Game Zero — Christopher Edge

Eden is cutting through an industrial park following directions that Ami, an online friend, has shared with her to a new escape room. Eden has completed plenty of birthday party escape rooms, but The Escape is supposed to be the ultimate. She's almost arrived when she sees the starlings. They're flying in a dizzying murmuration, faster and faster, and suddenly she trapped within it, before finding herself in a vast landscape with gentle music playing. She meets a boy named Ted who rudely tells her she's an NPC, a non-playing character in the video game he's playing and to stop bothering him with her side quests. Eden knows she's real, she knows the game is not a game, but she can't seem to get out without helping Ted find the keys and solve the puzzles. Each puzzle takes them to a new level with increasing levels of danger, but Eden seems to be the only one with an actual life to lose. Can either player ever leave the game and will reality ever be the same again?