MADMAN APOCALYPSE

Through the bars that covered the thick tempered glass window, the world was stained crimson, while fat droplets slowly rolled down the outside, leaving oily streaks in their wake.

I regarded the blood rain with an ambivalent look, although at least the sun’s light through the oily streaks dyed my white walls in a fascinating pink hue.

“Thursday already?” I wondered out loud to the only audience in my cell.

The Panda plushie watched me with its beady eyes ringed by black spots. No matter how many times the orderlies threw it out, for fear of it being utilized for nefarious means, it always found its way back to me. It was quite possible that the Panda wasn’t really there, but it was hard to tell.

“I’ve been here for too long,” I grumbled. They gave me no clocks or calendars or even pens with which to track the time here, so it was only by looking at the outside world through the tempered glass window and protective bars that I got a proper sense for its passing.

Thursday was always blood rain. It was the only real constant I could track the time by.

A thump from outside my soundproofed cell pulled my focus from the window to the door. Without warning klaxon or an orderly’s voice through the intercom buried in the ceiling where I couldn’t reach it, the door simply slid open. It was a heavy metallic thing that might as well’ve been used to secure a bull or a raging tiger. I smirked to myself at the thought that I was worthy of such security measures.

I shared a brief glance with the Panda plushie, “I suppose you ought to come along.”

The knitted plushie didn’t protest as I took it by the arm and went out through the door that had opened for some reason.

“Perhaps it is another hallucination, just like the blood rain?” I considered out loud.

When I looked down the clean white hall with the linoleum floor and bulbous security cameras dotting the ceiling at even intervals, I saw that this entire section had been unlocked, as my neighbors’ and their neighbors’ heavy metal doors were likewise opened wide.

There was not a single orderly in sight and the red glow that normally revealed the life within the cameras was absent as well.

“Is it Halloween already?” I wondered. “Or perhaps they are testing us.”

“You ought to run,” said a voice nearby.

I chuckled. “It’s been a while since I heard voices.”

I felt something tug on my right hand where I held the plushie, then it began to pull on my long grey sleeve as it crawled up my arm. With a surprised look, I saw that the Panda had come to life.

“Well, this is new.”

The plushie made its way onto my shoulder then poked me in the forehead with its knitted fingerless arm. “Snap out of it, Gambit! You have to get out of here before they get you!”

“Gambit? Is that my name?”

“Of course it is,” the plushie replied, shaking its head in disbelief. “I’m Pandamonium, remember?”

“Not really.”

“They must have hit you hard in the head last time they restrained you, those orderlies.”

“They are pretty strong,” I agreed.

A fat hand suddenly reached out of my neighbor’s cell, it was covered in blisters and sores, with bruised hues of blues, blacks, and purples. A second later the head emerged.

“Mike looks different,” I commented, surprised at my neighbor’s glow-up. No sooner had the words left my mouth than the head turned to glare at me.

“…that’s not Mike.”

The head was elongated to twice its normal length, the eyes had sunken in so deep that nothing but darkness stared back, and the mouth was opened wide enough for the corners to reach the bottom of his shrunken ears. Not-Mike let out a garbled scream and launched out of the doorway, slamming into the hallway wall. He was about to reorient himself and jump me, when suddenly—

*Tap-tap*

…

Is this thing on?

Oh, it is?

*Throat-clearing noises*

Welcome one and all to the GREAT GAME (trademark pending)!

You may have already noticed that things have significantly changed around you.

Those of you who were using public transport at the time of the transformation may already be dead or are about to be, once time resumes. Especially those of you on the subway.

And my condolences to those who were within public facilities when it happened, as you have now become mindless monsters.

The rest of you, however, are mostly all unscathed!

For now.

You will all be pleased to know that your world, “Dirt”, has been chosen to participate in the GREAT GAME!

“What does this mean?” you may wonder.

Well, let me tell you!

Once every odd-numbered millennium, a world with a sentient population is picked to take part in the GREAT GAME, with the winners gaining cosmic influence and popularity.

Pretty exciting, huh!?

I can tell a lot of you are thinking, “I don’t have time for this, I have work to do at the office!”

Well, Samantha, your office has become a den of monsters and your janitor is now an eight-eyed Calamity Demon, who craves human flesh.

But don’t you worry! Your old job and life may be gone forever to the predations of cosmic horrors and their filthy spawn, but the GREAT GAME comes with a fantastic System that makes everything A-OK by assigning you a cool new ‘Class’!

Your starter Class may or may not determine how long you survive, but for those of you who do manage to hold on to your pathetic and meaningless lives, you can potentially gain a new Class or evolve your current one down the line!

On top of your swanky System-granted Class is the ability to level up and improve your new attributes, like Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Defense, and more!

“How do I level up?” you ask. Well, it’s simple!

Kill your fellow humans or the many new fun monsters that roam your world!

But remember to keep a close eye on your Insanity Gauge, because once it hits 100% you will turn into a monster yourself.

For the next twenty-four hours, have as much fun as you want with your new powers and attributes. Don’t forget to familiarize yourself with the wacky neighbors who just moved into your area, and make sure to get comfortable with this new reality, because once the timer ends, the first of the many challengingly-brutal GAMES begin!

Now a brief word from our Sponsors!

THE GREAT GAME IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY *incoherent blood-curdling screams*!

Time resumed as though I hadn’t just heard a crazy message in my head that proclaimed the apocalypse had come in the form of some game of life-and-death. Then a screen popped up in front of my vision, before Not-Mike flew at me and slammed me back into my cell that I’d just emerged from.

I swiped at the air, trying to get the screen to disappear, while my neighbor tried to pound his fat hands against my chest. With a violent shove, I pushed myself out from under Not-Mike and his distended and bloated body. I kicked him in the side of his elongated face for good measure, then hopped over him and out the cell, before grabbing the heavy door and slamming it shut.

“That door weighs 800 pounds…” Pandamonium remarked.

I looked down at my hands, “Maybe all the exercise finally paid off?”

“What exercise? All you ever do is stare out the window!”

While Not-Mike pounded on the door from the other side, I finally regarded the screen that refused to leave my vision:

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x

‘Huh, that’s not meant to happen…’

Start the GREAT GAME inside a Dungeon.

I swear this is not meant to be possible… but you somehow survived being inside a Dungeon during the transformation. Unlike the other patients and orderlies within ‘Calm Springs Asylum’, you have retained your humanity.

Please remain where you are while we send an agent to investigate this mystery.

Reward: ‘System Glitch’ Class

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Gotcha’? ‘Accept’?”

“Maybe there’s a small X in the corner that’s really hard to see?” the plushie suggested.

I squinted as I looked at the screen floating inches from my face, then I spotted the small symbol in the top-right and tapped my finger against it, making it disappear.

“Huh… seems you were right.”

“Now can we get the hell out of here?” Panda asked. “It doesn’t sound promising that they’re sending an ‘agent’ to investigate why you are still human.”

As though to further emphasize the need for me to get a move on, garbled screams emerged from all the other cells nearby. Already, from the one furthest down the hall, a pencil-thin woman with clawed hands and a scrunched-up-yet-overly-long face was beginning to crawl out onto the ceiling, while her twelve-inch deep-purple tongue lolled around beneath her.

“I suppose waiting around is a bad idea,” I replied, then started running down the opposite way from where the thin woman had emerged. Screams and shouts came from the security station up ahead and I felt fairly confident that getting out of here would be quite a challenge.

I barged through the door that separated my ward from the security station, slapping it shut with such force that it snapped the round handle off. As I stood staring dumbfounded at the metallic handle in my hand, more of the patients emerged from their cells on the other side, some like Not-Mike and others like the creepy lady climbing on the ceiling, and all of them gunning it for me.

As I was about to spin around and hightail it for the exit, thick hands grabbed me around the waist and began squeezing.

“Pineapple!” I screamed, remembering my safe-word, but the person wasn’t letting up in the slightest. With as much power as I could manage, I rammed my right elbow behind me, hearing a devastating crunch as it connected, followed immediately with an angry roar. The grip on me lessened and I quickly pulled myself free, turning around to lock eyes with my attacker.

Except my attacker had no eyes. His entire head was like a thumb, nail and all, and the middle of it was caved-in from where my elbow had struck. He had the figure of a bodybuilder and wore the calming-blue suit of an orderly, though it was stretched so tight by his muscles that the seams looked on the point of bursting.

“The handle! Throw the handle at it!” Panda yelled.

I got to my feet and swung my fist with the round handle directly into his thumb-head, producing a loud crunch and ragdolling the disturbing monstrosity. No sooner had he collapsed to the floor than his twin emerged from behind the security counter, shoving aside monitors and an analog phone to get to me. I belatedly followed Panda’s advice and flung the metal handle at him, scoring a satisfying hit that sent him tumbling head-over-backwards. I didn’t wait to see if he got back to his feet, but instead just booked it for the hallway that led to the main entrance.

My woolen socks and the lack of friction from the linoleum floor sent me skating, when I tried to stop myself from running into the next door. I hit it with an oomph as the air was punched from my lungs, then scrambled for the round handle.

As soon as I went through the doorway, I realized that something was off.

“The building’s changed!” I exclaimed, looking down a hallway that wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Everything has been transformed, after all,” Panda explained to no one’s benefit.

“How am I meant to get out? The entrance was supposed to be here!”

“Maybe you can punch your way through the wall?” Panda suggested jokingly, though I immediately took him up on the suggestion, ramming my fist into the plastic-textured off-white wallpaper.

After only a few punches, my knuckles were pissing blood, but I kept it up, until I’d broken off a big enough piece that I’d be able to climb through. However, when I peeled away the plastic wallpaper it was not freedom on the other side of the hole, nor even insulation or brickwork, instead it was like a tapestry of screaming faces. The sound it made was like TV static that only vaguely sounded like voices.

“Well, that’s mildly disconcerting,” the plushie remarked.

“Mildly??”

“What happens if you touch it?”

“Do you just like goading me into doing stupid things!? Because I’ll do it!”

“I was just jok—” Panda started to say, before I reached out and touched the screaming tapestry. It looked as though it had been woven from old people’s hair, and, for the brief moment I touched it with my fingers, it also felt like it. Then a powerful shock flowed through my body, before I was flung backwards into the opposite wall of the hallway and smoke billowed from my charred fingertips.

“Ow.”

“What the hell was that?”

WARNING!

Attempts to exit a Dungeon in unconventional ways will be punished!

You have 0/1 Warnings remaining.

Next punishment will be fatal.

“Well, I’ll be buggered,” Panda remarked. “Seems we’re in a ‘dungeon’.”

“That must mean there’s a boss or a gatekeeper somewhere.”

“Guess you’ll have to beat whoever runs this place before it’ll let you leave.”

“If this place now operates on game logic, aren’t I supposed to have abilities or something??”

“I don’t think you’re meant to start in a dungeon, to be fair.”

I got an idea and lifted up my bleeding fist, then snapped my fingers.

Snap!

My middle-finger immediately broke in half, the top-half bending over the back of the finger, so that the nail almost touched the first wrinkly joint.

“Ow!”

“What did you do that for!?” Panda scolded me.

“I was just trying to bring up a Status screen or something.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the System responded to my prompt and a window appeared in front of my eyes.

“What the fuck?”