This piece of fiction is inspired by a recent game of DIE, which I detailed on Cannibal Halfling. Like much of my DIE fiction, it focuses on the character’s lives outside of ‘The Great Game’. Unlike my previous fiction, though, this one directly references something that happened in the game, and references DIE itself.

Inside Nat’s bedroom was one of the windows facing the front of the comfortable home she shared with her parents and significantly younger brother. Looking out this window one could see, roughly around 4 in the afternoon, the mailman trundle up to the mailbox, deposit the family’s letters, bills and other deliveries, and then leave. Nat was lucky enough that she wasn’t sitting at home alone most days at 4pm, preoccupied by gaming, or editing the school’s literary magazine, or hanging around at the town’s one coffee shop and brooding, as a seventeen year old often enjoyed doing. Today, though, was December 15th, and she was both home and focused, laser-like, on the end of the driveway waiting for the mailman to come.

Roughly one week before the solstice, it was already dark but there was no snow on the ground; the coming winter had so far been just a bit greyer and colder and grimmer than autumn was. Everyone in the gaming group groused and groused as the semester came to an end; Trax never liked the dark because he never knew what he was going to run over, while Thaddeus fretted over the winter semi-formal again, for the fourth time, despite not having had a date for the first three either. Marisa complained about how hard the cold air was on her voice, and Ophelia said she actually liked snow and cocoa and sledding, but on hearing everyone else grousing decided to just shut up. Dewey didn’t say much, but that wasn’t too surprising.

The headlights tracked down the road and Nat swung towards the window as they slowed and then stopped in front of the driveway. She took all of fifteen seconds to approximate the lights as the square beams of an old Grumman postal truck and then bounded down the stairs, halfway sliding on the banister as she pushed out the front door and jogged to the mailbox in stocking feet and no coat, a fact her mother immediately yelled out the door at her. No matter, the mail was here, and Nat had a letter. She had actually received two things, but we’ll get back to that in a moment.

She ran back into the house and dropped the rest of the mail on the ground with an odd ‘thunk’, missing the side table she was maybe kind of aiming for. She held in her hand a thin envelope with a Brown University return address, and that hand started to tremble a bit. It was okay, she reminded herself, because everyone knew those early decision letters didn’t come with the fat sheaf of papers. It was okay, she didn’t know what it said and it arrived on time and this was possibly the biggest moment of her short life and oh god, was she going to puke? Wait. Her mother stormed into the entryway, about to go off about the stocking feet and the watery footprints and the dropped mail, but she saw her oldest child steeling herself to open a college admissions letter and she stopped. Dad came in to see what the fuss was all about, but ended up stopping right next to Mom, putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder and waiting for whatever was the outcome of the next sixty seconds.

Nat swallowed, and opened the letter.

“Congratulations on being accepted to the class of-”

Nat screamed.

---

They went out for a celebratory dinner at an Italian restaurant two towns over, both because it was one of Nat’s favorites and also because it wasn’t the sort of place where you needed a reservation, especially on a weeknight. Mom was peppering her with questions about what she was most excited about and most looking forward to, while Dad was reciting trivia he had learned about Providence, an honestly paltry crop considering the city was barely more than an hour away from where they lived. Nat was trying her best to respond, to be the happy and excited daughter she knew she was supposed to be, but there was an underlying noise in her brain, an almost tone playing back the excitement but also the anxiety and, if Nat had been more honest with herself in that moment, the terror. Apparently autopilot wasn’t quite enough, and after an indeterminate amount of time of simply staring at the chicken piccata in front of her, her Dad gently put his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay! It’s a big day. And it’s a lot. Even if it’s good,” he said. She nodded, squeezed her Dad’s hand, and tried valiantly to eat at her own celebration dinner.

They made it back home, and Nat’s brother bounded towards the TV, with Dad in tow reminding him that it was still a school night even if they went out for dinner. Mom came in and shook her head at the mail strewn haphazardly over the floor next to the side table; as she bent down to pick up the letters she spied a small parcel that had been missed in the commotion. She looked at it, screwed up her face a little, and then turned to Nat.

“Looks like something else came for you today,” Mom said. “Maybe not as exciting as an acceptance letter, but could be interesting.” Nat turned the package over in her hands, and heard a muffled clanking from inside the box. It sounded an awful lot like dice. The return address was either absent or had been damaged in transit; the entire box was a bit shabby, and oddly tied with a little bit of string, like a package from thirty years prior. Not exactly mad at a distraction from thinking about the future, Nat took the little parcel up to her room.

She closed the door behind her, placing both the box and her prized letter on her desk. The whole world was just a little loud; it was maybe eight, eight thirty in the evening at this point, but she was nowhere near being ready to sleep. She looked at the letter one more time, inhaled, and then pushed it to the far end of the desk, catching a reflection of herself in the little window that looked over the front yard. She turned her attention to the box. Carefully she untied the string and opened the brown paper to reveal a small wooden box, hinged with a rough and sturdy bronze clasp. Upon opening the box she found, as she thought, a set of dice. It was a set of D&D dice…kind of. There was a d4, a single d6, a d8, a single d10, a d12, and a d20. A typical D&D set these days came with a handful of d6s and both a regular d10 and a percentile, so this was either very old, the remnants of a set with the duplicates lost, or something else. The dice were heavy, like they were made of stone; the faces looked matte like maybe slate, but the edges were all sharp and perfect, not a chip to be seen. Nat picked up the d20 and rolled it between her fingers. The numbers were either rubbed off or not even there, which was a little strange. Still, maybe these were someone’s old dice. Who would have sent her this? Trax had shown her all sorts of little gaming artifacts he found, but he was never one for the pomp and circumstance of sending something in the mail. Thaddeus would be the sort of person to make this sort of grandiose gesture, but it seemed out of character nonetheless. He’d just as easily forget or be too nervous to send any sort of gift. She worked it between her fingers again, and then rolled the die across the desk. It landed with a resonant clatter, not the sort of sound you’d expect from slate or any other sort of stone. As the die landed there was a flash of light, the sort of spark you’d see from biting down on a wintergreen lifesaver in the dark. The upright die face read ‘17’ in red text. Nat’s eyes opened in shock, seeing the number come out of nowhere.

“Ahem.” Nat jumped and turned around. Sitting on her bed were two figures. They were bedecked in black, threadbare sweatshirts and khaki green pants, but even with these disguises it was hard to ignore that their faces were polished metal. They were strangely, conspicuously dimorphic, with one having notably wider hips and a pronounced chest, while the other had broad shoulders and was taller.

“We apologize for startling you,” the female-coded figure said. There was something distinctly inhuman about her voice, like it was once human with several bypass filters engaged.

“We had to make an appearance,” the male-coded figure said. “As you can see, you have been chosen as the recipient of the Dice. There is a complication, though.” Nat sidestepped towards her door and peered outside to see if anyone was listening.

“Do not worry about your family,” the female-coded figure said. “They will not be party to this conversation. You are the only one who has received the Dice.”

“Received the Dice?” Nat said. She glanced over at the opened package on her desk quickly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“We come from a world which needs builders,” the male-coded figure said. “The games you play are coded into the very essence of our existence, and you are a world builder of particular note.”

“You are the author of the Infinite Library, yes?” the female-coded figure asked. Nat’s eyes went yet wider. The Infinite Library was the game world she had written along with Trax, Thaddeus, Dewey, Ophelia, and Marisa. It was definitely different from your run of the mill D&D campaign; the characters everyone played adventured through arcane worlds locked into magical books, like emo Myst on steroids. Nat was proud of their world, but a small amount of pride didn’t seem to entail the summoning of extradimensional beings.

“I, uh, run the game set in the Infinite Library, yes,” Nat said.

“It is a paracosm,” the male-coded figure said. “You have poured your creative energy into this world, and that same energy is what powers ours. We are looking for those who want to cross over, who want to play the great game. You and your group are ideal candidates.”

“I don’t understand,” Nat said. The two figures looked at each other.

“Very well,” the female-coded figure said. “You accepting our offer is not among the things that will happen. You will see us again.”

“Wait, what?” Nat said. “I didn’t say anything.” The male-coded figure nodded.

“Yes, but you will say no,” he said. “Your future in your own world is what you’re concerned with. Your friends are the same way. We will come back.”

“I…I understand what’s going on even less,” Nat said. The two figures looked at each other.

“If you are to join us, to come to the world of DIE, it will change the path of this world,” the female-coded figure said. “It will change the path of our world even more greatly, though. We need world builders to prevent our world from falling apart, but we can be patient. If you agree, we can show you and your friends the path that they will take without our intervention.”

“I…wait,” Nat said. “Path? Intervention? DIE?” The figures looked at each other again.

“Allow me to demonstrate what we can do,” the male-coded figure said. “I know you will lead your party to our side if you understand what the stakes are.” The other figure stood up and walked to Nat’s desk; her gait was wide and unearthly, strange as walking could be but oddly elegant. She picked up the d6 out of the parcel, and rolled the die. The red text sparked again, showing a ‘2’ on the die.

“A fortuitous result,” the male-coded figure said. “There are two paths now, two ways that your story can end.”

“How can I possibly believe you?” Nat said. “You know, beyond the fact that you’re speaking in riddles. If I decide to go to your world of DIE, my world changes?” The female-coded figure nodded, and produced a golden coin from one of the pockets of her scrappy disguise clothing. She flipped the coin into the air, and it landed on the desk, bouncing a couple times before landing perfectly on its edge. Before Nat could react, she spoke again.

“There is one wish you have, something you think simply not possible even though you want it,” the female-coded figure said. “You will have it now, so long as you bring your friends to DIE to play our great game.” Nat’s heart raced for a minute.

“I…I don’t believe you,” she said. “There’s absolutely no way you could possibly know about that.” The figures looked at each other.

“It is now among the things that will happen,” the male-coded figure said. Nat looked over at the coin, still balanced perfectly on its edge. When she looked back over towards her bed, the figures were gone, leaving only the slightest indentations where they were sitting.

Nat walked to the door, peering out towards the first floor again. Her parents were preoccupied with something; the first floor was quiet and without any footfalls that would indicate nosy parents about to knock at the door. She closed the door completely, slowly pulling until she heard a soft click. She then collapsed into a sitting position on the floor, back against the side of her bed. She pulled out her phone and called Marisa.

If there’s one person that Nat wouldn’t have ever expected to join her RPG group, it was Marisa. She may not have been popular in a traditional sense, but she was the star of all the school musicals since literally freshman year, and she carried herself like a headliner too. Nat and Marisa were friends? She thought? They hung out and gamed together, and Nat knew she spent at least as much time with Marisa as any of her choir or theater friends. Even so, there was something…unattainable about her. And Nat had been harboring a cornucopia of confusing feelings about Marisa since they started gaming together. That couldn’t possibly be what the weird chrome people were talking about. Could it? The phone went two rings and then Marisa picked up.

“Hey! What’s up?” Marisa said. Nat panicked for a split second. This was fairly out of character for her. Why make a phone call? They weren’t those giggly girls chatting and gossiping every night. Then the obvious hit her in the face.

“Hey! I, uh, got in! To school,” Nat said.

“Oh! Congrats!” Marisa said. “Creative writing?”

“That’s the plan,” Nat said. “But yeah, early decision! I’m excited. Did you, uh, get in too? You were going to apply to Carnegie Mellon, right?”

“Yeah,” Marisa said. “Looks like I’m going, too. Completely forgot about it for a second. It’s been a wild day.”

“Wow,” Nat said. “Must have been a really wild day for you to forget getting into your dream school.”

“You have no idea,” Marisa said. “Uh, speaking of that, I had something to ask you. I know it’s early, but do you have a date for prom?” Nat’s phone slipped out of her hand.

“No no no no no no…” The phone slipped under the bed and Nat half jumped in after it, pawing around under the box spring until she got the phone back in her hands. The call had ended, and she instinctively punched Marisa’s phone book entry until she heard a dial tone. Her heart pounded.

“Uh, hello?” Marisa said.

“I’m so sorry,” Nat said. “The phone, uh, slipped.” There was a beat of silence, and then Nat heard Marisa chuckling.

“No no, I get it,” Marisa said. “This probably seems really weird coming from me.”

“I, uh, well,” Nat stammered. “Maybe. I, uh, didn’t mind.” Another beat of silence.

“Hey, uh, Nat,” Marisa said. “Can you sneak out tonight? I’ll pick you up.”

“Yeah! I mean, yeah,” Nat said. She had no chill, and could hear Marisa laugh a little.

“Cool,” Marisa said. “I’ll text you when I’m near your place.”

---

Nat paced her room. Her parents came in briefly to say goodnight around 9:30, but Nat wasn’t too too worried. She had snuck out before, and considering her grades and also her recent college acceptance, she wasn’t thinking her parents were concerned, even though she also thought they knew more than they let on. There were headlights which crested but then passed the driveway; she took all of fifteen seconds to approximate the lights as the square beams of an old Nissan hardbody, and then slipped quietly down the stairs, opening and closing the doors as quietly as she possibly could. Looking back a couple times to see if someone noticed and turned the front yard light sconce on, she got about three quarters of the way across the yard before breaking into a run and throwing herself into Marisa’s truck.

“Yes! I captured a daddy’s girl,” Marisa said as she threw the truck in gear and started bounding down the street. Nat hadn’t even gotten her seat belt on but couldn’t help laughing as Marisa threw the truck around the corner at the end of her street. She kept driving, going through the center of town and out the other side, staying mostly silent until she had turned onto the highway.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” Marisa said. “You’ve always been so school focused, I didn’t think you’d appreciate a night drive.”

“I, uh, I assumed this was just the sort of thing you did with your friends,” Nat said.

“Am I not your friend? Natalie, I am hurt,” Marisa said. Nat could see the grin cracking in the corner of her mouth, and managed not to be too offended.

“Excuse me, you’re way more popular than I am,” Nat said. “You have all your theater, choir, scream showtunes in a Denny’s friends. I, uh, don’t.” Marisa looked over at Nat with a worried expression, but kept driving.

“Do you think all the drama kids count more than you and the other gamers?” Marisa asked, more softly.

“I, um, I don’t know,” Nat said. “You spend more time with them, with all the shows and all that. You’re going to school for theater, so that seems like it should be the biggest thing.” Marisa chuckled, and then scoffed.

“I’m not going to school for roleplaying games, Nat,” she said. “But neither are you. We just do it because it’s fun. And because we all can at least tolerate each other’s company, I hope.” Nat squirmed uncomfortably in her seat.

“You guys are my best friends,” Nat said. “I hope everyone realizes that.” Marisa rolled the car into a garage, pulling into a spot in a mostly empty corner not too far from the exit into the attached subway station. As she turned off the truck she slid from the driver’s seat in one fluid motion. Nat jumped down as well, walking to the back of the truck to see where Marisa was going. Marisa came around and wrapped her arms around Nat.

“I love you guys,” Marisa said. Nat returned the hug, wrapping her arms around Marisa and feeling Marisa resting her chin atop her head thanks to their height difference. “I, uh, hope everyone realizes that.” She loosened her grip on Nat’s shoulder blades and looked down, smiling. When Nat looked up at her, she wasted no time and went in for a kiss. Nat was incredibly surprised but didn’t dare pull away. After the longest fifteen seconds of her life, Nat pulled back and looked up at Marisa.

“So, uh, this is why you were asking about prom,” Nat said. Marisa nodded.

“I wouldn’t have had the stones, to be honest,” Marisa said. “But the weirdest thing happened to me recently. I figured you of all people would, if not believe me, at least enjoy the story.”

“Did it, uh, involve dice?” Nat asked.

“Actually, yeah,” Marisa said. “Dare I ask?”

“It’s a long, weird story,” Nat said.

“Oh, mine too,” Marisa said. “Perfect for the rest of this evening.”

They took the train into town, sitting at one end of the subway car and holding hands conspicuously. Marisa halfway dragged Nat down the street, either paying no mind to anyone looking at them or perhaps reveling in it. Then again, Nat wasn’t actually sure anyone was looking at them. They ended up at a pizza place not far from the college campus nearby; as they showed up around 10 at night it was a little early for the normal drunk crowd but it still was far from empty. Nat and Marisa bought slices of pizza and snuck off to a corner booth, watching the first gaggle of students coming in off a thirsty Thursday bar run to soak up the alcohol with carbs and pepperoni oil. Marisa was casually resting her left hand on Nat’s thigh, and Nat was trying her damndest to be casual about it.

“Tell me about your weirdest thing,” Nat said. Marisa looked over, and stumbled.

“Do you promise to believe me?” Marisa said.

“Of course,” Nat said. “It couldn’t possibly be weirder than what happened to me.”

“Oh for goddamn sure it could,” Marisa said. “I had a waking nightmare, felt like hours in length. But that’s not the strangest thing. I was invited into our gaming world. Except I was told that time had passed, and I was actually 34 years old.”

“Wait, what?” Nat said.

“Yeah,” Marisa said. “But it gets stranger. I got the memories of my 34 year old self. And that’s when it became a waking nightmare. This version of me goes through school, gets onto Broadway, gets a role after years of work.”

“That hardly sounds like a nightmare,” Nat said.

“That part is coming,” Marisa said. “Opening night, I choke. But instead of dusting myself off, or finding solace in my friends, I have a breakdown and run away.”

“Oh,” Nat said.

“By the time of the whole thing, 34 year old me is an addict, homeless, completely off the grid. Life completely ruined,” Marisa said.

“Holy shit,” Nat said.

“But get this,” Marisa said. “We were transported into the Infinite Library. And I met her, met 34 year old me.”

“What did you do?” Nat asked.

“I…I…” Marisa stumbled. She tore off another bite of pizza, but the food didn’t hide her choking up.

“It’s ok,” Nat said. “It doesn’t sound like it was real, right?”

“I…don’t know,” Marisa said. “But I…I killed her. This version of myself, I pushed a sword right through her fuckin’ gut. Hell if I would ever turn my back on my friends.”

“Well, there you go,” Nat said. “Was that it? One hell of a nightmare.”

“It wasn’t,” Marisa said. “Everyone was there. Some of us were really messed up, honestly. Thaddeus married some harpy, and our Thad killed his older self too. It was fucked to watch.”

“Jesus,” Nat said. “You said this took place in the Infinite Library?”

“Kind of,” Marisa said. “But the Infinite Library had been subsumed into some bigger world called DIE.” Nat choked on her pizza.

Over the walk back to the subway station, Nat explained everything. The dice, the figures which had visited her, the cryptic requests about DIE. The two friends sat in silence waiting for the train, flipping everything over in their heads.

“So these two…people visited you and asked you to come to this other world?” Marisa asked. Nat nodded.

“I have no idea what they were talking about, but they kept mentioning the Infinite Library,” Nat said. “Nothing about this seems real.” Marisa paused, looking straight ahead for a solid moment.

“We were definitely there,” Marisa said. “I even met Gutenberg. Remember, your intro NPC before any of us understood your weirdass world idea?” Nat chuckled.

“That’s the wildest thing I’ve heard in a minute,” she said.

“You were there,” Marisa said. “The last thing we did was meet you and your older self. Apparently you were still running the game even in that reality.”

“I…I have no idea how any of this makes sense,” Nat said.

“Well, maybe it’s just like those people told you,” Marisa said. “Maybe you do bring us into DIE, just years from now. Maybe this is the time loop that that game created.”

“That’s…that’s fucked,” Nat said. Marisa looked at her, and they didn’t share any other words until the train arrived to take them back out of the city.

They walked off the platform back to the garage, still mostly quiet. It wasn’t until they were steps away from the truck that Marisa stopped and grabbed Nat’s shoulder.

“Do you…do you regret this?” Marisa asked.

“What do you mean?” Nat said.

“Coming out tonight, this time together…kissing me…do you regret it?” Marisa asked.

“What? No!” Nat said. “I…never thought this would happen.”

“I…I don’t think I did this,” Marisa said. “In the original timeline, I mean. I think the whole fear of failure thing pervaded into the rest of my life. I…I think the other world is very real.”

“What do we do about that?” Nat asked. 

“I think I’m just meant to not do what I did, not choke and run,” Marisa said. “I have a few years before it happens. But it really seems I need to think about not being afraid way before then. To make sure that I reach for what I want even if there’s a risk of me falling short.”

“That makes sense,” Nat said. “I wish I had as clear guidance as you do. What do you want right now?” The silence creeped up on them, sudden and oppressive. Finally, Marisa opened her mouth.

“Well,” Marisa said. “To be honest…you.” The two friends looked at each other, Nat’s eyes had gone wide again. Marisa stepped forward again and gave Nat another intense kiss, pushing her into the side of the truck bed. She lifted Nat up so they were eye to eye, and with the support of the truck bed Nat wrapped her legs around Marisa as they kissed again and again, tasting each other as intensely as they knew how.

They drove back home in relative silence, Nat grabbing Marisa’s free hand as the truck wound down the twisting back roads of their hometown. She cut the lights as she approached Nat’s house, knowing that it was way past curfew and a light sneak back inside was in order. Before getting out of the truck, she kissed Marisa one last time, feeling the heat on both their faces. Despite desperately not wanting to, she got out of the truck and padded back towards the door, quietly sneaking in and trying not to wake her parents.

---

She got back into her room, and was once again greeted by the figures that had spoken to her before.

“Do you see now what your venture into DIE will do?” The female coded figure asked.

“It definitely did something to Marisa,” Nat said. “Something for the better.”

“It will do something to all of you,” the male coded figure said. “But it has not actually done anything to you yet. This is the timeline you will create when you bring your friends into DIE. You too will experience that ‘waking nightmare’ that Marisa spoke of. But you haven’t yet.”

“Wait…what?” Nat said.

“Those things that happened to you tonight, they are not among the things that happen in your timeline,” the female coded figure said. “You can make them happen, of course. When you bring your friends into DIE.”

“What…what do you mean that they aren’t among the things that happen?” Nat asked. The two figures looked at each other.

“You will close the loop,” the male coded figure said. “But it will take time. But now you know that we have the power to control time in this way. Everything will come to pass as it should.” Nat opened her mouth to protest, but the figures were gone.

Nat awoke to her alarm the next morning. In a panic, she checked her phone. The calls and texts to Marisa were all gone. There was absolutely no indication that last night had happened. Her mouth tasted like ash. She dropped her phone on her desk; it landed next to the acceptance letter, just as real as the night before, and the gold coin, showing tails and sealing Nat’s fate.