Betty was falling into emptiness - through a white space, devoid of corners or walls. It was all featureless, save for when she looked upward to see the once large chasm she had fallen into shrink to the size of a pinhole as she fell.
At first, there was a rush of wind that billowed her clothes as she spiralled further and further below the earth. However, it had occurred to her that this was the antithesis of the underground. If she really did sink below the floor, why was everything so blindingly bright?
Air rushed past her body at hundreds of miles per minute, cooling her skin and whistling at her ears.
This seemed to go on for some time, until after a while there was no wind at all. And a little after that, there was no perceivable sound left in the void - not even Betty’s own screams.
Then, without warning - a subtle sound began ringing in her ears. First, the volume of a whisper, then a slow hum.
Is that a… train? Betty thought to herself. Although her voice was lost to space, she was glad to hear the voice in her head.
Before long, she could feel the ground at her feet again, and the vibration and hum of a vehicle. It was a train.
When she came to, Betty felt a conflict of emotions, all jumbled up and shaken by the moving carriage she found herself on.
Her feelings at that moment were mixed. At one end: fearfulness of the unknown: How long was she falling for - did time even pass during her fall? Where was she, and where was the train headed?
But on the other end was something lighter: Reassurance. She was alive, she felt the familiar pull of gravity and oh, how she missed sound - the chugging of the enormous train brought a huge smile to her face.
The walls of the carriage rattled and rang as the tracks darted over precarious terrain.
It was steampunk of sorts, walls adorned with copper plating and pipes with gems of various colors. Almost every color was there, except for one: Blue.
Betty had been so fixated on her new surroundings that she had neglected to stare down and check if she hurt herself from the fall. When she did, she noticed that her familiar office outfit, the same one she used to have multiple sets of in case of a coffee spill before work, had gone away. In its place was a slightly heavier outfit stitched together by tanned leather hides of a creature’s skin she could not recognize. Every few inches of fabric had an oval-shaped disk embedded within that looked like murky seawater. When she rustled around, the warm streaks of sunlight that came through the shutters of the train carriage caught on the ovals and reflected brilliant iridescent streaks across the ceiling. And again, all colors were there, except blue.
She could feel her face wrinkle up, confused. So there’s a ceiling. She looked up, in disbelief of how she could have possibly fallen into the carriage.
And there was something else peculiar: Once she had gotten herself up from the dusty wooden boards of the floor of the cabin, she noticed she had been holding something. It felt like it was accustomed to her grip, and that she has used it a handful of times, but still thought that it might blister her palm if she held it for too long. Within her hold was a long wooden sword, with a blade as sharp as it could have been for its makeup.
The weapon looked formidable to little Beth, the copy-and-print corporate worker, but she thought it could be easily thought of as a joke to any foe she found herself up against in this realm. Upon inspection, its miniature splinters in between the oak splits made it look like the true caricature of a weapon it really was.
The sword made her mind hark back to the odd terminal she had pressed before her descent. Betty knew that she left everything on default when she smacked Enter, so as a class she must have picked the class of–
“A warrior?” A voice announced from the doorway. It was hoarse and raspy like a snake trying to speak. “I can’t believe this.”
It was hard to see his face. The door he had opened let light flood into Betty’s carriage. She held up her sword defensively, taking a few swings before the man grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
“It’s okay, I’m from Prism too.” He said. “I’m an accountant, uh… was, an accountant there.”
The man let his grip loosen, and Betty’s arm fell free. She holstered the excuse for a sword.
Up close, the man’s features were quite distinguishable, but Betty had never seen him working at the company. He had high cheekbones and a thin jaw, darted with a five o’clock shadow.
“My name’s Myron,” He said. “What’s yours?”
“My name’s er,” Betty scrambled to think, scatterbrained. She writhed around deep in the folds of her mind but no matter what, she could never loosen that name. “I, I don’t know.”
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And she wasn’t lying, either. Ever since her fall through the void and into the train, she couldn’t remember her own name.
“It’s okay,” Myron insisted. “I didn’t remember mine either when I, you know - fell.”
“So, is Myron your real name?”
“No. I’ve been here for two years. And it’s the best I could come up with. Nothing like you would hear back home, is it? Well - should I change it? You’re the only one that’s going to be using it.”
The man was well built and quite handsome. And with the confidence that he had grabbed her wrist earlier, Betty expected him to be better equipped when speaking to a stranger rather than seeking approval off the bat.
“I think that’s a fine name, Myron,” She said.
The train shook for a while over a swervy track and the two steadied their footing.
“You’ve said you’ve been here two years, where exactly is… here?”
“Well, by here, I mean right here. This train. Specifically,”
They both walked from the cabin Betty had awoken in to the next in line.
“My dilapidated little carriage. I’ve been living in this place for two years. I can’t leave.”
There was silence for a while as Betty put two and two together. On the far wall of the carriage was a metal gate, lined with mechanical contraptions of bronze or copper gears. The width of the carriage was some four arms-width wide, and upon each corner of the carriage were two circular panels, one that flashed green and one that was a solid red. Two buttons, but only one person was here. An impossible feat.
“Two damn years,” Myron started. “Two damn years I’ve been in this carriage. As far as I’ve been concerned, it’s no carriage - it’s a coffin! Sleeping my nights away on the cold benches here. Wasting my days away opening and closing the door to the back carriage, hoping I’d see another adventurer pop in so I could leave.”
“Some would argue this place is a purgatory, I mean, my hair never grows, I don’t get hungry, I don’t feel aged. And for two years I have been waiting for someone to help me open this damn gate. It needs two people, one on each switch. I’ve tried everything - stretching, throwing my bow at it, shooting it, nothing will budge the stupid thing.”
He caught me looking out of one of the shutters. “And what of the world? What have you seen from your carriage window?”
“The same rolling hills, cliffs, waterfalls. This train is seemingly on a circular track, round and round and serving only as a training area for new adventurers.”
We both looked up at the blinking light, then the red one.
“You have no idea how desperate I am to see what’s on the other side. I’ve only had a glimpse.”
“How did you get a look? The door’s looks bolted shut.”
“Well,” Myron started. “I’ve seen two other people here before you showed up.”
“So, then you should have been able to leave, right?” Betty asked.
Myron sucked his teeth before shaking his head. “Huh. Not exactly. You see, they weren’t really dressed like you or I, they looked more experienced. Maybe even rich. A man and a woman - they were wearing light clothes and had lush white hair. They wouldn’t even look my way twice.”
He seemed to ball up his fist as he spoke.
“They wouldn’t even look at me when I pleaded with them as a prisoner. But, in retrospect, I understand it now. This tutorial gate can only ever let two people through at once. Meaning, if I went with one of them, the other would have to remain. And they simply couldn’t have had that. Now let''s open that door already Miss… uh-”
“Lets,” Betty quickly cut him off. “Hold off on my name for now. Don’t want to end up picking a name like Myron.”
He sighed. “Okay, that’s it, screw you. I knew you didn’t like the name.”
“Easy to remember though.”
“I guess. Get the door.”
Betty put down her sword against one side of the train carriage. Together, the pair lent in and put a palm each over the touch-panels to the door.
A green liquid began drip-feeding out of the spinning turbines on each side of the door. It filled up the glass and copper pipes and was sucked towards the centre of the door, the same way paperwork used to soak up markers in Betty’s previous life.
One by one, the bronze locks began to pop and unlock in succession once the liquid engulfed the middle device.
“Say Myron, are we in some sort of game?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Then some alternate reality.”
“No. At least that’s not what I’ve been told. See, those people that came through here before, they mentioned something to me. They told me that this was our true reality, and the one you and I are from, the one with the printing and copying and accounting - that’s the dystopia. That this, this world,”
We both looked at the door still twisting and opening, then to the hills rolling outside the train through the shutters.
“This world is where we’re really from. That our lives started here, not the other side.”
“And do you believe them?” Betty asked.
“Have no choice. Until now, that conversation, well - that was all I had. Get ready. You won’t like what’s coming.”
Betty had her sword close her chest. Myron had his bow drawn so tightly, he could nearly snap the string.
The gate groaned as it creaked open. The smell of sulphur and death emanated from underneath. Betty followed Myron’s lead when he pulled up a cloth mask from around his neck and covered his nose.
–WELCOME TO PRISM INDUSTRIES. LEVEL ZERO COMMENCING….--
Inside, amongst the darkness and haze, they managed to spot eight creatures. All were shifting around and coiling on the floor in puddles of moss colored muck.
Suddenly, one came right for the pair standing at the doorway.
It dodged an arrow, ducked under the swing from Betty’s sword, but before she could blink, it had begun swallowing Myron whole.