"That was fun," Chaz said as we stepped out. "I gotta go back for more stuff later."

  "Don't spend too much just yet," I warned him. "There should be three more item shops to look at when the barrier's down."

  "How do you know that?" Lex asked.

  I looked at my status window. "Four people have died since the item shops opened."

  Lex considered this. "...Ouch."

  Kara gestured at Huge W across the plaza. "Harmony's setting up. Wanna get this over with?"

  Khan's mouth opened in my palm again. "Pardon the intrusion, but might I ask you to open that crate you just purchased first?"

  "Someone's hungry," I said, but I summoned the Super-Size crate. I was going to pop it anyway.

  The Super-Size crates put on a bigger show than usual. There was some shaking and rumbling, a bright golden glow, a longer jingle, and it yelled "OH, YEAH!" before it finally burst open.

  A box of cereal and another card appeared in my hands.

  [ Rare! You've received a Wizard's Treats Gold OddBotz Card! ]

  [ EPIC! You've received a carton of Wizard's Treats D-Bran Cereal! A healthy, high-fibre, eleven-dimensional cereal. Eat these pseudoflakes to gain the [Healthy Guts] status for the rest of the day. [Healthy Guts] grants increased rewards from defeating enemies, and a high chance of a special encounter. Serves five.

  D-Bran: Complex Submanifolds—Simply Delicious! ]

  [ Epic Win

  Unbox your first Epic item.

  Reward: +1 Crate Key ]

  I turned over the card. "Woah. Is this...?"

  "That's the delectable bonus, yes," Khan said happily. "You must bestow this card to someone immediately."

  I nodded. "Can't wait to meet your buddies, huh?"

  "Of course! They'll be useful to your cause, and we haven't met for a Food Court movie night in months."

  I studied the cereal box. It had another cartoon mascot on the front: a furry purple monster with a tiger's body, a lion's head, a mane of feathers, sneakers, and sunglasses. It was leaning happily over a giant cereal bowl, scooping up bran with the bowl-shaped tip of a scorpion-like tail.

  I showed it to the others. "We should eat this."

  Chaz whistled. "Hey, nice! But we only need four servings..."

  "We can feed someone else," Kara said, smirking. "Like Troy—"

  "I'll feed Troy my foot up his arse," I said promptly. "I'll give it to Val, her party's been helpful."

  "Good idea! And the OddBotz card?"

  "Harmony," I said, as we stepped into Huge W. "Huge W needs OddBotz more. She can decide who gets it."

  Lex pulled out her Champion's Locker. "I'm trying mine too!"

  Her crate "OH, YEAH!"'d out of existence, leaving behind a Mister Sportsball Gold OddBotz card and a curved plastic flask. It wore a phone pocket and a hand strap like a tiny backpack, and pink fluid sloshed inside.

  [ EPIC! A Mister Sportsball "Mister Bottle" (a Slurp Nurse collab)! Pour any healing drink in here, and once per hour you can choose to gain its effects as if you just drank it—without actually drinking it! Comes with a free drink! ]

  "Oh, hey," Lex said, reading us the effects. "And it comes with... oh."

  She read us that description too.

  [ Contents: 1 serving of Mister Sportsball Vitamin Ultratonic! This safe, bubbly mineral water is a healthful alternative to soda with a cool tamarind-pineapple flavour. Grants mild health regeneration for 12 hours and twice your daily dose of sugar! Contains human blood. ]

  I leaned away from it. "Well, all yours. Enjoy."

  Lex took a regular sports bottle from Snakpak and poured the Ultratonic into it. "I still have a calibrated Slurp, so I'm going to add that... After I wash the bottle. A lot."

  "I'll make us some D-Bran," I said. "May as well have breakfast with our watch party. Do we have any milk?"

  "I can do a milk run," Chaz said. "And I've got a big wet bottle of Cosmo's juice if you want a glass."

  "Phrase it better and you got a deal."

  Harmony had set up a TV and a sofa in Huge W's break room. We sat down with our D-Bran; the cereal looked like bran flakes, but with bizarre, twisted shapes that hurt my eyes. They tasted fine though.

  We followed Dandy's advice and made sure we were alone before playing the first tape.

  It began with a generic intro: a gleaming Zettamall logo spun into view as a dramatic synth tune played, and the words ZETTA HOME VIDEO appeared beneath in time to the final notes. Then the words faded, a title card appeared, and the video began to play.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  [ Welcome to the ZETTAMALL?! ]

  A camera panned over an empty shopping mall until a suited man walked into frame.

  "Hello! I'm your host, Malcolm O'Mall, and today we're going to talk about the ZETTAMALL?. If you're watching this video, you probably have a lot of questions. Where am I? Why are these creatures attacking me? And how do you manage these incredible savings? Let's find out!"

  An image of Earth floating in space appeared. The words PART 1: WHAT IS THE ZETTAMALL?? faded in and out.

  "The ZETTAMALL? is the largest shopping center in the universe. It's located here—" a tiny square blinked to life in a corner of the screen, which quickly expanded into a close-up of an unfamiliar galaxy "—approximately 2.73 million light-years away from the planet you call Earth."

  I choked on my cereal.

  "That sure is a long drive. Hope your kids have something to read!"

  Zoom in. An unfamiliar star. In the foreground, a massive band of... something curved around it at an incredible distance. In the background, a blue nebula crept onto an edge of the screen.

  Shit.

  "The ZETTAMALL? is what humans call a ring world. Think of it as a giant ribbon, or ring, wrapped around the star." The view changed. Now it showed a small segment of the ring's inner side, which contained a massive landmass covered in urban webs of glowing lines and circles. "Its surface area is as much as three million Earths. And you share this incredible space with other species from across the universe!"

  Cool guitar music played as the video entered PART 2: WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?. Old mall footage began to play—I wasn't sure of the year, but I saw first-generation consoles on shelves.

  "Every mall needs its customers, and the ZETTAMALL? has searched countless galaxies for them. But not every species qualifies." More mall footage, sometimes from different eras. "You need intelligence. Tools. A can-do attitude! And most importantly, a little something we like to call private enterprise. When all of these things combine, a shopping mall is formed. And if your species produces shopping malls, well, it produces customers!"

  The footage shifted. An unfamiliar city skyline appeared. It looked like sunset. In the distant horizon, beyond the clouds, the ring world curved up and out of sight. It sort of looked like a tower.

  Shit!

  "When customers are detected, the ZETTAMALL? finds the shopping malls where they congregate—or the local equivalent—and transports them here. And don't worry about the Prime Directive!" A Star Wars clip played. "Using our patented Technology?—" the word flashed on-screen "—we leave behind an echo that ensures nobody will realise they're gone!"

  Back to Malcolm. "And now you've been selected to become a ZETTAMALL? customer, you lucky son of a mall. If you complete your tutorial training program, you'll be allowed to live here. The ZETTAMALL? is a wonderful, post-scarcity world where you can buy almost anything in the universe—as long as you have the Funbucks to spend!"

  A cheap cartoon. A dark-haired, sword-wielding warrior dressed like a barista descended into a dungeon via an escalator and started fighting shoplins.

  "Need Funbucks? Earning them is simple—venture deeper into the ZETTAMALL?, defeat its denizens, and you can have all the Funbucks you want! It's an endless source of money—and fun!"

  Retro rock music played as the cartoon barista defeated the shoplins, opened some crates, got better gear, returned to the surface, bought some nice food and clothes, then descended back into the dungeon to do it all over again. The loop repeated a few times, with the barista fighting larger, weirder monsters and getting bigger rewards every time—until the final loop, where the barista eventually pried himself away from sitting atop a pile of gold, crates, and fawning women, went into the dungeon one last time, and got eaten by a giant cybernetic serpent.

  Malcolm returned, this time with a human. He looked like a real-life version of the barista, actually.

  "Take Phillip here. Phillip was brought here when he was ten, and he's enjoyed the ZETTAMALL? for years now. What do you think, Phillip?"

  Phillip gave the screen a thumbs-up. "I forgot what my parents look like!"

  "Phillip here might love his life on the ZETTAMALL?, but maybe you're not convinced. Maybe you're thinking about your friends. Your brands. The feel of wet carpet. Well, have we got a deal for you."

  PART 3: HOW DO I LEAVE?. My D-Bran was getting cold. I'd dropped my spoon at some point.

  "Well, you could always die. Just kidding." Malcolm winked. "Utopia isn't for everyone. If you're not satisfied with your ZETTAMALL? experience, we offer a wonderful Return Package. Take it, and we'll put you back in your life like nothing ever happened. This will all be like a dream. A good one!"

  Phillip gave the screen a thumbs-up. "Wow! How do I sign up?"

  "It's simple! Just pay a one-time fee of one trillion Funbucks, and you'll be home in no time! Better start earning."

  Phillip gave the screen a thumbs-up. "Wowee! What a deal!"

  Back to Malcolm. The music was starting to play him out.

  "Wow! We learned a lot about the ZETTAMALL? today, what it is, and how to survive it. This is the end of this tape, but if you'd like to know more, Zetta Home Video offers a whole range of instructional tapes, like Meet The OddBotz, The Joy Of Crates, and Zeddie, Your System Companion! Until next time, I'm Malcolm, and remember... ZETTAMALL?: Your Mall, Our World!"

  The credits began to play.

  Nobody said anything for a few moments.

  A new window popped up in an explosion of confetti and party horns.

  [ +1 EXP! ]

  I just sat there, staring at the floor.

  What the hell?

  The whole thing was absolutely bonkers. If they'd told us at the start, I would've assumed it was a prank. But I'd seen the sky. I'd opened the crates. I'd met the alien. What was already happening was so transparently ridiculous that the truth fit right in.

  Our lives had been stolen, and we probably wouldn't see home again.

  "Urp..." Kara put a hand to her mouth and rushed to the break room sink, where she started to vomit. "Hurk! No... Hhuuuaharghhh... no, I can't... hhuuuuruuhuuhgggh!"

  Lex put her face in her hands and started to weep. "Mum..."

  I didn't look up. Tears stained my eyes. "..."

  Chaz stared at nothing. "My parents... grandparents... church..."

  He leapt to his feet and threw up his arms.

  "Everything they ever told me is WRONG! ISEKAI, BABYYY! WOOOOOOO!!"

  Patreon!