'SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE!'
"Uhh...What's that sound? " I groaned trying to sit up from the ground.
'SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!'
"What kinda alarm is this noisy!?" I growled crushing some of the pink colored grass near me in irritation.
Wait...pink colored grass?!
Where am I?
I blinked slowly trying to take in my surroundings. It looked like a forest but something didn't feel right...The forest was dark and eerie, the trees were nothing like I had seen before.
"These kind of trees definitely don't grow anywhere on earth..." I said looking in shock at two carnivore looking trees with sharp teeth and glowing branches fighting among themselves and snapping each other's branches.
"....."
"Yeah...nope. I am going back to sleep...." I said lying back down on the soft pink grass and dozing off oblivious to my surroundings.
There's no way this is real. I am just living a very realistic dream. I will wake up soon and go back to work.
Wait...work.
Boss is going to kill me if he finds out I didn't sell the games to the client!
I sat up with a start as I felt something pounce on me.
'SCREEEEEEEEEE' A bunny that looked like a bodybuilder weighting more than 365 lb screeched at me as it glared at me with glowing red eyes.
I poked its muscles.
"Nice abs man...Do you lift?" I asked admiring how well built its muscles were.
'SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE' It almost tried to destroy my poor fragile eardrums.
"Geez man...some people just can't take a compliment!"
Man this is the weirdest dream I ever had....Did I eat something weird? Was I drugged? Was I so hungry that I ate some random mushroom on the ground and am hallucinating right now?
Yeah...no.
Oh! I am definitely in a hospital hooked up on the good good stuff that they give to get rid of the pain...I remember the truck ramming towards me.
The muscular bunny seemed really irritated as I kept on squishing its biceps, feeling it up.
'SCREEE SCREEE SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!' It shrieked as it jumped up and down furiously creating craters on the ground beneath it.
"Chill man. You got some serious anger issues. Now let's sit down and talk about your problems. Tell me Mr. Cuddles what makes you feel this way?" I said sitting down on the fluffy grass.
'GRRRRR EEEEEEEE' It answered trying to punch me with its muscular paws.
I pressed the paws gently like I saw in a cat video once.
"Yes yes. That's totally understandable but this is a therapy....inside voices okay? Now how to you generally cope with stress Mr. Cuddles?"
It suddenly pounced towards my face and tried to bite my head off.
It would have succeeded if I wasn't curious about how heavy it was at that moment. I tried to lift up Cuddles and managed to successfully carry it in my arms like a baby.
It was lighter than I expected!
"Not a good coping method...but we can work on that. You need to focus on methods to stay calm first. Anger won't resolve anything. Take a breath to calm down and find a way to put across your feelings in a non lethal way later using words when you manage to calm down." I pretended to be a professional therapist even though I had no idea what I was going on about.
I wanted my client Mr. Cuddles to be satisfied with my professional therapy session.
I placed Mr. cuddles on the ground and sat in front of it.
"Now you need to breath like this to help you calm down. First close your eyes....then breathe in....hold for three seconds...and breathe out." I opened my eyes to see if he followed my instructions like I demonstrated.
Hmm...that's strange.
"Where did Mr. Cuddles go?" I wondered aloud as I looked at the huge empty space around me.
The trees, grass and rocks were all blown away in front of me and Mr. Cuddles was nowhere to be seen. It looked like there was a tornado or something...
Weird. I wonder what happened here?
"Mr. Cuddles skipping therapy won't help you resolve your anger management issues!" I called out loudly.
Hm...I wonder if he would pay for the therapy session. My services aren't free after all! Maybe I should quit my job after I wake up and become a therapist....
Shouldn't I be waking up by now? Maybe I was just more exhausted than I realised.....
I rubbed my eyes trying to shake off my dream and wake up.
I froze in horror.
Wait...That's not my hand.
I looked down at my hands. They were smaller and didn't have the scrapes and rough texture that mine had.
They looked like the hands of a child.....
I knew something was off. My body felt lighter too and the ache was gone. I wasn't exhausted like before.
"Who am I?" I gasped in horror as I realized I was in a different body.
"What is this place...This is just a dream right?" I whispered to the empty forest.
I noticed the box boss threw at me before I got hit by the truck lying on the grass and looked inside curiously when I heard a low whirring sound come from within it.
It was empty....where are the games?
There was something eerie about the box. I couldn't help but put my hand inside the weird looking blob of black gooey slime like thing at the bottom.
My hand got sucked inside....then my head and body...
.....Was it a black hole?
I struggled with all my might but I couldn't escape. The box absorbed me completely and I just closed my eyes and screamed like a five year old kid in the middle of an intense temper tantrum.
[Greetings Admin]
A robotic voice whirred near me.
"Huh? What is this place?" I stopped screaming and took in my surroundings.
It was a training ground with a ginormous dragon chained up and growling inside a giant cage on one side and lots of pieces of wood and blocks of strange looking metal that looked nothing like weapons piled up beside me.
Nope.
I already don't like where this is going....
[This is the testing room. You may test out the features and develop your base here]
Robot ghost answered me.
Hey...That's a good name for it.
But it's too long so maybe ghost?
No...I should maybe mix it up.
Robo plus ghost so... Rhost? Rost?
Ohhh I got it!
I will name the weird sounding robot ghost as.....Roast!
[....and that's all you need to know in order to defeat the dragon]
Oh...wait I was distracted. What was roast going on about again. Wasn't paying attention....
[Admin. Do you wish to proceed?]
[yes] or [no]
"Uhhh Roast...that's your new name by the way! Could you like maybe repeat that again but shorter version? I was distracted...thinking of a good name for you."
I answered looking at the suspicious pop up options in front of me.
There's no way I am agreeing to a contract without understanding the terms and conditions again. Almost lost my house and got into debt with the mafia once.
[.....]
"Roast?" I asked unnerved by the silence.
I could almost hear crickets. Even the dragon stopped growling and was staring at me like 'Seriously bruh...'
[Make tools. Use tools. Defeat dragon.]
Roast answered in a voice of an irritated mother on seeing her foolish spawn do something incomprehensibly idiotic.
I wonder if it was because she didn't like the new name or just gets cranky and has random mood swings.
I remember muscular bunny getting more irritated when I named it Mr. Cuddles too....
Hm....Must be a random mood swings thing.
Roast is a lovely name! Reminds me of chicken...chicken roast.
Hmm....chicken plus roast....
"Hey Roast! How do you feel about changing your name to Coast?"
[.....]
That intense silence again.
[Admin. Shall we proceed with training?]
[yes] or [most certainly]
I think it's really irritated now. There's not even a no option this time.
"Uh...this looks kinda hard. Can't I get some help here?" I nervously glanced at the dragon that had flames coming out of its nostrils.
[Scanning system. Browsing history. Character identification complete. Located! help. Acess granted. ;bring !help to admin.]
Poof~
A muscular bunny named Mr. Cuddles was reunited with me.
"....Really Roasty the Coasty? This helps me how exactly?!" I looked down at the rampaging bunny with clear doubt in my eyes.
"Cuddles can't even solve his own issues...how can he be expected to solve mine?" I said dodging the metal beam the rampaging bunny threw towards me before crunching on the wood planks and ripping off the iron bars with its bare muscular arms.
'SCREE EEEE SCREEEEE EEEEEEE SCREEEEE'
"Roast change Mr. Cuddle's language settings to English...my ears hurt and I have no idea why its so angry!"
'HOW DARE YOU BRING ME HERE YOU FILTHY PEASANTS! YOU DARE TO CALL ME CUDDLES?! YOU (bleep) (bleeep) (bleep)! I WILL (bleep) (bleep) (bleeep) YOU TILL YOU (bleeeeeeeeeeeeeep)! YOU (bleeeep) (bleeeep)!'
"Wow...that's a lotta cussing....my ears are bleeding. Bunny has some serious issues...." I shuddered trying to delete my memory and clean it up with imaginary bleach.
[Message to author: requesting word censoring feature]
(Already done! Wouldn't want to traumatise and permanently scar the fragile minds of the poor innocent souls reading this~)
"Huh? Who are you talking to Roasty?" I asked confused as I didn't receive any message.
[.....]
Hm...Who's author? Must be a glitch...
[Proceeding with training in 5 seconds. Prepare yourselves admin and guest]
[5]
"Whoa! You didn't even ask me this time!"
[4]
'BLEEEP BLEEEP! BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEP!' muscle bunny's bleeps got louder.
[3]
I looked at all the broken tools that we were supposed to have made into weapons but were now crushed by a louder and filthier than a sailor cussing muscular bunny named cuddles.
[2]
How was I supposed to fight a fire breathing, magma crushing, lava sniffing dragon hundred times my size with literally no weapons...all the somewhat sharp pieces used by the bunny as toothpicks then crushed under its fuzzy muscular feet.
[1]
The cage opened and a furious dragon flew straight towards us breathing fire like a portable flamethrower in every possible direction.
[You may begin]
"Yeah....we are (bleeped)"
'...(bleep)' Cuddles stopped rampaging and for the first time agreed with me about something.
So I guess the therapy session did show some positive results after all...