I opened my eyes and saw a dismembered arm in the front seat of the cab; thankfully the remainder of the zombie was not attached.

  Thank fuck! Now to get rid of the other stragglers.

  “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Three more shots rang out.

  I clambered into the passenger seat and stepped out of the car, instinctively raising my hands in submission as I did so.

  Walking up to the ute was a short young girl with curly brown hair, shotgun in hand and dressed head to toe in camouflage gear.

  “Hi Kelly,” she said in a bittersweet tone.

  “Who are you?” I asked, trying to not sound completely indignant to a woman with a gun.

  “We’ve met before – my name’s Rachel. I was the receptionist at Stygian Synapses,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you,” I said, trying desperately to endear myself to the gun-toting girl.

  “It’s all good,” Rachel responded, lowering her gun.

  “How did you get here?” I said, confused at her presence in the game.

  “I can explain it all, but I think first we’d best get inside, no use attracting more friends” she retorted.

  I nodded and opened the back door, letting the dogs out.

  “Playing on hard mode with a husky!” she said, chuckling.

  We walked over to Rachel, and Rat approached her cautiously. She offered a hand out for him to sniff. He sniffed it and started wagging his tail slowly. Jagger just skipped over, not a concern in his husky head.

  “I’ve cleared a house just around the corner,” Rachel said, waving us on to follow her.

  After passing a couple of cottages, she started walking towards a large two-storey home with boarded-up windows and a makeshift fence surrounding it.

  “This is it,” she said. “Home sweet home.”

  Rachel unlocked a padlock on her dodgy wooden entrance gate and we all walked in to the yard. She closed the gate behind us, locking it again. I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy being locked into a yard with a random woman, but it was in with her or out with the undead, so we pressed on. She unlocked the front door and we walked inside. As if he was on autopilot, Rat started checking the house.

  “Rat!” I said, trying to stop his intrusion.

  “That’s okay,” Rachel said, “as long as he’s okay with…”

  “Woof woof woof woof,” shouted Rat.

  “Reooow,” came the voice of a small white cat.

  Rachel and I quickly ran to the room to find Rat and the cat in a Mexican standoff of sorts.

  “It’s okay Rat, it’s just a little cat!” I said to him, patting him to calm him down.

  “Come here Artemis, don’t be scared,” Rachel called to the cat, who bolted past Rat and into her arms.

  “I’m sorry, we haven’t met any other species yet, unless zombies count,” I said to Rachel.

  “It’s fine, they just need to get to know one another, I’m sure they’ll be fast friends,” she said.

  The four of us walked back into the living room and joined Jagger, who was completely unphased by the introduction of Artemis.

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  “Would you like a drink?” Rachel asked, walking into the adjoining kitchen and fetching two glasses and two bowls.

  “Actually that would be lovely,” I responded.

  “Pepsi okay?” she asked.

  “Great.” I hadn’t had much other than water and a can of lemonade on the first night, so some caffeine sounded like a nice treat.

  Rachel retrieved a bottle of Pepsi from the fridge and poured two glasses, setting them down on the nearby dining table. She then proceeded to fill the two bowls with water, placing them on the floor in front of Rat and Jagger.

  The dogs started slurping their water as we sat down at the table.

  “I bet you have a lot of questions,” Rachel said, picking up her glass and taking a sip.

  “Yes,” I nodded. “First of all, how are you in this game with me? I thought the only way people got in here is if they… you know.”

  Rachel sighed. “Yeah, I died.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said automatically.

  “Haha it’s okay,” Rachel laughed. “I guess you figured out you’re dead too; my condolences”

  “I did, but I must admit I was a little bit shocked when I woke up in here – I was supposed to be in Stardew Valley,” I replied.

  “Ah yes, that is the doing of my wonderful colleague, Darren,” Rachel responded sarcastically. “When you passed away, he must have imported you into another game. I don’t know how he did it, but I caught him watching you the other day.”

  “That slimy bastard! I knew he was going to ruin this from the moment I met him,” I cursed.

  “Hang on – the other day? How long have you been in here?”

  “Only about three days,” Rachel answered.

  “Three days? And you have built yourself a fortress already and you’re fantastic at shooting?” I said incredulously.

  “This is one of my favourite games, so I’ve got an idea how to start,” she replied.

  “Well clearly you’re fantastic at it!” I said enthusiastically.

  Rachel sheepishly looked away, blushing somewhat at the compliment.

  “I’m okay. It helps that I used to do skeet shooting when I was in high school,” she said.

  “How does that help?” I asked. “I did archery for years but there’s not a single box ticked in this bloody game.”

  “What?” Rachel asked in disbelief.

  “Yeah, when I woke up, that menu only had boxes for strength, stamina and athletics filled. It’s not until I added the dogs to my team that I got any skills. Oh, and when I conked a few zombies with my crowbar, that seems to have given me a few long blunt points,” I said.

  “That absolute prick!” Rachel blurted out. “You’re meant to have your skills from real life transferred into whatever game you get put into, but it looks like dear Darren opted to turn yours off.”

  I frowned, looking at Rachel with absolute bewilderment.

  “In your menu, do you have a settings button?” Rachel asked.

  “Hang on, let me check,” I said, zipping open my duffle bag and opening the interface. “I’ve got a little cog sign next to the X,” I said, closing out of the menu.

  I stared at Rachel, awaiting her response. “Well?” she said.

  “Well what? I said I’ve got the cog sign,” I responded.

  “You know time freezes for us all when you’re in your interface, so we can’t hear you,” she said.

  “No, I didn’t know that!” I said. “I’ve never played this game at all – I’ve not even heard of it!”

  “Oh man, we’ve got a lot to talk about then,” Rachel said. “First of all, though, let’s get your real-life stats brought in.”

  “Okay, how do I do that?” I asked.

  “When you go into your menu, hit the settings button next to the X,” she instructed. “There are a bunch of things in there, but you’ll want to go to the section called Import Skills. Reach out for that and it will ask if you want to import your reality skillset. If you hit ‘yes’, your real-life skills will be added to your stats.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But it won’t overwrite what we have already?”

  “No, it will just build on that,” Rachel answered.

  “Alright, I’ll be right back,” I said, once again opening my bag and entering the menu.

  I looked up at the skills and noticed that a few more boxes had been filled since Jagger joined the team, namely a box in gardening, a further two boxes in stamina and a box in charm. Also now listed under handicaps was scared of water, and in advantages was friend to all animals and musician. Oh Jagger, you were singing the song of your people when we met, weren’t you? I hovered my hand over the handicap and a pop-up paragraph overlaid the text. Jagger will avoid bodies of water, baths and hoses. One in ten chance he will not go outside in the rain. Okay, that’s interesting. Who likes going out in the rain anyways? I giggled, reaching up to the settings button. I reached towards the Import Skills section and answered ‘yes’ to the reality skillset question. The menu was then dimmed slightly as a progress bar was overlaid.

  In a couple of moments, the progress bar finished and the box closed, returning me to the main interface. I looked up at the text and saw all the changes. It was incredible: strength had increased to six boxes, stamina to seven and athleticism to five. Culinary had been nearly maxed out, with nine of the ten boxes filled. Archery was also at seven boxes and metalworking at three, thanks largely to my jewellery-casting hobby, I assumed. Now under advantages it also listed high pain tolerance and recipe creator. Thankfully, nothing further was listed under handicaps.

  I closed out of the menu and returned to the table, taking a sip of the Pepsi. “I’m back,” I said to Rachel, “and better than ever!”