Escape from ForestBlind Ch. 01

Tiffany grabbed the box again. "Yep. It says, 'a group of young women bucking norms.' It does NOT say, 'a group of three young women.'"

"So?" Monica asked.

"This game launched with three female characters, who just happened to be perfect avatars for each of us," Tiffany replied. "That's a lot of coincidences, especially with no clue from the box about who or how many young women player-characters are in this world. And Scaffaro, his guards, any other characters that show up are non-player characters, right? We're not doing a massively online multi-player game here, Monica. We uploaded the game to my cloud where the three of us are running this with no other input or players."

She looked at Monica, then at Jonelle. "Think of it. My network is locked and protected. Nobody else is in, and when we started this game, the player characters were set, with all their characteristics that match us perfectly."

"What is going on?" Jonelle breathed quietly

"And the non-player characters — Scaffaro, his guards — they each happen to be engaged with each of us, one-on-one, and-"

"-and each one perfectly matched to each of us," Jonelle said, finishing Tiffany's thought.

Tiffany sat down at her laptop and began typing furiously. It took only a minute — she minimized the game and pulled up status and diagnostics on her cloud's local network to double-check.

Only Monica and Jonelle were in.

And the only app running besides the normal stuff was ForestBlind.

"Well, there aren't any pervs snooping on us, at least that I can tell," she said, a note of relief in her voice, but puzzlement hanging heavy on each syllable.

"Jonelle," Monica said, "when you bought the game in that bookstore, what did the check-out guy say about it?"

"Nothing. He just rang it up along with the book I got for my little brother." She paused. "Wait, maybe he did say something." Jonelle chewed her lip in thought. "Uh, he was your typical old-guy used bookstore employee," she began, "and he was pleasant. Wished me good luck with the game as we were leaving, and-"

"Shit!" Tiffany exclaimed once again, interrupting Jonelle's reminiscence. She had the game box in her hand and was once again scrutinizing it. "There's no game manufacturer name, website, nothing, on the case. Not even under the sticker the bookstore put on the back."

"Check the disc," Monica said.

"Nothing," Tiffany said after opening the box and looking at the disc — both sides, even holding it under one of the table lamps to examine it more closely.

"This is getting even weirder," Jonelle said. "Remember the start of the game? We launched it, and — holy fuck! — no start-up, no blah-blah about the designers or copyright penalties, nothing about where to order other games. It just started. We were immediately in ForestBlind, with Gabrella, Kelsana, and Xandria patiently waiting for us."

"Yeah, Monica agreed. "That was so different from other games we've run."

"And that's just one of the cool things we liked about it when we started," Tiffany said. "The point-of-view action is incredible. How did the designers get what seem to be unique POVs in such incredible detail for each player-character?" Tiff shook her head and raised her eyebrows with her next comment. "This has been the best game we've played, and did you guys smell the way-"

All three friends' eyes widened immediately when Tiffany interrupted herself.

"Fu-u-u-ck!" Jonelle exhaled quietly. "How does a video game create smells?"

"Yeah," Monica said warily. "That smell of something like old stew. How did they get that into the kitchen scenario in the game?"

"Huh?" Jonelle asked. "I didn't smell that, but I wasn't in the kitchen. The leather smell was strong in the room where I was, though. There were a bunch of hides stretched out on the floor, and-"

"Oh, my god!" Tiffany interrupted. "I could smell the fireplace and the pine cones on the fireplace mantel. And there was this sizzling kind of ozone smell when Scaffaro shot some kind of electric bolt at me."

Tiff's mind was rapidly processing, trying to make sense of what simply should not be.

"Jonelle! Monica!" she exclaimed. "This freakin' game has each of us smelling the scents around us in the exact room where we each have our own personal guys under our spell!"

"Under our strapons' spell," Jonelle corrected.

Tiff glowered at her. "You know what I mean."

Monica jumped in: "Unbelievable. This is unbelievable. The exact number of player characters waiting at the start of the game. They're like us. They ARE us! The exact kind of guys we each like. And smells — how the hell is each of us smelling exactly what would be there in our own particular room in this scenario?"

Again, there was a heavy silence in the room, each young woman searching her mind for explanations to the mystery of "ForestBlind: The Escape."

They all came up blank. Looking from one to another in silence, Jonelle finally allowed her conspiratorial smile to tug up one corner of her mouth, presaging her comment to break the silence.

"But you know," she said, casually tossing her dark hair back from her forehead, "one of the hottest things about a guy is how he smells when you nuzzle into his neck."

Tiffany and Monica looked at her.

"And I'm, like, ready to find out how my guard smells, ladies!"

"Dammit, Jonelle," Tiffany said. "Just a minute before you dive back in to find out how your guard smells!"

Jonelle's expression asked, "What?"

"Look," Tiff continued, "before we get back in there — IF we go back into this bizarre place and circumstances this game is creating — I, for one, want to know more, that is, if we can figure this out. It's all just too weird, too coincidental. What if we're in danger doing this?"

Monica snorted. "Danger? Really? Get a grip, Tiff! Danger? From a three-dollar DVD bought at a used bookstore?"

"That's it. I remember now!" said Jonelle, slapping the sofa. "When we were leaving, the old-guy clerk in the bookstore wished me well playing the game, then he said, 'I think you will really like that particular game.'"

Tiffany and Monica looked at her, expectant expressions on their faces.

"And?" said Tiff.

Jonelle shrugged. "And that's what he said."

Monica and Tiffany maintained their expectant expressions.

"Don't you get it?" Jonelle said, leaning forward and lowering her voice. "He said, 'enjoy that PARTICULAR game.'"

Tiffany blinked twice. "Not a lot of help, Jonelle."

"But maybe he knows more!" Jonelle responded. "He must have known about the game if he could say he thought I'd like it."

"Or maybe he was being old-guy nice," Monica said. She stood and stretched, then started pacing, three steps one way, turn, and three steps back. Her nervous pacing was unnoticed by her friends — they saw her do this all the time.

"Hey! We'll see all the info at the end of the game, right? These things always have credits."

Monica had stopped pacing with her statement. The three friends all looked at each other in silence for several seconds.

Clearing her throat, Jonelle said, "And that is a good enough reason for me to want to get to the end," she said, suppressing a grin. "So I am going to find out what it's like for my Gabrella to peg this handsome guy, who I just know is going to smell great when I nuzzle his neck as we spoon after I do him."

"You mean when Gabrella nuzzles and spoons him," Tiffany corrected.

"Gabrella . . . Me . . . Kinda the same, right?" Jonelle responded, grinning broadly.

Monica was thinking like Jonelle: "And I'm going back in to enjoy the lovely coincidence that the man of my sexual daydreams has cleaned up nicely and is standing in front of me completely naked, and I, too, am going to discover what it's like — at least second-hand — to do a guy with a strapon cock."

Tiffany looked at her two friends, considering their course of action to help solve the riddle of who had invented this bizarre game that was acting like no other game they'd ever played.

Taking in a big breath and turning her head slowly to the side, Tiff exhaled, saying, "Okay, you two, but what the hell are we about to do?"

"Fuck some guys with our strapon cocks!" Jonelle answered eagerly.

All three of them bent to their keyboards and tapped themselves back into the strange, sexy alternate reality of ForestBlind.