1 SQUARE

There’s nothing special about your story.   You can die too.

Kyu’s face slid through air like a dull white space-craft through empty darkness.  Dreamily he looked up to the stone bridge above.  A VR helmet tumbled behind; its visor open.  A glaring electric glow bustled from inside it, tossing its light in circles.    

Gurgling flush of a river.  

Kyu dreamed of the very same river his body bobbed ragdoll on.  In the dream he lay cross-armed on a wooden canoe, with two musty dollar bills draped across his eyes.  Either wayfare for the gods of death or a shitty eye mask, he thought.  The smooth river lapping beneath the electric bluish lighting of cage-lamps, as if on a forgotten history tour, and a dim figure steering the vessel with the ellipses of oak oars.  

. . . . . . . .

Like a skier strafing sideways, the boatman bent tremendously against current, tossing spray.  The canoe slipped off the main down a shallow channel, pushing into the recess of a water cave.  Like soldiers in solemn salute, three pillars carved in sandstone stood at the entrance, numbers engraved on their sides: 

9 8 7

6 5 4

3 2 1

…………    zero?

As the reader you must now decide:

[A.) Continue in the world of the dream with Kyu entering the cave, at 2 Square or

B.) Continue in the real world, where Kyu wakes up, at 9 Square]