[Original Novella] Tell Me What the Rules Are Going to Be, Part 3 (the finale!)

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Previous parts:} 1, 2

“Why don’t YOU tell ME what the rules are going to be?” This shut him up. Briefly. He came back with “I want out. But I can’t leave without help.” Out of where? This game? For the first time I thought to check the session length next to his name. 166,302hr. An error, surely. Some quick math in my head turned that into nearly 19 years.

As I’d been warned, there was no obvious way out of this region. Room after room of bizarre nonsequitorial models and textures. Most of it gore. By far the largest, most elaborate private area in the game based on what I’d seen of it so far. “I didn’t want to hurt you. Or your family. I just want out. It won’t let me go until I carry out the instructions. This is the only way.”

I hammered him with questions but he only told me what he saw fit to, none of it directly answering anything I’d said. I considered for the first time the possibility that somebody was making him do this. Using the same methods he’d used to control me. Finally, something useful appeared in the chat window. Two long numerical strings.

Plugging them into Google confirmed my suspicions. GPS coordinates, albeit in the lesser used of the two formats I’m familiar with. I took a screenshot for good measure, then closed the game. After a while I realized I was trembling again. Afraid, but now unsure of what to be afraid of.

For all I knew he was someone like me, roped into this scheme by another mysterious voice on the phone. Who could well be yet another innocent person, trapped in a long chain of tormented and tormentors. Who sits at the end of it? Would I find them at the coordinates? An invitation which felt more like a dare.

Days passed before I worked up the courage. The coordinates indicated a forested region near the coast, some four hours of driving. I expected he wouldn’t have picked me if I couldn’t reach it. I hated to spend so much on gas, but had long since resigned myself to following the breadcrumbs, wherever they led. Forward is the only way out.

I expected something monumental when I arrived. For all the tedious offroading I’d done to get there. What I found was a grassland strewn with boulders and smaller rocks. When the GPS told me I was right on top of the indicated spot, I briefly wondered if this was the point of it. To send me on a wild goose chase.

Then I noticed the edge of some concrete mass sticking out of the dirt. I might’ve missed it had I not stuck around. Looking at it from afar, I could now see there’d been a house here at one point. The raised area was plainly what remained of the foundation, now covered in soil and grass. A few bricks jutting up along the edge confirmed it.

I did my best to scrape away the soil but couldn’t do much with my bare hands. I drove to the nearest gas station. Had all kinds of shit on account of this being a popular area for campers. Ammunition, fishing gear, and what I came for. A short but sturdy shovel. I winced at the additional cost and hoped I had enough gas to get home without stopping.

With the shovel it was easy work removing the layer of soil, and soon enough I found a trap door. Rusting steel, lined with rivets. But not locked. Once all the soil around the edges was removed, I found I could easily pull it open. I contemplated calling it good for the day. The sun was no longer directly overhead as when I arrived, but creeping down towards the horizon.

Not relishing the idea of a second expensive trip out here, I instead pushed on, descending a concrete staircase into some sort of basement. At least that’s what I figured it for until I touched the walls. More rusty metal, and corrugated, like a shipping container. Somebody’d buried this, and poured concrete around it as reinforcement.

I came to a heavy steel door. As I moved to take the handle, I heard a loud motor whine, then a kerchunk. The door came loose, and hung very slightly ajar. I didn’t feel ready to open it. But I’d been afforded no other path. If I went home, it would simply resume. He’d go after my Dad next. Maybe my housemates. Appearing everywhere, however desperately I’d try to evade him.

So, I opened the door, and went through. I found myself in a dank, pitch black musty room. What little light came through the doorway illuminated something difficult to resolve at first, unfolding before me as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

At the far end of the chamber sat a pale, obese man covered in weeping lesions. Shackled into a chair that, by the looks of the pipes coming from the base of it, was also a toilet. He wore some sort of antiquated early nineties virtual reality helmet, with “Forte VFX-1” etched into it. He struggled slightly and whimpered as I approached.

When I got close enough I understood why he was silent. The helmet included some sort of medical mask which performed both forcible respiration and intravenous feeding. A beige liquid, piped in from somewhere unseen, periodically deposited into his stomach to prevent starvation.

The shackles suddenly opened, and the helmet lifted via a motorized mechanism. The pale fat man thrashed his stickly thin bony arms and wailed. With what I initially mistook for anguish but soon realized was relief. A hatch in the floor just in front of the chair slid open. The chair itself tilted forwards, dumping the pitiful creature down the chute. He did nothing to resist. Echoing up the chute I heard a brief, shrill scream. Abruptly followed by silence. The hatch slid shut, and the chair turned towards me.

I backtracked towards the door, but its motorized locks re-engaged before I could reach it. I screamed until my throat was raw, pounding on the heavy steel door in vain. Finally turning, slowly, towards the terminus of my strange journey. The chair, revealed faintly by flickering light coming from the eyepieces on the headset.

With nowhere left to go, after some hours of agonizing over it, I stripped from the waist down and sat in the chair. The shackles immediately closed around my wrists and ankles, and the VR headset slowly lowered into place. I found myself in the elaborate red labyrinth of World dot com, seen through the eyes of the black antlered figure.

As the mask closed over my face, feeding tube invading my mouth and beginning to secrete beige nourishment, a message appeared in the chat window.

“The rules:

1. If you resist breathing, eating, or otherwise attempt self-harm, punishment will result. First you, then your loved ones for every subsequent infraction.
2. If you overtly describe the nature of your confinement and how you arrived here in a way which deters others, punishment will result.
3. If you attempt to contact law enforcement or anyone else with the intent of having them extract you, punishment will result.
4. You will be released when you secure a replacement.”

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^{The End.}