Who Is Controlling Me!?

The harsh light of day flooded over my closed eyelids and forced them open. Ironically, that same brilliance caused them to flutter right back shut.

As much as I wanted to turn away or cover my face, my own body refused to respond to my will, so I had no choice but to lay still and embrace the bright agony.

“What… What happened?”

Memories of being pulled into my computer by some supernatural force slowly crept back into my disoriented mind. There was an irritating voice somewhere in there too, telling me to save her world, which sounded like it was the game we were building.

I held out some hope that this was either some elaborate prank with a nice cash bonus at the end, or just some dream/hallucination caused by sleep deprivation. Whichever it was, I had a feeling the reality was going to be very disappointing.

“Why can’t I move?”

None of my limbs were responding to me. I was lucky enough to gain some control over my neck and eyes, but otherwise I was completely paralyzed.

Thankfully though I could finally look away from the sun. I was laying half naked on some weathered gravel road in the middle of a forest.

I wouldn't have thought much of it if I hadn’t noticed that the pebbles on the ground were fake. The ground itself was flat, only given the illusion of depth thanks to the lighting engine. It would have been unnoticeable if I wasn't laying this close to it.

That wasn’t the only oddity. The grass looked like someone had cut it out of paper and just stuck it on the ground in an X formation. It waved with a slight uncanny motion, the same as bushes and tree leaves.

“Oh God…” My head fell back as I lost hope. “I really am stuck in a video game…”

Worse than that, the artstyle confirmed that it was none other than Angel Sword Online, the crap we were producing. If developing the game wasn’t bad enough, now I had to live it.

“Please let this be a dream,” I repeatedly chanted. “I’m going to wake up with drool all over my keyboard and David is going to put pictures of it in a vidoc.”

As much as I wanted extreme exhaustion to have been the culprit here, the longer I laid still, the more active I actually felt, like I was waking up in the morning. Despite the situation, this was the most alive I'd felt in a while.

“Now, if only I could actually get up! Come on!” I shouted as I tried my best to overcome the paralysis. “Get up, Ray!”

An external pressure appeared a few dozen meters away. Giant blobby messes of green sludge plopped around the forest edge and were heading for me.

“No… Not the slimes!”

If I needed any more proof that this was our game, those slimes looked exactly like the ones our lead art designer Sarah created a few months ago. She gave them little stubby arms and funny faces that everyone but her found unnerving.

I did not want to find out what would happen if they touched me. Could I even defend myself? Not like it meant much if I couldn't move!

“Get up!” I shouted again with one great push.

Suddenly my body responded to the call, but it wasn’t because of my will power. It shot up on its own and started walking in circles.

The quick motion caused my skin to flood with pins and needles, making me light headed. My eyes got all twinkly.

Once the twinkles faded, my eyes went wide as I realized I was unwillingly moving toward the mess of angry slime monsters. My will power was nothing compared to whatever evil force was pushing me that way.

With all my might I resisted, but I was at its mercy.

Maybe this was Hell and I had to accept the corporate penance, like a good office worker. Somebody had to pay for the sin that was this game's development cycle.

The slimes were mere meters away and very much aware of me. The little brows and details that counted as a face lowered menacingly.

“Nice slimes…” I smiled, nervously. “Good slimes…”

I was going to die. Did anyone fix the respawn mechanic yet, or was I going to be stuck in that death loop Binder69er messaged me about?

Suddenly my arm reached for a sword on my back and I pulled out a claymore.

The giant sword came toppling down on one of the slimes with a power attack. Meanwhile my arms felt like jello and my body stung from the heavy swing.

*SPLAT!* went the green jelly creature as the sword cut clean through it.

Once the first of the many slimes had been vanquished, I unwillingly turned to the rest.

“Doooh gosh…” I grunted as the sword once more reeled back behind me. “This is what I get for skipping the gym for three years!”

The slimes, now very agitated, bounced at me angrily.

Down came my sword on one! Then I lifted it again and struck at another. And I did the same to the rest.

My stamina was nonexistent. I was wheezing like an asthmatic victim running a marathon.

“Please… Whoever is controlling me…” I looked to the sky. “For the love of sweet baby Jesus, use a lighter swing attack! These are slimes, for goodness sake!”

I didn’t understand why this force puppeteering me was so hell-bent on using power attacks. Slimes were purposefully placed close to new players so they could get a feel for the combat mechanics and level up once or twice. I could have slapped one of them to death.

More slime spawned and were bouncing at me. I had no choice but to turn and face them.

“Have mercy!”

I ran at those suckers with the sword held high. But as I swung it was just an easy horizontal swipe, like I requested. Maybe not easy, but much less straining.

Thankfully it was enough to take out all the slimes at once.

“Gah…” I sighed with a mild amount of relief. “Thank goodness you heard me.”

Either they realized they were wasting too much stamina, or they could hear everything I was saying. Based on their behavior, and the fact that I was in my own game, I decided to refer to them as a ‘player.’

There had to be a way to communicate my situation to this player. Whether they were willing to hear me out was another story entirely, but worth a shot.

“Excuse me, player!” I shouted to the sky. “If you can hear me, please make me jump once!”

I jumped.

“Perfect,” I responded. “Now, let me explain…”

Then I jumped again.

“Wait, I only said once!”

I continued to hop around like a rabbit, then I did a series of crouches over the puddles of dead slime jelly that was everywhere. All those quick squats were tearing up my thighs.

Whatever five year old was controlling me clearly was having fun.

“Listen, player.” I continued to T-bag the slimy remnants. “This is important.” I was going to wait for them to stop crouching rapidly, but they weren't getting tired of hitting that shift key. “My name is Ra-!”

Before I could say my name, the player made me climb a tree and step out to the very end of a branch with collision.

“Hey, don't jump!” I pleaded. “That'll hurt a lot!”

Despite my protests to the physics department, this game had horrible fall damage. My ankles were about to be dust from this ten meter drop.

To my suprise, my arms stretched out and I balanced on my big toe like a ballerina at the end of the branch. A small bird landed on the very tip of my hand.

“Oh, lovely. I see you’ve discovered the emote button…” I must have looked so stupid in this silly pose. At least I was happy that there was a little piece for the moment. “Player, listen to me. My name is Raymond Roberts. I'm a game dev at Square Studios.”

Suddenly I stopped posing funny and my body twisted toward where the player camera was. I could see their hud, but backwards.

“I don't know how this happened, but I've become trapped in my own game. I need to know if there's a way to communicate with you.”

I had an idea. Since I could see a backwards view of the players screen following me, I assumed I could probably see all their text chats too.

“Player, if you can, please hit the J key to open up the chat and type me your name.”

It took a few moments, but the player did as I instructed and put down “-☆streboR esoR☆-”. What kind of a name was that? Russian, maybe?

Oh, wait a second. I saw it backwards.

“Let’s see… R, O, S, E…”

It hit me quick who this player was, and with her little antics, it all made a lot of sense.

“Rose,” I shouted. “Darling, is that you?”

“-♡YES BABY!♡-” she typed out.

So, my wife was the one controlling me all along! Man, what a real statement that is.

We needed to figure out what was going on here. Before she started typing in the chat again, I requested her to move me out of the tree so we could have a safer place to chat.