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  John woke with a start, sitting stark upright like something out of a horror movie. He gasped, brisk morning air filling his lungs. His hands moved to his face before he even knew what he was doing.

  Unable to feel any burn marks he moved them up to his closed eyes, feeling the thin skin of his lids. Beneath them he could feel the balls of his eyes. He sighed, then pressed them harder just to double check.

  How am I...?

  His interface flashed with multiple notifications and it all came flooding back. He’d accepted a card… a cursed card.

  Panic causing his heart to race, he opened the notification.

  New card:

  Berserker’s Curse – The curse lies dormant.

  “What the hell does that mean?” He mumbled aloud as he searched through his interface for any more information. There wasn’t any.

  Why haven’t I gotten my fifth card? He wondered. Buck had told him that upon acquisition of the fourth card, a fifth would manifest. A unique card, supposedly. That was how the game kept getting fresh powers to keep it interesting for the viewers. The manifestations of bespoke cards born of the individuals whose decks created them.

  Shaking his head, he looked around the small, boxy room he was in. He recognised it, The Outback Sleep Shack.

  How had he ended up in here? More importantly, where was everyone? Was The Captain alright?

  Getting to his feet gingerly, his heart felt lighter as he realised there was no longer any pain. Still hesitant to believe in such a miracle, he thoroughly checked his body for any sign of burned flesh and broken bones. There weren’t any.

  In fact, even the minor scarring on his chest from the final round of the tournament had disappeared. Accepting the card has completely healed him. He guessed that made sense, there was no way his contestant regeneration or the shack’s bed would have brought him back from the brink of death. His heart was about to stop, his eyeballs had burst.

  He shivered as the memory flashed through his head.

  You won’t take my humanity. I will burn it all down.

  Exiting the room he saw the familiar shape of Truffle sitting happily on a bar stool and chatting away with the shirt wearing, bipedal dinosaur.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” Buck said with a lopsided, toothy smile. “It seems that lately I only see you post-knockout.”

  “Nice to see you too,” John replied, pulling up a stool and staring expectantly at the others.

  Before he had a chance to ask any questions a large ramen bowl slid towards him. Looking down, he was met with a fresh, warm bout of tantalising steam which floated dreamily through the air and up his nostrils.

  “Beef ramen,” Buck announced, “I’ve heard it was quite popular in this world.”

  “I’ve never had it before but it looks good,” John replied with a shrug.

  Digging in, he wrapped a slurry of soupy noodles around his fork and stabbed at the almost rare beef slice sitting on top. The flavour exploded in his mouth, an oddly fishy flavour mixed with ginger, garlic, and onion.

  His stomach rumbled in a deep gurgle and Buck nodded satisfactorily.

  “Truffle here was just filling me in on your adventures,” Buck said. “I have to say, you’re getting more reckless by the day. Admirable. But a quick way to get yourself killed. You might want to dial it back a bit if you intend to make it to the second round.”

  “Boss was incredible!” Truffle squealed, defending John as the famished man continued to devour his food. “He rushed into the mouth of the beast and blew its brains out. He cooked it from the inside. You know how I feel about cooked food, but even I thought it was awesome.

  “Then he went flying through the air, he looked all charred and broken like Annie Kim from that movie with the glowing sticks. But then there was this flashing light. Well, I say light but it was more like a glowing darkness. Red and black swirls, real anime like. It covered his whole body and by the time I got to him, the Boss was fully healed and asleep. I mean, what kind of guy takes a nap at a time like that? The Boss, that’s who. He’s so awesome he can nap even before the battle’s over.”

  “Before?” John said, eyes widening, through a mouthful of food that threatened to choke him.

  “Yeah, that weird zoophile woman started attacking us the moment her penguin exploded. She must have been upset that you killed him right after they made out. Probably ruined their date. I think she lost her leg in the explosion too, there was blood everywhere. She looked pretty upset. That guard guy who used to be on our side but then pulled a switcharoo started shooting at us and tried to carry her off. I chased them off with my amazing singing voice, and some help from Granny Ass Kicker, but they got away.”

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  Finally taking a breath from his erratic recounting, Truffle puffed his chest out and beamed at John.

  “Good job,” he said, patting the pig on his head. “What happened to The Captain. Last I saw he was blown off the cliff.”

  “Oh, old Field Marhsall? Yeah he’s fine, just a little soggy. He drives a boat you know; I figured you knew he could swim.”

  Under normal circumstances John might have rolled his eyes at the pig’s glib remarks, but he was just thankful that everyone was alright. Dangerous as it was to make friends in this game, there was an argument to be made for safety in numbers.

  You’ll have to kill them eventually; this is a battle royale.

  His heart jumped for a second, emotional dampening activated and a small notification telling him so appeared on his interface. He took a breath and pushed the intrusive thought away. He didn’t need to be thinking about that stuff right now. The voice didn’t sound like his own intrusive thoughts. It was deeper somehow.

  Fuck this game. You won’t take my humanity.

  “What happened to the rest of the Orphans?” He asked, immediately chugging a glass bottle of Coke which Buck had opened for him. It tasted infinitely better from a glass bottle, though he didn’t know why.

  “We still haven’t found a lot of them,” Truffle said, looking down at the floor. “Two of the life rafts are missing, along with all the other adults and some of the kids. The ones I got to are all alive, though we lost the woman who was with them. She didn’t survive the landing.”

  John reached out, scratching behind the pig’s droopy ear. He looked up, meeting his steely gaze. “Good job buddy. If it wasn’t for your quick thinking back there none of them would have survived the wave. You did good.”

  Truffle perked up at that, nuzzling closer into John’s hand. He remined him of a dog when he did that. John had grown up with a family dog, a mastiff. The dopey idiot always had a look on his face that made you feel sorry for him and whenever John had scratched his ear, the dog had pushed into it, cocking his head.

  Colonel Sanders, he thought, for that was the dog’s name, I wonder what he’d sound like if he’d lived long enough to come into the game… Probably like Scooby Doo.

  “You slept through the last announcement by the way,” Buck said, interrupting the silent, tender moment. “The gate will appear at noon tomorrow.”

  Startled, John sat bolt upright, leaning forward on the countertop and giving the triceratops his undivided attention.

  “That certainly woke you up,” he said and John glared at him, willing him to continue. “Yeah it was broadcasted on last night’s show. There were a lot of deaths yesterday, kid. A lot. Those anchors passed along the info, said that at midday tomorrow the gate will open. Singular. I don’t know exactly what that means but I’d guess there will be some kind of event. There’s no way they’d expect you to find it in a single day. The showrunners are cruel, but only when it serves their purpose. They wouldn’t create a mass extinction event in the first round, there’s no money in it. My guess is that you’ll all get teleported to it.”

  “Shit,” John muttered. “It’ll be a blood bath if that happens.”

  “Most certainly,” Buck replied, leaning closer and placing his elbows on the countertop. “But at least you won’t have to waste time trying to find the damned thing. By the way, I have a pretty solid lead on a card to fill your final slot, its close by so you should have time.”

  “No need,” John interrupted, flashing a grinning smile at the dinosaur. “I got one from the penguin, that’s how I survived.”

  “You… really? What is it?”

  “I don’t really know; it was pretty ominous. It’s called Berserker’s Curse.”

  Buck took a step backwards, all colour draining from his green, scaley face. An interesting thing about dinosaurs, when the blood drains from their skin they don’t turn white, they turn a lighter shade of their natural skin colour. Buck’s was usually a dark, forest green, but in that moment it reminded John of the sickly, lime colour of his mom’s Nissan Micra from when he was kid.

  He’d hated that car. Hated the colour too. Mostly though, he hated remembering the day he’d broken his arm in a car crash in it. The day she’d miscarried. The day everything went wrong with her and his dad’s marriage.

  “A curse card…” Buck breathed, his voice low and akin to that of a post op lung cancer survivor. “John, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry? What do you mean? I know it can’t be good but that card saved my life. I had no choice.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, but still,” Buck looked as if he was about to pass out. His eyes flashed and he seemed to be off away in his own world somewhere.

  Is he having a flashback?

  “They’re rare, and usually quite powerful,” he continued in a sombre tone. “But they’re dangerous. Firstly, you have no way of knowing what will trigger them to activate, and when they do you’re almost guaranteed to regret the result. Secondly, and this one’s a big one for you, they prevent your unique card from forming until they have been activated. So you won’t be able to level up until the curse had run its course.”

  “Wait, will that stop me from getting through the gate?” John replied, slapping both hands on the table as his eyes widened and the dry air made them sting.

  “I don’t know, but that’s not the biggest issue here. If you can’t level up you’ll die in the next round. There’s no two ways about it. But if the card does awaken and the curse takes hold you might die anyway, or worse.”

  “What’s worse than death at this point?” John scoffed.

  “There are lots of things worse than death, kid. Play this game long enough and I’m sure you’ll come to realise that.”

  The two stared at each other, eyes locked. Sadness leaked from Buck’s reptilian pupils whilst John’s looked oddly determined. You could cut the tension with a knife. Was Buck right? John had almost killed Lilia because of that same thought, but she was still here. He’d once said that there was no hope in death. He wasn’t sure if that was the same as death being the worst thing, not anymore at least.

  “Oh my god, look at this it’s so cool!” Truffle squealed and the two men ended their staring contest to glance over at him.

  Placing his trotter on the kiosk’s palm reader, Truffle began to glow, bathed in bright yellow light.

  “What’s he doing?” John wondered aloud.

  “Looks like he’s making a purchase,” Buck shrugged as if watching a pig use an ATM-looking arcade game-like kiosk was completely normal.

  WHOOSH.

  A tube exited the machine, shooting across the bar and smashing a liquor bottle. Buck swore, ducking to avoid being hit.

  “I just bought the coolest thing!” Truffle exclaimed, bright eyes turning towards them. “Oh, also I got an interface like you, Boss, and I got an upgrade for it. If you get it too we can send each other messages. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “Messages?” John began, “wait, how did you get enough shards for all that?”

  “I’ve been saving them up, you’re not the only one who got rewards for all those quests we’ve been doing you know.”

  “Saving them for what?”

  “For this.” Truffle hopped off the stool next to machine and sauntered behind the bar, nudging the tube with his nose.

  In a flash of dull light, a bowler hat appeared on his head. It was black with a red ribbon tied around it.

  “How awesome is this?” He said, chuntering with delight as he strutted around.

  “It’s a hat, Truffle,” John replied slowly, struggling to see the appeal.

  “I know! It’s just like the one Field Marshall gave you. Now we match.”

  “It’s nothing like mine, you look like Charlie Chaplin.”

  “Was he a cool guy? I don’t know who that is.”

  “Well his facial grooming inspired some pretty famous people, but it’s since fallen out of fashion,” John said.

  “Well he sounds swell, and now that I’m a cowboy too we can start a posey!”