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Lionel's eyes snapped open. The world felt like it was spinning beneath him and there was an intense, sharp pain in his chest and hand.
His breath was quick with the memory of what had happened still fresh in his mind. He could almost still feel those cold hands wrapped around his throat and his losing battle for breath. The sounds of his breathing echoed across the empty room.
He was in what appeared to be an old tavern, propped up against one of the bar stools. There was a mysterious substance below him that was covering his hand.
Lionel raised one of his hands in front of his face to investigate, which revealed three things to him: his hand was covered in drying blood, his left hand was now missing its ring finger, and — most shocking to him of all — his skin was now blue.
The spot where his ring finger should be was bleeding, but the wound was actively closing. Not before long, it was healed entirely and it looked like there hadn't ever been a finger there in the first place. Lionel widened his eyes a bit in surprise.
He didn't have any more time to think about what had just happened in front of him before he was startled by a loud thud coming from above him, followed by other sounds of movement. There was someone, maybe even several others, in this building with him. Lionel was unsure if he wanted to meet whoever was here. His eyes quickly darted to the doors that led outside.
He shakily pushed himself to his feet — discovering the rapidly closing bullet wound in his chest that was no doubt the source of the pain and blood there — and made a break for the door. He pulled the doors open and ran out into the pouring rain, letting them slam shut behind him.
Every time one of Lionel's feet hit the ground it sent a burning spike of pain up his leg, but this did not stop him from sprinting into the woods. Gnarled roots of seemingly endlessly tall trees threatened to trip him while thorny bushes and ivy thrashed his legs, leaving cuts in his pants and eventually his legs. The cuts would close up immediately just to be replaced by a different bit of foliage hitting him, every new gash in his ankles intensifying the pain of every step he took.
But he could not stop running. He just couldn't. He didn't know what or who he was running from, but he didn't want to stop no matter how much pain he was in.
Every raindrop that pelted his skin felt like a bullet. His clothes clung to him and no longer provided even a little bit of warmth. His socks were soaked and every step increasingly felt like he was wading through an ankle-deep pool.
He continued to run until he broke out into a clearing. He fell to his knees, letting more mud into the mix of rain water, blood, and mud that soaked his pants. He sat there and looked up into the sky, letting the rain pour onto him.
"SOMEONE!! HELP ME!!," he cried. Lionel didn't get a response, just the sound of his plea echoing back to him.
He put his hands down in front of him, supporting him weight with them. He let out another cry, this time much quieter. "Please… someone, anyone…"
Lionel suddenly threw himself onto his back, sprawling out onto the ground. More tears sprung from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. He wondered if he was in hell. He wasn't even sure what he could have done to end up in hell in the first place.
He closed his eyes. The amount of rainwater on his glasses have made it so there wasn't much difference to him between keeping his eyes open and having his eyes closed, anyway.
Those eyes behind the screen. They were so familiar to him, yet he couldn't exactly place why. They looked at him with the most intense rage he had ever seen, but he also managed to catch a glimpse of sadness in them as the world faded away around him.
Lionel opened his eyes again and attempted to push himself upright again, but the second his hand made contact with the ground it crumbled away. The ground fell out from beneath him and he started to fall into a blacker-than-black void.
He screamed out for help again as he fell. He wildly tried to grab onto anything, despite the infinite void around him containing nothing else but himself. He couldn't even tell which direction he was falling anymore, as the woods above him had entirely disappeared.
What did I do to deserve all this? Lionel thought, attempting to curl himself up into something as close to a ball as he could. I was just starting to piece my life back together…
His mind wandered to Carla, someone he used to be able to rely on to be there whenever he needed help. They hadn't spoken in months — no, years — but he wondered how she would feel when she found out he was dead.
He put the thought out of his head as quickly as it had sprung up. He didn't like the answer that was forming.
After an unknown amount of time falling through the void and silently crying, the feeling of falling slowly faded away. Lionel felt like he was now simply floating in the void, as if he was suspended in gelatin.
He sighed in relief, closing his eyes. Even if he didn't know what was going on, he felt okay with being in the void. All of his fears had suddenly slipped away and none of them mattered anymore. He was just fine being right here.
Suddenly, his eyes opened again and he found himself sitting on the floor against the wall of a well lit log cabin. Despite the comforting atmosphere of the cabin, all of the thoughts and fears the void had been seemingly suppressing crashed back into him. He doubled over in pain.
"Oh, God," Lionel muttered, clutching his stomach. He suddenly sat bolt upright and looked straight forward in front of him, as if something had taken over his body. "Hello, I am the GameWorks Assistant, but you can call me Lionel Snill! What can I help you with?"
Lionel was released from whatever force had taken hold of him and he slouched backwards again. He looked to his right and noticed there were three others in the cabin with him: a plain looking man with three eyes who, despite the third eye, looked so familiar to Lionel he could swear he had actually seen him before, a young woman dressed like she was about to walk out into a blizzard despite the fact the cabin had a roaring fireplace going and was a comfortable temperature already, and a tall green man with goat legs covered in plant matter. All three of them looked to be in the middle of a card game, and all three of them were now staring directly at Lionel.
"I… don't know why I said that," Lionel muttered, looking away from them and hoping that they stopped staring at him as well. He felt his cheeks flush from embarrassment.
The young woman let out an obviously incredibly annoyed sigh, as if random people appearing in the cabin was something that had happened before. "Amanda… who is this?"
"Huh?" A voice of another woman rang out through the room. It seemed to be coming from everywhere but nowhere at the same time. "I just stuck the thumb drive into my computer. Did something already happen on your end?"
"Yeah, some blue guy just appeared in the cabin and started talking all weird. He claims that his name is Lionel Snill, which is weird because-"
"Oh my God," Amanda interrupted. "I don't think he is just claiming to be named Lionel… I think it actually is Lionel."
"What?" Lionel interjected. "Who are you? Where am I? What year is it? What happened to me?"
"That first question is unimportant and can be answered later," Amanda said sternly. "As for where you are, you are in Leshy's cabin from the cancelled game Inscryption. It is currently December 2020. As for what happened to you, you were found dead in your apartment in 2018. Your death was ruled a suicide."
2020? Lionel thought. I was in the void for two years!?
"Okay, obviously I knew all that, but I didn't kill…" Lionel trailed off, choosing not to finish his sentence. He didn't want to think about it or discuss it further. "I mean… why am I here now, then?"
"We have a job for you, of course. You're a GameWorks assistant now."
Explains why I'm blue. Lionel thought, leaning his head back against the wall. But of course that's what happened to me. It's just ironic.
"Who is we, then?" Lionel asked.
"GameFuna, as well as me and my… associate, let's say."
"And who is that?"
"She really doesn't like her identity to be revealed, but she says she knows you very well," Amanda chuckled.
Lionel sighed. That could be hundreds of people. "What do you need me to do, then?"
"Well," Amanda paused. "We need you to extract the Karnoffel Code."