Chapter Text
It started out like any other day. I woke up in the afternoon, fed the cat and bunny, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down on the living room couch. I work overnights, so by the time I wake up, it’s close to evening. I plugged my phone into the charging cable there and opened my favorite mobile game, Obey Me! One Master to Rule Them All. After taking a couple of sips of my coffee, I got up again, going into the kitchen to hug my husband. He was in the process of getting his lunch together for work.
“Hi, honey.” I said, giving him a kiss. “Hi.” He said back, returning my kiss and hug. We were then interrupted by my son bursting into the kitchen. “Mom. We’re out of lunchmeat. Can you get something besides bologna?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You finally get sick of bologna? You’ve been eating bologna sandwiches for like the last 2 years now.”
He dropped his head. “Yeah.”
“Well, what do you want? Ham, turkey, roast beef?”
“Anything’s fine but bologna.”
“Ok, write it on the whiteboard on the fridge. I’ll pick it up later.”
“K, I’m going to need it for lunches.” He threw his arms around me, giving me a huge rib-cracking hug and a kiss on the head, as he’s almost a foot taller than me. “Love you, mama.”
“Oof.” I returned his hug. “Love you too, son.” With that, he dashed back into his room.
I gave my husband a bemused smile. He just shook his head. “Oh, the kitty’s come up closer. I got her to go under the table,” he told me. My husband is an animal lover, and he enjoys feeding the stray cats in our neighborhood. One he’s been trying to lure so she’ll trust him. He wants one of her kittens as he thinks she might be pregnant.
“Oh, cool, honey.” I smiled. “Well, I’m going to go into the living room now to enjoy my coffee.”
“Ok,” he replied. “We’re going to be leaving soon.” My son and husband work at the same warehouse on the same shift. Since my son doesn’t have a driver’s license yet, he rides with my husband. I settled back onto the couch to enjoy my coffee and my game. I keep the sound muted so the sounds of my 2D anime husbandos telling me the name of the game don’t arouse any suspicions. I had just gotten the game to load to the home screen when they were leaving for work. I got up, gave both a hug and kiss and we said our goodbyes. As soon as they left, I picked up the phone again. The mail icon had a red “!” notification by it. I thought, Oh, more AP I hope, or some other goodies. I opened the “app” and read the title of the notice.
SPECIAL OFFER! EXCLUSIVE NEW REDUX PLAYTHROUGH FOR VIP MEMBERS ONLY!
I..what? I got really excited. I had completed the main story, normal and hard with all 3 stars. I was really sad when I had seen the “CAST” list at the end of chapter 20. I had just gotten into the game and spent way too much money on it to have it end here. Now, there was a new playthrough? “Yesss!! Sweet!!” I hissed out loud. Gleefully, I pushed the big red “START” button in the notification. The phone’s screen went white, then black. There was only a little “loading…” icon in the bottom right corner. Great, now what? I thought. The app’s crashed? I looked at it again, and I started to feel odd. I scrunched my eyes together a couple of times as my vision began to blur. Something’s not right. Clutching my phone in my hand, I detached it from the charging cord and stood up to go get myself a drink of water. As soon as I stood up, I knew something was wrong. I felt extremely dizzy. I immediately got a headrush that collapsed my legs from under me. I felt myself falling and put my arm out to catch myself. But my arm passed through where I thought the floor would be. I was falling. Panicking, I began to flail. I heard myself screaming. Everything had gotten dark. I began to cry. I was confused, scared, had no idea what was going on. Then, dark colors started to whoosh by me. I started to come to the realization that I was going to die.
Out of nowhere, my fall stopped. I found myself lying on a floor, uninjured. I blinked a few times, trying to focus my vision.
Where am I?
The place I was had very little light, but enough that once my eyes adjusted, I could see where I was.
Holy shit. This is the RAD council room from the game. What the fuck is going on here?