2 Level ZERO

Ada felt her eyes flutter open, gracefully. She got up from the dirty ground. She had somehow managed to stay clean. Her hair was as amazing as ever, and her attire despite being old and raggedy looked flawless as it draped over her frame, elegantly. A village peasant stared at her in awe and-

Okay, that's not what happened... Here's the real version.

Ada felt a hand on her shoulder. It shook her gently.

"Wake up," a voice said.

Ada rolled onto her other side, not at all graceful, or elegant, mumbling something that sounded like, "go away..."

The hand shook her more vigorously, "Come on, wake up!"

Ada ignored the disturbance and tried to return to her dream that she was already in the process of forgetting. The hand released Ada's shoulder. Ada heard distant footsteps gradually getting quieter. She smiled to herself. Now she could return to sleep...

"AHHRG," Ada sputtered. The hand had returned with a large pail of cold water and had proceeded in drenching Ada. Ada got up, completely un-gracefully. Her hair stuck to her face because of the water and her clothes were covered in dirt. The water turned the dirt into mud, and Ada could distinctly feel a layer of grime coating her skin. Her feet made squeaking noises.

"What was that for?" Ada asked the hand, which apparently had a body.

A girl about Ada's age was standing with a hand on her hip and an empty pail in the other. She was tan and had hazel eyes. Her hair was covered by a green cloth that made her eyes sparkle. Ada remembered from a conversation with a friend at school, that the cloth was called a hijab. The girl put the pail on the ground and extended her hand

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty. I'm Aisha," Aisha introduced herself.

"Uh, Ada," Ada said and shook Aisha's outstretched hand. Ada couldn't dismiss the feeling that she knew Aisha from somewhere. She voiced her thoughts, "Do I know you?"

Aisha smiled vaguely, "I don't think so."

Ada hummed in response. Aisha had begun to walk. Ada felt like Aisha wanted her to follow. So she did.

"Come on, we have to go. It's almost night and you really do not want to be out at night. Trust me," Aisha subtly told her to walk faster.

The events leading up to this moment flooded back to Ada's memory. Leyla, the money, a link...

The link had teleported her here. There was no other explanation. But, wasn't electronic teleportation still being tested? Ada was pretty sure that it was illegal to teleport someone. Scientists were still trying to make it safe for humans, so unsupervised use of teleportation was definitely frowned upon. Ada made a mental note to check up on the local laws when she got home… if she got home. She shook these thoughts away and let Aisha lead her to who-knows-where.

For some reason, Aisha seemed like a trustworthy person, and Ada didn't think the prior had ill intentions. Ada soon fell into step with Aisha, who was maneuvering over logs and around inconveniently placed trees, effortlessly. Aisha made it look easy. Ada wondered just how long Aisha had been here. Wherever here was.

Aisha looked up, "Hurry. The sun's setting. We have to get there, now," there was an urgency in her tone that Ada was hearing for the first time. Aisha's pace quickened, and Ada had a hard time keeping up.

Ada knew that this was no time for sightseeing, but she couldn't keep from letting her eyes drift around, taking in her surroundings. She and Aisha were in what looked like the woods. It wasn't the trail-to-a-cute-little-cottage-with-birds-chirping-and-little-bunnies-hopping-around kind of woods. It was the if-you-wear-a-red-cloak-then-a-wolf-will-come-and-eat-you-alive-in-fact-it-might-eat-you-alive-even-if-you-aren't-wearing-the-color-red type of woods. The setting sun painted the sky blood red, and the air became chillier, especially to Ada who was still wet. There was a howl somewhere behind the two retreating girls, not at all helping change the oh-no-we're-gonna-die vibe that had settled over them. Needless to say, both of them picked up the pace. The two were almost sprinting when Aisha suddenly stopped. The sun had set completely and eery darkness settled over them, and Ada fought the urge to run. Aisha seemed somewhat experienced. If they were attacked, Ada wanted to be with her, so she snuffed out any instinctual desires to flee, and firmly planted her feet on the ground. Aisha kneeled down, cautiously looking from side to side, first. Then, satisfied with what she saw, or rather didn't see, the girl moved a couple of leaves and twigs carefully off the ground and to the side. Ada leaned forward, somewhat out of breath from the hiking (if you could call it that), she curiously watched what Aisha was doing. Aisha had uncovered what looked like a metal capsule. Ada watched as Aisha dug her fingers under the "capsule" and jerked it upwards. It wasn't a capsule, it was the door to an underground shelter or something like that. Aisha climbed into the opening and held onto rungs that were attached to the wall.

"Follow me," Aisha said, her voice echoed slightly, "We'll answer any questions you have once you're safe."

We?

Who was "we"?

What was going on?

Ada opened her mouth to demand answers now, but when she heard a scuttling sound in some trees nearby, she swallowed her questions and resorted to a whimper. She followed after Aisha and lowered herself into the hole, gripping the rungs as if her life depended on it, which it kind of did, because of the drop, but that was beside the point.

"Close the door after you. There should be a rope up there. Tug on it and the top will slide into place," Aisha's voice floated up from down below, echoing slightly.

Ada nodded, but then realized that since Aisha couldn't see her, Ada would have to actually say something to confirm she would pull the said rope.

"Uh, okay," Ada replied. She found the rope Aisha was talking about and pulled it.

"But watch out, so you don't-" Aisha began to warn Ada when a thump was heard, "do that..."

Ada saw Aisha's silhouette wince in sympathy. When Ada had slid the hatch to cover the entrance, she didn't duck out of the way in time and it hit her in the head. Hard.

Ouch.

"That happens way too often. We're trying to find a practical way to close the door from the inside without being in danger of a concussion, but the best idea so far was from By. He said we should just stuff pillows up there, and it works, but it doesn't shut right, so it gets really drafty..." Aisha rambled a sort of apology.

"It's fine," Ada said, rubbing her head. She bit her tongue to keep from asking who By was. Aisha had said that they'd answer any questions Ada had when they got there. Ada desperately hoped that she wasn't getting kidnapped as she climbed lower and lower in the darkness...

Soon Aisha got to the last rung, and she hopped down. She made a gesture for Ada to do the same. It felt weird blindly jumping in the pitch-black dark, but Aisha had done it so it couldn't be that big of a deal. Ada jumped after her. The lights turned on with a mechanical whir. Ada saw Aisha standing by a switch. The two were at the end of a metal corridor. At the other end, there was a large door that looked like it belonged to a vault. Aisha walked over to it and turned something that looked like an old-fashioned steering wheel. She twisted a couple of dials and typed a passcode or something in a very old-looking number pad. No one used physical keys anymore. Holographs were the new thing. As soon as Aisha finished typing whatever it was that she was typing, she stepped back. A green light bulb flashed in the top left corner and the door swung open, revealing a cozy-looking living room. Two people played chess on the floor, and another person was sitting in an armchair, reading. Aisha walked inside and grabbed an apple from a fruit bowl on the coffee table. She bit into it and sat on a couch, patting the seat next to her. Ada, feeling as awkward as ever, uncertainly sat next to Aisha.

"Questions?" Aisha took a bite of her apple.

Ada had a ton of questions. But out of all the question words: who, what, when, where, why, and how; why seemed like a good place to start.

"Why am I here?"

"Because you followed me."

"No, I meant, why am I here, in the middle of the jungle, or whatever?"

"Oh, so you mean why are you here? Like here-here?"

Ada didn't quite understand what Aisha meant, but she nodded anyway.

"Well, that, dear Ada, is a very excellent question, indeed. Why are you here? Why are any of us here? What is our purpose? Why does the world spin on its axis? Why is the sky blue? To be or not to be, that is the question," Aisha said dramatically. Ada just stared.

The person reading said, "Aisha, I think you're scaring her," without looking up from his book.

"Well, then, you answer her questions," Aisha said, "I'll jump in if you need help explaining something," she added.

The boy with the book shut the hardcover in his hands with a bang that resonated throughout the underground shelter. He winced at the loud sound, then looked at Ada, making a prompting gesture for her to repeat her question.

"Uh, why are we here?" Ada asked again, awkwardness kicking in with full force as she played with a ball of lint in her pocket.

"I'm assuming you got here because you either clicked a link of sorts or downloaded some sort of game to a device." He didn't even wait for Ada to nod before he continued reciting his explanation, "That game you clicked or downloaded teleported you here. On a virtual island. The only way we can get off is by completing the game," he finished. The speech seemed rehearsed like he had explained this to multiple people before.

"How does the game-?" Ada began to ask.

"You will get instructions at some point. Probably while you're sleeping," Book boy said before she finished her question.

"No need to be so cold," a girl playing chess said from her spot on the ground. Ada wouldn't pretend to be a chess wiz or anything but judging by the way the girl was glaring at the pieces, it was obvious that she wasn't winning. The girl (who had just lost her queen to her opponent) scooped up all the pieces on the board and dumped them in a worn box, causing the opponent to mumble about a "sore loser" and "cheating".

"Oh, be quiet, By," the girl said to her opponent, whose name was apparently By. Ada guessed that he was the same person who gave the pillow suggestion for the hatch. She stood and came over to Ada, "Hello, my name's Elizabeth Reeves, but everyone calls me Liz."

"Hi, I'm Ada," Ada introduced herself.

"She's Aisha," Liz said, pointing towards Aisha, who gave a sarcastic mini salute, "Feng," She pointed to the book boy, he didn't look up, "and that annoying dude on the floor, is Byron," she pointed to Byron who was putting the chessboard away, while glaring daggers at Liz.

"I know what it's like when you first get here. I bet you have a lot of questions. Aisha's too dramatic, Feng's too apathetic, and By's too annoying, to give you proper answers, but I'm more than happy to clear some things up for you," Liz said.

By said something that suspiciously sounded like, "Yeah, right. You just wanted a reason to end the game before I won."

Liz stuck her tongue out at him, but she didn't contradict his interpretation of her intentions.

Liz started talking, probably to prevent Byron from accusing her of cheating again, "Alright, well, I'm no good at the whole let-you-down-easy ordeal, so I'm just going to do this whole information dump thing. Here it goes," Liz paused for a moment as she decided how she would phrase her next words, Aisha and Byron were watching Ada and Liz with great interest and Feng had gone back to his book, "I think I should start with the whole teleporting thing. When something teleports, it doesn't just disappear from one place and appear somewhere else. Instead, it has to be directed to that somewhere by electronic waves. Sort of like WiFi. Teleporting is basically like going super duper fast, like, electron fast. And when you teleport, you have to pass through a virtual world, even if it's only for a nanosecond. Right now, we are in the virtual world. A small part of it, anyways. We're in a VR game, and-"

"Okay, we're in a computer. Got it. How do I leave?" Ada interrupted impatiently. None of this seemed all that outrageous to her. Technology was developing at a scary pace. No wonder people had found out how to turn humans into WiFi or whatever. She had to get out of here and back to Leyla. This game was obviously a scam. She highly doubted there was any reward for finishing it. She had to get back to the real world to start earning money. Who knew how much time she had wasted already?

"We're not in a computer. We're in a virtual world. There's a difference," Liz huffed, then continued, "We can't just leave. We have to finish the game to leave."

"Okay... and how long do you think it'll take to finish the game?" Ada was slightly disheartened, but if she got out of this virtual universe thing quickly, then she might have time to do a bit more research and find a way to raise money for Leyla, "It'll definitely take less than six days, right?"

"Aisha's been here for more than a month, and Feng, even longer than that. Completing this game isn't going to take less than six days," Liz laughed.

Ada felt like she was going to be sick. Her face paled, her emotions clearly engraved in her heartbroken expression.

"Look, Ada, we might be able to finish the game faster since now we have more people. Besides, the only reason it's taking us so long is because of all the trial and error. Now, we'll probably be a whole lot faster-" Aisha tried to comfort Ada, who had pulled her knees up and was now hiding her face. Byron interrupted her.

"Aisha, don't give her false hope," Byron said, dryly, "We're stuck here, Aya."

"Ada." Ada corrected, on instinct.

Aisha guided Ada to a room, saying something about, getting settled, and sleeping on it. Ada didn't hear her. She stared blankly at her new room, once Aisha left. There was a small bed and a nightstand. Ada let herself flop on the bed, feeling miserable. She fully intended on throwing herself a huge pity party, but her eyelids sunk closed, pulling her into an unnatural unconsciousness. Ada remembered feeling alarmed before she drifted to sleep.

*

"WELCOME, NEW PLAYER," a robotic voice greeted. The monotonousness made Ada feel anything but welcomed.

"Hi?" Ada said, feeling discombobulated as her eyes tried to adjust to her bright white surroundings. The floor under her feet was a blank white color, and Ada didn't miss the creepy fact that her shadow was absent. The sky was the same pearly shade as the ground. Ada didn't see any walls or objects. Ada squinted at the horizon, which stretched out into infinity, trying to find the source of the voice.

"YOU ARE IN A GAME CALLED 'ESCAPE'. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS GAME IS TO GET OFF THE ISLAND. IF YOU MAKE IT OFF THE ISLAND, YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE GAME. 15,000 ECOIN$ ARE REWARDED UPON COMPLETION. THE ONLY WAY OFF IS IF YOU FIND THE KEY. THERE WILL BE MANY OBSTACLES IN YOUR WAY, SO BE WARY, YOUNG ADVENTURER. YOU ARE ONLY GIVEN THREE HEALTH CHANCES. WORK TOGETHER WITH YOUR TEAMMATES TO SOLVE PUZZLES AND OVERCOME CHALLENGES. YOU WILL FIND A MANUAL WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. GOOD LUCK, BRAVE SOUL."

Ada had barely comprehended the words before the white world turned dark.

*

When she woke up, Ada was back in the room from earlier. She looked up vacantly and tried to process everything that was happening. Her life had really taken a turn on Crazy Road.

Ada saw a sunroof-esque circular window on the ceiling that she hadn't noticed before. Since the room was underground, there were specks of dirt and clumps of leaves on the glass but it still lets in golden ribbons of light that highlighted the dust particles in the air, making them look like floating stars. Ada thought it was strange. The sun- not the dust. She clearly remembered it being dark when Aisha brought her here. Had she really been asleep for that long?

Ada's thoughts were cut off with a complaining rumble from her stomach. Reminded of the fact that she hadn't eaten anything since lunch yesterday, Ada made her way to the living room. She recalled that there was food there.

Ada padded through the hallway and into the living room, passing a very questionable painting of a banana with a mustache that was signed "B" at the corner. When she stepped into the living room, she noticed that she wasn't the only one awake at this early hour. Aisha and Liz were playing a most heated game of chess.

"Good morning," Ada said, though the purpose of that "good morning" was more to announce her arrival than to wish them a good morning. Ada was in a rather foul mood.

"Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it to be or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?" Aisha quoted in an exaggerated wizard's voice, causing Ada's moodiness to somewhat dissolve.

"All of the above," Ada squeaked in an equally ridiculous voice, playing the role of Bilbo.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure Ada was wishing me a good morning. Not you," Liz stuck her tongue out, interrupting the reenactment of the scene from "The Hobbit".

Aisha responded to Liz by sliding her queen across the board and smugly announcing, "Check."

Liz looked down at the board and saw, to her dismay, that her opponent had indeed cornered her king. Moving her king out of the way, Liz turned back to Ada, "Good morning to you too, Ada. I really wish I could stay and chat, but unfortunately, I... have something... that I need to do. And it's really important. So, I, um, have to go... could you, by any chance, play Aisha? I nearly won, so the game's almost over, but Aisha needs someone to practice with," her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper that the Aisha in question could no doubt hear, "She's not the most talented at chess, you see."

Aisha, who was obviously miffed at Liz's declaration, moved a knight.

"You're right, Lizzy. The game is almost over. Checkmate."

Liz looked at the board in disbelief, tried moving her king in every way possible, and huffed in annoyance when she noticed that every way resulted in her king getting captured. She put her king on its side wordlessly admitting defeat. She got up to do the "important" thing that she allegedly had to do.

Aisha smirked as Liz walked off, "So how'd you sleep? Like the bunk?"

"Yeah," Ada answered shortly, not wanting to talk about the weird dream she had, "What is this place?" she asked partially out of curiosity and partly to change the subject.

"According to the game's backstory, it's some sort of World War III underground bunker for soldiers. There's actually a prison east of here where they kept war prisoners and hostages. It's obviously not what the soldiers really used, but both the prison and this bunker are virtual recreations of historical sites."

Ada looked around taking in the premises with a new sense of... admiration of the WW III soldiers that used to live here? greif for all the deaths and casualties? awe at the realisticness of the virtual bunker? Ada didn't know how to describe what she was feeling. Her grandfather, who she never met before, had died fighting in WW III. She wondered if he had been stationed in a bunk like this.

"Yeah. It's cool. Sad too, if you think about it. You can read more about your specific backstory in your instructions. You should have gotten them by now. Everyone has a different backstory," Aisha said, picking up the chess pieces.

"What's your backstory?"

"Well, apparently, I'm supposed to be some archaeologist who was headed to Eygpt when my helicopter got caught in a storm. I got blown off course and crashed onto this island. In the crash, I lost an ancient chest that was stashed in the luggage compartment by my sponsor, who has a mysterious connection to this island. I'm supposed to find it."

"Have you made any progress?"

"Not as much as I would like. So far, I've found a map of the island, and a sketch of the treasure chest. I also learned that the sponsor sabotaged my flight so I land here, instead of Egypt, and that she wants me to find a way to open the chest without breaking it, although, it looks very old and fragile so I'm pretty sure it's already broken because of the crash," Aisha handed Ada the sketch, "This is what it should look like."

Ada held the paper loosely. It looked like it would crumble if she breathed too hard on it. The treasure chest seemed priceless and it was obvious by the heavy lock attached that whatever it contained was just as valuable. Precious stones were adorning the chest and even the lock was decorated with small jewels. What really caught Ada's attention was the keyhole in the lock. Hadn't the weird voice from her dream mentioned something about getting a key? Maybe she was supposed to help Aisha open the chest. Ada voiced her thoughts.

"I think I'm supposed to get a key of sorts."

Aisha nodded, "That would make sense. Feng's brother was looking for a key before he... " Aisha let her voice trail off with unintentional dramatics.

"Before he?" Ada prompted.

Aisha flinched, "Left."

"Left? Do you mean he completed the game? Did he get the key? Where'd he leave it?" Ada was aware that she was being nosy, but this might be her chance to get back to Leyla in time.

"He didn't finish the game."

Silence.

"Where is he, then?"

The silence became even silenter, making Ada wonder how that was even possible.

Ada was debating whether she should repeat her question or drop the topic when Byron plopped himself down next to the two girls.

"Good morning," he said in his soft country-style accent.

After another beat of awkward silence, Byron cleared his throat, "Uh, what's going on?"

Aisha finally spoke after what seemed like forever, "Nothing's going on. Ada was just asking about what happened to Feng's brother."

Byron's eyes widened.

"I'm going to start getting breakfast," Aisha said, standing up, and with that, she walked out of the room.

"Feng's brother ran out of health," Byron said quickly, as if he was ripping off a band-aid.

He must have seen Ada's confusing expression because he elaborated, "If you run out of health, it's game over. We don't know what happens when it's game over, but I doubt it's pleasant. Aisha knew Feng's brother before he... left. I just got here a week ago, so I never met him," Byron said answering all her unspoken questions.

The duo sat in another uncomfortable silence. The quietness was so loud that Ada almost didn't hear Aisha when she came back into the room, a grocery bag in one hand and a stack of napkins in the other. She was holding a bagel in her mouth so her, "Breakfast is served," sounded like, "bwehfath ith therwed."

Aisha placed the napkins around the coffee table and placed a bagel from the bag on each one.

"Ada, you can take a bagel and we have some cream cheese if you want it. We also have ketchup, because, for some deranged reason, Liz won't eat anything unless it's covered in ketchup. By, could you wake up Feng? Liz will be here in a bit, after she finishes her 'very important thing'," Aisha ordered kindly, and took a bite from her own bagel. Ada was glad to see that Aisha's funky mood had dissipated.

Ada opened a box of cream cheese to put on her warm bagel, and couldn't help but wonder where Aisha had gotten the food. Was there a "Bob's Bagels" in the middle of the virtual woods? Ada didn't remember a lot of details from last night's jog through the forest, but she felt like a fast food (were bagels considered a fast food?) restaurant was something that would stick out.

Aisha must have noticed Ada staring at the bagels clinically because she started talking, "The bagels are from a mysterious trap door that somehow magically conjures up three meals a day."

Ada, upon hearing Aisha's matter-of-fact tone that didn't match up with her words at all, looked to see if she was joking.

Aisha smothered a laugh when she saw Ada's incredulous expression.

"I can show you if you want. There are still more bagels there in case anyone wants seconds. In a couple of hours, they'll disappear and be replaced by whatever's for lunch. We have no idea where the food goes or where it comes from. It's awesome. We call it the Cauliflower Cabinet."

"Why 'the Cauliflower Cabinet'?"

"Because of the door, there's a picture of a white tree. By said that it looked like cauliflower, and the name stuck. Y'know, one time, Byron, being the idiot he is, went into the Cabinet to see where the food comes from. He figured that he'd disappear along with breakfast," Aisha chuckled.

"Did it work?"

"Long story short, right when the food was about to disappear the Cabinet's trapdoor flung open and By got ejected. He sprained an ankle and cut his arm pretty bad. I'm pretty sure he bruised his shoulder and may have gotten a slight concussion. But he swears that before he was pushed out by some unseen force, he saw the food pixelate and swirl into a food paradise. I doubt that By would try that again, even if it meant going to the 'food paradise'. Byron couldn't get out of bed for a day, because of his injuries."

"Are you talking about the Great Cauliflower Cabinet Catastrophe? Or the Byron Prison Break of '36? Or the Banana Disaster? Or-"

Liz, Byron, and Feng had arrived just in time to hear Aisha's last sentence. Liz, of course, had taken this opportunity to poke fun at Byron, who had quite a bit of incidents to his name despite only being in the game for just over a week. Ada was infinitely curious about the "Byron Prison Break of '36" and the "Banana Disaster". She wondered what other misadventures the group had gotten into. Ada felt like an outsider looking in at their friendly teasing exchange.

"The Cabinet one," Aisha answered, stopping Liz from naming any more of Byron's adventures-that-went-horribly.

Byron was glaring at both Liz and Aisha, but he looked like he was trying to hold back a smile. Aisha shrugged sheepishly at him and tried to change the subject, "Who's hungry?"

"Byron's always hungry," Feng commented groggily. He wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"Feng's always tired," Byron countered.

"Boys are always dumb," Liz muttered while drowning her bagel in ketchup.

"Liz's always gross. I mean, who puts ketchup on a bagel?"

"Hey! It tastes good," Liz defended.

"You need to get your taste buds checked."

"You need to get your brain checked," Liz said, taking an aggressive bite from her blood-red bagel.

"You-"

"You all need to stop arguing over small things," Ada interrupted Byron's comeback, rolling her eyes.

"I second that," Aisha agreed.

Byron frowned at the ketchup bottle for a second, as if it had committed a serious offense towards Liz's bagel (which in his opinion, it had), then he reached for the cream cheese "accidentally" knocking the ketchup bottle off the table in the process.

Ada held back a laugh but settled for a small smile at the childish conversation. Maybe being doomed to a virtual world wouldn't be so bad, not with Aisha, Feng, Byron, and Liz to keep her company.