Does eating a shrimp burger make you hallucinate?

  Ryan stared up at the glowing words floating in front of him. They were a whitish blue color, the same hue as cotton candy. And he had absolutely no idea what they meant.

  Welcome to the trial.

  Groaning, Ryan eased himself up off the ground. The last thing he remembered was sitting at a tiny restaurant called Sally’s Seafood. People kept hyping it up as having the best shrimp burgers in town, but given that it was a forty minute drive, Ryan hadn’t had the time to make his way out until now.

  At the restaurant, everything had been going to perfection. It wasn’t too crowded, the background music was at the ideal volume, and the food arrived less than ten minutes after he ordered. With a perfectly toasted brioche bun and a crispy, golden patty seared to perfection, the burger was the most delectable thing Ryan had seen in weeks.

  But right before he took his first bite, everything vanished in a flash of light.

  If this was how he died, Ryan wished that he had at least gotten a chance to taste that shrimp burger.

  Looking around, he blinked several times.

  He was sitting in a stone chamber that was large enough to not feel claustrophobic, but small enough that it made him feel that he was trapped. The walls of the room were lined with torches lit with blue flames, similar in color to the floating words. Glancing up, down, left, and right, Ryan could not find a single door in the room.

  What made him most nervous, though, was the chair in the middle of the room. Not necessarily the chair itself, but the figure sitting on the chair. For the most part, it looked like a human. Two arms, two legs, and a head. It wore pitch black robes, cinched at its waist with a black sash. The hands and feet extending from the ends of the robes were covered in white bandages, and a mask made of dark brown wood obscured its face.

  If that wasn’t creepy enough, the figure was still. Dead still.

  Taking a deep breath, Ryan swiped his hand through the glowing words. As if reading his mind, the words vanished into nothingness. Only to be replaced by another set.

  The trial will begin in 10s.

  9s.

  8s.

  A bead of sweat leaked down Ryan’s cheek. Even if this was a wild dream or hallucination, the countdown made him nervous. He had done a ton of restaurant challenges where you were timed to see if you could finish an ungodly amount of food within a certain timeframe. He had never been able to succeed because his stomach tightened up whenever he looked at a ticking clock. At least that’s what he liked to tell himself.

  Ryan rummaged through his pockets, searching for something, anything, that could help him with this trial. Nothing in his pockets except his wallet, car keys, and a receipt from the Chinese takeout he had had for lunch.

  Brandishing the car key like a miniscule knife, Ryan watched as the countdown hit zero.

  At the center of the room, the eyeholes of the wooden mask lit up. The same blue as the floating words and the torches.

  For a moment, everything was still. The figure remained sitting in the chair. Ryan leaned against a stone wall, chest heaving up and down.

  Maybe just a false alarm?

  The figure turned its head to look straight at Ryan. Its blank, glowing eyes peered straight into his soul, sending a shiver down his spine. Then it placed its bandaged feet onto the ground and stood.

  “Who are you?” barked Ryan, figuring communication was worth a try. “What do you want?”

  No response. Instead, the figure took a step towards him.

  Ryan held up his wallet. “Look, man. If you want something from me, we can talk. I’ve got a little money here, but I can get you more if you want.”

  The figure continued approaching him. Each one of its steps was smooth and efficient. Never a stumble or a wobble. As if they were perfectly calculated.

  “Take it,” said Ryan, tossing the wallet to the figure. It bounced off its chest and flopped limply to the ground.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The figure was only a few steps away now. From this distance, Ryan could see clearly that he was dwarfed in size. He was more or less average height, five foot eight and a half. This masked, bandaged person approaching him stood a full head taller.

  “Okay then.” Ryan brandished his car key. “Let’s do this.”

  Before Ryan could move a muscle, the figure punched him in the face.

  Ryan remembered dreams he had had in the past. The typical dream where he had been falling from a roof. Right before impact, you always woke up. You never felt a thing.

  The pain that Ryan felt now made it pretty clear that he was not in a dream. Kind of like when he had eaten a ghost pepper chip, pain seared through his nose and mouth, blazing out towards the rest of his head like a fire.

  Blinking away the tears swarming his eyes, Ryan staggered backwards and shielded his face as best as he could. His head was spinning. He couldn’t see. He had dropped the car key at some point.

  The next punch didn’t come to his face. It came to his unguarded abdomen.

  Pain. Pain everywhere. Ryan dropped to his hands and knees, hacking and coughing and trying to draw any semblance of breath into his lungs. In the corner of his blurred vision, he could see the bandaged feet coming closer and closer.

  Ryan forced his body to move. Diving to the side, he crawled and scrambled, trying his best to -

  Something grabbed him by the back of his shirt. There was an abrupt yank. Ryan hurtled backwards and crashed into the wall. The breath that he had tried so hard to gather was expelled from his lungs once more. He collapsed to the ground.

  Sitting there, every part of his body aching, Ryan looked up. The masked assailant towered over him, blocking out the light of the torches. The only thing that Ryan could see was the dark silhouette and the glowing orbs of his attacker’s eyes.

  There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to go.

  Ryan closed his eyes.

  It’s over.

  “So what did the shrimp burger taste like? Was it as good as everyone said?"

  A voice inside of Ryan’s head. Joyce, his sister.

  A few years ago, they had made a promise to each other. A promise that together, they would taste every single type of food in the world. A stupid promise that, under all of the smiles and optimism, they both knew would be impossible to keep.

  It was such a stupid promise that ever since Joyce passed away three years ago, Ryan had traveled to over thirty countries to keep it.

  And it was the stupidity of the promise that gave Ryan the motivation to give it one last try.

  “At least let me taste my goddamn shrimp burger before I go!”

  Unleashing a bellow, Ryan launched himself into the midsection of the masked man. The two of them crashed into the ground, landing in a tangle of limbs. Attempting to secure an advantageous position, Ryan used his legs to hamper his opponent’s movements. As soon as he was somewhat in the right position on top of his enemy, he began raining down a series of punches at the wooden mask.

  He didn’t care where the punches landed. All he cared about was that they hit something. And even if they glanced off the wooden mask, he ignored the pain.

  Eight seconds passed. Nine. Ten.

  After what felt like an eternity, Ryan leaned back and let his arms drop to his sides. Ragged breaths raked his lungs. His knuckles were bloodied and bruised. The masked figure lay on the ground, unmoving. The glowing circles of its eyes stared straight up at the ceiling.

  Even though he hadn’t even made a crack on the mask, maybe -

  The masked figure’s arm shot up and grabbed Ryan by the throat. Its grip was strong, like an iron vice. Ryan frantically tried to pry its fingers away with his own, but his hands were still trembling from the punches he had thrown.

  His vision grew blurry, his consciousness fading.

  Shrimp burger!

  Ryan twisted his head and sunk his teeth into the masked figure’s forearm as hard as he could. After the countless types of jerky he had chewed through in his life, if there was one thing he knew how to do well, it was biting.

  For the first time, his attacker gave a reaction. It emitted a faint hissing sound, kind of like air leaking out of a deflating balloon. Then it released his neck.

  Coughing and sputtering, Ryan staggered backwards. This time the masked figure didn’t follow. Massaging his neck, Ryan spat several times to clear his mouth of the taste of stale cloth bandages. He had tasted a lot of different kinds of food, but he wasn’t sure anything tasted quite this bad.

  Keeping a wary eye on the masked figure, Ryan watched as it walked back to the chair in the center of the room. It sat back down and assumed the position it had been in when Ryan had first appeared. The lights in the eyeholes of its mask extinguished and it fell still, as if it had never moved in the first place.

  More glowing words sprang to life in front of Ryan, nearly making him wet his pants.

  Skilled activated: [An Acquired Taste]

  Constitution: 0 → 1

  Warmth enveloped Ryan. It felt like a mouthful of hot chocolate going down on a cold winter night, soothing and comforting. After several seconds, the warmth faded into nothingness. Maybe it was a trick of his mind, but Ryan swore that the aches and pains in the body hurt slightly less.

  Before he could question the mysterious phenomenon any further, more words appeared.

  Congratulations on passing the trial!

  10 credits awarded.

  Ryan finally let out a pent-up sigh of relief. Whatever this was, it was over. Hopefully that meant he could go back to living his life and eating his food. Maybe even tasting that shrimp burger he was about to sink his teeth into.

  Transporting to Level 1.

  “Damn.”