Riley stared at the marks carved into what remained of her door. Three long gouges, deep and deliberate, each filled with something dark that had dried to a reddish brown. At first her brain refused to recognize the shape because it did not want to. But once she saw it, once she admitted it, there was no unseeing it. The symbol was identical to the ones she had seen on the pendants worn by the beasts that had chased her the day she first woke here. In the chaos of the river, the tower, the village and the dog, she had forgotten about those marks, tucked them into some mental drawer labeled “later.” Now “later” was here, slashed across her door.
Her poor door. She had just managed to prop it into something resembling a usable structure and now it had been knocked in again. The benches supporting it were scattered Its hinges hung at a miserable angle and the once unmarred surface had wood splinters around the fresh claw marks.
Problem: door ruined.
Solution: benches. Again. Always benches.
She dragged them back around. The heavier bench scraped loudly across the stone, but she didn’t care anymore. She shoved it into place behind the door, angling it until the pressure made the door tilt into a relatively secure wedge. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even good. But it held.
She propped the second bench against the first and leaned her entire weight into it until the contraption felt stable enough that the door would not topple inward the moment a breeze came through. It was the same setup as before and she hated that it needed to exist again, but it was better than the open, gaping vulnerability she had walked home to.
When she finally stopped moving and straightened, she became aware of the pulsing in her hands from gripping the wood so tightly. She needed a fire. She needed something warm, something that felt like control. She set her belongings down, wiped her forehead, and knelt at the fireplace.
It took her longer than usual to get a fire going, mostly because her hands trembled each time she tried to create a spark. But eventually the little flame caught the dried grass and coaxed the tinder to life. The orange glow spread across the tower floor and she let out a slow breath as if the warmth could stitch her nerves back together.
As the flame grew, so did her disbelief. If it was those beasts then why had they made all that effort to break in and not even take anything? Had they come specifically looking for her? Why would they? She was no one in this world.
“Just when you think you’ve got this world figured out, it flips the script."
All they had left was the message carved into the wood. A warning. A threat. A reminder.
She sat near the fire and curled her legs under her, pulling the old rug around her shoulders. It smelled as dusty and damp as ever. She hugged her ore pouch the way someone might cling to a life vest in the middle of an unpredictable sea. The tower was quiet except for the fire and the occasional sigh of wind slipping through cracks in the stone.
Her security problem was more than a problem. It was a gnawing void in her stomach. She would need something stronger than benches and stubborn hope. She needed something that kept her from waking each day in fear of what may approach the tower. She needed a proper door.
Once again, her thoughts returned to the claw marks and the beasts who had worn them. The memory of those pendants flashed sharp and unwelcome. She wondered if those welcome beasts were the same ones who came here tonight. Or if they were others of their kind. Whoever, or whatever they were, they had stood outside her tower just hours earlier, scratching symbols into her door as easily as writing their names.
Her next question was too scary to say out loud so she whispered it inside her mind: would they return tonight?
She couldn’t even begin to speculate.
They had not taken anything. Nothing was missing. This was not about loot. This was not about resources. It was a message delivered to her front door. She swallowed as the thought solidified. Message received.
But would they come back to relay that message personally? Who knew.
It hadn’t been that long since she had been the one raiding other people in her games. Anonymous players behind screens, all dealing damage with numbers and icons and cooldown timers. When you attacked someone there, you changed inventory, not people. You repaired with a button. You rebuilt easily.
Being on the other end, living in a place where monsters could physically kick in your door and carve warnings into wood, was something else entirely. It felt terrifying.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She stayed awake longer than she planned. Each time the fire crackled too loudly she tensed. Each gust of wind made her pull the rug tighter. The night dragged on with a series of “what if” dreams slipping between moments of half-sleep.
She dreamt of the beasts standing silently in her doorway, their presence heavy and unspoken. Then they slipped inside without so much as a knock. They loomed over her, a canopy of sweaty, hairy muscles. Her hair rustled back as they snorted hot breath into her face. She fought to break free, but they pinned her down with effortless strength. They slashed at her with such force she thought they might cut her in three. Yet the blows passed through her like she was a ghost, carving slash after slash into the wall above her bed instead.
She woke just after dawn, blinking at the pale morning light bleeding through the high window slits.
“I guess nightmares count as rest now.”
The fire had burned low overnight, leaving scattered embers. She nudged them with a stick before letting them die for good. She stood, stretched until her spine popped, and opened the HUD.
The alert screen flickered open immediately. She braced herself for another attack notice, but the message that filled the screen was a different kind of surprise.
? Morning message: One week novice shield available. Activate Y or N.
A newbie shield. She had forgotten this existed. It had been so long since she had started a build from scratch.
A shield could protect her for an entire week. But using it right now felt wrong. Wasteful. You got one. One. It was the kind of item you hoarded until the exact last second. No point burning it while she was awake and alert. This was like a get out of jail free card. If something came for her while she slept she could activate it then. Stretch its usefulness as far as possible.
She closed the prompt without answering it and decided to reassess later.
That reminded her of another loophole she had learned. Once something was under a timer it could not be broken. Resources invested into an upgrade were safe. That rule had saved her in more than one game, and now it hovered here like a familiar cheat code. If she started an upgrade, no one could take what she had invested unless she canceled it and the system returned everything. It was a way to protect her resources. But the cost was time. And time was the most precious currency of all.
After a quick breakfast of berries, she gathered her things. She filled her cart with the tools she needed for the day.
As she walked to the river, she checked the HUD map more often than she would admit. She kept glancing at the corners of her vision for red flashes. She kept looking behind her to. She knew it was excessive, yet it felt impossible to stop.
These interruptions made the walk to the river feel longer than usual. She made up time by washing up quickly. She needed to get to work.
Wood, stone, wheat. Equal parts, like some strange recipe for survival. She stacked the cart and filled a bucket with cold water before turning back.
By midday the interior of the tower was filled with piles of resources. She stood in the center of it all admiring her work. At least this part she could control.
She opened the HUD. The quick start tab popped up with options.
? Repair structure’s base defense:
? Door
? Walls
? Upper-level access
Her eyes went straight to Door. The target that mattered. The weak point.
She tried to activate it.
The HUD blinked and shifted.
? Large scale resource receptacle activated…
A sound echoed against the stone. When she turned, a large bin had appeared against the wall, big enough to swallow an entire load of resources. The lid lifted itself open.
She walked over and searched under her top for the cloth bundle that hung from her neck. She unwrapped the ore. Hardly impressive, but it was all she had. She held it in her palm a moment, almost reluctant to drop it in. This was the first real ore she had acquired Her first meaningful step.
“I hope this is enough,” she whispered.
She dropped it inside.
The HUD flickered.
? Iron ore: 20%
A grin spread across her face. “Nice.”
She spent the next several minutes depositing the rest of her collected resources. Wood. Stone. Wheat. Everything she had stacked in tidy piles. The bin swallowed them and counted each one with a soft chime from the HUD.
? Wood: 20%
? Stone: 20%
? Food: 30%
“That’s a start.”
When the bin finally closed itself she headed back out to the river for another run. The door repair needed more than she had brought in earlier. She gathered everything the system still required and returned, cart heavier than before.
The sun hung low by the time she had it all ready.
When she returned she activated the door repair.
The HUD responded instantly.
? Door repair started.
? 11:59:59
A pulsing task bar stretched across the HUD, glowing with the quiet satisfaction of something finally working.
She stood there a moment, watching the timer tick down. She felt proud of herself. This was a weight lifted off her shoulders. This door repair would finally bring her some security.
When the moment passed she walked back toward the river one last time to gather extra wheat. This time for her stomach, not the HUD.
By the time she returned, the sun was nearly gone. She started another fire and secured the temporary door again with the benches.
Finally, she hunkered down as night fell.
And like she used to back home, back in the days of nightly gaming routines and last-minute resource checks, she opened the HUD for one final look before she slept.
Everything looked normal, except for one detail.
On the map, near the river, right where the shroud began its grey fog, something moved. A small shape. Not clear. Not labeled. Just a tiny symbol sliding along the edge like it was stalking the border of her cleared territory.
The system offered no information. No icon. No name.
Just movement.
She stared at it for a while before she felt reasonably sure it was staying where it was. The last thing she wanted was an unexpected visitor. Tomorrow she would investigate. Tonight, she needed to close her eyes and investigate the inside of her eyelids before she turned into a paranoid statue.
She tugged the rug up over her shoulders and curled into her usual spot beside the fire.
The tower felt quiet.
Too quiet.
But she shut her eyes anyway.
