Surviving the Simulation: The Grand Crusade

Morning arrived too soon, dragging Xander from the uneasy depths of sleep with the sharp scent of coffee and the relentless intrusion of the Simulation's notification. Awareness came in layers starting with the stiffness in his back from a night spent sleeping in a position meant for quick reaction rather than comfort, the ambient stillness of a world that had changed beyond recognition, and finally, the sterile chime of the Simulation forcing its update into his reality.

The message unfolded in his vision, its digital precision at odds with the raw exhaustion weighing him down.

Greetings, players! Congratulations on making it through the second planetary cycle of the Simulation reboot. You will be happy to know that the level-zero protocols are working as intended and the global player population is adjusting toward the accepted upper limits of the Simulation. Previous player population: 5,354,948,178 Human. Current player population: 3,265,685,136 Human. No player data for additional player species is available.

Xander sat motionless, his mind struggling to reconcile the sheer scope of the numbers. Two billion people gone overnight. He'd thought yesterday's death toll had been staggering, but this was something else entirely. He let the weight of it settle, tried to grasp the enormity of it, but the number was so large, so incomprehensible, that it refused to feel real.

Two days. Half the world erased.

His stomach clenched, an instinctive reaction he fought to suppress. It was too much, too vast to fully process, and if he let himself dwell on it, the grief, the horror, the sheer helplessness of it all would root him in place. He couldn't afford that. Survival demanded forward momentum.

Still, the thought burrowed deep: How many of those people had assumed they would wake up today?

"How do you even process that?" Zoey said in a somber tone, having clearly read the same simulation message that Xander did.

The creak of movement broke through his haze, and Xander exhaled slowly, turning toward Alex just as the other man spoke.

"A week ago, I would have said large amounts of alcohol," Alex muttered, his tone wry but hollow. "Not to change the subject, but I got up early and did some scouting. I think we may have a more immediate issue that we can handle."

Xander blinked, dragging himself back to the present. His first instinct was to press for details, to snap into problem-solving mode and let pragmatism drown out the weight pressing against his ribs. But instead, he forced a half-hearted smirk and shook his head. "Caffeine first. Problems second."

Alex huffed, the corner of his mouth twitching in something that might have been amusement, or maybe just acknowledgment.

Xander reached for his coffee, wincing as he took a sip. Too strong, bitter enough to scrape down his throat, but it did its job, burning away the last remnants of sleep. Only then did he look back at Alex, his voice level. "Alright. Give it to me. What did you find?"

"Bad news first: the village is thick with rats. Worse than we saw back in Tolono or the Oasis. They seem to come out of the grain elevator complex on the southwest part of town. Some serious weird stuff going on over there, but I didn't want to risk attracting unwanted attention. Good news, though, is that while there may be a lot of them, there aren't any groups bigger than two or three wandering around," Alex said. "Overall, the town looks to be abandoned by people, but I didn't scout the entire place."

"I don't want to get distracted from checking the rally points Jo and I had set, but it sounds like the number of rodentia is something we should look into. Not necessarily to solve, though, but there have to be other safe zones. This could be critical information," Xander said after a moment of thought. "I'm interested in what you guys think, but I'm leaning toward checking out my house first, then check on the grain elevator to see what's up there. Thoughts? The house is on the north side of town, so we can skirt around the bulk of the rodentia."

"If we're voting, I say we go to the house first. You said there were quite a few supplies there and those, plus your wife, are the principal objectives," Zoey voted.

"I'm good with whatever. I'm just sticking with you guys," Alex said.

"Perfect, that's what I was hoping for," Xander said.

The walk through town was quiet, too quiet. Xander had expected more movement as survivors, scavengers, or something picked through the rubble. But aside from the rodentia patrols scuttling in the distance, the streets were empty. They saw cars abandoned in the middle of the street, just as they had repeatedly seen on the trip from Starlight to Sidney. The front doors and garages of several houses they passed stood wide open, their contents eerily undisturbed. Random items, eerily undisturbed. His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the last time he'd walked these roads, before everything had collapsed. It had only been two days since the world fell apart, but as he approached his house, it already felt like a lifetime ago.

The house stood unchanged, a defiant relic of a world that no longer existed. The brick walls, weathered but intact, bore none of the scars he expected. There were no shattered windows, no signs of struggle, nothing to suggest that disaster had reached inside. That should have been comforting. Instead, it unsettled him.

Xander hesitated on the front porch, fingers brushing against the wooden frame of the door, its familiar grain beneath his touch a tangible reminder of the life he had built here with Jo. His mind betrayed him, filling in the silence with echoes of memory on the way the door used to creak just before Jo greeted him with a half-smirk and a knowing look, the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen, the low hum of music drifting through the hall. For a brief, fragile second, he let himself believe he would step inside and find her there, waiting.

The door groaned open, the sound too loud in the oppressive stillness, and reality came rushing back.

The inside was just as he had left it. Just as she had left it. But the weight of absence pressed down on him, an invisible force settling in his chest, coiling around his ribs like something alive. He moved through the rooms with purpose at first, calling her name, pushing aside furniture as if expecting to find her just out of sight. But with each unanswered shout, each empty space where she should have been, the momentum drained from his limbs. His steps slowed. His voice faltered.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

By the time he reached the bedroom, he already knew she wasn't here.

Quest Update! Save the Girl!
Jo was not found at the expected location. Your quest parameters have been adjusted accordingly. The simulation has adjusted the failure conditions to reflect new circumstances.
Task: Reunite with Jo
Difficulty: Variable. Move too quickly, and you won't have the strength to complete this task. Wait too long, and the odds of the desired outcome become more difficult.
Reward: Variable depending on Jo's status. Penalty for Failure: Unknown consequences.

"Hey, guys, my quest just updated with something weird. The failure penalty for the quest updated from 'none' to 'unknown consequences'. I do not know what that means," Xander hollered to the pair outside, perplexed.

"Sounds like the simulation is getting ready to give it to you with no lube, man," Alex called back as he knocked on a nearby piece of wood. "You're calling down some bad mojo from the simulation."

"Pretty sure we decided I wasn't the main character yesterday." Xander chuckled, being broken free of his instant funk by Alex. "Let's see if the stash is still downstairs, then we can make our way to the grain elevator. We'll worry about what we can worry about when we actually have enough information to worry."

"I find that last sentence to be as confusing as much as it makes perfect sense," Zoey replied.

The basement was exactly as Xander had left it. Shelves lined the walls, stocked with the kind of supplies he had always kept on hand: ration packs, medical kits, water filtration gear, and emergency tools. His fingers skimmed over a sealed container of dried rice, a small comfort in a world where traditional food sources had become unreliable.

Alex gave a low whistle. "Damn, man. You were really sitting on a goldmine down here." He grabbed a hunting knife, still in its packaging, flipping it over in his hands before slipping it into his belt. "Almost makes up for all the horrors I've had to wade through."

Zoey, ever methodical, sorted through the supplies with practiced efficiency. She pocketed a roll of gauze, added a hardtack biscuit to her pack, then pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle. "Vacuum-sealed jerky? Now this is survivalist-level commitment."

Xander huffed. "Jo called it overkill." He secured an extra coil of rope, a reinforced pry bar, and a small tin lantern with an oil reserve, then paused as his gaze landed on an old, familiar item. A well-worn gray hoodie, one of Jo's favorites. He hesitated, then left it where it was.

They packed quickly but carefully, taking what they needed without overloading themselves for the trip to the grain elevator. The rest would stay, a fallback cache, in case things went south. Xander double-checked the reinforced locking system on the shelves, ensuring it would be difficult for scavengers to loot.

As they climbed the stairs, Zoey glanced back. "Think we'll need to come back for the rest?"

Xander adjusted his pack, shifting the weight of the supplies. "Depends on what we find at the grain elevator. If this goes sideways, we might not get another chance."

Outside, the quiet felt heavier than before, as if the town itself had taken a breath and forgotten how to exhale. Sidney had never been a bustling place, but now, even the smallest noises like the rustle of dead leaves, the distant chittering of an unseen rodent, felt too sharp against the stillness.

They moved quickly, sticking to the edges of streets, cutting through backyards and side alleys when possible. The rodentia were out there, but never in overwhelming numbers. A pair of them scuttled out from an overturned trash bin, their eyes glinting in the midday light. Zoey had an arrow through the first before Xander had even reached for his weapon. Alex dispatched the second with a single, swift strike from his knife, kicking the twitching corpse aside.

"We getting paid by the kill?" Alex said.

"If we were, we'd be broke," Xander said, nudging the body with his foot. No loot. Just the lingering stink of wet fur and decay.

They pressed on, the encounters blending into a pattern of movement, reaction, and silence. Pairs and trios of rodentia emerged from alleyways, scurried across broken sidewalks, lurked in doorways, but none posed an actual threat. The real problem wasn't the monsters. It was the emptiness. No bodies. No signs of survivors. Just a hollowed-out town, waiting.

By the time they reached the fire station near the town square, Xander was more unsettled by the lack of anything significant than by the fights themselves.

"Up," he said, pointing to the roof access.

A few minutes later, crouched behind the station's crumbling ledge, he lifted his binoculars and scanned the grain elevator.

The more he watched, the less he understood.

The rodentia weren't entering the elevator. They were only coming out. A steady trickle, always small groups, always low-level. No sign of anything going in.

He lowered the binoculars, handing them off to Zoey. "Tell me I'm not crazy."

"I'm going to ask what is probably a stupid question," Zoey said as she passed the binoculars off to Alex. "Do you think the elevator could be some type of spawn generator location? Sort of what we saw in the graveyard when we first got to Tolono?"

"Well, I was just able to analyze on the doorway they all keep coming out of," Alex said as he rolled over onto his back. I was trying to analyze the rat, but it moved, so I instead gathered information about the doorway. It's a dungeon.

"It's not a regular dungeon, either. Guys, I'm not going to lie. I'm not sure going into a dungeon and inviting death is the way to live in this Simulation over the long-haul," Alex said.

Taking back his binoculars, Xander tried to analyze this supposed dungeon while struggling to comprehend what Alex had just said.

Blackwhisker Stronghold
Status: Overflowing
Congratulations! You have discovered the Blackwhisker Stronghold. The Blackwhisker, a ruthless rodentia colony, hoard what they cannot consume. Their numbers grow unchecked. Their hunger never fades. Gather your party and go forth and conquer. The greater the risk, the greater the reward!

"Well, shit."

"Don't suppose we know what 'overflowing' means, do we?" Zoey asked as she analyzed the dungeon for herself.

"The help files had a bit on this, but even I'll admit it's vague. It just says that dungeons that are left alone long enough will act as a spawn generator over time," Alex added.

"The Simulation needs an Encyclopedia. That's all I'm saying," Xander replied. He'd actually been taking notes at every opportunity, as it was apparent a lot of information was going to need to be shared with anyone they ran across. Information would directly relate to survivability.

"Well, I suppose if overflowing means that the dungeon is now a spawn generator, that might explain why we only see rodentia leaving instead of entering."

"Okay, Alex, you're saying we skip it, but I'm going to argue the other direction. Best guess, not only is this thing going to continue to spit out rodentia, I'm going to bet the longer it's left alone, the more powerful they're going to become. This could become a regional problem. Now, if the greater good isn't doing it for you, then I'm going to point out that in most games the dungeons are where the superb stuff is at, the tooltip from analyze confirms it."

Zoey looked pensive for a moment before deciding. "I'm with Xander on this one. I say we take a peek inside at least to see what we're dealing with. If it looks like it's going to be a shit show, then we bail out and come back with reinforcements."