My vision swam with pure static, like I had fallen headfirst into a television tuned to a dead channel. I could no longer see the room, blinded by an electronic fog. I felt the static flow all around me, pushing into my nose and mouth, blocking my ability to breathe.

  A sharp shock wracked my body, dropping me back to a half-heart. I flailed, trying to break free. My vision darkened as I struggled to draw breath. I panicked as I felt myself drowning in the electronic morass.

  Another jolt wracked my body, causing every muscle to painfully spasm, then darkness.

  PLAYER DEATHS: 3

  KILLED BY: LIVING NOSTALGIA

  FLOORS CLEARED: 0

  LAST CLASS AND LEVEL: ADVENTURER – LEVEL 1 (SMUCK)

  I bounced back into my body in my apartment, my lungs heaving like an out-of-shape blowhard who decided to run the local five-mile without training.

  My body tingled. The memory of the shocks still burned in my mind, but I had to move. I rolled out of bed, still breathing heavily, and dressed as quickly as I could. I moved to the kitchen, quickly putting the ration bar into my inventory and shoving on my boots, again leaving them untied. I moved to the apartment door and turned to my coat rack, thinking about putting on the scarf again.

  “Didn’t help last time,” I thought.

  I did, however, grab my leather jacket. Hopefully it would provide some protection against scrapes and falls. It could probably provide me with a little bit of electrical insulation as well. On a whim, I also took a pair of thin gloves and stuffed them into my coat pocket.

  My breathing had calmed down some, but I still hadn’t fully recovered, my chest still heaving. Having rushed to get ready, I took a minute to calm myself down before opening the door.

  I looked at the phone. I hadn’t checked it since I had died this time. There were two notifications. There was the standard death message, while the second was new, and it looked like it came in before I was killed.

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL! ALTERNATE FLOOR UNLOCKED! Management.

  Completed? I had died three times and hadn’t even made it to the T-junction. I wondered what the end point had been. I didn’t have the message when I got booted from the store, so the notification must have come in while I was exploring the television room. Was getting the skill magazine the trigger?

  I began to feel the impatient chill creeping up my neck, so I opened my apartment door and stepped out.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Into near darkness.

  My world wasn’t a complete void. There was a glow that extended around me for maybe two feet. I could see myself and part of the floor around me. I had no idea what was directly across from my apartment, or to my left and right.

  “Another fucking wildcard,” I thought. Roguelikes sometimes had different versions of floors which changed things up somehow. Dark versions where the player's vision was limited were something that I had seen before. Those floors were sometimes more difficult with more challenging monsters.

  I summoned the fork into my hand and was surprised to find that it felt the same as it had after it had been upgraded. It felt better to wield with its longer handle, and the prongs still appeared to be sharper. I focused on it and the info brackets popped up.

  Upgraded Kitchen Fork - Uncommon – 1 Heart Damage [BOUND]

  “Upgraded?” I murmured, turning the utensil over in my hand.

  My phone dinged, showing a new message.

  TIP – BOUND WEAPONS RETAIN UPGRADES. Management.

  “Looks like everything doesn’t reset,” I thought. “Makes sense, seeing how brutal this place is.”

  More modern roguelikes unlocked things as you hit certain milestones, sometimes good, sometimes bad. These upgrades would sometimes make things a little easier, pushing the player toward progression. Of course, not all unlocks were good, like the now darkened hallway that surrounded me.

  I looked to my left and right, thinking about how to proceed. I tried willing the map back, like I had done in my last life. Instead of a gridded rectangle, the text No Map” popped up in the top left.

  “Of course!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the darkness. “Can’t make things too easy!”

  I shook my head. I was slipping again. I had to stay calm. I had to get through this.

  There had to be a way to keep track of where I was, assuming I lived long enough for it to matter.

  I remembered an old cartoon where the characters had been lost in a hedge maze. They had gotten out by placing a hand on one wall and following it until they had reached the exit. Since my right hand was taken up with the fork, it would have to be the left. Besides, running my hand along the wall was how I found the shop last time.

  There it was. I was learning. Each time around there was a little more that I could use. I felt like I was at the bottom of an impossibly high mountain, but I had found a pathway up. It might take me a long time, but there was a way forward, and that was something to cling to.

  I just couldn’t let myself go crazy in the process.

  My fingers brushed over the stuccoed wall and I took cautious steps forward. So far I had been attacked by a laundry maggot, a sink, and goddamn static, so anything could be a potential danger. I had played RPGs, mostly old ones, where the bloody floor was an enemy, so I brought my combat boots down with a little more force with each step, just in case. It was tiring, but like hell I would let this damn ugly carpet get the drop on me.

  It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the laundry room yet. As my vision wouldn’t even let me see the five feet across the hall, I couldn’t be surprised. I guessed it was probably in the other direction. Considering how my last two laundry room encounters went, I was happy to have a break from it.

  And there it was, just at the edge of my little sphere of light, a corner branching off to the left. I had done it. I had finally made it out of the first hallway.

  I was tempted to explore the junction, to see how many other ways it branched off, but decided against it. Keep my hand on the left wall and keep moving. That’s how I would lick this.

  When I turned the corner, I felt the air change, like I had somehow crossed some sort of barrier. I couldn’t see down the corridor, but for the first time I somehow knew something else was in the dungeon with me.