Chapter 1: In The Game

Opening his eyes, Jake immediately knew something weird was happening. Raising his right hand, and then his left hand, Jake sat up and looked around while panic and confusion was starting to set in.

Examining the room, he saw that there was four beds, one of which he was on, along with some lockers that had names on them. Along with lockers and beds was a poster on the wall, one that was impossible for Jake not to recognize.

It read 'Keep calm' accompanied by a small cat wearing a space helmet. Looking at everything more closely, he saw that things started to look more and more like how he remembered it to look.

Starting to sweat, Jake got out of the bed and stood up, but he immediately regretted that decision as he got hit with vertigo and started to lean forward and fall. In the midst of his falling, someone suddenly tried to grab his shoulders, but they fell with him as he was too heavy.

Looking at the person who tried to hold him up, he saw someone that he was all too familiar with as a custom poster of them hung up in his gaming room. It was Ryley Robinson, except he looked like a real living person and not a game character.

Standing at a height of 168 centimetres, or 5'5, he had light brown skin, dark brown eyes, and dark brown hair styled in the faux-hawk style with turquoise stripes. His face was long with pronounced features, but a surprised look was currently on his face as he stared at Jake, who was collapsed on him.

Rolling off Ryley with a thud, Jake got onto his hands and knees while his stomached started churning, and he crawled toward a garbage can that was by the door leading into the room. Resting his head on the edge garbage can, he vomited into it while some vomit came out of his nostrils.

Standing up, Ryley went over and rubbed Jake's back while wondering who this man was, why he was seeing him for the first time, and why he was wearing such outdated clothes. Having been passing by the cabin, he had looked inside to see the giant man falling and tried to grab him, but he wasn't strong enough to do anything and fell alongside him.

In between vomiting sessions, Jake squeezed out a sentence. "I'm sorry... for... f-falling... on you, I don't... know why... I'm vomiting." After five minutes, he stopped and was feeling better, but he was now thirsty and in pain as he had only been puking up bile for the last two minutes.

Going outside of the room for a minute, Ryley came back in with a bottle of cold water and handed it to Jake, who opened it and drank a mouthful before putting the cap back on. Covered in sweat, Jake slowly stood up to his full height of 270 centimetres and rested one hand on the wall.

There was only about half a foot between him and the ceiling. Rubbing his temples, he did a better examination of his body, which he noticed was the exact same as before. Even his clothes stayed the same as before.

Walking towards the door, Jake stopped and looked at Ryley, who was staring at him like he was a some sort of alien creature, which he technically he was. "How long until we reach our destination?" Asking this while thoughts on what happened to the Aurora in the game floated through his mind, he patiently waited for a response.

An American accent then came out of Ryley's mouth as he gave an answer to Jake's question. "We should be arriving right about n-", but he was cut off as an explosion rang out accompanied by a massive tremor that caused the whole ship to shake.

Turning pale, Jake had flashbacks of what happened less than 20 minutes ago, and he looked to Ryley, who had a confused and panicked look on his face. "All crew members please escape from the Aurora using the life-pods immediately. I repeat, all crew members please escape from the Aurora using the life-pods immediately."

The Captain's voice came through whatever kind of PA system they have and Jake rushed out of the cabin room. Looking over his shoulder at Ryley, he shouted at him, "Snap out of it! Where are the life-pods?!", and then went back in and grabbed him by the shoulder.

Snapping out of his daze after getting yelled at, he struggled out of Jake's grasp and rushed in a certain direction, and then he shouted behind him," Follow me!" But he got no reply as he looked behind him to see that the giant man he had been looking after was right behind him with his hands reaching for his body.

Picking up Ryley as if he was a toy, Jake continued running, "I can run faster then you, just tell me which direction to go and I will go in that direction." Realization dawned upon Ryley as he truly wondered where this monstrous man came from.

In a matter of minutes, Jake and Ryley reached the life-pods before anyone else, and they chose to enter life-pod 5. Setting Ryley down, Jake looked at the hatch of the life-pod, which was much smaller then he was, and nearly had to dislocate his shoulders before being able to enter.

Once inside, he looked at the seat that he was supposed to sit in, and he got depressed and angry that it was such a tiny seat. Hardening his expression, he jammed himself into the seat and somehow managed to get the safety bar around his chest, but he knew it wouldn't be a good idea to stay in that situation for long.

Listening to the sound of rushing footsteps, Jake started to get anxious because they weren't ejecting from the ship yet, and he knew that they would die if they didn't go soon.

Trying to pinpoint locations of the footsteps and which life-pods they were heading to, he had immense difficulty because of the amount of people trying to enter the life-pods.

Thinking about the events in game, some of the things about it were already starting to get fuzzy and he didn't know why. What he knew he would never forget was where all of the locations of the life-pods would land and the ingredients for the hatching enzyme.

Whatever was making him forget about the rest of the game's details tried to make him forget about the aforementioned details, but he used as much willpower as possible to not allow them to disappear from his mind.

"Hey, pass me the fire extinguisher." Jake said this as he could still barely remember that the fire extinguisher and the panel to his right would both come loose and be a safety hazard. Raising an eyebrow and looking at Jake and then at the fire extinguisher, Ryley barely managed to grab it and toss it towards Jake before they were suddenly ejected.

Clutching onto the fire extinguisher with his left hand, Jake swung his right arm and tried to stop the metal panel from flying off, but he was unsuccessful as he was too slow. Falling to the floor of the life-pod, the panel started flying around, and then it flew towards Ryley and struck him in the head.

As for Jake, he just braced for impact and shielded his head with his right arm, and then the impact arrived. With a splash, the life-pod entered the water and the floatation devices activated, but he knew it wasn't over yet as the wave from the Aurora would be coming soon.

A fire started from the wires that had been exposed from the metal panel coming loose and Jake immediately extinguished it without exiting from his seat. Unable to check how far away the incoming wave was due to the fact that he would have to unbuckle himself and exit the life-pod, Jake silently started counting from the moment they landed.

He could still remember facts about the game that didn't actually involve gameplay, such as the fact that he only had 3 hours before every other life-pod would be empty and the inhabitants dead. While counting, he heard the sudden sound of water rushing, and he braced for the second impact.

Lurching forward and almost breaking the seat because of how violently the life-pod was impacted, Jake started to get dizzy while the life-pod was elevated and started spinning. The metal panel had struck the wall and punctured it slightly after the wave collided with the life-pod.

Waiting for the life-pod to stop spinning enough for him to stand up, Jake pressed the button on the armrest to release the safety bar, but it just made an electronic noise before not doing anything. Angry at the waste of time, he simply broke the safety bar, and then he went to check on Ryley.

Moving his disheveled hair aside, Jake checked the wound that the panel caused and he saw that there was simply a large bump and bruise starting to form, other than that Ryley was fine. Sighing in relief, he opened the top hatch of the life-pod and squeezed himself out with immense effort.

Standing atop the life-pod, he checked on the position of the Aurora and the way that it crashed, and he knew exactly where to go to find the other life-pods. Removing his shirt and pants, Jake fearfully lowered himself into the ocean on planet 4546B.

Holding onto life-pod 5, he waited for a minute to see if it was stable enough for him to leave it alone and be able to find it again, it wasn't like in game where it would stay still unless bumped into by ocean creatures.

Looking underwater, the salt from the ocean stung his eyes, and he saw that he was close to one a coral tube, and he got an idea. Climbing back on top of the life-pod, he got his shirt and pants and tied them into a short rope.

Tying the clothes rope onto the lowest rung of the ladder, he started to try and move towards the coral tube while towing the life-pod, and he had a small success in doing so. After five minutes, even though the coral tube was only 20 metres away, Jake managed to get close enough to touch it.

Pulling himself, along with the life-pod, Jake let go of the rope and found a chunk of limestone, which he preceded to use as hammer and smash a hole in the coral tube. Trying to tie the rope around the hole he made, he realized that it was just barely too short, and decided to shed the last bit of his clothing.

Using his socks and underwear, he was successfully able to tie a tight and strong enough knot with his improvised rope, and now he needed to go and find the other survivors. However, the closest four life-pods are all almost an equal distance apart, the four are life-pods 3, 4, 6, and 17.

Thinking hard, Jake decided to say fuck it and head to life-pod 4, which was close to the Aurora, and save whoever was onboard. He couldn't remember the inhabitants of any of the life-pods due to the memories being fuzzy.

Turning towards the Aurora, he started swimming towards it as fast as possible, trying to make it to the life-pod before it's inhabitant succumbed to their fate.

(AN. The size of planet 4546B has been upsized so it is as large as earth, however the gravity is ever so slightly higher then earth. Instead of 9.807 metres squared, I just upped it to 10 metres squared. Other then that everything should remain the same, except for the locations of places as they will be larger and farther away, the life-pod locations will remain the same though. As always, just leave a comment on any mistakes.)

(PS. I had to change a couple things so they would make sense, such as the fact that there aren't doors on the life-pods and the only window is technically the hatch on top.)