I sighed. “Is this another intervention?” It’s too early for this. I earned more than any of my friends, but my folks were still embarrassed of me.
“No, this isn’t about those games. Are you sitting down?”
I sat up in bed. “Yeah, why?”
“Your uncle Al, he passed away,” he said, leaving his words hanging between us. I let them linger too.
“How?” I finally asked.
“He was… seventy-six years old… and the university forced him into retirement last year,” he attempted to explain.
“And?”
“And, he decided to take his own life. He jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.”
That’s not what happened. “Uncle Al works from home. He has everything he needs in his basement. He only ever cared about unlocking the secrets of the universe. He could care less about the university.”
“It is what it is.” Dad and Al were never close, but how could he just believe the worst of him? “This is kind of a crazy time at the firm. Do you think you’re up for putting his affairs in order? Everyone else has a job…”
“Yeah, Dad.”
Arriving at Uncle Al’s house, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. He lived here my entire life, but this was my first time visiting alone. My folks always thought I'd get caught up in a blackhole or something from one of his experiments. As I entered the house, I headed straight to the basement where he spent most of his waking hours.
Uncle Alastair was always a bit of a mad scientist. He focused on his search for answers the way I focused on a new game. We were both single minded like that. I guess that's why we always got along.
I took in the lab noticing used dishes stacked haphazardly on my uncle's desk along with half-empty coffee cups next to his computer. Papers were strewn about, some with notes scrawled in distinctive handwriting, while others featured intricate diagrams and schematics.
The lingering scent of chemicals and burnt metal still hung thick in the air, a reminder of the countless experiments conducted here. His cluttered workbench was at the center full of tools and gadgets. Some of which I recognize and others completely foreign to me; cold irons, oscilloscopes, and who knows what else.
A big red button stood out. It was probably an emergency cutoff of some kind. I took a closer look and noticed that some of the machinery still had wires and circuit boards attached, suggesting that my uncle was in the middle of a project when he passed away.
My eyes kept coming back to a large button, bright and red, screaming to be pressed. The plastic lid that covered it, with a keyhole set in the side, only made me want to press it more. Despite the growing temptation, I reminded myself that I was here to put my uncle's things in order, not play with his experiments.
I seated myself at my uncle’s computer where the screen flickered on and a blinking cursor waited for a password. He knows anyone serious about gaining access is going to get in. It’ll be something simple to keep out the causal busybody. After entering his home address, a low ‘beep, beep’ informed me that my guess was incorrect.
I checked under his keyboard. No password, but there was a small key. My gaze shifted back to the big red button again. Focus! My eyes then landed on the title of the only book on his desk, one he had authored as a requirement for a university grant.
‘Beep, beep.’
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That’s not it. What did he have in his chat signature... Something in Latin. I typed ‘Memento Mori.’
Success! I was greeted by an open file called ‘Journal,’ followed by the current year. It was located inside a folder named for the decade. This is going to take a while.
I stood up and stretched, my eyes once again drawn to the big red button, then back to the key on the table. I deserve a break before delving in. I gave the key a twist, patting myself on the back for waiting as long as I did. It was then I realized the base holding the button didn't actually connect to any of the lab equipment, or anything at all. I shrugged, and pressed it anyway.
The moment the button was pressed I found myself standing in a sunny meadow. Such a sudden change, with no transition at all, was jarring to say the least. It felt like I had lost time or something. I looked down to see my dingdong, and the reflection of said dingdon in a thigh deep in a reflective pond.
Everything I could see painted a beautiful scene, with wildflowers circling the small pond, and lush forest bordering the meadow, but something wasn't quite right. Everything was a little too… anime. It was almost like the world had just a touch of cel shading. Or something, I don’t know.
I bent a little at the waist. What the hell? My reflection belonged back in highschool. Or maybe like a highschool anime or something. I could be the ‘nice guy’ from one of those slice-of-life's who mysteriously gets the hot girl. I was definitely still me though.
As I stood there, trying to make sense of what was happening, I heard a low growl. I looked around in panic. Nothing there. I scanned the tree line, every shadow now suspicious. There’s nothing there.
A second growl caused me to spin around, almost tripping as stones shifted on the pond's rocky bottom. The yellow eyes of a wolf were locked on me. A third growl came from the same direction as the first. I can’t let them surround me!
I turned and ran on instinct, my bare feet padding against the soft grass as soon as I had bounded out of the water. As I ran into the woods, soft grass was replaced by something sharp, but I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Some ancestral memory said ‘run,’ and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
I never saw the cliff's edge. One moment I was running, the next I was flying through the air. But I didn’t fall far before I was clawing at a tall tree for dear life, now swaying dangerously from my own momentum. I had a brief moment of hope that the tree would support me before a loud crack tore that hope away. The whole tree slowly started to bend and break over the course of a few seconds that felt like an eternity.
I’m not sure how far I fell, or how long it took me to regain my senses. When I did, I saw a skeleton lying there; the remains of someone who had met a similar fate. I looked up at the broken tree. That could have been me.
I could see that I was bleeding; that was no surprise. I also saw the word ‘bleeding’ above a health meter in the lower right corner of my vision, and that did surprise me. The meter was red, and low, and slowly getting lower. Did I hit my head and start hallucinating? Should I be taking this seriously?
I crawled over to the skeleton to see if I could use some strips of its tattered clothing to stop the bleeding. Every inch closer was more painful than the last. I finally made it only to feel the cloth was like tissue paper; completely useless. I did find a belt in pretty good condition with a pretty big knife holstered in it. I grabbed that, and the backpack.
I tried to take it off the dead man respectfully, but I was still alive, and he wasn’t. It could have a first aid kit or something. The whole skeleton ended up coming apart from my effort. “Sorry,” I told him with a wince.
When I tried to open the bag, instead of opening, I was met with… an inventory screen? Like a video game? This didn’t feel like a video game, the pain was very real, but… The center slot was labeled ‘Bandage x3.’
I tried to select it or something, and instead I was touching the rolled up bandage. I took it out and was met with a popup dialogue box:
[Use Bandage?]
Yes/No
Yes
The bandage disappeared from my hand with a sound like a tape dispenser. I looked down to find I already had the bandages on me, and the word bleeding had disappeared from my lifebar. The bar stopped inching its way down.
Another item slot hovering before me had a bottle of red liquid labeled ‘Minor Potion of Healing’. I reached for it, and took that one too. In video games potions were like the size of your head, but this one was like an ounce or two. I took a quick glance at my health bar, flicked off the cork, and dowed it in one gulp. My health bar immediately started going up, and I could feel it.