The monster exploded.
And not in the normal way.
No confetti of polygons. No victorious fanfare. No slow-mo one-liner moment. It just… sort of puffed out of existence like someone hit the delete key too hard.
The field around the bus went silent.
Bits of corrupted monster code flickered and evaporated into the air. The skybox finally settled into a warm, dusk-toned horizon, and a few ambient birds resumed their looped chirping. Riley's drone bobbed uncertainly in the sky, scanning for leftover threats and finding nothing but charred grass and wrecked physics props.
Kael climbed into the bus through the window, still covered in slime and smoke, his shield now bent in the shape of a waffle iron. "That was AWESOME!"
"That was… something," Alex replied, slouching in his seat, now more of a beanbag duct-taped to a broken arcade machine. "We killed a monster that was part train and part grocery store."
"And a little bit toaster," Riley added, still typing into his laptop without looking. "There were shelves. I looted a box of cereal."
"I blew up its shopping cart leg!" Jax grinned, tossing an empty shell casing onto a pile of others that had formed a kind of decorative shrine near the back of the bus. "We should frame that thing's receipt!"
Dane was humming a victory tune while scraping melted polygons off one of his flamethrowers. "Y'know, for a chaos boss, that one went down weirdly quick."
Alex nodded. "Yeah… It didn't even glitch when we unloaded the finishing combo. Usually, something freaks out or implodes."
For a moment, they sat there in thoughtful silence. The bus rumbled idly, surrounded by burnt grass, broken terrain pieces, and smoke clouds shaped like Microsoft Paint scribbles.
Then Kael said what they were all thinking.
"…I'm bored again."
Everyone groaned.
"No more NPC farms," Riley muttered.
"No more reskinned sky islands," said Jax. "If I see one more floating castle, I'm gonna puke in the shape of a crown."
"We've wiped over 500 maps," Alex added. "Every secret boss. Every corrupted asset. Even the hidden rooms behind the texture walls. Nothing's left."
"We even beat the final dev's debug area," Riley pointed out, spinning his cracked VR goggles around one finger.
Dane chuckled. "So what now? Wait for the server to randomly reset?"
Kael raised a hand. "Can we install a dating sim next? Like, just for the vibes?"
"No," Alex said immediately.
"Worth a shot."
The bus chugged on, tires creaking as they rolled over familiar terrain. Same rocks. Same scenery. Same endless field of nothing wrapped in a digital sky.
Until the bus stopped.
Slammed to a halt, as if the engine had just gotten unplugged.
The world shimmered.
Below them, the ground shifted. The grass folded inward like a closing pop-up book. Red lines began glowing beneath the bus tires—thin at first, then spiraling outward into a massive, intricate rune circle that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Alex's eyes widened. "Is this a teleport trap?!"
"I didn't install any new mods!" Riley said quickly, typing faster. "I swear—I was just running diagnostics!"
"Okay, but is anyone else seeing the words 'LOADING...' in the corner of their vision?" Kael asked nervously.
Everyone checked.
They all saw it.
LOADING…
RUNETIME EXCEPTION DETECTED.
WARPING INSTABILITY: LOCATION UNKNOWN.
The bus vibrated violently. Sparks flew from the turret above. The sound of twisting metal filled the air, and for a split second, time itself stuttered—like a lag spike that reached into their bones.
Then—
FWOOM.
The entire world ripped.
Color vanished. Gravity inverted. For a terrifying moment, it felt like every file in existence was being yanked from one zip folder to another.
The bus screamed. Not the horn—the bus screamed. A garbled, corrupted noise that sounded like a blender chewing through a MIDI file of Beethoven's 5th.
And then…
Darkness.
The bus lay crooked in the middle of a clearing.
Smoke puffed lazily from the engine, and a random tire rolled off without fanfare, landing in a bush with a sad fwump. The glitchy pixel skyline was gone. No flickering textures, no floating castles, no respawn menu. Just trees. Miles and miles of real, heavy, suspiciously immersive forest.
A chorus of birds chirped overhead, unsettling in its authenticity.
Inside the bus, five teens slowly stirred from the chaos of whatever had just happened.
Alex sat up first, clutching his head like it had tried to process a .zip file without permission. "Okay… that was not a teleport. That was a full-on dimension shift."
Riley groaned and lifted himself from a heap of scattered wires. "We just got modded into a forest biome. This isn't vanilla."
"Where's the HUD?" Kael asked, peeking outside the window. "Where's the skybox? Did someone load a realism mod while I was asleep?"
"Jax?" Alex called, looking back.
"Alive," came a voice from the ceiling. Jax was hanging upside-down from a luggage net, dual sword-rifles clattering to the floor. "Also confused. Where the hell are we?"
Dane popped up beside him, eyes darting, gear rattling. "I smell… trees. Real trees. That's illegal."
The group filed out of the bus one by one.
The moment their boots hit the ground, the difference hit harder.
The forest was too real. Dirt stuck to their soles. The light was natural—no game filters, no bloom. The air was damp and alive with the buzz of unseen insects and the faint murmur of wind through the canopy.
Alex took a slow breath. "This isn't GMod."
Kael turned in a circle. "Yeah. But this isn't Earth either. These trees are massive. Like, Skyrim levels of oversized."
"But… our stuff," Riley muttered, quickly checking his belt. "Wait—my Toolgun still has juice."
Everyone turned.
He held it up. The familiar neon glow still pulsed faintly from its core. But now, the gun seemed to vibrate, like it was resisting the world around it.
He squeezed the trigger.
WHRRRRRRR—POP.
A cube spawned. A real, solid, metallic cube with faint glowing glyphs carved into its surface.
Everyone stared at it.
Jax walked over and kicked it. It didn't phase. "That's… not a prop. That's real matter."
Dane grinned. "Okay. Plot twist: our tools still work. But this world isn't made of code."
Kael stepped forward and unlatched his shield. Instead of wobbling like a wonky physics object, it settled in his hand with solid weight and purpose. "It's like… our tools got translated. They function, but in this world's ruleset."
Alex pulled his own Toolgun out and opened the spawn menu. It appeared as a holographic circle hovering in the air—no HUD, no screen, just a swirling interface responding to his thoughts.
He muttered, "Inventory's still here. Weapons, tools… utilities. Even the ragdoll editor." He paused. "Not sure we should try that here."
"Speak for yourself," Jax said, summoning a familiar weapon—a long, sword-rifle hybrid. It appeared in a flash of code-light, humming with a low, dangerous tone. "Still beautiful."
Dane fired up his flamethrower. Instead of the usual cartoonish blaze, a controlled, focused gout of flame roared forward—hot, loud, and real.
The trees didn't catch, but the nearby moss crisped instantly.
"Yeah, we're modded in. But the engine's changed," he said. "More… grounded. More alive."
Riley raised an eyebrow. "So, like a survival sandbox RPG… but with full GMod legacy tools?"
Kael laughed nervously. "Okay. Cool. But what does that mean for us? Is there a way out?"
Alex pulled out his map. It had changed too. What was once a chaos scroll of doodles and chaotic zones now displayed a rough top-down layout of the surrounding forest—dense, unmarked, endlessly stretching. No labels. No minimap. Just miles of green and lines indicating elevation.
"No objective," Alex muttered. "Just this… whole thing. No quests. No missions. Just… survive."
Riley frowned. "That's a first. Not even a glitched 'To Be Continued'?"
Suddenly, the bus behind them made a strange chime sound.
Everyone turned.
A glowing rune flickered into view beneath the vehicle—residual magic or code or both—and with it, a string of text floated just above the earth:
[ERROR: ENVIRONMENTAL SYNC FAILED.]
[LEGACY TOOLS DETECTED.]
[RECALIBRATING PARAMETERS…]
[FUNCTIONS RETAINED. DANGER UNKNOWN.]
[GOOD LUCK :)]
Dane stepped back, arms up. "Nope. Nope. I don't like when reality starts giving us patch notes."
Riley muttered, "We're in a modded survival game and someone forgot to give us a spawn kit."
Just then, something rustled in the trees.
Kael slammed his shield into the dirt, eyes narrowing. "Movement. Three o'clock!"
"Confirmed—four targets," Riley said, scanning the treeline through his visor. "Big. Heat signatures spiking. Looks like wolves… but super-sized."
Jax was already cracking his neck. "Do they bark or explode?"
"I vote we make 'em explode anyway," Dane grinned, gripping his flamethrower. "Nothing personal, doggies."
Then the first one stepped out of the forest.
It was massive—nearly the size of a van, its black fur glistening under the canopy. Blood-red eyes locked on the group like a predator staring at prey. Its companions flanked from behind, equally large, claws digging into the soil.
"Okay," Alex muttered, cracking his knuckles. "I think it's time."
He threw his hand out—and with a flash of light, a mounted M249 SAW machine gun materialized in front of him, floating slightly before slamming into place. He grabbed the handles, eyes narrowing.
"Let's show them why we don't skip turret class."
"LOCK AND LOAD!" Kael bellowed, slamming his fist into the spawn menu and summoning a belt-fed light machine gun covered in duct tape, scrap plates, and a coffee mug labeled 'Kael's Boomstick'.
Jax rolled his neck, threw his arms wide—and two high-caliber twin rotary guns spun into his hands. "Ohhh yeah. It's Christmas and I brought bullets for everyone."
Riley spawned a sleek tactical MG with a mounted AI scope. "Targeting locked. Please proceed to panic."
Dane just cackled. "Y'all are playing with bullets—I brought fire."
And the forest erupted.
The wolves leapt.
The air tore apart.
"SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" Alex shouted as his machine gun roared to life, bullets ripping through branches and bark.
"I AM THE FIREWALL!" Riley yelled, his tactical shots zipping through the trees with precision, dropping one wolf mid-air as it lunged for Kael.
"CHEW ON THIS, FURRY APOCALYPSE!" Kael screamed, crouched behind his shield while his LMG fired over the top like a mounted fortress.
"YEAHHH BABY! BRING IT ON! MAMA TAUGHT ME TO CLEAN MY ROOM WITH A FLAMING MINIGUN!" Jax howled as both rotary cannons spun up and unleashed a storm of brass and death.
Then came Dane.
With a devilish grin, he stepped forward as the wolves scattered through bullet hell, growling and bleeding.
"Flamethrower... online."
With a sharp click, his infernal device hissed to life—and then—
"BURN, BABY, BURN!!!"
A searing wave of fire erupted from his flamethrower, igniting the brush and catching one of the wolves mid-pounce. It howled in pain as fire clung to its coat like liquid napalm.
"I'LL BE BACK," Dane growled in a horrible Arnold impression as he stomped toward the blazing beast, unleashing another gout of fire with maniacal glee.
The final wolf tried to flee, limping into the woods, but Jax yelled, "NO ESCAPES FROM THE BOOM ROOM!" before unloading both barrels and turning it into a red mist.
The moment the last echo of gunfire faded, the forest fell silent.
Smoke drifted through the trees. Burnt fur and scorched moss filled the air. The once-peaceful forest clearing now looked like a battlefield from an action movie no one had the budget to make.
Kael let out a breath. "Status?"
Riley adjusted his goggles. "One hundred rounds lighter. Zero injuries. Full dopamine."
"Let's make a t-shirt," Jax said. "'Survived Murder-Wolf Forest: All I Got Was This Sweet PTSD.'"
Dane still held his flamethrower, eyes wide. "We need more of those."
Alex looked around at the blackened trees, the bloodstains, and the pile of empty shell casings. "Okay. We're not in GMod anymore…"
"…But we still got all the toys," Riley finished.
They stood in the carnage for a moment longer before Alex muttered, "We need a base. Now."
Jax raised his arm, already spawning a metal wall. "One flaming wolf den, coming up."
Riley smirked. "Let's fortify and stack crates. It's gonna be a long campaign."
And just like that, the war-torn clearing became a construction zone—five teens building a fortress in the middle of an alien forest, still screaming catchphrases and planning for whatever monster came next.