The Rapid Response Cart did not park, It arrived!
The square wheeled wagon drifted sideways into the town square. It smashed through the front wall of the saloon, causing the entire building to collapse like a piece of cardboard. Behind the fallen saloon, there was no interior, just the empty beige grid of the desert.
"WE HAVE ARRIVED!" Sir Gideon shouted, kicking open the wagon door and stepping out onto the fallen wooden facade. "WHERE IS THE WIZARD?!"
Kai stood in the middle of the street, dripping with red marinara sauce. A giant, steaming meatball smoked quietly behind him. "Oh hey Gideon," Kai wiped tomato paste off his eyes. "I tried to cast 'Fireball'."
"You smell delicious," Viscount Pigglesworth noted, sniffing the air from the safety of the wagon. "like a cheap restaurant."
"You guys came," Kai grinned, relief washing over him. "I thought I was going to be deleted."
"We almost were," Maya hopped out, clutching her brush. "We just came through a bunch of weird challenges ourselves. This zone is falling apart."
"Silence!"
The glitchy, compressed voice buzzed through the air. Sheriff Poly floated forward from the Sheriff's Office. His low poly triangular chest was vibrating with rage. His blocky hands were clenched. "You broke the bank," the Sheriff buzzed. "You broke the saloon. And you dropped a sphere covered with liquid on my deputy. This is a code violation."
Behind the Sheriff, 5 deputies slid into view. They were scarecrows wearing tin stars, stuck in a permanent T-Pose. They didn't walk, they just glided across the sand menacingly.
"I am initiating the [High Noon Protocol]," the Sheriff announced. "Prepare for Permanent Removal"
The sun in the sky, which was just a yellow circle sticker, suddenly clicked from its position to dead center. 12:00 PM showed up on the clock on the tower.
The shadows vanished. The lighting became harsh and flat. A tumbleweed tried to roll past, but it clipped into the ground and started vibrating violently.
"Draw," the Sheriff said, raising his blocky finger.
DING.
The sound was polite. It echoed through the canyon, louder than any gun.
Suddenly, a debug log scrolled across the top of the sky in bright red text:
[SYSTEM DEBUG: EXTERNAL INPUT DETECTED] [KEY PRESSED: 'F1' (HELP)] [DURATION: CONTINUOUS (45 SECONDS)] [PROBABLE CAUSE: THE FELINE IS SITTING ON THE KEYBOARD AGAIN]
A shadow fell over the town. Kai looked up. "Oh no." Gideon looked up. "BY THE GODS! THE METAL SERPENT IS BACK!"
Descending from the sky was a giant, silver, metallic object. It was made of bent wire. It had two large, soulful, googly eyes. It was Clippy.
It hovered between the Party and the Sheriff, spinning slowly. Its eyes did not blink. They just stared, wide and empty, filled with madness.
"It looks like you are trying to have a Gunfight." Clippy’s eyebrows wiggled. "Would you like some help with that?"
- [ ] Use a Bulleted List
- [ ] Format for Violence
- [ ] Just kill everyone
"Go away!" Sheriff Poly yelled at the sky, his authority crumbling. "I am the Sheriff in this town! I didn't summon you!!"
"I see you are shouting," Clippy observed, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. "Would you like to turn on Caps Lock?"
"I WILL REMOVE YOU NOW!" The Sheriff pointed his finger at the giant paperclip. "BANG!"
A red pixel bullet shot from the Sheriff's hand. Clippy didn't dodge. He simply spawned a grey window labeled [USER AGREEMENT]. The bullet hit the window and vanished. No one ever reads the User Agreement. It is impenetrable.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
"Now is our chance!" Maya yelled. "They're distracted! Kai, do something!"
"I... I can't fight a paperclip!" Kai panicked. He looked at the chaos. He needed to stop them. He needed to bind them. "SYSTEM! SUMMON HELP!"
[SPELLCAST DETECTED] [AUTOCORRECT ENGAGED: DID YOU MEAN 'KELP' ?]
SPLAT.
It didn't rain water. It rained seaweed. Thousands of tons of wet, slimy, green kelp fell from the sky. It slammed into the desert floor, draping over the T-Posing Deputies and splattering onto the square wagon.
"SEA VEGETABLES!" Gideon roared, slipping on a slimy leaf. "THE OCEAN COMES TO THE DESERT!"
The physics engine screamed. Sheriff Poly: "ERROR! OVERLOAD!" The Sheriff tried to move, but his triangular body got tangled in the kelp. He started to vibrate, clipping through the floor and popping back up like a whack-a-mole.
Clippy lowered himself toward the drowning Sheriff. "It looks like you are struggling," Clippy said, his googly eyes spinning with joy. "Would you like to create a Last Will and Testament?"
The yellow sky flickered. Then, it turned a solid, terrifying shade of Blue. White text began to scroll down the horizon like the credits of a movie.
[CRITICAL ERROR] [ZONE 'DUSTBOWL' IS NOT RESPONDING]
"The world is ending!" Vex whispered, lighting a pipe. "Finally."
Clippy turned his giant eyes toward the party. "This program has performed an illegal operation. Would you like to [END TASK]?"
A massive button labeled [YES] appeared floating above the town square.
"Maya!" Kai screamed, slipping in the kelp as the Blue Screen ate the mountains. "What do we do now?!"
Maya stared at the button. Then she looked down at the ground. Because of the lag, the beige desert grid was violently flickering. It was "Z-fighting" two textures trying to exist in the same space. For a split second, through a crack in the beige sand, she saw something green, a tiny flash of cobblestone and rendered grass, miles below them.
"This zone isn't real!" Maya realized, pointing at the glitch. "Look at the floor! It's a transparent overlay! We're standing on a sticker pasted right on top of the main map!"
"And?!" Pigglesworth shrieked, clutching his tail.
"If we hit that button, the 'sticker' gets deleted!" Maya shouted. "The floor despawns!"
"And then we fall home?" Kai asked, hopeful.
Maya watched the green grass flicker again beneath the sand. It was a gamble. A terrifying one. "Yes," Maya nodded, gripping her brush, though her knuckles were white. "We fall home. GIDEON! HIT THE BUTTON!"
Kai froze. He looked at the button. He looked at the infinite grey void beyond the edge of the map. If Maya was wrong, this wasn't an escape. It was just a really fancy way to die.
"I SHALL PRESS THE RUNE OF TERMINATION!" Sir Gideon leaped into the air. He raised his squeaky hammer. "FOR GLORY! OR FOR ETERNAL VOID!"
As the hammer fell, Clippy rotated to face them one last time. "It looks like you are leaving," the paperclip said, his voice distorting into static. "Would you like to save changes to 'Untitled_Life_v1'?"
CLICK.
Silence. The banjo music stopped. The wind stopped. The Sheriff, the buildings, the kelp, and the infinite desert grid simply... vanished.
Gravity, however, remained.
For one second, they hung in the grey void between worlds. Kai saw Gideon floating next to him, hammer raised in triumph. He saw Pigglesworth clutching his monocle. He saw Vex closing his eyes, accepting the abyss. It was peaceful. Silent.
Then, the Green rushed up to meet them.
CRASH.
The Rapid Response Cart slammed into the water of the Oakhaven Town Fountain, shattering the stone basin. Kai landed face first in a flowerbed. Gideon landed in a bush. Pigglesworth landed softly on top of Kai.
The giant Meatball fell last. THUD. It landed directly in front of the Guild Hall, blocking the entrance with a wall of spicy meat.
Kai groaned, rolling over. His back hurt. His head hurt. He reached up to touch his forehead. He felt something plastic. He pulled it off. It was a Sheriff’s Badge. It was stuck to his hand. He tried to shake it off. It wouldn't let go.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [ZONE CHANGE: OAKHAVEN]
[ITEM ACQUIRED: UNAUTHORIZED PERMISSION]
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Permission granted by: UNKNOWN
[PASSIVE UNLOCKED: AUTHORITY AURA (BUGGED)] Effect: NPCs assume you know what you're doing. Note: You do not.
[SYSTEM NOTICE] Congratulations! You have successfully completed: – A gunfight without guns – A deletion without dying – A tutorial without consent
[SYSTEM WARNING] This outcome was not anticipated. Reality has been flagged for review.
"We made it," Maya gasped, pulling seaweed out of her hair. She looked around at the familiar cobblestones, the rendered trees, the terrified NPCs staring at them. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "We're actually back."
Vex sat up in the ruins of the wagon. He looked at the blue sky. He looked at the green trees. He looked disappointed. "The colors," Vex sighed. "They are so... vivid. I miss the beige."
Borg crawled out of the fountain, dripping wet. He pulled out his clipboard, which was now soggy. "Falling from the sky is a serious workplace hazard," Borg muttered, his pen shaking slightly as he clicked it. "However... the fountain did provide an adequate emergency landing zone. I will rate this rescue: 3 stars."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
PING. "It looks like you survived"