Chapter 4 Reality Check
Reality Check [NOT FOUND]
Beside him, Jasper snored with the contented rhythm of someone unbothered by shadows in the woods.
“I can’t believe I’m lying here,” Levi whispered. “I can’t believe how real this feels.”
The meteor shower had been beautiful. For two hours, they all lay on their backs in the clearing, staring toward the heavens as streaks of light tore across the sky. Levi had found himself captivated, forgetting momentarily about everything except the wonder above.
“The blue ones were my favorite,” Tyler had announced with academic authority. “That’s ionized oxygen in the upper atmosphere.”
“I counted seventy-three,” Maddie had declared proudly. “Pay up, Tyler.”
Even now, Levi could feel the lingering chill of the ground against his back, the way his breath had fogged in the night air. He remembered the weight of Zoe’s blanket when she’d tossed it over him after noticing his shivering.
Jasper shifted beside him, mumbling something unintelligible in his sleep.
Levi turned away in his sleeping bag, hands rising to his temples. His fingers found only skin, no trace of the neural interface that should have been there. He ran his palms over his entire head, searching for any sign of the headset.
Nothing.
“This can’t be happening,” he murmured, panic rising in his throat like bile. “Where is it? Where’s the headset? Great customer service, Virtual Vice. ‘Lost your expensive hardware? That’s a you problem.’”
He pinched his arm hard enough to leave a mark.
The pain felt tangible—sharp, immediate, lingering.
He pressed his palm against the tent floor, feeling individual pebbles beneath the thin fabric.
When he inhaled, the scent of woodsmoke filled his nostrils, mixed with the earthy smell of the forest and Jasper’s faint marijuana odor.
Everything felt real.
“This is impossible,” he breathed, his voice cracking. “VR doesn’t work like this. It can’t—”
But as he looked around the tent, at Jasper’s sleeping form, at his own hands in the dim light, a terrible thought began to take root. What if this wasn’t virtual reality? What if this was real?
“No,” he said, the word cutting through his mounting hysteria. “No, that’s insane. I put on a headset. I was in my apartment. I was streaming.”
But the memory felt distant now, like something he’d dreamed rather than lived. The apartment, the ring light, the nervous energy of going live—it all seemed hazy and insubstantial compared to the vivid reality of the moment.
The tent zipper across the campsite rasped through the night. Levi’s breath caught in his throat, his entire body tensing as he strained to listen. The sound had come from somewhere near Zoe and Maddie’s tent. His pulse quickened, blood rushing in his ears, drowning out Jasper’s continued snoring.
Levi lay motionless, counting his heartbeats. One, two, three—there it was again. The unmistakable sound of another zipper, followed by hushed voices.
He glanced at Jasper, still lost in whatever dreams occupied his mind. With shaking fingers, Levi reached for his own tent zipper, wincing at each tiny metal tooth that separated. He pulled it just enough to create a narrow opening and pressed his eye against it.
The campfire had burned down to glowing embers, casting everything in a dim orange light. Maddie stood outside Zoe’s tent, arms wrapped around herself against the chill. Her colorful hair was pulled into a messy bun, and she kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, glancing toward the tree line.
“Shit,” she whispered, checking her phone. The blue glow illuminated her worried expression.
Levi’s tent creaked as he shifted position. Maddie’s head snapped toward the sound.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Levi hesitated, then unzipped his tent further. “It’s just me. Everything okay?”
Maddie hurried over, crouching beside his tent opening. “It’s Zoe. She went to the bathroom like forty minutes ago. She’s not back.”
“Forty minutes?” Levi’s stomach clenched with sudden dread.
“I thought maybe she went for a walk or something, but she left her flashlight.” Maddie held up Zoe’s headlamp. “And it’s not like her to just wander off without saying anything.”
“Should we wake Tyler?” he suggested, his voice tight.
Maddie shook her head. “Already tried. He took one of my special brownies and he’s dead to the world. I can’t even roll him over.”
Of course. The one time I need backup, the tank is debuffed by edibles.
The thought of Zoe alone in the dark forest made Levi’s skin crawl. She’d been so practical, so careful. She wouldn’t just disappear without a reason.
“I’ll go look for her,” Levi heard himself say.
Maddie’s eyes widened. “Really? Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Levi reached for his shoes and a flashlight, surprised by his own certainty. “Someone has to.”
Whatever this was—game, dream, or impossible reality—Zoe was out there somewhere, possibly in trouble. He couldn’t just lie there and do nothing.
“I’ll come with you,” Maddie offered.
“No,” Levi said. “Someone should stay here in case she comes back. Just... keep trying to wake Tyler.”
As he stepped out of the tent, the forest seemed to expand around him, darker and more menacing than before. The trees stood like silent sentinels, their branches reaching toward a sky that suddenly seemed too vast, too empty.
“Be careful,” Maddie whispered, her voice small against the looming darkness.
Levi nodded, swallowing hard. “I will.”
He grabbed the camping hatchet they used earlier to split kindling. It felt solid. Real. The wooden handle felt smooth against his skin, worn from use, but it was smaller than he would want as an item for self-protection.
“Better than nothing,” he muttered, tucking it into his belt.
The flashlight beam cut through the blackness, carving a narrow path of visibility.
Shadows leaped and twisted around him, tree trunks transforming into looming figures before resolving back into harmless wood.
Every sound made him jump—the rustle of leaves, the distant hoot of an owl, the soft crunch of his own footsteps.
Following mysterious trails in dark woods is such a smart move. Every horror movie ever has taught me this ends well.
“Zoe?” he called softly, not wanting to attract whatever might be lurking in the gloom. “Zoe, are you out here?”
Only the wind answered, sighing through the canopy overhead. The sound of the camp faded behind him until all he could hear was his own breathing and the thundering of his heartbeat.
Twenty yards in, he spotted the first sign: a freshly broken branch still oozing sap. He moved in that direction, eyes scanning the ground. Disturbed leaves. A partial footprint in a patch of soft earth.
She came this way. He pulled the hatchet from his belt. And maybe something else too.
Each step took him further from safety. The darkness seemed to thicken around him, pressing against the edges of his light. His earlier confidence began to crumble, replaced by a growing sense of dread that made his hands quiver.
His foot caught on something soft yet unyielding. He stumbled, nearly falling, and swung the flashlight down to see what had tripped him.
The beam illuminated a hand. Pale. Delicate. Familiar.
“No,” Levi breathed.
He stepped back, beam wavering in his grip as he forced himself to pan the light upward. The flashlight traveled over an arm, a shoulder, and finally came to rest on Zoe’s face. Her eyes were open, glassy, reflecting his flashlight in twin pinpricks of light that held no life behind them.
“Zoe?” he whispered, though some part of him already knew she couldn’t answer.
The light moved downward, revealing the full horror.
Her torso had been split open from sternum to navel, the edges of the wound jagged and gaping.
Her internal organs glistened wetly in the harsh light, some missing entirely, others arranged in patterns that defied all natural order—spirals and geometric shapes that spoke of deliberate, ritualistic intent.
Dark blood soaked into the earth beneath her, turning the soil into black mud that squelched beneath his feet.
Then the smell hit him. Copper and waste and something else, something sweet and rotting that made his gorge rise.
The metallic tang of blood mixed with the organic stench of exposed bowels, creating a cocktail of odors so viscerally wrong that his body rebelled against it.
His knees buckled. The hatchet fell from his nerveless fingers as he collapsed beside her body.
“This isn’t—” he choked out. “This can’t be—”
His stomach heaved. He doubled over, emptying its contents onto the forest floor in harsh, wrenching spasms. His throat burned as he retched again and again, his body trying to expel the horror before him.
Each gasping breath brought the metallic scent of Zoe’s blood deeper into his lungs, triggering another wave of nausea.
The flashlight slipped from his shaking fingers, landing with a dull thud on the soft earth. It rolled, coming to rest against a tree root, its beam now angled to cast ghoulish shadows across Zoe’s mutilated face.
“No, no, no,” Levi gasped between heaves. His vision blurred with tears he didn’t remember starting to cry.
Zoe was dead. Brutally, horribly dead.
Levi scrambled backward on hands and knees, putting distance between himself and the corpse. His palm landed on something metal—the hatchet. He grabbed it with desperate strength, needing something solid to hold onto.
“Have to get back,” he wheezed, his lungs still struggling to find rhythm. “Have to tell the others.”
His legs felt disconnected from his body as he staggered to his feet. The forest spun around him, trees blurring into a dark carnival of shapes. Levi abandoned the flashlight, leaving it to illuminate the grim scene behind him. The shadows ahead seemed preferable to what lay in the light.
He ran.
Branches whipped across his face, leaving stinging welts. Roots felt like they reached up to trip him. Each time he stumbled, pure terror drove him forward. His breath came in ragged gasps, too shallow to properly fill his lungs, but enough to fuel his desperate flight.
Through gaps in the canopy, he caught glimpses of the same stars they’d watched during the meteor shower, now cold and indifferent witnesses to his horror. The trees began to thin. Ahead, the warm glow of the dying campfire beckoned like a beacon of safety.
“Maddie!” he tried to shout, but his voice emerged as a broken whisper. “Tyler! Jasper!”
He could hear their voices—concerned calls floating through the trees. They were looking for him. For Zoe. His heart lurched with desperate hope. I’m not alone in this nightmare.
“I’m here!” he managed, louder this time. “Help! Zoe’s—”
An impact drove the air from his lungs. One moment, he was running, the next he was slammed against a tree trunk, rough bark scraping his cheek raw. Something solid pressed against his back—not the tree, but a body. Human. Warm.
Levi opened his mouth to scream, but a hand clamped over it, fingers digging into his cheeks hard enough to bruise. He tasted salt and something metallic. Blood. Not his blood.
He thrashed against the grip, hatchet still clutched in his right hand. He tried to swing it backward, to connect with his attacker, but a second hand seized his wrist with crushing force. The hatchet fell from his numbed fingers, hitting the ground with a soft thud.
A face pressed close to his ear, breath hot and humid against his skin. Levi’s entire body convulsed with terror so complete it felt like drowning.
“Shhh,” the voice whispered, gentle and intimate as a lover’s caress. “It’s okay.”