Arc II, Chapter 6: The Night Before

The tape had stopped playing by the time we got to the end of Olde Hill Road. The inside of the carriage was quiet as we all waited to find out where this ride would take us. Antoine held Kimberly but neither dared to say a word.

The windows of the Carriage were warped in the way that old glass often was, but I could still see clearly enough when we passed the plot of land called the “Patcher Rehabilitation Ranch”.

At first, I was confused. I didn’t remember there being such a place before, but then I realized exactly where we were. Bobby must have realized about the same time that I did because he scooted up to the seat directly behind the driver and leaned forward.

“Wasn’t there an amusement park or something there?” he asked.

“Over there?” the driver, Kenny Patcher, asked. “That’s my family’s place. We rehabilitate injured horses.”

As he said that, I saw three other carriages exactly like the one we were riding in being stored in a large barn. The only difference was that one was an off-white color and one was brown.

“No,” Bobby said. “Patcher’s Family Farm. With hay rides and a corn maze.”

“Oh,” Kenny said, “Yeah, they used to do a little roadside attraction a long time ago. Way before I came along.”

That didn’t make sense. I surveyed the place as the carriage pulled away. The large farmhouse we had been in days ago was gone. There was no sign of the various farm-themed attractions. We had been brought there an hour or so after we arrived.

We had run our first storyline there, The Final Straw II. Suddenly it didn’t exist anymore. I saw no signs of a corn maze or a flying scarecrow named Benny.

I kept my eyes peeled as the carriage moved forward the rest of the trip. I looked for other changes. I was not incredibly familiar with the town, especially not the route we were taking, so finding differences was difficult.

Still, I felt like the place before me was changed. The place felt more modern. Carousel had always been a tapestry the old and the new, but now, it looked like a mostly ordinary town. A suburb even.

“What is it?” Kimberly asked.

“No Omens out there,” I said. “Not a single one.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Cassie asked meekly.

I shrugged.

“The players before us said that predictability was the most important part of surviving here in Carousel,” Dina said with a shadow of amusement. “Wonder what they would have done if they were here right now.”

“I think they would have been thrilled,” Antoine said. “They were doing the best they could to survive. They lived for years thinking that this place was just an inescapable bottomless pit. And then when we found out it might not be, we just kept them in the dark. All they wanted was answers… and now everyone… now Chris is dead.”

“We’re going to save him,” Kimberly said as if she was responsible for fixing every negative emotion Antoine ever had.

“Maybe. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Antoine said. “The players couldn’t win the first time. We have to do our best not to repeat their mistakes or we might just end up on missing posters ourselves.”

There was silence for a time. Nothing but the sound of hoofbeats.

“Is anyone optimistic about the near future?” Isaac said. “Somebody’s gotta… I don’t know… keep things light.”

“Pretty sure that’s your job, comedian,” I said.

Isaac sighed. “Then we’re screwed.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Cassie said weakly like she was trying to will it into existence.

None of us knew if we would be okay. We didn’t even know that we would survive the night.

“Let’s just focus on the Tutorial,” I said. “There’s important information here. We can worry about our futures after it’s over.”

We were afraid, but also a little excited. Excited that when Project Rewind ended, we were the ones left alive. Excited that we might just be able to find out why we had been brought to this place.

As the carriage moved further down the road and the neighborhoods grew denser, a loud explosion could be heard in the distance. For a moment my heart jumped into my throat. Everyone in the carriage moved into action, ready to flee or fight.

“It’s just fireworks,” Dina said, as bright purple light filled up the sky.

More bursts followed in many colors. More followed.

“Looks like they’re letting them off early,” our driver, Kenny said nervously. He had been ignoring us and our conversation like most NPCs when you started talking about the meta.

After we had all calmed down, Cassie asked, “How do we find out what happened to Andrew?”

I knew this conversation couldn’t be avoided for too long, despite my best efforts. Their older brother Andrew had been killed in Carousel. We didn’t know when or how yet.

“So, there’s something we have put off asking because… there was always something more pressing. What year do you think it is?” I asked.

“What year?” Isaac asked cautiously. “2022. Please say that doesn’t surprise you.”

I looked around at my friends. “Oh good. Yeah, that’s the right year. What date exactly?”

“It should be April 1^st,” Cassie said.

April… that meant they had arrived on the long road to Carousel a month or so before we did. Like Dina, who had been out of time for ten years, they had been preserved until a precise moment.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“I wonder why you weren’t a part of our group then,” Bobby said.

I had theories, but there was another question. I quickly checked the Atlas registry for Andrew Hughes before we left. There wasn’t one. That meant that he either had been in Carousel before the Atlas was written or he was not in the same group as the Atlas’ creators.

Or, of course, he had arrived after the date that our version of the Atlas was plucked from time by Anna and Camden.

Given their ages and what we knew about them, it looked like he was recent. Very recent.

“When did your brother come to Carousel?” I asked.

Cassie and Isaac looked at each other. “A little over a year ago,” she said.

That meant Andrew had been part of the group that had arrived in Carousel directly before mine. I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. With Isaac’s tie-dye shirt and Cassie looking like she had thrifted clothing items from head to toe, it was easy to believe they had come to Carousel from any of the last three decades.

But they were new, well, new enough.

“That means his team must have been the one that wiped out a few weeks before we got here,” Antoine said.

I heard Cassie take a sharp breath, but she didn’t say anything. I got the impression she was holding back some emotion.

“What happened to him?” Isaac asked.

“We don’t know,” Dina said. “The players before us didn’t like to talk about the dead.”

We had been trying not to use the word, “dead”. From what we explained, Cassie and Isaac would know their brother was dead, but it was gentler to say he needed rescue.

Cassie started to cry.

Isaac looked like he wanted to say something, to double-check, clarify, but he didn’t. We had explained how it worked. No matter how much you explain something like this to a person, it takes a while for reality to catch up.

“But we can save him?” Isaac asked eventually.

“Yep,” I said. “But we have to save ourselves first.”