William awoke to sun shining down from a blue sky.

The feeling of grass at his fingertips.

A light breeze brushing across his hair.

The sight of trees, tall and thin, with leafy branches and canopies.

When he sat up, he saw the grass around him was completely flat and uniform. Some blades poked up, which waved slightly in the breeze. Some distance away the grass rose up suddenly about maybe half a metre, like a step on a staircase.

He peered closely at one of the trees – it looked like a tree, but at the same time it looked like no tree he had ever seen. It appeared to be composed of lots of multicoloured squares arranged in a grid, reminding him of some sort of old-time video game.

What were those squares called again? Pixels?

William couldn't be sure what was going on – he didn't know much, but he was sure the real world didn't look like this. The world he remembered in his head was one of curves and variety. The real world had buildings and cars and people. Not like these trees, which all looked simplified and the same.

What the real world also didn't have was giant green bouncing blobs.

His eyes widened as the blob continued to bounce towards him. It hopped maybe once every four seconds, the pixels that made it up vibrating and wobbling in increasing frequency before hopping again, as though it was readying internal hopping muscles.

He was wondering how such a... strange organism, like a pile of slime from some science class, could exist, much less jump around like that, when he realised it had gotten within hopping distance of landing on him.

He was too slow to react. The blob landed squishily against his body, causing him to involuntarily stumble backwards. A stab of pain shot through him, feeling like someone had pinched his arm.

"Ow!" he yelled, taking some steps backwards. He stared directly at the blob. Impossibly, some words appeared above it – 'Green Slime: 28/28'.

What is this? Words don't normally appear over things when you look at them.

The blob – the Green Slime – took another leap towards him, but William had moved far enough backwards that it landed just short of him. He was shocked at how high it could jump.

What do I do?

He ducked as the Slime jumped, but to his relief it sailed over his head, landing behind him. So he broke into a run, trying to get as far as he could from the Bouncing Blob of Doom. When he snuck a look behind him he could see he not only seemed to be outrunning it, but it seemed to have lost track of him and was hopping in a completely different direction.

Whew. At least it doesn't have a death wish for me.

He suddenly ran into something else that felt just as squishy as the Green Slime and got knocked backwards, more pain flashing through his body.

Another slime – this one was blue. And rather fittingly it was labelled with 'Blue Slime: 50/50' as he looked at it.

What do the numbers mean? he wondered just as the Blue Slime launched itself at him, again slamming into him with its sludgy exterior. He was again knocked backwards, the very collision repelling him with force. More pain.

The world's been infested with slimes! HELP!

That was when he got what he wished for.

"Yaaarrgh!" he heard someone yell. From his right.

He glanced just in time to see two people – people! – running towards him. Like everything else in this strange place their appearance looked oversimplified and pixelated, but the sight of living, breathing, and talking people did wonders for the worries rising inside him. The person in the lead was male and dark-skinned, with a mop of strangely pale-green hair. He wore a long brown coat over a blue shirt, gray pants and black boots. The other was female, her skin a light brown, her hair a dark brown ponytail. She wore a pink shirt with an orange heart on it and light blue pants.

The guy was holding out what looked like a pointy orange sword as he charged at the Blue Slime. He thrust out the sword and it made contact. An orange number 5 popped out of the slime and hovered in mid-air for a second before fading into nothingness. As it did, the numbers on the Blue Slime's label changed to '45/50'. A green bar, about 9/10-th's full, also appeared above it.

The guy's attack did not stop for a moment. He kept stabbing at the Blue Slime, and more orange numbers spurted out. 5's and 4's, once a flashing number 10 appeared. With each attack the numbers decreased by whatever number popped out, and when they reached 0, the Blue Slime disintegrated in a slimy explosion with a squelchy noise. Some objects that resembled pixelated orange coins spurted out alongside a blue ball, which flew into the guy's body and vanished.

"Are you alright, dude?" he asked.

William snapped out of his amazement long enough to answer. "Yeah."

As he looked at the guy he saw he also had a label. 'Sid: 100/100'.

"Did you just wake up too?" the guy – Sid – asked. "You looked like you had no idea how to fight back."

"I don't," William said. "I mean, where did you get that... sword?"

"I had one when I woke up," Sid said. "And so did Robyn." He gestured to the girl, who held out a sword of her own. Upon looking at her, William saw she indeed had the label 'Robyn: 100/100'.

William held out his hand too, and was shocked to find an orange sword just like theirs was also in his hand. When he stared at it, a blue box filled with lines of text popped up.

"Quick Copper Shortsword," William read out loud. "Five melee damage. Four percent critical strike chance. Very fast speed. Weak knockback. Plus ten percent speed."

Sid looked confused, then peered at his own sword.

"Oh, wow, I had no idea that happened," he said.

The girl – Robyn – peered at hers too. "The sword's not the only thing I have," she said. "I have a Light Copper Pickaxe and a Massive Copper Axe."

Sid held out a tool that looked like the sort of thing a miner might use.

"My Copper Pickaxe is unhappy," he groaned. "That's sad."

William found himself holding out his own Copper Pickaxe and then his Copper Axe as well. He wasn't really sure how he was switching the items in his hand, especially since whenever he switched from one to the next, the previous one would just seemingly vanish into nothingness until he wanted to hold it again.

"So your name is William?" Sid asked.

"Yes," he said. It suddenly struck him that even though he could remember his name was William, he couldn't remember anything else about himself.

Who was he in the real world he could remember? He could remember people, adults, kids, teenagers, elderly... but nothing about anyone in particular. Who were his parents? His friends? Was he married? Did he have kids? Siblings?

"You can probably tell from looking directly at me, but I'm Sid," he said.

"I'm Robyn," she said.

William nodded again, but wasn't sure what else to say.

That was when he spotted a fourth person standing some distance away. He seemed to have white skin, wore a pale green shirt and blue jeans.

"There's someone else over there," William said, pointing.

Sid pivoted on his feet.

"Oh, great! The more, the merrier!"

William followed Sid and Robyn as they all walked over to the person. He was standing at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a large valley filled with grass, trees, rocks, lakes, and winding rivers. Snowy hills rose up in the distance, their presence hiding whatever could lie beyond it.

If not for the strangeness of this world, William would have almost found the view beautiful.

"Hello?" Sid called.

The person stayed where he was.

Sid stepped right up to him and tapped on his shoulder, and that caused him to turn around. He had brown eyes, and his light brown hair hung over the front of his face.

"Greetings, Sid. Is there something I can help you with?" he asked.