I'm Here to Help

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“Sick,” Lee said.

“Shut up and let me read,” Edwin said.

Edwin was the one who’d found the game. He spent countless hours in the basement every summer, trawling through the web on Dad’s old desktop in search of freeware. It was an addiction, he’d admit, and a fun one. Like digging for treasure on an abandoned beach.

An ancient-looking website had promised downloads of over a hundred games from the late eighties and beyond. Stuff like the original original Civ, straight from Edwin’s bucket list. But when he’d clicked the link, only one file was present.

Cbn_n_th_wds_sngl_plyr.ROM.

So he installed it. Lee perched on the back of his chair as the loading screen faded into the game’s opening line. Maybe one day Lee would get his own friends instead of hovering around Edwin’s shoulder every single moment.

“It’s a text-based game,” Edwin said. “That means no graphics and no sound. Seems pretty boring, right?”

“Nah,” Lee said. “Let’s do it.”

Edwin rolled his eyes and clicked the tiny NEXT icon beneath the text.

The villagers outside the woods tell stories of a demon who enticed local children with promises of adventure and freedom. They would follow him into the darkness and never return. According to local legend, the demon was once a man who lived in that very cabin. The candle is a signal that he has returned.

“You think we’ll find the demon?” Lee asked.

“Please just shut up, Lee,” Edwin said. He clicked NEXT.

When you enter the village, exhausted from your travels, an old man waits for you at the entrance. He wears faded jeans and a white tank top.

“Faded jeans?” Lee asked. “Isn’t this, like, a fantasy game? Why is he wearing modern clothes?”

“Shh,” Edwin said.

“I’m here to help,” the old man says. “Are you the brave heroes who will save our village from the demon?”

“Now what?” Lee asked.

“Sometimes you have to type your response,” Edwin said.

“So you can just say anything?”

“It doesn’t count unless you follow the programming.” Edwin typed YES and hit enter.

The old man beams with excitement. “Excellent!” he says. “I can take you to the cabin. Follow me and stay close.” The old man leads you through the empty streets of the village. You see a few pairs of terrified eyes watching you from the windows as you pass. You feel emboldened, ready to save this village from the scourge of the demon.

“What does scourge mean?” Lee asked.

Edwin sighed. “It means shove your foot up your mouth.”

The dirt path winds through the forest and down into a narrow valley strewn with fallen leaves. The cabin waits for you. It’s a small structure with a door on one side and a window on the adjacent wall. The candle burns brightly, breaking the shadows cast by the setting sun.

“I think it’s almost time for dinner,” Lee said. He glanced at his watch, then at the west-facing window behind them. The last few rays of sunlight shone through the glass. The basement’s lone lightbulb flickered above their heads.

“How will you get inside?” the old man asks.

Edwin typed WINDOW.

You try the window. It’s locked tight, and the glass doesn’t break even when you hit it with a rock. The candle’s flame flickers, taunting your failure.

“Taunt this,” Edwin muttered, and he typed DOOR.

The door is bolted shut, but you swipe your sword through the gap and sever the bar, then kick the door in.

“Nice!” Lee said.

The cabin has no floor. There is only darkness, a deep hole extending into eternity. “Jump in,” says the old man. “Both of you.”

Lee leaned forward and, before Edwin could stop him, typed NO and hit enter. Edwin shoved him away from the keyboard.

“Little freak!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lee asked. “This guy is the demon. If we do what he says, he’ll get us.”

“This is the threshold,” Edwin said. “It’s how we get into the adventure. If we don’t do it, we don’t play the game. Got it, twerp?”

Lee nodded. “Fine. I still don’t like it.”

Edwin shrugged and turned back to the screen.

“I understand your hesitation,” the old man says. “I was once like you. But when I took hold of my courage, I received a bounty beyond my imagination. You can do the same. For the sake of the village.” He gestures to the yawning chasm inside the cabin. “If you please.”

Edwin typed JUMP. Nothing happened. He typed JUMP a second time and hit enter.

You jump into the darkness.

The basement light flashed once and went out, leaving only the illumination from the computer screen. For a moment Edwin feared they’d lost power, but the computer was still on, so it was probably nothing.

“Mom, everything okay?” he shouted, willing his voice to reach the first floor. No response. “It’s fine,” he whispered to himself.

You fall. The old man falls with you, grinning at your terrified faces. “It’s always the first one!” he yells over the rush of wind pelting your ears. You don’t know what he means.

Your feet land on solid stone. You’re standing in the middle of an enormous cavern, surrounded by heaps of tarnished treasure – gold coins, silver jewelry, emeralds of impossible sizes. Water drips from the ceiling somewhere behind you.

Lee turned around when he heard the plunk. It sounded like that pipe in the corner was leaking again. Dad would have to fix it when he got home.

A massive shape rises from the midst of the treasure, sending thousands of coins and trinkets flying. You both raise your shields as a fierce red-scaled dragon bares its glistening fangs at you.

“See?” Edwin said. “This must be the demon.”

You each have a sword, a crossbow, fifteen arrows, and two ice blast spells. The old man stands behind you and asks, “How will you defeat him?”

“Crossbow,” Edwin said, but Lee grabbed his hand.

“Ice blasts are better,” Lee said. “He breathes fire. Ice is the opposite.”

Edwin wrenched his arm free of Lee’s grip. “Just let me do it. You don’t know anything.”

“We’re in this together!”

“This is a single-player game!” Edwin yelled. “For one person! Can you please just shut up and watch for five seconds?”

Lee thought for a moment. “Then why,” he asked, “did the old guy say there were two of us?”

Edwin froze. Then he typed CROSSBOW. ICE-BLAST.

One of you unhooks your crossbow and unleashes a deadly bolt towards the dragon. One of you drops your shield and waves your hands to send a wave of ice hurtling at your foe. The bolt strikes just below the dragon’s neck, enraging him, and the ice-blast coats the creature’s maw with a thick layer of frost. The dragon slumps down, unable to breathe. He whimpers in pain until the final throes of death take him.

“That was too easy,” Lee said.

“Wait,” Edwin said, “there’s more.”

As the dragon falls still, the world around you twists and spins until you land in a brightly lit room with pure white walls. The floor is soft underneath your bare feet. You look at each other, confused.

Edwin and Lee looked at each other, confused, just as the basement light flared back to life with a blinding flash. Lee yelped and crouched behind Edwin’s chair.

“You scared?” Edwin asked, grinning back at his brother.

Lee poked his head out from behind the chair. “Just a little,” he whispered.

“Dad’s gotta fix that light,” Edwin said. “I’ll ask him later.”

NEXT.

The old man is still behind you. “What fun!” he says, clapping his hands. “Although this place looks a little less fun. More like an insane asylum. How will you ever get us out of this one?”

A loudspeaker on the wall crackles.

Edwin and Lee covered their ears at the sound of static. “Was that the computer?” Lee asked, looking around.

“Dunno,” Edwin said. “Maybe there are some sound files buried in the programming after all.”

Lee looked at his watch again. “Edwin, it’s two o’clock.”

“We started playing at three-thirty, stupid.”

“Two in the morning, Edwin.”

Edwin blinked bloodshot eyes and looked back at the window, which had grown completely dark. Mom hadn’t come to check on them for…over ten hours. They should have had dinner. They should have gone to bed. Edwin should have been pretending to sleep while reading fantasy books on his phone.

“Should we go check on Mom and Dad?” Lee asked.

Edwin thought about it. Then he clicked NEXT.

“Test subjects 321-A and 321-B are prepped for injection,” says the voice over the loudspeaker. A panel in the wall slides open to reveal the barrel of a strange-looking gun. It turns robotically to face you, and you realize that your weapons and armor have disappeared. You’re helpless to defend yourself as the gun prepares to fire.

Edwin typed DODGE.

”Wait–” Lee said, but Edwin had already hit enter.

One of you ducks away from the dart that whistles through the air above your head. One of you is hit.

“Ow!” Lee said, smacking at his arm. “Something bit me.” Edwin ignored him.

You run to your brother’s side as he collapses woozily to the ground. His eyes flutter as his body flirts with unconsciousness. A larger panel slides open to admit a pair of men in crisp white uniforms. They shove you away and grab your brother under the arms, dragging him out of the room.

The old man watches, amused. “That was faster than I expected,” he says.

You rush at the closing panel, sticking your fingers in the gap just before it closes. The metal cuts into your palm, drawing blood, but you pull with all your strength until the gap widens enough to slip through. The old man follows.

You emerge into a dimly lit hallway that splits off into a dozen different side passages. At the end of the hallway is a door. A yellow lightbulb set into a glass box flickers on the adjacent wall.

Edwin typed DOOR. His right hand felt slick, so he rubbed it on his shorts. The basement light pulsed weakly above his head.

You sprint over to the door, but it’s locked. The sign on the door – “Experimental Lab B” – makes you sure that your brother is inside. You look around, but you have no tools besides your own bare hands. How will you proceed?

“Easy,” Edwin said. “I leave my brother behind and check out the rest of the building.”

The old man follows as you take the first side passage. “I’m here to help,” he says over your shoulder. “Whatever you need.”

Edwin snorted. “Do you have a gun I could borrow?” he asked out loud.

“As a matter of fact,” the old man says, “I found this on my travels not too long ago.” He produces a rugged-looking pistol and offers it to you. “Go on then.”

Edwin sat upright, his hands frozen above the keyboard.

He hadn’t typed anything. The old man had responded to his voice.

“Not just your voice,” the old man says, still holding out the pistol. He smiles. “I’m in your head now, boy.”

A bead of sweat ran down Edwin’s face. He typed END PROGRAM.

“Don’t be so hasty, Edwin,” the old man says. “We make a great team. Much better than you and that obnoxious twerp.”

Edwin jerked his head around. Lee had disappeared. He must have gone to bed.

“In a manner of speaking, sure,” the old man says. “Where were we?” He shoves the pistol into your hands and brings out another weapon, a ray gun straight out of an alien shooter from the late nineties. “I picked this one up about twenty years ago,” he says. “Can’t beat the classics.”

Edwin’s fingers trembled over the keyboard. “What are you?” he asked.

He felt hot breath on his neck. It smelled of silicon and fried circuits.

The old man whispered, “I’m here to help.”