Chapter 52: My First Quest! Not What I Expected
What David saw next was nothing like anything he had imagined.
For a moment, there was simply nothing.
Darkness. Complete and total. The kind that pressed against the eyes and gave nothing back, no sense of where his body ended and the void began.
Then a chime rang out — clean and sharp, cutting through the silence like a blade through still water.
[Welcome.]
[Player has accomplished the criteria required to enter the Quest.]
[Would Player like to continue?]
[Yes / No]
David stared at the notification floating in front of him.
’This isn’t what I expected.’
Not even close. He’d been bracing for something — monsters, maybe, or having an encounter with a magical beastkind- a sexy one atleast. Not a menu prompt hanging in the middle of nowhere like he’d accidentally opened the wrong screen.
Still.
He didn’t have much reason to back out now.
"Yes," he muttered.
[Player selected: Yes.]
Another notification materialized before the first had fully faded.
[Description: Player must survive for at least five minutes under the target’s pressure. If Player completes the mission, Player will receive reward.]
[If Player fails to complete the mission, penalties will be carried out accordingly. Does Player agree to these terms?]
[Yes / No]
He read it twice.
What struck him as strange — stranger than the darkness, stranger than the floating text — was that he couldn’t actually feel himself speaking. It was like being submerged. Like his voice was travelling through water before it reached the air. Muffled. Detached.
But then again, what more could he do at that point?
"Alright." A beat. "I accept."
[Good luck, Player.]
[We wish you success in your mission.]
David blinked.
"Huh?"
’We?’
He turned the word over slowly, something tightening at the back of his mind.
’Who the hell is we?’
He didn’t get the chance to finish the thought.
Something seized him — not physically, not in any way he could name, but the sensation was unmistakable. Like invisible hands closing around him from beneath, dragging him downward into something vast and dark and cold. The feeling of a current pulling him under. Of depth with no bottom.
Then — just as suddenly — it reversed.
He was yanked upward, and everything changed.
Air slammed back into his lungs. His chest heaved. His breathing came back heavy and ragged, like a man who’d been holding it without realising.
His eyes opened slowly.
At first, there was only blur. Shapes without edges. Light without source. Then, gradually, the world sharpened — and the first thing he registered were droplets.
Countless droplets, falling steadily through the dark.
Rain.
His gaze climbed upward, and through the downpour, something else cut into focus.
A flickering neon sign. Its glow bled red and white through the storm, guttering at the edges like it was fighting to stay lit.
The sign read:
MOTEL.
David stared at it for a long moment.
"Huh?"
The word came out flat. Automatic.
His eyes moved across the sign again, slower this time, as if re-reading it might change what it said.
"M — Motel?"
’I’m standing in front of a motel? How did I...’
The rain was relentless. It hammered the pavement in sheets, drumming against rooftops and windowsills and the narrow overhang above him, loud enough to drown out his own thoughts.
Within seconds, the cold had fully found him — soaked through his clothes, settled into his skin.
’How did I get here. What is this. I just stepped through my front door — my front door — and now I’m standing in the rain in front of a motel. That doesn’t — none of this makes any —’
"David."
He went still.
A voice — soft, feminine — came from directly behind him. Quiet, but somehow cutting straight through the noise of the storm.
That was when he felt it.
His right hand. Stretched behind him. Palm warm against something that shouldn’t have been there.
Someone else’s hand.
He turned slowly.
His eyes dropped first — to their joined hands, fingers laced together, her grip light and certain against his — and then traveled upward, following the line of her arm, her shoulder, until finally, he saw her face.
The breath left him.
"Holly...?"
The name came out barely above a whisper. Like his voice didn’t quite trust itself.
Standing beside him was Holly.
Her fingers were wrapped around his hand, grip tight — tighter than it needed to be. Like she was the one keeping them anchored.
She was soaked through. Just like him.
Wet strands of dark hair clung to the sides of her face and curled against her neck, and the rain had plastered her clothes flush against her body — every line of her, every curve, pressed into clarity by the storm.
The neon glow of the motel sign moved across her skin in slow pulses of red and white, catching the water that traced down her collarbone and disappeared beneath her collar.
She was staring up at him.
"Why are you stopping?"
David’s mouth opened. Then closed.
’Is she talking to me? Obviously she’s talking to me. There’s nobody else here.’ He turned the situation over fast, grasping for a foothold. ’But why am I here at all? Why is it the middle of the night? Why is Holly — why is any of this —’
"David."
Her voice had sharpened. Not angry yet. Close.
"Are we getting into the motel or not?" She gestured at the rain with her free hand, a short, frustrated sweep of the arm. "I’m tired of standing in the fucking rain already."
He blinked.
That was when he saw it.
Floating just above her forehead — faint, glowing, utterly still despite the storm — was a single line of text.
[TARGET]
Something went cold and quiet in his chest.
’So it’s her.’
He held the thought for a second. Let it settle.
Then he exhaled slowly through his nose, pushed the noise in his head down, and nodded.
"Come on," he said. "Let’s go."
Holly didn’t wait. She fell into step beside him and the two of them cut through the rain and pushed into the motel.
The warmth hit him immediately. That thick, enclosed heat of a small lobby that had been sealed against the cold all night. David stood in the doorway for a moment just to feel it — the shift from one world to another.
The place was simple. Unremarkable in every sense. A reception desk, a narrow hallway beyond it, the low hum of fluorescent lighting. The kind of motel that didn’t ask questions.
He crossed to the desk, paid for a room, took the key.
***
The hallway was narrow and quiet, just the two of them moving through it, the soft sound of wet shoes against linoleum. David stopped at the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open.
He hit the light switch.
The room came up small and bare. A single bed against the wall, a nightstand, a television bolted to the bracket across from it. That was the whole thing.
Holly stepped inside first. She let out a tired sound — not quite a word, just exhaustion escaping — and moved toward the bed, already peeling her sleeve back and wringing water from the fabric.
David followed.
Click. The door.
Click. The lock.
He stood there for a moment in the silence, one hand still resting against the door, and let the weight of the last ten minutes press down on him all at once.
His hand rose slowly to his temple.
"My head is killing me."
He rubbed at it. Brow tight.
’All I remember is the darkness. Those messages.’ The words tried to surface, fragmented. ’What did they say exactly? We wish you luck? Don’t tell me this is one of those cheap knock-off systems were its secretly against me. That’s so cliché. ’
His eyes drifted to Holly without meaning to.
However, just as his eyes found her, he froze.
She stood directly before him, facing him without a word.
Only now did he truly see her.
She was topless.
Her full breasts were completely revealed, leaving him momentarily speechless as his gaze instinctively lingered. For a brief moment, everything else faded into the background, his thoughts scattered by the breathtaking sight before him.
"H-Holly ...?"
