I never liked bugs or snakes. That went double for whatever the fuck this thing was.

  The adult sand crawler was around twenty feet long and stood about chest height to me. It flew across the sand like a black bullet, and it would be on us soon.

  There were more shouts behind me, and people started running. The dude with the mace dropped it and took off, the bow guy right behind him. The blonde dude had balls of steel though, he just lowered his stance like he was ready to take the beast on solo.

  Despite how much shit I talked about people being useless, I would have run if I still could. But even if I wasn’t still messed up from the crash, my running days were long behind me.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to try.

  I leaned heavy on my walking stick as I turned, ready to make a “run” for it. The old guy had vanished, he wasn’t even in the crowd of people retreating toward the blazing remains of the plane. A few suicidal idiots were rushing to help fight, people most likely from that little rescue team. Bow guy had apparently not been running either, he was just putting some distance between himself and the Crawler. He dropped to one knee and nocked an arrow with practiced efficiency.

  Seeing how many people were trying to help made me feel like the world’s biggest asshole. Then I saw the woman with her daughter pull away. She said something to her kid and then she started toward us, clearly putting her life on the line to protect someone she loved.

  I thought of Avery then. As far as little sisters went, she was alright, Better than alright, if I was being honest. She was all I had left, the only thing that kept me going, only thing that kept those pills still in their bottles. When she flashed one of her rare smiles, it made everything seem like it was going to be okay. What would she think of her big brother if he died with his back turned?

  By the time I spun around, the adult Sand Crawler was about to reach its first victim. He still stood his ground, body tense, sword tight in his pale hands. Then there was a twang, and a glowing arrow flew overhead. The tip exploded as it hit the Sand Crawler, and the monster skittered back.

  I shot a fireball just as sword-man started hacking at the thing’s legs. It took a few swings, but he sliced through three of them before it opened its mouth and snapped down on his shoulder.

  He dropped his sword and screamed as the thing tossed him. He flew over me, landing in the sand behind with a loud thud. Then the big bastard started moving again, dark blood spurting from the stubs where its legs used to be.

  The little girl’s mother came up beside me, her hands glowing. The ground in front of the Sand Crawler shimmered. When the monster stepped on it, the sand beneath its feet turned to mud, sucking its front half down. Two people came rushing past us, one a tall guy armed with a massive sword, the other a woman with a short spear. They started hacking and stabbing as I blasted the stuck monster with fireball after fireball.

  Whatever spell the woman had cast didn’t slow it down for long. It tore itself free, then its second mouth extended from its throat in a flash. The guy with the big sword fell backwards, his head gone.

  “Fuck,” I mumbled, still blasting.

  Another arrow thunked into the thing’s head, and it swayed, body cut, gashed, and burned. It drunkenly approached, then fell to the sand as the woman with the spear stabbed up and into its throat.

  She was screaming as it tumbled, her whole body covered in the monster’s blood. She kept stabbing even as it shuddered on the sand, its whole body soon going limp. The smaller sand crawlers in the trees stopped their hissing and fell back. Within moments the only sound was a spear punching into flesh.

  The woman finally stopped and then fell to her knees beside the decapitated man. That’s when she started sobbing and I had to look away.

  “Mom!” The girl ran up and hugged the woman beside me. She stroked the child’s hair, tears in her eyes.

  Most of the others approached slowly, no one making a sound. They all had the same look on their faces. A mixture of “We’re fucked” and “What do we do now?”

  “Gather the wounded over there,” the blonde guy said as he walked up, one hand clutching his bleeding shoulder. “That man is a doctor, and he’ll check you out.” He was pointing at the guy with the bow, who simply nodded in response.

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  He came up to me, blue eyes dull behind the cracked lenses of his glasses. “Thank you,” he said to me and the mother. Then he limped toward the woman still crying on the ground.

  An eyeball icon appeared above the defeated monster, and I mentally clicked on it.

  Sub-adult Sand Crawler Lv. 9

  Information: Kill (4) more to unlock.

  A few other people seemed to inspect the icon. Their faces all went slack.

  “Are you alright?” the woman beside me asked.

  I wondered why she was asking when I remembered how terrible I must look. “I’m good,” I lied. Then I stepped away, not sure where I was going.

  Where did that old guy go? There were around 30 people here, but he didn’t appear to be any of them. I was going to do another round of searching when glasses guy came up to me.

  “I’m Michael,” he said, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  I glanced at it like he was holding a turd. “Arthur.”

  He pulled his hand back and smiled. “Clara over there says you saved her life.” He pointed at the woman who’d been yelling for someone named Charlie. Her face was ashen now, her eyes distant. I recognized that look all too well.

  “She also said you weren’t on the plane.”

  “I wasn’t.” I shifted, my bleeding foot starting to get the better of me.

  “You’re injured.”

  Yeah, no shit. “I’ll be fine.”

  He reached down and seemed to pluck a red vial from thin air. “Here.” He thrust the vial into my hand before I could refuse.

  Healing Potion

  Item Class: C

  Description: A potion crafted with love, care, and affection. Also fairy blood.

  Drinking it will restore (50) HP immediately.

  “Where did you even get this?” I asked. Maybe from that orientation I missed?

  He frowned. “When the orientation ended, we all found ourselves back on the plane. That voice apologized for the ‘Inconvenience’ we were about to face. Then it offered everyone a choice between three abilities and gave us each one of those potions.”

  I looked down at the vial. It was about twice as big as the one the voice had given me, and it was significantly better. I looked up at the sky and narrowed my eyes. That motherfucker had given me a worse potion on purpose.

  “Drink it,” Michael said. “You deserve something for helping us.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I popped the cork and chugged the bastard. My skin started crawling so bad I thought maybe I’d been poisoned, but then my body flashed gold. Most of my wounds mended, and the harsh throbbing in my skull finally went away. I was still sore, bruised, and cut in certain places, but holy shit that thing was good at its job.

  “Wow,” Michael said, looking me up and down. “I almost thought these things wouldn’t work.”

  “Well, I’m glad you decided to test one on me.” My stomach lurched and I felt like I was about to puke. I held it in, then remembered the warning in the diluted potion’s description.

  Bow guy came running up to us, a nervous edge to his movements. “Michael,” he said, voice low. “We’ve got a lot of wounded. Those potions are helping, but some of them…some of them aren’t going to make it.”

  Michael nodded his head slowly. “Do what you can for them, I’ll join you in a moment.”

  Bow guy left without saying another word, but he looked defeated already. Most of them did. Including the pile of wounded people, a few groups had formed. One was searching through the parts of the wreckage that weren’t on fire, another was talking in hushed voices by the monster’s body. Near them was a group that looked like they’d already given up. They sat in a little circle, not saying a word. But most curious was a guy walking from corpse to corpse. He’d just stare down at them for a few seconds, lean over, grab something, then keep walking.

  “You sure you should have given that potion to me?” I asked, gesturing at Michael’s torn shoulder.

  He reached up and touched the wound like he’d just remembered he had it. “You looked like you needed it more. And I figured you’d have an easier time answering my questions if you weren’t about to fall over.”

  I walked with him toward the pack of wounded. He asked me how I ended up here and I told him an abridged version of the story. What I didn’t tell him about was the orb. I’m not sure why I didn’t, but I had a strong feeling, something bordering on dread, deep inside me when I even thought about it. He didn’t say anything the entire time.

  “So you missed the orientation?” he asked when I was finished. “You’re probably more confused than we are.”

  He explained that everyone saw a flash of white light, then found themselves standing in some kind of office. They were packed shoulder to shoulder, all forced to stare at a tall guy in a suit who watched them from behind a podium. Michael said he and the other people in the crowd couldn’t move, but it had to have been well over a hundred people, some of them from the plane, others he didn’t recognize. They also couldn’t speak, each forced to do nothing but listen.

  The man told them all of humanity were in offices like this one, all of them being told the exact same thing. That they had been chosen for the Omni Games, that all the people of Earth had become the players.

  I froze as realization struck me.

  Avery.

  “Hey,” Michael called as I turned around. “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t answer him. Couldn’t. If they’d taken everyone, that meant Avery was out here somewhere. I had to find her.

  He grabbed my arm, his grip strong. “What’s gotten into you?” He asked. “You going to just wander back into the forest alone? With those things around?”

  My head snapped to the side, my eyes digging into him. He held me there for a moment, then released me. I kept walking.

  I got to about the tree line when he spoke again.

  “The person you’re looking for might not be out there,” he said. “This isn’t the only game.”