Evolution Island: Kill to Survive

A bunch of cavemen

“I’m not gonna play your—”

Aaron’s exasperated outcry was cut short by a dazzling gleam of light, followed by a brilliant fireworks display. The holographic head roared with laughter and disappeared in thin air, leaving Aaron to deal with the tribesmen surrounding him. They were all in shock, having never before witnessed something so extraordinary. Their primitive minds couldn’t grasp what they had just seen. Cautious eyes stared at Aaron and his friend seated atop the icy white mammoth. They were terrified to go near the beast.

After a good deal of staring, a rugged looking bearded man wearing a wolf skull approached the two friends. Gazing at the large wooden spear in the man’s hand Aaron understood that this one was probably a warrior of his tribe. Walking up to the mammoth, the man looked up at the rider and spoke with all the courage he could muster.

“Bho lar mok? Bha zu mok qinta var?”

Aaron could make neither head nor tail of what this man just said. He was speaking an entirely different language. All he could understand from his tone was that he was probably asking a question.

“I am a traveler. Please, my friend needs help,” Aaron enunciated his words as clearly as possible and pointed towards Zach who was still bleeding out. “We don’t mean you any harm. Do you have a healer here?”

“Bhaz lar mok sazul? Zi zu wak bentor.”

“God damn it! I can’t understand a single word!” Aaron grunted. Almost instantly, the Z-band beeped.

[*Would you like to enable the universal translation assistance?*]

“Yes, just do it!” he blurted out.

[*Universal translator enabled!*]

A chimed beeping confirmed the translation feature being turned on. Aaron tried again. “Can you...understand what I’m saying now? My friend is dying! We need your help.”

“You speak our tongue, yet you are clothed like a stranger,” the warrior replied. “Are you here to destroy us? Who are you?”

Before Aaron could answer his question, a bald old man with nothing but tattoos covering his upper body, cut him short. “If they meant to destroy us they would have done so long ago. The boy behind is going to die if he isn’t healed. Stand aside and let them come in.”

Everything played out just like a cut scene in a videogame, except that this time Aaron and Zach were actually inside this game world. The bald old man seemed to be the elder of this tribe. All the warriors stood aside out of respect. The woolly mammoth used its telekinetic ability to gently lift the two friends from its back and lower them on the ground. Everyone watched in awe as the beast obeyed the two young boys with such reverence.

Helped by a couple of able-bodied young men, the elder carried Zach to his small shack which was made entirely out of animal bones. Aaron watched on as the bald old man drank a dark blue liquid from an earthen bowl and joined his hands together. The tattoos on his upper body began to glow with a cerulean hue as he began chanting a ritualistic incantation.

The old man’s lips moved in unison with his stubby little fingers, which he used to draw a circle in air. Soon, the tip of his right index finger began to glow with a bright green light which bathed Zach’s body in a flood of healing magic. The bleeding slowly stopped and one by one the wounds closed on their own. Flesh and tissue regenerated and every scar disappeared. When the skill casting was complete, the healing magic removed all negative effects from Zach’s body and completely revitalized him.

“Argh, my head...” Zach experienced a splitting headache as he tried to reopen his eyes. The old healer quickly cast the Calming Aura skill to ease his discomfort.

“Zach, I’m right here, bro. How do you feel?” Aaron asked, sitting down right next to Zach.

“I just had a terrible nightmare,” Zach replied, prying his eyelids open. As he slowly looked around, his heart started racing and he realized he hadn’t been dreaming. He really was in an unfamiliar land. It all quickly came back to him. He remembered having been attacked by the hobgoblin hunters and then being ambushed by a Smilodon. “Where the hell are we? Who are these people?”

“We are in Dewdale village. The healer of this tribe just patched you up.”

“This isn’t a good time for a joke, Aaron. Tell me where we are?”

“I’m not kidding. This is Dewdale!”

“No, this is not! Dewdale is a medieval village. There were no cavemen in Evolution Island. These NPCs do not belong here! Just what the hell is going on?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. This isn’t some glitch. Everything has been intentionally coded into the game.”

“What?”

“You need to calm down, bro. Just listen to me.” Aaron inched closer to Zach and looked into his eyes. “We are trapped inside this game. One of the game devs has gone rogue. He has changed the game world completely and is using us as test subjects. All this is his doing. He won’t let us leave till we beat this game.”

“And how did you find out about all this?”

“He told me about it while you were unconscious. If we wanna get back home, we have to conquer this island and become the Apex Predators of this world.”

Zach still refused to believe what Aaron was saying. He wanted to believe that this was all a temporary glitch which could be fixed with a simple patch. “Aaron, I’m sure there is a way back. Our bodies are still in the real world. We only have to find—”

“No! Our bodies aren’t where we left them. His men have our bodies. They are keeping us inside life pods.”

Aaron’s words suddenly caught Zach’s attention. He vividly remembered that heated argument where one of the game devs was trying to convince the company to push for a more immersive gaming experience by using life pods to monitor the vital stats of players. Everyone at that meeting had laughed at that game dev and made fun of his ludicrous idea of synchronizing human consciousness with virtual reality. It was impossible to transfer a person’s consciousness inside a game. The technology required for such a crazy innovation, was only present in some whacky sci-fi movie. No one had taken him seriously and it had all been forgotten in the coming weeks.

“Oh, no, God damn it. It’s freaking Gilbert. That dude always seemed like an oddball,” Zach whispered. “It has to be that all-knowing geek! Life pods! Damn it, he really managed to pull off his crazy idea.”

“You knew about this?” Aaron asked, shocked.

“Yeah, we did! But of course no one believed he’d actually be able to do something like this. The resources and men required to pull off something like this was far beyond his reach. He literally had to invent a new cerebro-digital coding mechanism for this! The kind of tech needed for this is 100 years in the future.”

“Perhaps, he had help from other people. I get a feeling this guy isn’t working alone, and he has some bigger plan in his mind.”

“Maybe you are right. But I don’t give a damn about his plans. We gotta get out of here, man.”

Just as Zach had finished speaking, his Z-band buzzed aloud. A holographic display appeared which displayed the following message. Before the friends could discuss anything, the Z-band displayed another shocking notification.

[*Tutorial complete!*]

[*Fast Travel is now available!*]

[All 4 islands are now displayed on your map.

Conquer Solaris to advance to the next region!]

“What the hell? 4 islands?” Aaron exclaimed aloud.

“That’s impossible. There is only one island in this game,” Zach replied. He quickly opened the digital map to confirm what he had just said. However, what he saw shattered all his illusions. The global map now displayed 3 newly added islands: Mechorium, Midgard and Ashenfort. The game had been expanded and Solaris was now the easiest island in this world. All the other islands were marked with red skulls, in increasing order of difficulty. Even their old level 30 Predators were no match for the enemies on the new islands. The game just became even more difficult than before!