The Unbread!

You and a friend are sucked into a cooperative video game. To get out, you must work together through the stages. It appears to be a simple game to you, but the problem is that you and that person have recently argued. How would you two get out of this mess?


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Tina woke up on the cobblestones in a gloomy dungeon. She pulled herself to a sitting position and looked around.

Mike was laying on the ground only a few feet away, but she rolled her eyes and ignored him. After what he'd said last night, she wasn't really in the mood for him. Instead, she turned to look at the rest of the room, trying to figure out where they were.

There were some wooden crates with pictures of cheese, tomatoes, sausage, and what looked like lumps of dough on the wall in front of her. The center of the room had four cutting boards, and on the far wall were two ovens. But what really caught her attention was the giant onion standing there, wearing a crown and smiling down at her.

"It's time to test your culinary skills – The Unbread are approaching." the onion said.

Tina screamed.

"...Onion King?" Mike asked, sounding dumbfounded. Tina whirled around to face him.

"Wait, what?" she asked. "You know him?"

"Yeah, he's the king in Overcooked."

"Oh – that game you were playing with your stupid brother? The one you said I couldn't play?"

"Uh, yeah. That one." Mike said, going from stunned to sheepish.

"Use your cooperation skills to defeat the Hangry Horde with tasty treats." the Onion King said, ignoring their bickering. Then, he casually walked out of the gate on the right side of the room. Tina made a move to follow, but the gate slammed down after him, trapping her in here with Mike.

Off in the distance, Tina could hear moans. And they seemed to be getting closer. She peered through the bars in the gate, not sure if she actually wanted to know what was approaching.

"Uh...Tina?" Mike said hesitantly. "We really need to start making pizzas."

Tina ignored him. He wasn't making any sense, and she thought she could see vaguely square shapes in the distance. They shambled along the cobblestone path as the groaning got louder. They were halfway down the path before Tina finally had an idea of what they were.

"Are those...pieces of toast?" she asked, feeling ridiculous.

"The Unbread." Mike confirmed, coming up next to her. She scooted over automatically so he could get a better look.

"Hey – that one's got a bite out of it." Mike snickered, pointing through the bars at one of the pieces of bread shuffling towards them. But Tina wasn't sure how funny it really was.

"What happens when they get here?" she asked, finally glancing at Mike. She watched as the humor drained from his face.

"They're gonna try to get in." he said, swallowing hard.

"So?" They're just pieces of bread. What would they do?"

"Well, they're the Hangry Horde, so..."

"What?" Are they going to eat us?" Tina scoffed.

"...Maybe."

Tina rolled her eyes, but the look on his face made her bite back her snarky comment. Instead, she asked, "So what do we do?"

"Feed them." Mike said. He turned and hurried across the room. Tina watched as he grabbed a giant lump of dough out of the box, followed by a tomato the size of his head. But they were both too big to carry together. He left the tomato on the crate and took the dough to the cutting boards in the middle of the room. Tina walked slowly over to the tomato. She'd never seen one that big, and she wanted to get a closer look. Besides, it was better than watching those slices of bread making their way ever closer.

The tomato felt real enough. Actually, except for the size, it seemed like any other tomato she'd ever seen. She thought about biting into it. Would it actually taste as good as it looked?

"Hey – throw that over here." Mike said.

Tina turned and saw he'd flattened out the dough into a pizza shape. Now, he was staring at her and making grabby hands as he waited impatiently. Tina took the tomato and chucked it at his head. It bounced off his face and landed at his feet. She was disappointed that it hadn't splattered everywhere.

"Seriously?" Mike asked, grabbing the tomato and putting it on the cutting board.

"Sorry – guess I'm just clumsy." she snapped at him.

"Are you still mad about that?" he asked, his back to her.

"Yeah, actually, I am."

"But you really are – you run into walls." he pointed out. Tina could hear him chopping the tomato.

"I did that one time." Tina rolled her eyes.

"Look, be mad if you want. But we have like a minute before those Unbread show up, and I'm not going to be able to make enough food on my own. So do you want to help me, or get eaten?"

It was a pretty easy question. So even though Tina was still mad just looking at him, she walked over. "What do I do?"

"Throw me one of everything. And an extra cheese. We'll make a cheese pizza and a sausage one before they get here."

Tina rushed along the line of boxes, tossing dough, cheese, a tomato, and a sausage at Mike. As he chopped everything, she hurried to bring the first assembled pizza to the oven. When she got back, he'd already assembled the second one. He ran his pizza to the oven, while she ran over to start round two. She threw everything across the room and onto the counter. Who's clumsy now, she thought. Well, except for a lump of dough and the sausage. Those landed in the same space as a tomato, and instead of squishing the thing, they plopped onto the ground and rolled around sluggishly.

She considered picking them up, maybe finding a trash can. But the oven was dinging, and she was busy looking for a plate instead. Mike came around and started chopping, and Tina took the plate over to the bars at the left side of the room. The Unbread were only a few feet away.

"Grab the other one too!" Mike called out to her.

Tina backed slowly away, watching the shuffling bread as long as she could. When she heard the second oven ding, she grabbed a plate, put that pizza on, and went back to The Unbread.

"Cheeeeeese." the bread closest to the gate groaned.

Tina looked down at the plate in her hand. Sausage pizza. But the one she'd left on the counter was cheese. She set the sausage pizza down, grabbed the cheese one, and inched her way towards the gate. Those things may have been just bread, but they were twice as tall as she was, and she didn't want to be any closer than she had to. Especially not when they had those strange, glowing eyes and cavernous mouths.

"Cheeeeeese." the bread moaned again. Tina looked down at the plate, then back up at the bread. It started shaking the bars, as if it wanted to tear the whole door down.

"Uh, here." she said, shoving the pizza through the gap in the bars.

It devoured the pizza, and – much to Tina's amazement – shuffled off. Tina sighed with relief. The next piece of moldy bread ambled up.

"Meeeaaat..." it moaned. Tina shoved the pizza at it as fast as she could. As he wandered off, she turned back to Mike. She was just in time to watch him pick up first the sausage and then the dough from the floor. He chopped the sausage, rolled the dough, and started assembling a pizza.

"You can't use that! It's been on the floor!" Tina said, aghast. Mike just looked at her.

"They're undead bread. I doubt they'll care." he said.

"Yeah, fine." Tina snickered.

"Besides, we're going to cook it anyway." He handed her the pizza and she rushed it to the oven.

Soon, they were working like a well-oiled machine. Just like they used to.

"Give me three cheeses, two sausages, and two tomatoes." Mike called out.

Tina did, tossing them easily. She heard the timer ding on the oven.

"I'll get it!"

She hurried over to the oven, grabbed a pizza, and put it on a plate. Cheese. She almost gave it to the moldy hunk of bread banging on the gate, but she stopped when she heard it moan, "Meeeaaat."

"Wait!" Mike yelled. But Tina was already on it.

"Got it!" she called as the timer on the second oven went off. She ran, grabbed that pizza, and after checking that it had sausages, handed it through the food slot in the iron bars. She heard the bread behind it moan, "Cheeeeeese," and jammed the half-cold pizza that had been on the counter at it.

"Ready for the next round!" she called.

They served pizza after pizza to The Unbread. Some of them shook the bars as they waited, and some screws started to fall out. But none of the breads got through. Tina and Mike kept shoving pizzas at them as fast as they could manage. And one by one, the Hangry Horde left, satiated. When the last of The Unbread was gone, Tina turned to Mike.

"We did it!" she almost shouted.

"You were amazing! And...I'm sorry I said you couldn't play. I didn't mean it like that." He looked a little embarrassed as he said, "The reason I said you couldn't play...it wasn't because you're clumsy."

"Yeah?"

"We...sort of broke one of the controllers."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I just hadn't gotten around to replacing it...Or telling you..."

"That makes sense..." Tina said slowly. She guessed she might have overreacted just a bit.

"Actually, you're pretty good."

"The best." Tina grinned.

Tina went over to hug Mike. And as they were embracing, that stupid Onion King walked back through the gate.

"Congratulations on you cooperation! Now, we have only to satiate the Spaghetti Monster and the kingdom will be saved."

"The Spaghetti Monster?" Tina asked, giving a sideways glance at Mike.

"Think we can do it?" Mike asked.

"Oh, I know we can." Tina said. She turned back to that becrowned onion. "Where is this Spaghetti Monster?" she grinned.

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