Chapter 76: Big Game
When Simon woke up this time, he opened his eyes immediately and looked down at his feet out of habit. He knew they’d be back, of course, but he also knew that the longer he let his eyes stay shut, the more he would think about the horrible image of watching his legs being turned into hamburger by that thorny meat grinder.
It hadn’t been a bad death, he thought to himself. He hadn’t suffered, at least. He hadn’t drowned or suffocated. In a sense, it had been almost peaceful, but peaceful or not, being forced to watch it happen was enough to make him resent the younger version of himself for actually enjoying horror movies.
“Well, we aren’t going back there for a while,” he told himself as he sat up and grabbed for the bottle of wine, gratified to hear his voice worked once more, too.
It would be one thing if he’d found something interesting, like a thread he could follow, to make the suffering worthwhile, but he had no leads there, so he might as well skip it for now, he decided as he stood and downed half the bottle of wine.
“I mean, the main reason to beat that place would be so I don’t have to keep climbing those stairs,” he said with a laugh. It was a joke, though, mostly. He needed the exercise, and walking up and down a step pyramid was a lot nicer than some of the other ways he could spend his time.
“Hey, mirror, can you tell me anything about the jungle level? The one with the plants that just ate me?” Simon asked.
‘I cannot.’ the mirror responded.
“Nothing? Not even a little hint?” Simon asked, trying to wheedle something out of it. “How about what it’s called, or if it’s even on the same continent as all the other places.”
‘But I cannot tell you that all of the levels you have visited are on the same continent,’ it typed.