I limp my way through another hallway full of doors. Each door I open shows the same scene: another empty classroom with another endless void in the place of the far wall. I poke my head into each and give a visual scan for anything of value or interest, but every one is identical to my starting room, save for a lack of writing on the chalkboard. I make a quick search of a few just in case there’s another bottle of acid secreted away, but no dice. No loot, no writing, so I keep moving.

I don’t think ghosts are usually that solid, I muse as I investigate another empty classroom. I don’t remember ghosts ever being weak to acid, either, in all the stories I’ve read, and those teeth were weird. It almost felt a bit sci-fi, like some horrible lab experiment loosed in a test environment. The void feels strongly fantasy, though. I guess there could be some genre cross-pollination at work. Either way, my analysis of this story is skewing closer to “horror” than “power fantasy.” I grimace. Which means I’m going to need to work a lot harder to get my hands on magic. When I meet whatever put me here I’m going to stab it.

Two bends in the hall later, I find my next clue: a classroom different from all others by virtue of the child-sized doll sitting atop one of the desks.

The doll has a porcelain face with painted eyes, a puffy eggshell dress covered in lace and ribbon, and perfect posture as it sits with its hands folded in its lap. The doll is mostly shades of off-white with two glaring exceptions: the scarlet butterfly crystal hairpin threaded through its lifelike hair, and the glittery pink backpack looped through its arms.

I practically salivate at the sight of a backpack, an honest-to-gods backpack. Sure, it’s pink and sparkly and deeply offends my darkly gothic sensibilities, but it has pockets!

I take a cautious step inside and give a quick glance around. Messy writing is scratched into the three standing walls: the words “I AM A PIECE OF A PIECE OF ME” repeating over and over in spiraling fractal patterns. The words get mixed up in places and blend together, but the message always surfaces again. Some of the scratch-marks are stained with what looks like dried blood, as if someone carved these words into the walls with their fingernails until their hands were raw and bleeding.

The walls present a fascinating puzzle, but I elect to ignore that puzzle to focus on the pretty doll and the loot it’s wearing. I heft the knife and glance between it and the doll.

You should stab the doll. There’s a one hundred percent chance that thing is going to come to life and attack you.

A reasonable decision. Counterpoint: what if it comes to life and it’s nice? And then I’ve stabbed the poor thing and it will look at me with those fake doll eyes and cry a single tear as it dies alone and betrayed, spurned by a monster it only wanted to befriend. All it wanted was a friend, Morgan, someone to hug and cherish, and you killed it. And every time I look at the backpack I stole off its dead doll body I’ll have to remember that look of pain and loss. Do you want me to have a crisis of conscience every time I have to take something out of my stolen backpack?

I circle the doll as I debate with myself, never letting it out of my sight. I wince with every other step, my leg still whining at me about the open stab wound.

So you might kill a friendly abomination, so what? Better than getting killed by a bloodthirsty abomination! It’s finite loss versus infinite loss, and equal gain.

Okay, first of all, please avoid saying anything that even remotely reminds me of Pascal’s stupid wager. Second of all, what if killing the doll curses me? That’s some classic moral fable shit: the protagonist gets offered a choice to be kind or to be cruel and when they choose cruelty they are punished for it. Severely. This could be a test. What if we’re the Beast and this is our Enchantress?

Does this really seem like the kind of story that has fairytale tests of character? The first living thing we encountered in this world tried to murder us, and we haven’t seen another sign of life since. Not even bugs! Have you noticed that there are no bugs around? Of course you have, you’re me. So far all the evidence points to everything in this world hating us and wanting us dead.

I have to admit, I make a good point. Okay, look, I just don’t want to start my adventuring career off with a mistake that I’ll regret for the whole rest of the story and moan about when I’m contemplating moral choices. Let’s try diplomacy first, and if that doesn’t work, stabby stabby time.

I step back in front of the doll and clear my throat. “Hi there, my name’s Morgan and–”

Hmm. Should we take this opportunity to pick a more interesting name? I mean, we’re in a fantastical otherworld with weird horrors, don’t you think “Morgan” is a little boring? Like, it worked when we wanted a name that was very normal and easy for people to learn, but I feel like we should inject some spice to our name in this new world.

We could go by “Alice” instead? Strange girl in a strange land?

I said spice! Throw some flavor on there, make it cool and badass. How about “Malice” as a name?

Horrifically edgy. The very personification of chuunibyou delusion. I love it.

I cough to ineffectively hide my tangent. The doll has yet to move or respond. “Disregard that, please and thank you. Hi there, my name is Malice, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you have an acquaintance to make. Are you alive?” The doll does not respond. “I’m kind of hoping you aren’t alive, because I really want that hairpin and that backpack and I’d hate to steal from someone who is nice and alive.”

I pause and process what I just said. “Sorry, that sounds rude. I don’t mean that I wish you were dead, just that it would be very convenient if you were amenable to letting me have your stuff, and I really don’t want you to murder me. I’d love to be friends with you, if you are both alive and not evil. Even if you are evil, so long as you’re friendly!”

The doll continues to do nothing, its painted eyes staring past me. I nod. “Cool, cool, that’s great. So, it seems like you aren’t alive. If you are alive, I would really, really appreciate you doing something to show that, because otherwise I’m going to take your silence as tacit approval to slit your throat and steal your stuff.”

Another pause, another lack of response. “It’s not that I want to hurt you, I really don’t, it’s just that if you’re not friendly I can’t take the chance of you springing to life and murdering me. You understand that, right?” Silence fills the air and the doll remains still.

I let the moment stretch out, waiting for any kind of reaction from the doll, but nothing changes. Carefully, knife at the ready in case it moves, I lay my other hand–ow, ow, my shoulder–on the doll’s throat and try to feel for a pulse, for warmth, for anything. The doll is cold and lifeless, just like a doll should be. No motion beneath the skin, no sign of anything strange. It’s just an ordinary doll.

I sigh to myself, apologize to the doll, and stab it in the throat. The blade sinks in easily and without noise. The doll doesn’t make any noise either, still doesn’t move or react, but when I pull the knife free the blade is coated in pale, milky blood. The hole in the doll’s throat bleeds pink liquid that drips onto the pretty dress and ruins it.

What the fuck? That’s the only cogent response I can muster. No, really, what the fucking fuck? What?

I’m committed now so I stab the doll’s chest for good measure, aiming for where its heart would be if it were human. The blade sinks in just as easily and more milky blood pours out when I withdraw the knife. I’m making a mess and some of that pink is getting on my hands and clothes, adding new shades to the bloodstains already present. And still, even bleeding from two stab wounds, the damned doll doesn’t make any sign that it’s alive, that I’m killing a living thing.

What is this? Why is this? Did someone fill a doll with fake pink blood? What is the point of this thing, and those walls, and this whole fucking room? Why is a high-class doll wearing a middle schooler’s backpack, and why does it bleed blood like milk, and why are those words scratched into those walls? None of this feels organic, none of it feels real. It’s like it was all hand-placed for me to find.

When the blood stops flowing I finally accept that the doll probably isn’t going to move. I still keep the knife clutched in one hand as I nick the doll’s ruby hairpin and attach the scarlet butterfly to my hair. Maneuvering the backpack off is a little trickier since I have to move the straps around the doll’s arms and one of my arms is still in quite a bit of pain, but the doll is light and easily adjusted. When both articles of loot have been retrieved, I pick the doll up and throw it into the abyss.

Sorry, but I can’t afford to take any chances. I empty the backpack onto the nearest desk and school supplies spill out: pens in black and red, a pack of colored pencils, highlighters in three shades, scissors, two spiral notebooks, and two composition notebooks. No calculator, I note with annoyance. Calculators are always great to have in fantasy settings when you want to show off to the locals. Granted, the modern school doesn’t exactly scream “pseudo-medieval fantasy world,” but nothing here seems like it belongs. None of the items that pour out of the backpack have brands on them, not even maker’s marks.

These were placed here, just like the doll and the bottle and the needle-toothed monster. Whatever brought me here set these in my path. I search the desk interiors but come up empty. I’m itching to investigate this room further to try and understand it, to understand the writing on the walls, but I can’t let myself get distracted; there are bigger mysteries at play here than anything I’ve uncovered, and I highly doubt Needles the Not-A-Ghost was the only threat in this weird fake school.

I load the backpack up with all its sundry school supplies and loop the pink horror through my arms, which causes another blistering bout of pain from the injury on my shoulder–I’m lucky the straps are long, because I’m really far too tall to be wearing a child’s backpack. I really hope this setting has healing magic, because otherwise this is going to be a bitch and a half to deal with.

No fake ghost accosts me when I leave the room this time, which is nice. I pass a few more empty classrooms and round a fourth bend that should bring me back to the hallway I started in, but instead the hall around the corner abruptly ends at a flight of stairs leading up.

Strike another law of physics from the roster, and add alien geometries to the genre discussion. Still firmly in the horror camp, but now we’re starting to lean cosmic.

The stairway only goes up, so up I climb.

Climbing a flight of stairs, I discover, is hellish when you have an open leg wound. Every step sends another stab of pain up my leg, and I have to stifle every gasp and shriek into a grunt or hiss. By the third flight I’m already winded, and the stairs keep going up; where there should be an opening to another part of the school there’s just a blank wall and more stairs, and looking up I don’t seen an ending to the stairwell. It’s one of those stairwells that goes stairs-flat-stairs-flat, so I take a break on the next flat and sit down.

I lay against the wall with my new backpack cushioning me, knife still clutched tightly in one hand, and for a few moments I just breathe.

We are in terrible shape. Just truly, genuinely terrible.

What did you expect? We spent a good two-thirds of our life cooped up indoors reading books and dreaming of magic. And I was always frail, even as a little girl.

You were frail because you didn’t exercise, which is a problem we need to fix and fast now that we’re in serious life-threatening danger.

I agree! I really do. Our pathetic nerd body is not going to cut it in this horrible nightmare world. But I can’t exactly do a few push-ups and get buff. If we really want to get stronger we need to cheat. A spell of strengthening, an experimental gene treatment, a stat boost, whatever form of physical power progression exists in this setting. But hard work will take too long for too little gain.

I feel like that attitude is why we’re so weak in the first place.

I shrug, which does positively miserable things to my wounded shoulder and forces me to bite back another yelp of pain. I wince and let out a strained breath. This is bad. This is really bad. I can’t win another fight like this.

I glare up at the seemingly endless stairwell and say aloud, “Doesn’t this seem a little unfair to you, whoever you are? Isn’t this all a bit much? You send me to another world, dress me in a stupid uniform, throw me against a monster with a knife, and you don’t even give me magic? No spells, no stat boosts, not even a one-of-a-kind magic item? Don’t I deserve at least one cheat ability? Don’t I deserve something to help me survive?”

I rant against whatever entity dropped me here, not expecting a response, but then my backpack gets heavier.

I blink. No voice from above accompanies the sudden weight but as I shift my seating I can just feel something new inside my stolen backpack. I eagerly take it off–ow, ow, ow–and shuffle it around into my lap. I set the knife beside me and dig through the pockets, searching frantically. It doesn’t take long to find the new arrival: a crystal flask about the size of a water bottle, filled to the stopper with luminescent red liquid. There’s a tag that says “Drink Me” tied around the neck of the bottle.

I pop the stopper and raise the flask to my lips but stop myself a second before drinking. This could be more acid. It would be a very dick move for this to be acid, but it could be acid. I hesitate, consider, then carefully spill a drop onto my shirt. Nothing burns, so I stop hesitating and down a big gulp, and then a second gulp because I suddenly realize how thirsty I am.

As I recap the flask and the liquid flows down my throat I feel a warmth start to spread through my whole body. Wherever the warmth touches I feel renewed and revitalized, all my aches and pains fading away.

I carefully set the flask down and unwrap the bandages on my shoulder and thigh. After scraping off some dried blood with my fingernails I find smooth, pale, unbroken skin. I poke the skin around the area a few times just to be sure, but everything is completely normal. I stretch my muscles and sigh contentedly, luxuriating in my freshly-restored range of motion. The warmth lingers and soothes my strained body, slowly fading away as I stay in this perfect moment.

As the last of the restorative warmth leaves me, an ugly thought springs to mind and I glare at the bottle suspiciously.

“You know,” I confide to the empty air, “this seems a lot like a healing potion. And hey, that’s neat. Healing potions are neat, and I definitely needed some healing. But it occurs to me that a healing potion is not what I asked for. A healing potion is not a spell, or a stat boost, or even a one-of-a-kind magic item. They practically give these things away in RPGs.”

“Of course, maybe it wasn’t a healing potion at all! Maybe this special little elixir gave me regeneration that’ll last the whole rest of the story and save my ass time and time again. And that would be great! That’s a pretty handy cheat ability. The difference between a consumable healing item and a permanent healing factor is, and you don’t need me to tell you this, absolutely vast. And it would really go a long way toward improving my opinion of you, mysterious-entity-that-has-just-confirmed-its-existence, if this turned out to be more than just a dinky little healing potion. So let’s run a quick test.”

I glance at the kitchen knife, but it won’t work for this. Kitchen knives are great for chopping and solid at stabbing, not so great at making precise incisions. Plus, that thing’s filthy with the dried blood of three different people–for a certain definition of the word–and there is a one hundred percent chance that I’d get an infection if I cut myself with it.

I fish through my backpack and find the scissors inside. They wouldn’t be my first choice in most circumstances but I know how to make them do what I want. I lay one scissor blade across the skin of my forearm, breathe, and make the cut.

It doesn’t hurt, but I wasn’t expecting it to. I watch the thin line of red bloom to life and start counting in my head. I reach one hundred without any noticeable changes so I take a bit of blouse not already soaked red and wipe off the blood. The incision is still there. I glare skyward for a second time and accuse, “Cheapskate. What kind of supernatural reality warper can’t spring for a basic regeneration package?”

I sigh. Guess I have to get my hands on superpowers the hard way. I stow the half-drank potion and slowly get off the ground, picking up my knife as I do. I consider keeping the bloody remains of my blazer but decide that an ignominious grave is karmic retribution for its crimes against pockets.

Inventory: kitchen knife, backpack full of school supplies, and a half-empty healing potion. Truly I have come prepared for adventure.

My climb goes quicker now that I’m not limping and holding back screams, and after five more flights of stairs I experience a sudden change of scenery; one second I’m walking up another flight, the endless stairwell above me, and the next instant I’m standing at the abrupt end of the stairwell halfway through a set of stairs, like the top half of the structure was laser-cut to be flush with the ground.

And there is ground: an expanse of dirt and moss bare of underbrush and broken only by the twisting roots of gnarled, crooked trees. A heavy canopy of leaves blocks any light that might come from the sky, but once again my vision is unobscured by the seeming lack of light sources. I breathe in the fresh air and allow myself a smile. I can smell wet earth and pine, and it reminds me of wandering through the woodlands back home, dreaming up stories or play-acting little scenes. I cock my head to the side and let sound filter in, but the only thing I hear is the gentle rustle of leaves.

So an abandoned school in the shadow dimension teleports me to an eerie, empty forest. No birds chirping, no bugs chittering.

I walk a few steps from the school entrance and stoop down to inspect the forest floor. The moss looks real, it looks alive and healthy, but I don’t see any bugs. Nothing burrowing through the earth or trekking across the dirt, nothing nesting in the moss or crawling over a root. I stand back up and look around. Everything is so still. Even the canopy above is frozen in place, like someone took a photo of a real forest and plastered it onto a skybox. The sound of shifting leaves is completely disconnected from the reality of that stagnant image. I extend my arms out to feel the wind, but the air is dead. If the air is so still, what’s sending these scents my way? How can it smell so fresh? There is sound and smell but not the accompanying sensation or sight.

No wind, no stars in the sky… yeah, this is a navigational nightmare waiting to happen. How do I get out of here when every direction looks identical?

“Mind handing me a compass?” I ask the empty air. “You know, since you can’t give me superpowers but you can make magic items from nothing.”

The air declines to humor my request, so I flip it off. I guess we just pick a direction and start walking. The forest is fairly open, owing to the lack of underbrush and the wide berth between trees, so I can see all around. It all looks the same to my eyes, though I’m sure anyone who knows anything about wilderness survival could spot something I’m missing. The clearing I’m in isn’t even really a clearing, just another natural gap between trees. If I didn’t know it was here I might not even notice the hole in the ground.

A new scent reaches my nose and I frown. Why do I smell smoke? If there was a fire in the forest I would see it, and there’s no wind to blow it toward so where–

I glance back at the stairwell and catch a few wisps of smoke rising up. And within, barely visible but getting brighter and brighter, a strange green light.

Fuck.

The ground starts to rumble.

Fuck!

I bolt for the nearest tree as fast as my stupid weak legs can carry me. I throw myself behind the gnarled trunk, bunch up to make my body as small as possible, and hold my breath.

Then the world explodes.