Pandora's Box

Chapter 15: Sam

2 hours after The Sealing

***

Sam opened his eyes to the overcast sky above him. The sun was partially covered by a white puffy cloud, but enough of it still shined through to blind him. As his eyes readjusted to the light, he tried to recall how exactly he had gotten into this position. Between the open sky above him and the cool grass beneath him, Sam felt confident concluding that he was outside. However, it wasn't like him to fall asleep in his backyard. As he went to sit up and look around his surroundings, a sudden pain surged through his head.

Putting a couple fingers to his temple, Sam made contact with what felt like a bandage. Bringing his fingers back into view showed them covered in blood. Suddenly, his memories began to flood back in. He wasn't in his backyard; Sam was still in Pandora's Box. A wave of emotions flooded through him as he remembered the events of the last couple of hours. The sudden teleportation, the eerie warnings from that disembodied voice, and then the sudden teleportation back. He barely had enough time to take in his surroundings before he felt a searing pain at the side of his head, which he assumed had knocked him out.

Part of Sam wanted to be amazed that he could even be knocked out in the first place. During the development of Pandora's Box, the team threw around different ideas of what to do in terms of knockouts and deaths. Some team members wanted to utilize a mechanic where knocking a player out took that player out of the game but left their avatar; the player would have to wait a certain amount of time in real life before being able to reenter the game as that character, all the while hoping nothing had happened to their avatar during that time. This mechanic never came to fruition as far as Sam knew, but apparently some aspect of a knockout had been added. However, the lack of returning to the real world was giving credence to the voice's ominous words, which Sam wasn't the biggest fan of.

As he tried to piece together what exactly he had gotten himself into, Sam heard a shout, and he suddenly saw Mari running towards him. As she reached him, she looked as though she was going to reach out to hug him, but she seemed to stop short, a mixture of relief and fear painting her face.

"Oh my god, you're finally awake," Mari exhaled. She reached out her hand to Sam, helping him sit up before crouching next to him. His vision began to blur again from the sudden movement, but he tried to focus on Mari's face in front of him.

To Sam, she was just as beautiful as ever. However, he could still acknowledge that she was definitely having a rough day. Dust was caked into her disheveled hair, and her pants were marked with dried bloodstains. Her eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying, but at the moment she just seemed relieved.

As if it wasn't already hard enough to not stumble over his words around Mari, Sam was really struggling to find a way to express everything that was going through his head at that moment. The side of his head was pounding, and his brain was still feeling muddled. It reminded Sam of how he felt when he had gotten a concussion a few years ago during a soccer game. It had taken a few weeks for Sam to start feeling back to normal again; he silently hoped that it wouldn't take weeks to feel better this time around.

Mari seemed to pick up on Sam's internal struggling, turning behind her to grab something before turning back to him. She reached forward and grabbed Sam's hand, placing a small red bottle in his palm. He recognized it as one of the health elixirs that were in the game.

"Here, drink this," Mari stated. "It's courtesy of Dr. Clara. Hopefully it'll help you feel a bit better." Sam nodded, bringing the bottle to his lips as he drank the entirety of the container.