Posted on January 1, 1  •  5 minutes  • 985 words

I was in some kind of boarding boot camp with some of my university friends. There were no teachers around because of how my uni works. The boot camp involved us getting messages on our phones and solving puzzles to progress to the next level. I did the first few levels and then decided to take a break, so I went to nap on a couch. I woke up to my friend talking about level 22 of the challenge. Upon realizing that I had been asleep for an entire day, I gave up on completing the challenge (even though I had friends to help me?). So I walked out of the facility.

I ended up in a school; some of my old classmates from both high school and uni were there. I walked into the classroom wearing short shorts, a tank top, and my favourite hoodie. Everyone got seated quickly - I was in the middle. The teacher was one of my old science teachers, but this was a homeroom class. Someone got scolded for wearing clothes that didn’t have easily visible pockets, which made me realize that I’m in some sort of boarding school with strict rules. So I started checking my pockets - nothing useful other than my phone. Also, my hoodie has inside pockets, which are definitely against the rules, but the teacher didn’t seem to care.

Class starts and the teacher gives us back a few of our books. As the books are passed from the front to the back, I look outside and notice that there’s nothing there - just white. This prompts me to check if I’m dreaming, so I try to look at my watch twice (if the time changes, then I’m dreaming) - but it’s not there. Was it taken? Possibly by whoever put me here? Okay, new plan: after getting a stack of books passed to me from the person in front, I sort through them and take my books, passing on the rest back.

Looking at the books, I realize that I recognize these. These are all books that I had in high school! So I take a book and look at the front and back repeatedly to force the text to change, which it does. Usually at this point in a dream I begin to wake up because my brain doesn’t want me to be in control, but this time nothing happens. I try to change the world, but nothing happens again - I’m trapped.

Conveniently, the teacher steps out and people start goofing around as usual (usual? How long have I been here?). I unlock my phone and try to place a call. Not sure why, but I call the other Sam from uni. She asks me where I am, and I say that I’m in a dream that I can’t escape from. She tells me to remain calm and think carefully about how to wake up, then there’s a weird noise and the call gets cut. Then she appears in front of me. Is she also trapped in here with me now?

Before I can talk to her, my phone switches to another app that shows 9 inhalers. They don’t look like normal inhalers and are entirely made of metal bent into a weird U shape. The inhaler on the bottom right displays an animation of being pressed and disappears. That means I only have 8 calls to the real world left. (Maybe these don’t go to the real world and I can only summon 9 allies?)

I hear a voice coming from outside: “The brain is like a computer; once you bypass the antivirus and gain privileges, you can start to mess around with things like deprivileging existing users.” Did someone put a virus in my brain‽ The voice continues: “After that, you can begin sandboxing the various systems - trapping them in little boxes - maybe even shred some data along the way.” I’m going to be shredded? I need to escape now!

I ask Sam if she knows a way out, but before she can tell me, everyone starts stacking the tables to make a fort. Then I realize what’s up: the school is surrounded by monkeys. Everyone gets under the tables and hides. Glass breaks and the monkeys start pouring in. Thankfully, I’m close to the center of the table fort, so I’m relatively safe. After the monkey invasion disperses, kittens start to pour in.

“Are cats a reward?” I ask. “No, this is level 2,” Sam replies. These aren’t ordinary kittens; they’re deformed in weird ways and aggressive. I get bit on my left hand fending off the kittens, because I was not expecting their mouths to open as wide as their heads. I can hardly move my fingers after that. Sam throws out a support pet that floats near her like a summon from Terraria. After it kills a kitten, I realize I also have a pet and summon mine. It’s a giant spiky frog that can fly, and it swallows the kittens whole.

We successfully kill all the kittens, but our summons have taken a lot of damage. As we walk towards a hallway that appeared, the summons fall to the ground and I accidentally step on mine. It stabs into my foot with an unreal level of pain. “Looks like we can’t use our pets here; it’s a shame they didn’t give us a warning so we could keep them in a cage or something,” Sam says. I try to remove the crushed body of my pet from my foot, but Sam stops me: “You can’t do that; if your pet becomes active again, it’s game over.”

Each step makes the pet’s body painfully stab deeper into my foot. I guess at the end of this hallway we are supposed to fight the gatekeeper to the sandbox, but I don’t remember anything after that.