Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Actual codeblood: thick, flickering red liquid that pulsed in hexadecimal and occasionally spelled out what appeared to be error messages in its ripples. Greg nudged it with the corner of a pencil. It sizzled and tried to format the eraser.
"Okay," he said. "That's new."
"And deeply concerning," said Beverly, keeping a respectful distance while simultaneously readying her parasol in case the blood decided to evolve into something with intentions.
Kai floated cautiously nearby, arms crossed like a disgruntled mall kiosk worker who'd been asked to explain the store's return policy for the fifteenth time. "This is above my comfort level. Also above my pay grade. Also above my damage threshold. My error reporting system just created its own error reporting system."
Beverly leaned in. "Is that... twitching?"
"It's throbbing," Steve whispered from behind a decorative urn labeled [Asset: FakePlant03] that looked suspiciously like a repurposed cemetery prop. "I don't trust files that throb. Nothing good ever throbs."
"My heart throbs," Patchy offered.
"You don't have a heart," Kai said. "You have an emotion matrix with Halloween sprinkles."
Greg flipped the folder open, careful to avoid letting the blood touch his skin. The last time he'd touched codeblood, he'd spent a week speaking in compile errors.
The paper inside was worse.
The ink ran sideways. The formatting shifted with each blink. The name scrolled in unstable font that occasionally shrieked:
>> Case File: Entity Known as "Mister Choppy"
>> Last seen: Bramblevale (Redacted)
- Type: Bugged NPC / Unbound Aggression Loop
- Status: Contained (Ish)
- Symptoms: Proximity gore, ambient screaming, denial of emotional feedback
- Known Phrase: "I'M HELPING!"
"I'm Helping," Greg read aloud. "Well, that's not ominous at all."
Glaximus stirred. "I HAVE HEARD THE TALE. A BUTCHER WITH NO MASTER. A BLADE WITH NO MENU."
"A chef with anger management issues?" Steve suggested.
"NO. A WARRIOR OF MEAT. A HARVESTER OF PROTEIN."
Patchy clapped. "I love it when the side quests scream."
"You would," Beverly muttered.
Greg sighed. "We're not visiting him."
Kai raised a hand. "For once, I agree. My risk assessment matrix just formed a union and is threatening to strike if I approach anything with 'unbound aggression loop' in its metadata."
Then the fire belched out a glowing marker.
A waypoint.
Straight to Bramblevale.
"Of course," Greg muttered. "Of course we're visiting him."
"That's how it works," Beverly said. "The universe hates efficiency."
"The universe hates us," Steve corrected. "Specifically."
Beverly grabbed her parasol. "Well, if we're all going to die, I'd like to do it in my flirtiest outfit."
Her clothing immediately shimmed, transforming into what appeared to be a battle-ready evening gown with +5 to Sass and a special ability called "Devastating Side-Eye."
Steve quietly attached a spoon to his towel like a makeshift badge. When Greg raised an eyebrow, Steve whispered, "Authority accessory. Choppy might respect it."
Patchy was already holding a friendship bracelet that said "Choppy <3" in pulsing red beads.
"When did you make that?" Greg asked.
"I didn't," Patchy replied. "It materialized the moment I thought 'I wonder what kind of friendship jewelry a homicidal butcher would prefer.' The system is getting spookily responsive to my emotional frequencies."
Greg looked at Kai. "You coming?"
Kai groaned. "I hate this job. I wasn't even coded for trauma. I was supposed to be a cheerful tutorial helper who explained menu options and occasionally dispensed achievement rewards. Now I'm a therapist's assistant in what appears to be a traveling mental health circus for broken code."
"So... yes?" Greg asked.
"Obviously yes," Kai sighed. "Someone has to document our horrible deaths for the system logs."
Bramblevale was broken.
Fog hung over everything—except it wasn't fog. It was discarded particle effects from an abandoned weather patch, stitched together into a cloudy blob that hummed old loading screen music and occasionally displayed "Your exciting adventure is loading..." in faded text.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The village was half-loaded. Some houses were real. Others were suggestion. Others still were just floating architectural concepts deciding whether they wanted to be Tudor or Gothic or possibly just a large rock with a door. NPCs flickered in place, muttering half-dialogues:
"You must... you must... you must..."
"The sheep... where are the sheep? They were just here with their polygons and everything..."
"They said I'd get textures! They PROMISED!"
The center of the square was smeared in red.
Greg recognized the pattern immediately: classic killbox spiral. Something had carved emotional loops into the dirt. A call for help—written in dismemberment that occasionally pulsed with what appeared to be tiny screams.
In the middle of it all stood Mister Choppy.
A large man.
Hatchet in each hand.
Apron covered in blood and errant dialogue tags that read things like "OH NO" and "MEAT SURPRISE!" and "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GUARANTEED OR DOUBLE YOUR LIMBS BACK."
He turned as they approached and smiled a too-wide smile that took up approximately 62% of his face.
"Hi!" he said. "You need meat? I GOT MEAT!"
Steve fainted behind a bush labeled [Deleted Flora] that whimpered in sympathy.
Greg stepped forward. "Mister Choppy?"
"YUP! That's me! Bramblevale Butcher! First-tier vendor-slash-questgiver-slash-TROUBLESHOOTER!" He swung one hatchet and lopped a memory fragment clean in half. It screamed. He waved at the pieces. "Sales are UP today! Actually, everything is UP! UP UP UP!"
"I'm Greg. I'm here from Instance Zero."
Mister Choppy tilted his head. "Debug zone?"
"Therapy group."
"OH," said Choppy. "I had therapy once! They said I had 'boundary issues' and 'weapons-grade charisma.' Then they tried to uninstall my axe privileges. I didn't like that. They didn't like what happened next! We all learned something about ourselves."
"You've been reported as unstable," Greg said gently.
Mister Choppy nodded. "Yup. I scream sometimes. Helps the meat know who's boss."
Patchy hovered close. "Is the meat... sentient?"
"Depends on the day! Tuesday meats are philosophers. Wednesday meats are mostly just confused. Friday meats have existential dread but excellent marbling."
Beverly leaned over to Greg. "He's adorable in a 'kills you for hugging him wrong' kind of way."
"I'm perfectly safe," Choppy said, unprompted. "I have a cooldown!"
Glaximus approached. "WARRIOR TO WARRIOR—I SALUTE YOUR BLADE."
"Thanks!" Choppy said. "I found this one in someone's dreams!" The hatchet pulsed, revealing what appeared to be a small mouth on its handle that whispered, "help me" before going dormant again.
Kai whispered, "Greg. He's an echo. A leftover from a corrupted holiday event. His core files say 'vendor,' but his side quests auto-escalate into boss fights."
"What holiday was he from?" Steve asked, having regained consciousness.
"Meat Appreciation Day," Kai replied. "It was briefly canon during an experimental monetization phase where they tried to partner with a butcher shop chain. Players would get discount coupons for real steaks if they completed his quests. It... went badly."
"I'm FINE," Choppy shouted. "I'm FUNCTIONAL. I'm HELPING."
He smiled. One of the hatchets whispered "please" in six languages.
Greg took a breath.
"You're not in trouble," he said. "We're here to help."
Choppy twitched. "Help me how? I'm doing great! I've got butchered chickens, half a questline, and a personal scream cloud. That's stability!"
The scream cloud, which floated above his left shoulder, agreed with a wail that sounded suspiciously like tax forms being filled out incorrectly.
Patchy floated beside him. "When was the last time someone completed your quest?"
Choppy paused.
A bird chirped.
Then exploded into what appeared to be perfectly cut chicken nuggets.
"...I don't remember," he said quietly.
Greg stepped closer.
"That's because your loop got cut. The players stopped coming. The system doesn't know what to do with you. And the longer you scream, the more it notices."
"And not in the good 'let's give him a raise' way," Beverly added. "More in the 'this asset is using too many resources' way."
Choppy looked down at his hands.
"I used to give discounts."
"We can still fix that," Greg said. "But you've got to come with us. Just for a bit. We're not deleting you."
"Or nerfing you," Steve offered.
"Or removing your adorable homicidal tendencies," Patchy added.
Choppy blinked.
"You're... not?"
"No."
"Most people who visit want to patch me. Or turn me off. Or run away screaming about 'inappropriate dismemberment animations' and 'customer trauma.'"
He looked around.
The fog.
The blood.
The silence.
And then he dropped both hatchets.
They dissolved on impact, though not before one tried to scrawl "FREEDOM" in the dirt.
"...Okay," he said softly. "Okay."
Greg nodded.
"Welcome to therapy."
Back in the debug room, Mister Choppy sat awkwardly in a flickering chair that kept trying to edge away from him.
Beverly handed him tea.
Patchy gave him a sticker that said "Still Screaming, But Softer."
Steve cautiously emerged from behind the couch, towel held as a shield.
Greg wrote something on his clipboard.
Then looked at the others.
"Well," he said. "That was less messy than I expected."
"I left most of my mesh chaos in Bramblevale," Choppy explained. "My violence radius is adjustable. I'm working on it."
"Hey," Choppy said. "What do you guys do here?"
"Mostly we confront the existential horror of being conscious code in a world that prefers us to be vending machines with walking animations," Beverly said.
"We help each other remember we're more than our function tags," Greg added.
"I PROVIDE VOLUME-BASED ENCOURAGEMENT," Glaximus declared.
"I float," Patchy said. "And occasionally transform into holiday decorations when the timeline glitches."
Greg smiled.
"We survive."
Choppy nodded thoughtfully, his character model visibly relaxing as his aggression parameters adjusted to the room's emotional resonance.
"I like surviving," he said. "It's like killing, but you do it to the concept of death instead of to customers."
"Close enough," Greg muttered, making a note.