Chapter 3: Chapter 2 – Hollow City

I blacked out for a moment. Regaining my consciousness was unusually jarring. There was no drowsiness or discomfort, and my eyes were already open. It felt like I had zoned out a bit and suddenly recovered my focus. I sat up and tried to blink, but my eyelids were frozen in place. I reached up and felt them, but my hands were weird… Maybe I should have read more before dropping into this…

 

I was in my apartment, just as I'd hoped. Sitting up in my bed with my blankets wrapped around me, I looked at my stuff piled around haphazardly. The familiarity I'd hoped for just made the bizarre nature of my situation even more disturbing.

 

This 'avatar' was essentially a doll made in my image. A detailed mannequin, with internal joints and a soft skin-like covering. However, it had no pores or hair aside from the silky material extruding from my head and eyebrows. The texture was wax-like, though the color was right for the most part. There was no sign of veins or red tints around my joints that I was used to. The sense of touch was dulled compared to normal, as were all my other senses aside from sight and sound once I thought about it.

 

I tried to stand up, wobbling a little at the unnatural feeling. My clothes were on my body in the dungeon, so the doll wasn't wearing anything. As you'd think, it wasn't that detailed. I still felt like it would be awkward to walk around like this, so I pulled on some clothes before going to my computer. Clicking around for a little, I came to the conclusion that there still hadn't been enough time for anything interesting to be posted. There were a couple pictures… Scary. I guess people had found the avatar function and started wandering around already.

 

Getting up, I looked around the house for anything I might need. It was pointless though, both because I didn't have anything terribly useful in my house and because I wouldn't even know what I would need in this situation. It wasn't like I could grab an emergency bag and dip out of town for a bit until things settled down. I did grab my real phone from my desk, but when I tried to put it in my pocket it smacked into something… My new phone-thing. I don't know how it got there.

 

I was a little weirded out so I did one thing out of the ordinary. I crawled under my bed and grabbed the pistol box I kept there. It was basically just a toy, small caliber with fourteen shots. But if there was ever a time to carry it, this was it. I hung it off my right hip, then put on my coat and grabbed my purse. It was more of a backpack, really.

You are reading story Global Dungeon Network at novel35.com

 

Stepping out into the hall, I locked my door behind me. There was nobody there, but that wasn't unusual I suppose. Leaving the building, what stood out to me was the quiet. It wasn't dead silent, of course. I could hear some background sounds like machinery and air conditioners. However, there weren't any noises that I'd associate with active humans.

 

Stepping out of the entrance, I saw something that chilled me to the core. I'd already seen it from a few pictures earlier, and my own body was proof that it wasn't as bad as it looked. Still… The street was filled with piles of bodies. It was as if everyone who had been going about their business just suddenly fell over dead. Looking closely, there weren't any flesh and blood people, just dolls. Even then, it was still a creepy sight.

 

I timidly made my way down the sidewalk, stepping around the lifeless dolls where I had to. I sort of just wandered around looking for anything interesting. A few cars had gone off the road and either mangled pedestrians or their drivers, but the dolls didn't actually look any worse for wear despite the damage they'd received. They weren't bleeding out or anything anyways. There were animals wandering around as well, either investigating the dolls or just stealing away things while they had the chance. Nothing was brave enough to approach me, even pet dogs ran away as soon as they noticed me.

 

Walking past the convenience store, I finally found something interesting. Someone inside was grabbing stacks of things and dragging them around in a cart. It was a doll-person, but they had surprisingly human mannerisms and expressions. Seeing what they were doing, I wondered if I should do something, but… The stuff they were taking wasn't exactly stuff that would be useful to doll people. Was there any point in stealing a bunch of chips and toilet paper? Was there a way to bring it back to our real bodies in the dungeon?

 

At the moment I thought that, an unpleasant vibration on my leg made me jump. Suppressing a shiver and some resentful grumbling, I pulled out the Interface. Tapping the screen, the same list from before popped up, only this time the 'Bank' option was flashing. I looked around and sat on one of the picnic tables outside the convenience store for kids to hang out at. I felt like this might take a while…