MADMAN APOCALYPSE

The pitter-patter of my blood falling in fat droplets from my fist to the linoleum floor filled the waiting room, as I peered into the darkness that awaited me past the opened metal doors. It was impossible to see what lay ahead, but it was fairly clear that something was awaiting me within.

Panda was rubbing his chin, which was a strange mannerism for a plushie to exhibit. “I wonder what kind of Psychiatrist we’re dealing with?”

I thought back to the man who had often interviewed and assessed me during my long stay at Calm Springs Asylum. “Maybe it’s Dr. Juliens.”

“Think he’ll force you to swallow pills again?” Panda guessed.

I frowned at the memory, though, to be precise, he had always just decided what medicine I would take, while the orderlies had been the ones enforcing my medication regimen. I’d quickly learnt to spit out the pills after they’d left though; there was no way I trusted them after seeing how they reduced the other patients to feeble placid creatures.

“Do you think I avoided becoming like the others here because I didn’t take those pills?”

Panda shrugged.

“If it is Dr. Juliens, then I’d like to bash his head in,” I remarked.

“Wasn’t he just doing his job?”

“He said I was clinically insane!”

Panda fixed me with a stare. “You do know you’re talking to a plushie, right? Also, even the System said you’re insane.”

“Shut up…”

I clenched my fist, ignoring the pain from my broken middle finger, then walked through the open doorway.

The darkness was like a veil or thin membrane that allowed me to cross the threshold of the double doors, but it immediately became solid once I’d gone all the way through, as though only allowing one-way traversal. I touched it after passing through and it was like a pane of glass, though seemed impossibly-dense when I knocked on it.

“Welcome to my office!” announced a voice from behind me.

I turned away from the threshold membrane to take in the scene before me. It was the same plastic off-white walls as the hallways and waiting room, the same linoleum floor, and similar plastic furniture. As with the waiting room, the normally-calming pictures were all totally messed up, all of them showing skinned humans that were smiling and tracking me with their eyes, while their blood ran out of the frame and down the walls.

Behind a white desk with nothing but a cup of coffee on it, stood the Psychiatrist. He wore a calming-blue woolen cardigan and dark-grey trousers. His straw-blonde hair was swept back with copious amounts of hair-gel and he had round spectacles that rested on his nose, giving him a strange aura somewhere between party-boy and professor.

“It’s been a while ██████████████,” he said by way of greeting.

“You look and seem relatively-normal, Doctor.”

Dr. Juliens pushed his glasses further up his nose ridge, then grinned. “I am afforded a bit more sentience given the role the System granted me. I am the boss around here after all.”

Panda tugged me on the ear, then whispered, “Was he actually the boss of this place?”

“No,” I replied, my eyes locked on the Psychiatrist.

“I suppose this is the part where I kill you then,” Dr. Juliens started and the entire room unfurled, while the furniture flattened into the floor. It was as if we had been inside a box and the walls fell away to reveal a hidden exterior world. But it wasn’t the outside world, no, instead it was that same screaming tapestry of faces woven from hair, which extended out from the edges of the floor and up over us like a dome.

I reminded myself that touching it was a bad idea.

“This ought to be the part where the evil Doctor starts laughing maniacally,” Panda predicted, and no sooner had he said it than Dr. Juliens began cackling to himself, while his body underwent an insane transformation.

His arms and legs elongated, with his fingers growing long hook-nails, while his feet transformed into hooves and the knee-joints inverted. His face transformed as well, but not how I’d expected. From the nose, a swirl formed on his face, moving around in a spiral until it reached his ears, before his entire head unfurled like a meat rose, with the petals all adorned with spherical blue eyes, each featuring a tiny black dot.

The cackling transformed into distorted TV static, while his body continued to grow.

“We might be fucked,” Panda said, but I ignored him, while backing away towards the entrance, which, like all the other walls, had disappeared and now just led to a brief fall cushioned by the screaming tapestry that marked the boundary of the arena.

With a sudden lunge, Dr. Juliens flung his arms out towards me, the long limbs having grown a second elbow joint, while the laughter continued emanating from his meat-rose face with all the blue eyes staring intently at me.

I hopped out of the way of his hook-nails, which caught on the linoleum floor and tore deep gouges as the enlarged hands pulled back.

[THIS TREATMENT MAY HURT A LITTLE!] the staticky intercom voice said, before he swung his arms for me again. I took the opportunity to get in closer to his body by ducking under his arms, then jumped from the floor and up into the air, winding my arm back for a sucker-punch.

[IT SEEMS MY TREATMENT WAS TOO LENIENT!] the intercom roared, as though Dr. Juliens was about to activate some sort of special power, however, before he had the opportunity, I swung my fist and rammed it straight into the center of his rose face.

A loud distorted grunt emerged from the transformed Doctor, who, to my surprise, started falling backwards, while his hook-nails once again tore deep furrows in the floor. As I fell back down from my incredible jump, Dr. Juliens landed on his back, his elongated limbs momentarily out of commission. My woolen socks hit the floor and I slipped from the lack of friction, giving him just enough time to sit up, before I could get in close.

“Punch him harder!” Panda yelled excitedly, baying for the Psychiatrist’s blood.

I leapt from the ground again, easily clearing six feet without much effort, then swung my fist at the same spot on his face, but this time yelled the name of my ability: “Punch.harder( )!”

ACTIVATING SCRIPT: Punch.harder( )!

if ( punch doesn't equal kill ) {

punch.harder( );

}

My punch connected with Dr. Juliens’ face, emitting a loud smack, but while it clearly rocked his world, it wasn’t enough to kill him. As though realizing this, the condition of my strange ability triggered:

REACTIVATING SCRIPT: Punch.harder( )!

if ( punch doesn't equal kill ) {

punch.harder( );

}

As though there was a machine in my arm that moved at superhuman speed, my fist pulled back and released forward into a punch with such velocity that the sound of the first smack was still echoing as the second one came. I could feel that there was more oomph behind this follow-up hit, but, once again, the ability was not satisfied:

REACTIVATING SCRIPT: Punch.harder( )!

if ( punch doesn't equal kill ) {

punch.harder( );

}

Another instant punch followed, even harder than the previous two combined. But it wasn’t enough.

The ability reactivated, punching much harder, producing a loud crunch from the sounds of all my fingers breaking in unison, even my middle one which was already broken.

But it still wasn’t enough.

There followed a near-instantaneous sequence of: punch => reactivation => punch => reactivation for the next eighteen punches, wherein my fist and arm were damaged nearly as much as the Doctor’s meat-rose face.

After the eighteenth punch in the last 1.2873 seconds, the skin and meat on my right fist was ground down to the bone and there was not a single bit left unbroken in my hand and wrist, with the tendons and muscles totally frayed and torn as well.

I fell away from the final impact, which released a powerful buffet of wind that sent me careening back towards the far edge of the floor, while the smoking pulped-to-oblivion remnants of the monstrous Psychiatrist’s head collapsed back the other way, spilling syrupy black blood onto the floor from his neck.

As I slid on the ass of my pajamas towards the edge where the tapestry of faces awaited me below, a celebratory chime played through the air and the walls reappeared just in time to halt me from certain death.

DUNGEON ‘Calm Springs Asylum’ CLEARED!

Recommended Player level: 20

Average Player level: -1

Player survivors: 1

Player deaths: 0

Enemies slain: 5

Bosses slain: 1

“I did it…” I remarked, woozy from the pain in my right hand and the comedown of the adrenaline leaving my bloodstream. Before I could look down at my ruined hand in my lap and see how bad it was, the tendons, muscles, sinew, meat, bones, and skin all began reforming and repairing itself. A series of pops, corrective cracks, and tearing Velcro, for some reason, emitted from my limb, before it was as pristine as ever.

I looked at my hand in wonder, then suddenly realized Pandamonium was missing from my shoulder. Fear and despair flooded my mind as I considered that he might’ve been blown off the side of the arena, but I didn’t have the chance to look for him as several windows appeared in front of my eyes, blocking my sight.

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x

‘Dungeon Delver’s First Time’

Killed your first Dungeon Boss.

No matter how many bosses you end up slaying during your participation in the GREAT GAME, you’ll always remember your first. It hurt and it was confusing, but you also realized you liked it.

Your reward is thematic to the Dungeon ‘Calm Springs Asylum’ and may aid you in some way. Or maybe it’ll curse you. It’s just a risk you’ll have to take!

Rewards: Full Recovery & ‘Psychiatrist’s Flower’

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x

‘World First Dungeon Defeater’

Be the first to clear a Dungeon in the GREAT GAME.

It has only been…

*checks watch*

…like an hour since the GREAT GAME started, and here you are, already beating a level 20 dungeon all by yourself!?

You are definitely one to watch, it would seem, and, as a result, you deserve a fitting reward! Just don’t, y’know, open it indoors…

Reward: ‘Dungeon Box’

Congratulations! You have leveled up! x

You have reached Level -3!

+2 new Attribute Point available to invest!

Kills required for Level -4

3/15

I clicked all the windows away and scanned the room for Panda, just as a meat rose the size of a dinner plate fell into my lap, alongside a strange wooden puzzle box with a button on top of it.

WARNING!

The Dungeon will close in 60 seconds!

You will be returned to your last known location outside the Dungeon perimeter!

“Pandamonium!” I yelled. “Where are you!?”

I pushed myself to my feet and heard a gasp from under where I’d been sitting.

“…I can breathe!” exclaimed Panda in terror and relief. “Oh my god, I saw my family, waving at me from the clouds! Grandpapa was there, calling my name!”

I realized I hadn’t slid on the ass of my pajamas, but rather on top of Panda’s body… Stooping low, I lifted him from the floor, dusted off his ‘fur’, and settled him on my shoulder.

“That last one was one hell of a punch,” he remarked, already over having been sat on.

“Should’ve seen what it did to my hand though…”

“Your hand looks fine?”

“I was healed as a reward for killing the boss it seems.”

“Oh. Well, just don’t go punching things willy-nilly with that ability. It seems like it has the potential to create an infinite loop if it’s something you can’t ‘kill’. Like a wall. I mean, how do you kill a wall?”

“Good point.”

“What’s that gross flower about?” Panda asked, looking down at my feet, where the meat-rose and ‘Dungeon Box’ rested against my socks.

DUNGEON CLOSING!

Returning you to your last known location outside the dungeon perimeter!