I stood up and looked at my surroundings.

  My palms scraped against rough stone as I pushed myself upright. Once on my feet, I turned in a slow circle and took everything in.

  At first glance, it looked like some medieval prison. Thick stone walls. Rusted iron bars. Damp air that clung to the back of my throat.

  The cell was small, maybe eight feet wide, ten deep.

  Moisture dripped rhythmically from the ceiling. The air smelled like wet rock and something faintly metallic, blood, maybe, or rust.

  There was one door: a heavy iron gate with bars thick enough to be used as baseball bats. Beyond it, I could barely see a corridor lit by flickering torches. The flames didn’t burn in a normal way. They wavered too slowly, like someone was pulling the fire strings frame by frame.

  Everything felt skewed, slightly off-center, like the world had been generated procedurally and the algorithm was still loading textures.

  I swallowed.

  “I guess this is the Dream Dungeon. Aptly named,” I whispered.

  As soon as the words left my mouth, a translucent message appeared in front of me:

  Floor 1

  Objective: Escape the Dungeon

  Secret Objective: Unknown

  Time Left: 23hrs 59min 59sec

  A tiny weight formed in my chest. It was familiar, unwelcome.

  Responsibility.

  I’d spent years pretending it didn’t bother me at home. But here in the dungeon? There was no one to pretend for. Or was there?

  I dismissed the message and took a slow look around the cell.

  Okay. Options.

  Years of gaming habits kicked in almost immediately. My first instinct was to check the walls, every dungeon worth its salt had at least one hidden mechanism, right?

  I ran my hands along the stone, pressing, tapping, feeling for seams or loose bricks. I checked corners, traced the mortar lines, even pushed against stones that looked slightly out of place.

  Nothing.

  No clicks. No grinding sounds. No secret door sliding open.

  After a full lap around the cell, I exhaled and stepped back. “Alright,” I muttered. “Plan B.”

  The iron gate had a lock. A proper one, too, keyhole, internal mechanism, the works.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have a lockpick.

  As any D&D fan would know, there were really only two ways through a locked door.

  Lockpicking.

  Or brute force.

  Since the first option was off the table, I went with the second.

  I grabbed the bars on the door and pulled.

  Nothing.

  I braced my feet against the stone floor and yanked harder, muscles straining. The iron didn’t budge, but on the third pull, I felt it.

  A faint crack.

  My heart jumped.

  I adjusted my grip and pulled again. This time, the bar bent slightly. Metal groaned in protest, a sharp screech echoing through the corridor beyond the cell.

  I kept pulling.

  With a final wrench, the bar tore free from the gate.

  I stumbled back a step, breathing hard, staring down at the heavy iron rod in my hands.

  Before I could even process it, a translucent message appeared in front of me.

  New Weapon Acquired

  Rusty Iron Rod

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Type: Blunt Weapon

  Attack: +1

  Strength Requirement: 10

  Level Requirement: 1

  I looked from the message… to the weapon… and then back at the door.

  “…Huh,” I said quietly.

  Not exactly a legendary sword, but it beat punching things to death.

  I tightened my grip on the rod, but as I tried to it disappeared.

  Huh? Where did it go? I started looking at the floor thinking I dropped it somehow, but almost instantly as soon as I thought about finding the rod another translucent window appeared.

  This time it did not have a message per se. Instead it was an inventory window.

  Capacity 1/100

  And there it was, the Rod was sitting in my inventory. I tried to select it mentally following the same reasoning as with dismissing the messages and the rod appeared in my hands again. I noticed the rod left my inventory and was added to the small 3d figure of myself next to the inventory. Following game logic, I had equipped the weapon.

  Skill Unlocked: Blunt Weapons Lvl 1

  I didn’t dwell on it for long.

  The door was still there, just missing one iron rod. but the gap it left behind wasn’t nearly wide enough for me to squeeze through. So much for brute force.

  With no better ideas, I did what anyone else trapped in a dungeon cell would do.

  I started yelling.

  “HELLO?”

  “ANYBODY OUT THERE?”

  A few seconds passed.

  Then I heard it.

  A door opening somewhere down the corridor.

  Footsteps followed, slow, deliberate, getting closer.

  My pulse spiked.

  Okay. Think.

  I quickly dismissed the iron rod back into my inventory. Whoever was coming probably wouldn’t appreciate finding an armed prisoner waiting for them.

  I stepped back from the bars and waited.

  When the figure finally appeared outside the cell, I froze.

  It was… a crab.

  Or rather, a humanoid version of one.

  It stood upright, about my height, wearing what looked like medieval guard clothing. Its eyes sat on short antennae protruding from its head. Instead of hands, it had massive pincers, and, somehow, it wore boots, which meant it had feet. Probably.

  I stared.

  The crab stared back.

  “What do you need?” the creature asked.

  …It was speaking English.

  My brain short-circuited for a second.

  “Uh,” I said. “I’d like to get out of here, please?”

  The crab squinted at me. “Too bad. That’s what you get for—”

  It stopped mid-sentence.

  “…Hey. What happened to the door?”

  Its antennae twitched as it leaned closer, inspecting the missing bar.

  “Did you do this?” it snapped. “You’re going to pay for that. Step back. I’m coming in to teach you a lesson about not damaging other people’s property.”

  The lock clicked. The door creaked open.

  A six-foot crab stood in the doorway, and without a slab of metal between us, it was a lot more intimidating.

  There was no warning. The crab swung its massive pincer straight into my chest.

  Pain exploded through me. Real pain.

  That was the moment I confirmed this wasn’t a dream. Not even close.

  I hit my knees, gasping, and a second blow slammed into my ribs—a sharp kick from one of its chitin-covered legs.

  “Let that be a warning. Do not damage other people’s property.”

  Something cold settled in my stomach. I was going to die here. If I didn’t fight back, this place would become my grave.

  The crab turned away, already dismissing me.

  That was its mistake.

  I summoned the iron rod into my hand. Twelve years of batting cages surged through my muscles.

  My first swing cracked directly against its shell. The crab creature shrieked, stumbling sideways from the impact. Before it could recover, I swung again—harder.

  It collapsed.

  I kept going, driven by pure instinct and fear. Each hit shattered more of its shell. Goo splattered across the floor, and on me. The creature twitched once more, tried to lift a pincer, then fell still.

  A bright window appeared in front of me.

  Crabonoid – Level 3 Defeated

  Experience Awarded

  Congratulations! You have leveled up!

  You are now Level 2

  No stat points awarded (Class Required)

  Please locate a Safe Room to select a class.

  Previous Ability Detected:

  Blunt Weapons proficiency increased to Level 5

  I stood there breathing hard, iron rod slick in my hands. I had just killed someone.

  My hands shook uncontrollably for a moment before I forced myself to steady them.

  I needed to survive. Whatever else happened in this place, I had to make it home. Mom and Ellie depended on me. They had already lost too much.

  I straightened up and took a slow breath, trying to calm the pounding in my chest.

  One step at a time. Survive the night.

  “…Okay,” I muttered, wiping some crab goo off my cheek.

  Not wanting to dwell too much on me having taken a life, I turned my attention back to the floating message and finally took a second to absorb what it was telling me.

  “Level 3 enemy down, and I’m level 2 now,” I said under my breath. “Not a crazy gap. Good. Manageable.”

  I scanned the rest.

  “No stat points yet… need a class first. Right. Safe Room. Okay, got it.”

  My eyes drifted to the line about weapon proficiency.

  “Huh. So it really did recognize all those years of batting cages. Guess swinging a rod counts.”

  I inspected the crab’s body, and another message popped up.

  Loot?

  I didn’t hesitate.

  Yes.

  Pincer x1 (Common)

  Shell Fragment x2 (Common)

  Leather Boots (Common)

  Dungeon Keys (Common)

  I collected everything and immediately noticed something important. I was still wearing my pajamas.

  Which meant I definitely wasn’t wearing shoes.

  Because who sleeps with their shoes on?

  I equipped the boots, and the moment I did, they fit perfectly. Like they’d been made for me.

  “Auto-resizing gear,” I muttered. “Makes sense.”

  I stepped carefully out of the cell. Looking ridiculous with my pajamas and medieval leather boots.

  To my left, the corridor continued past several more cells. To my right was the door the crab had come through.

  Like any good RPG player, I went left.

  Out of the six cells, including mine, three were locked shut. Of course, the keys I picked up from the crab didn't work on any of the doors but mine. The other two were open, but completely empty.

  I sighed.

  “Well, that’s disappointing.”

  I turned back toward the door the crab had entered from and took a slow, steady breath.

  “Okay, Mike,” I said quietly. “You’ve got this.”