Master of the Loop

Chapter 1

Unwound

"On your feet, maggot!" a harsh and loud and mean voice jolted Sylas from his rather rough and uneven sleep. The voice was entirely unfamiliar, as was the sensation beneath his body. Though he wasn't particularly rich, he wasn't so poor either as to sleep on what felt like a cold, stone block. "Are you ignoring me, Recruit?! On your feet, before I toss you through the window!" the same voice roared again, forcing Sylas to pull his eyes open.

The sight that welcomed him was beyond unfamiliar. The room was eerily cold and smelly, not to mention the fact that it had none of his favorite decorations. The massive Smart TV that he spent nearly five grand on, starving himself for months in the process, was nowhere to be found, as was the painting of a peach tree that he claimed he bought for thirty grand whereas, in fact, he spent twenty and a change.

His favorite lamp was missing as well, as was the nightstand atop of which it shone. In fact, taking a better look around, he realized... everything was missing. Why? Holy shit, this ain't my room! The realization struck him like a bolt of thunder-- this wasn't his room... which meant this wasn't his apartment... which meant... Fuck, I was kidnapped?

"That's twice, Recruit!" a harsh voice came closer and, just as Sylas was about to turn and face its source, he felt a strong grip on his throat suddenly plop him up like he was a stick and drag him toward a square-shaped window.... without, well, the window part. It was just a massive, gaping hole in the stone-block wall. "Do you see how far the fall is, maggot?!!" the voice asked, heaving him over the edge and out into the cold, late evening. The drop was indeed massive--must be nearly a fifty feet drop altogether. Sylas wanted to scream in protest and beg not to be dropped, but the grip on his throat was so strong and so precise that he could breathe just fine... but he couldn't utter a sound, strangely enough.

"That should have woken you up," the harsh voice spoke yet again, yanking him back into the stone-walled room and rotating him about, affording Sylas an opportunity, at last, to see who the voice belonged to. "Now, stand up straight, Recruit!"

The bearer of the voice was a middle-aged man clad in a thick layer of what looked to be armor from before anyone knew what 'healthy life' was. He sported a thick, oily, black beard that covered nearly every inch of his—admittedly—scarred and wrinkled face. A pair of equally black eyes pierced right into Sylas', though their whites had quite a bit of yellow to them, indicating illness of one or another manner—Sylas couldn't tell.

He moved almost by instinct after the fact, standing up; he was kidnapped and into some freak show, no less. It had to be someone supremely rich who was utterly bored with their life.

The last thing he recalled doing was going to bed after a night of overtime work, as was usually the case on Fridays. He didn't even have the energy to shower or eat, immediately beelining toward the bedroom and going comatose. And now… now, he was here. Somewhere unfamiliar and somewhere cold. Considering it was the dead center of July back home with the temperatures nearing three digits, he was likely taken to some strangely cold and dreary country.

"Your duties are simple," the man spoke yet again. "Stand guard in the watchtower, and if you see anyone or anything attacking it, ring the bell. If I catch you sleeping on the job, I'll whip you a hundred times myself! Are you clear?"

"…"

"ARE YOU CLEAR?!!"

"Y-yes!" Sylas replied swiftly when he saw the man's face darken in anger.

"Good. Follow me to your post, now."

The two left the room right after and, seeing the exterior, Sylas' suspicions were confirmed. They were in what looked to be a medieval castle with four cylindrical towers standing tall on the edges, framing the four walls that made the outer portion of the castle. The inner portion had a set of stonework buildings, four in total, some with flickering windows and some with wholly dark.

It looked like it had been raining recently, what with the mud where the dirt was supposed to be an all. Save for the two of them, Sylas spotted some more men walking the walls and a few scurrying about the castle's inner grounds. Someone super-rich…

To have a medieval castle, one seemingly furnished perfectly, with a set of actors… very, very, very few people could afford that. He staunchly held onto the idea that he was kidnapped—any other reality was beyond him, after all.

The middle-aged man led him up a set of stairs etched against the outer walls, leading up to them and into the watchtower where, in the center of the room, a large, bronze bell hung, surrounded by stairs leading upwards, the same ones they took.

"The tower's main entrance was flooded during the rain," the man explained. "And the stairs down below have given in. Be careful where you step, Recruit. It'd be best to not move at all."

Everything was a setup, Sylas ascertained in his mind. Whatever he was being told are tiny hints in the larger game, he was certain. What was the quest, though? Was it truly to just stand watch in the tower for the whole night without falling asleep? It can't be that simple.

"'ere," the bearded man opened the tower's doors and led him in; there was little else besides another spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower where only a single, long-since-rotted chair stood. The view was largely blocked by thick fog, but from what he could see, beyond the castle was a forest, at least on one side. In the distance, he could also hear a gushing river. Besides that, however, he couldn't say. "I'm making rounds 'round the walls all night long, Recruit. If you slack, I'll know!"

And with that… the middle-aged man was gone. Sylas finally had a moment to himself and he immediately collapsed, weak in his knees. He began to shake and shiver, fear encasing his heart. He was surprised he lasted this long, actually; courage was never his forte. Lies, swindling, scamming—yes, those he could do. Walk into a dangerous situation willingly? That he could not.

Just as he was about to surrender to his fears and keel over into a fetal crawl, something shook him; a bright light blinded him for a moment, as though it shone directly in front of his eyes. It took him a brief moment to adjust whereupon he opened them and saw something that broke his understanding of reality—there was a screen in front of him, a screen not unlike a prompt in a program or a game, framed with thin lines, its body simple but pleasing to the eye. It was largely silver in color, not much wider than a grown man's forearm, but it spelled letters aplenty for him to read.

Greetings, Traveler.

Task: save Boy.

Good luck.

'Aplenty' might be a strong description for it since it only made him even more confused. Had he been chipped? No, that was impossible. Though he wasn't up-and-up when it came to the frontrunning technology, he was more certain in the fact that the technology like this didn't exist than he was in the fact that his eyes were real.

What was it then? A dream? A nightmare? A sick prank by some God or some extraterrestrials too bored with their lives? He couldn't say.

Feeling like it was all just a big ol' joke, he looked up and began laughing. It was a soft, self-mocking laugh, the ilk that nobody else besides him could hear. It was better to laugh than to cry, after all.

In the end, all he could do was continue to sit there, occasionally standing up to stretch. Whatever it was, or whoever it was… did it even matter? What choice did he have, anyway? Though he had quite a bit of faith in his glib tongue, it wasn't to the point where he genuinely believed he could cheat a God into letting him go back. All he could do… was resign to his fate, whatever it may.

As such, he stood to watch as the late evening became early-night and until the entire world became pitch black. It was… terrifying. Living in a city, he never quite got to experience what a night is. Unlike in the modern city, there was nothing besides the moon above that illuminated the world. He could barely etch out the edges of the walls some twenty feet ahead of him before it all went dark. He could faintly see an outline of the castle or the canopy of the treetops in front of him, but little else besides.

Every ruffle of the wind was like a high-pitched scream since, beyond it, there was nothing else but dreary silence. Even the sound of him shuffling his feet startled him. It was now too late to even inspect just what he was wearing—it wasn't his old clothes, that's for certain. The new ones felt extremely heavy and inflexible like they were made of barely processed leather.

He was unable to calculate the passage of time—it could have been hours or it could have been just a few dozen minutes into the night when something else caught his eye. The forest, which remained unmoving beyond the occasional blow of the wind, began… moving. The forest itself wasn't moving, of course, but something in it was. His nerves taut, Sylas stood up and leaned against the stone 'railing' of the tower, trying to adjust his eyes to the best of their ability to see in the night.

Already half a mind to just go down into the tower and ring the bell, he barely held himself back, continuing to watch. And then… he saw it. Just at the edge of the forest, leaving it, barely visible underneath the faint moonlight… he saw something indeed. It was a person… yet not quite. He was able to tell that much even from so far away. It was tall, though he couldn't say how tall exactly. But, what made it distinctly not human was the fact that the top of its skull was open and some of the still-rotting brain matter was hanging over the edge, like some sludge.

His heart shot into his throat as he yelped and tossed himself back, scrawling over the floor toward the stairs and descending them like a madman, running for the bell. The moment he got to it, he held the wooden rope tightly and swung with all his might.

It took a moment but the bronze, aged bell finally rang—and it was a loud ring, one that completely deafened him for a moment. Nonetheless, he ignored the pain and continued ringing. After what felt like a good minute, he stopped and crawled back up to the tower, observing from above. What he saw… shocked him. The walls were in utter ruins just fifty feet away from him and the inner castle was already swarming with those things. There were hundreds of them and they were everywhere. Just then, a window similar to the one before appeared before him, similarly vague as well.

Boy died.

Task failed.

Unconcerned since he was far more terrified for his life, Sylas didn't know whether it was a better idea to stay at the top of the tower or to make a run for it. Because of the bell, he was unable to hear anything—just a high-pitch hum that still grated at his mind. But ever so often, he could see splashes of red, like upward rain, flow out. And he could see lifeless and still corpses lying here and there. He was terrified, frozen, incapable of uttering a sound. It wasn't a game. Whatever it was… it wasn't a game. It was real. All of it was real. And he was going to die. He will die just like the rest. Die. Die. Die.

Hairs on the back of his head stood up as he swiftly spun around, facing the horror that encroached upon him—it was unmistakably one of them. It was like a zombie or a ghoul—it was missing one of its eyes and its jaw was unhinged, with the left portion missing entirely, exposing the rotting innards. Its skin was sickly pale and its extending arms that were reaching for his throat had enough holes to masquerade as cheese.

He almost laughed there toward the end, at his own, silly joke. He felt the hands grip his throat and he didn't even fight. Fighting, after all, would just prolong the suffering. He was going to die… and thus, he closed his eyes, feeling the sickly nails claw into his throat and feeling the blood drip out and feeling his consciousness slip. At the last second, another window appeared in the midst of darkness, one extremely similar to the other two.

You have died.

A 'Save Point' discovered.

Loading…

You will be returned to the 'Initial Save' point.

"On your feet, maggot!" a harsh and loud and mean voice jolted Sylas from his rather terrifying and painful sleep.