothing coming out.”

  “Until now,” I guessed.

  “Until now,” she echoed, pausing before the next slide.

  Code seemed unsure of herself all of a sudden. She snapped her fingers and the picture changed to that of a young woman. She was story-book pretty, with golden hair and the kind of face you pretend to find cliché but really love.

  “This is Lady Gwen. She was the youngest member of our group. She was…my wife,” she finished.

  I had never heard of a woman marrying another woman but I figured that was because I had grown up in a crazy macho prison. I felt a twinge of disappointment as my crush for her died in embryo.

  “Do you need to step out?” Matthews asked Code politely.

  She shook her head.

  “She was our cleric. The one who made sure we didn't die. Now she needs us.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “As of right now we don't know. But we think we know a man who does.”

  An image of a young man came on screen.

  “Greenvale is much more socially progressive than a society of similar technology level on Earth. We saw to that by sewing certain concepts early on. Women being full humans, that type of thing. Unfortunately, not everyone got the memo. Martin is one of those.”

  The man was slightly overweight, acne-scarred, and with eyes that bore a grudge against the world.

  “He's a smith, 28 years old, classic case of too much brains and not enough sense. He's had plenty of incidents with women in town. He falls in “love” with them but goes into a rage when they don't return his feelings.”

  “A real class act,” Matthews added wearily.

  “The last time he went too far. Screaming at the girl in the street, painting this on her door.”

  The word “SLUT” in red letters.

  “The townspeople turned against him, he closed his shop and hasn't been seen since.”

  “You think he went to the Glitch?”

  “That's our theory. During his outburst we overheard him say he would take her to the “Ghost World” and never return. Ghost World is what the people of Ember call the Glitch. They believe it's a place for lost souls.”

  “It was about that time Gwen went missing,” Matthews said.

  “Forgive me,” I said, “but you're like Gods, how could you have allowed this to happen?”

  “That's what we've been asking ourselves.” Code said. “May I be excused?”

  “Of course,” Matthews said.

  She left, tears in her eyes.

  Matthews turned off the viewing painting and sat beside me.

  “We tried the God thing, Tag, it didn't work. After all, why would you bother to do good if you knew God was there to fix your mistakes? We thought it wiser not to interfere in the Greenvalian’s development.”

  “Like the prime directive?” I asked, remembering my Star Trek novels.

  He smiled. “Yeah.”

  “We're questioning that position now,” he said with shades of regret. “Listen Tag, I know it's asking a lot, I know you must feel like running a million miles right now, but we wouldn't ask if there was any other way.”

  Then it dawned on me.

  “It's my body you want! Sorry, it's cause I still have a body in the real world isn't it? I can't get messed up like those poor people that went into the breach.”

  “You catch on fast. Yeah, that's it exactly. We'll do everything we can to prepare you, do everything in our power to keep you safe. But there's still no guarantee.”

  “Isn’t there anyone else?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “No, he replied, there is no one else. There’s a limited number of character slots on this server, by coming here you filled the last one.”

  Still I hesitated. I had only met these people, was I really going to risk my life, my sanity, for them? Matthews continued his pitch.

&nbs
p; Matthews was waiting patiently for my answer. I felt manipulated. I had to hand it to him. He had laid out a fine tale where I would save the girl and be a hero. I didn’t know if what he said about helping me find my Mother was true, but if it was I couldn’t take the risk of leaving empty-handed.

  I thought about Code. Matthews hadn’t engineered her pain. The woman she loved was in danger and though she had said nothing, probably not wanting to influence me, her eyes had pleaded for help.

  “When do I start?” I said.

  6.

  After such a long stream of exposition I was exhausted and I excused myself to take a nap. Lying on my comfy double bed with the sun streaming in it should have been easy to get to sleep but the incredible task I had been set put my brain in overdrive. It tested every possible scenario, trying to prepare me. But how can you prepare for the unknown?

  ~

  Code was waiting for me in the courtyard, her head was shaved and she wore a simple tunic. She was leaning against a post adorned with deep sword cuts, stretching herself out like a cat. I wondered if she liked guys as well as girls. Then I remembered she was still married and it would be impolite to ask.

  “When do we start training?”

  “First things first,” she said. “We have to choose your character class.”

  She waved her hands and two green-framed windows appeared in the air. They both showed a rotating version of me wearing different attire.

  One me wore black leather and cloth armor with a hood and bandanna covering most of my face.

  “The rogue is the sneaking class,” she said, “he avoids combat and strikes from the shadows.”

  The other was a knight wearing chainmail along with a heavy shoulder plate and greaves. He was armed with a spear and a small round shield.

  “The fighter is a good all-rounder, skilled with a variety of weapons.”

  I remembered that Matthews had said there was only one character slot left. I made a mental note to ask him about it later. In any case, it was an easy choice.

  “Rogue, please.”

  She tapped something on the screen, closing the window. I looked down to see I was wearing a new set of clothes. They were black and made out of a light, airy material. The shoes were more like slippers, with a groove between the big and little toes.

  “So, what's the story with my armor?” I asked. “I feel like I’m ready for bed.”

  She pulled a knife from out of nowhere and stabbed me in the stomach. I fell back in shock, clutching at myself.

  “What did you do that for?”

  I pulled my hand away, expecting my guts to spill out, but despite being winded I was okay.

  “That's pure spider silk, it could stop a shotgun blast.”

  The courtyard was filled with all kinds of dope shit; vaulting horses, sword racks, and those neat practice dummies with all the arms.

  “Okay, let’s get started!” I said enthusiastically.

  “We don’t really have time for all this,” Code said, bursting my bubble.

  She opened up the window with my character on it again. She scrolled to where it showed my character’s stats, and pulled the sliders over as far as they would go. While my Strength wasn’t that high my Agility and Dodge were through the roof.

  As soon as she upped the stats I felt energised, like someone had pumped an electric chemical into my veins.

  “Come on, Noob,” she said, “it's time for your training montage.”

  ~

  “We’ll start slow,” she said, “we don’t want you overshooting and jumping off a cliff.”

  She took me through a series of moves that were a mixture of gymnastics and tai-chai. It was a little slow and boring but it gave me an inkling of what I was now capable of.

  “If you’re ready, we’ll try the Gauntlet,” she said.

  She showed me to another part of the yard where there was an insane obstacle course made up of moving platforms, spike pits, swinging ropes and pendulum blades. It looked like it was designed to put ancient gladiators through their paces.

  I attacked it like a ninja, shooting up ropes and climbing walls like a spider-monkey.

  “How am I doing?” I shouted down to Code as I swung from a rope by my legs. A set of pendulum blades swept down and I dodged them with ease. Code tossed motivational slogans from the side lines.

  “Believe in yourself! Forget your limitations!”

  The last obstacle was a leap of faith over a fifty foot drop into a pit lined with punji sticks. Feeling invincible, I hurled myself off the edge. Pointy bamboo rushed towards me. A strange rush of air and then I was lying at Code's feet.

  “Did I die?” I asked.

  “No, but I should have let you. This isn't a game, Tag.”

  “Well...it is,” I said sarcastically.

  “Get your ass back up there!” she yelled, laughing and slapping me on the back.

  Facing the jump again I took a run at it and stretched my arms in mid-air to catch the far ledge. I hit the wall hard on the other side and had to clamber up quickly to stop from falling. There I stood, painful and victorious, the course conquered.

  “Now do it in half the time.”

  “Fuck!”

  ~

  The Knights waited for me in the Great Hall. I had been deemed worthy. I hadn’t defeated Code but apparently no one else ever had either.

  The Hall was hung with the portraits of the Knights new and old. I looked over the names of the ones lost to the Glitch; Mellerick – The Monk, Elron – The Ranger, Feste – The Bard, Ursa – The Druid.

  I kneeled before Matthews and he presented me with my weapons. Twin curved daggers with the handles carved to resemble a scorpion’s tail. I took them graciously, sliding them into loops on my belt. Matthews pinned the red Pentagram button to my chest.

  “Arise, Ser Tag,” he said proudly.

  My fellow knights were chanting my name: “Ser Tag! Ser Tag! Ser Tag!” and the fallen ones in the portraits seemed to look more kindly upon me. Before my eyes a new portrait appeared on the wall. It was me, my daggers raised, standing against a backdrop of swirling shadows.

  I understood then why young men go to war.

  7.

  Ravenswood, the forest that contained the Glitch, was a day’s travel from the Keep. Luckily Code had access to a flying broomstick. I put my arms around her waist as we whistled through the clouds, trying not to look down. Knowing the monumental task I would soon face alone, I held on tight as long as I could.

  When we came to the forest, she set us down and we proceeded by foot. She had been silent for the journey, troubled by her own thoughts, and I attempted to distract us both with conversation.

  “You never said where you were from?” I asked.

  “I come from a wonderful place with lots of women and baked goods,” she said.

  “Oh. If it was so wonderful why did you leave?”

  “Blue wasn’t really my color,” she said playfully.

  I was slow but I got there in the end. “You’re from the prison!”

  She nodded.

  Though I hated most prisoners, I thrilled at meeting one in a foreign land.

  “How did you get out?”

  “I fucked my way out.”

  “Oh.”

  “Kidding, dummy, I made a ladder. It wasn’t that hard.”

  There was one question I had to ask.

  “Did you know a woman named Maria, long black hair.”

  We walked for a while, while she thought about it. Finally, she said: “Yeah, I remember her, kind of a troublemaker, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that’s right.”

  I would have asked more questions but then there it was, The Glitch. It was a vast expanse, aggressively empty, filled with a pale swirling mist. A deer was lapping at a puddle near the border. It had an impressive crown of antlers that encroached the mist. When it raised its head I saw the top part of the antlers had been neatly sliced off. Wobbling a bit, the poor creature wand
ered back into the forest.

  "Is that going to happen to me?" I asked Code.

  "I don’t know. I've never seen that happen before."

  There was something I’d been meaning to ask her although I was afraid it would make me sound like a coward.

  “If things go really bad and it looks like the mission isn’t going to work, can I log out?” I asked, touching my temple.

  “Maybe. But the Glitch messes everything up, even basic commands. You might log out but you might also give the command to end your life functions.”

  “Ah.”

  “I'm supposed to tell you about the prophecies,” she said, taking out a small scroll.

  “Prophecies?”

  “Yes. The Mad Monk Mellerick, when he returned from the Glitch, still had enough of his reason to speak though he only spoke in riddles. Recently they've started coming true. So, Prophecies.”

  “Wait, did you call him the Mad Monk before he went into the Glitch?”

  “No, after.”

  “That's not a very nice legacy.”

  “Do you want to hear them or not?”

  “Yes but I don't believe people can predict the future.”

  She read from the scroll: “A Prisoner will come from the West, entering the Void will be his Test, to rescue Good from Evil's breast.”

  I looked at the scroll. There it was in black and brown.

  “Okay, maybe he got lucky with that one. When did he write that?”

  “20 years ago. He has some dire warning for you, would you like to hear them?”

  “Okay.”

  “Dire Warning the first, A fool's playthings are just for fun, but if one touches you you're done.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Code shrugged. Dire Warning the second: “Beware ye a familiar face, lest ye never leave this place.”

  “Familiar face, got it, what's the next one?”

  “Third and final, steer clear of fireplaces.”

  “Why fireplaces?”

  “It’s what happened to him,” she said. “He saw this fireplace and the image of it got stuck in his vision until it was all he could see, even when he closed his eyes. Drove him crazy.”