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“Because you’re not scared enough and I think this level isn’t going to like that...”
Eden sighed and decided to ignore him. There probably wasn’t going to be a change from her acting scared or not. If the System was trying to scare her out of there, they were probably going to make it worse until she seemed panicked enough, but she wasn’t at that stage yet. She still had a portion of the park to explore. The System could try to scare her more until she was done, but she didn’t like playing along.
“Do you see anything worth checking on the rides?”
“Let me check... No... Uh... Do you see anything when you get close, my Kitty? This seems a bit too easy-peasy to me, it might need a trigger or something...”
A trigger? Eden wasn’t sure what he was hoping for, but she could always try since she hadn’t seen anything else. These types of worlds often reacted to particular actions, like pushing a button or her accessing some code she could give to Loir. Maybe the visitors were supposed to stand at one particular spot or get on one of the rides. However, unlike a simple visit to this place, actually getting on something that could have its own separate code and be triggered, like one of the rides, could mean there is a trap behind it…
Like one would expect to see in some abandoned theme parks, Eden had noticed some graffiti on the rides. It could be there for no particular reason, but it could also have been there as a clue... or an access point. Eden tried to look closer, but as she had just noticed, not all the rides were accessible while staying on the path. There was a lot of vegetation around, as if the park had been built in some national park but she didn’t feel safe going off the path. Those kinds of levels were usually made to be relatively safe. They didn’t want to attack people who were regular citizens or guests coming in, hence it was quite literally safe to play by the rules. Eden wasn’t sure what would happen if she decided to go against what would have been considered as reckless behavior by the System... like going off the stone path.
“Oh, found it!”
“Loir?” whispered Eden.
“Sorry, I was checking to find where the programmer had taken his inspiration... and see if I can get some clue for our Kitty Cat! Well, I got good news and bad news!”
“I’m listening,” she sighed.
“The good news is, you’re in Atlantic Island Park, a charming abandoned theme park fictionally located in Maine, on the East Coast.”
“Fictionally?” repeated Eden, frowning.
“Yup. That place is completely fake, invented. It’s from a series of video games from the twenty-first century... Damn, I love those geniuses from the previous century. I have to say, the programmer worked nicely on the decor, though, we got better quality. The bad news is, our fellow programmer friend also made sure to insert some new rides for fun...”
“To confuse intruders,” sighed Eden.
Although Loir was talented, anyone could have probably found where this level had been copied from. The genius of the programmers was usually more on how they hid secrets inside these worlds...
“Rule number one, Kitty, stay away from the boogeyman.”
“Okay...”
Eden hadn’t seen a soul since she had come in here, let alone a boogeyman. It felt like this place had absolutely no one inside it and she didn’t like that at all.
“So, what’s my best shot?”
“We should probably stick to the real rides from the original game. The others are probably traps. The closest to you is... the House of Horrors.”
“Nice...”
Of course, it had to be a creepy one with a name like that. Eden kept walking, following Loir’s instructions, as he now had a detailed map of the game. As she had suspected, the rides off the path were all the fake ones, probably traps. Eden didn’t have to take one step off the path to get to the House of Horrors. However, the closer she got, the more she could feel that something was observing her. She had previously blamed it on her own reflexes because there were so many blind spots, but now she really felt like she was being followed.
She didn’t say it out loud, but she resolutely kept walking. She would glance over her shoulder from time to time unsure, but then the sounds she had mistaken for steps would disappear.
“Oh crap... Is that...?” she heard Loir mumble.
“What’s that thing?” asked Dante.
“A cleaner,” immediately whined Loir. “It’s an added program that cleans the System. If something is there that is not supposed to be, the cleaner takes care of it. Eden, keep going girl and do not look back!”
Eden nodded and kept walking, as if she was a hundred percent sure where she was going.
“Can’t you do something?”
“Nope, no, no... Those things are trained to recognize human behavior. If Eden looks scared or hesitates, it will attack... Oh, it’s too scary, I can’t watch!”
Eden grimaced. How was she supposed to know what to do if Loir wasn’t guiding her! Trying to ignore that fact, she kept walking until she finally got to the entrance of the... house. It didn’t deserve the name of a house, it was just a giant open mouth of a scary figure.
