“Sarah,” a voice echoed from the distance. “Sarah!”

Clouds of white floated along the sky. Some were so close, I felt I could reach out and touch them. The grass was rustling around me, tickling my ears as I lay on the ground. The smell of poppies was everywhere.

“Sarah,” the voice continued, getting closer. “You must wake up now.”

Wake up? I sat up. The smell of salt water filled my nostrils as I stared at the ocean. A fishing boat was slowly approaching, sails at half mast. I couldn't see the people on board, but I had a feeling I knew them.

A cyan coloured cat walked up to me. Its fur glistened in the sun. Twinkle, will you ever grow up? I smiled, petting the cat on its head. The feline smiled back, jumping and climbing onto me until it reached my shoulder.

“Twinkle!” I laughed, grabbing him by the neck and gently pulling him off. “Stop doing that.” I looked him in the eye attempting a serious expression. It utterly failed. “You know grandpa gets upset when you wander away from the house.”

Gently, I put him on my lap. I wasn't allowed to wander out of the house either. The moment I got home, there would be trouble. Best I could hope for was dad not to be there. As grumpy as grandfather was, he never could punish me.

“You must wake up, Sarah,” Twinkle said, looking up.

“Huh?” I blinked. Twinkle wasn't supposed to be able to talk.

“Wake up,” he went on. “You must wake up.”

A zap passed through my body like a military taser. I tried to move, but a set of heavy restraints kept me down, letting me lurch as the pain subsided.

“Sarah!” someone in a green mask said above me. The sky and clouds had vanished, replaced by bright lights shining in my face. “Can you understand me?”

I turned to the side, trying to shield my eyes from the light. A set of plastic hands grabbed my face and moved it back.

“Can you hear me?” the person asked, poking a penlight into my eye.

Yes, I tried to say. The word game out as a series of grunts drained of strength. “Yes,” I tried once more. My mouth felt dry and tasting of iron.

“Do you know where you are?” Another question followed.

Where? I looked around. Several people were standing around me, all in green clothes, masks covering their faces. Wincing, I saw a hospital logo on the fabric.

“You are in Saint Raphael Hospital,” a woman explained. “Do you remember? Do you remember getting here?”

Saint Raphael. Yes, that was right. I had come here with Jeff. His sister had an allergic reaction and he had asked that I join him for moral support. I remember I had dropped everything and rushed to help him.

“I came here with a friend.” Jeff had brought me here. What was I doing before that, though? I was given the day off to rest a bit before my big promotion.

I tried to sit up. The restraints loosened up, but one of the doctors stopped me, his look saying I wasn't not ready for that yet. A constant beeping sounded in the background.

“What happened?” I tried to gather my thoughts.

“You fainted,” one of the doctors explained. “You went to reception to ask about the condition of the patient, then just collapsed.”

Was that what happened? I remembered going to the reception desk, but it wasn't regarding Jeff's sister. I was searching for something.

“You gave us a huge scare,” the woman laughed. “Your friend especially. We were concerned it might be something contagious. It turned out that you were just overworked.” The word rang as she said it.

Yes, overworked. All the additional hours I'd put out to get the management position had stacked up. That and my gaming obsession. After today, that was the first thing that would go. I didn't have the stamina to do both, and my job—as crappy as it was—earned me more than my game accounts. The first thing I was going to do when I got back was to sell all my accounts and gaming gear and focus on work, studies, and Jeff.

“You really don't need to prove anything,” another of the doctors said, helping me to sit up. “You have the means to live comfortably, so don't overextend yourself. The more you neglect your health, the more money you'll lose in the long run.”

“Yeah.” That sounded logical. I had to be mindful of my health. Even Twinkle kept saying that a lot. A pity he got destroyed by a dark hacker virus. Jeff had offered to track down the person, but I had decided to move on. As much as it hurt, I wasn't a gamer anymore. The only reason I had continued was to pay my way through university. “Yeah, I'll take better care of myself.”

“I'm sure your boyfriend will be relieved.” The doctor removed his mask. “Are you ready to see him? He's been asking ever since we took you for examination.”

“Yeah, he's like that.” I smiled. Jeff, never change. “It's fine. If you think I'm well enough, I'd like to see him.”

“Perfect.” The woman handed me a glass of water. “You just sit here and I'll go get Claire for you.”

“Claire?” My body froze. This wasn't right. I didn't know any Claire. “Jeff's the one I...”

For a moment, my mind went blank. Then an image appeared, as if my synapses had sparked up, revealing some long forgotten memory. I do know Claire! I had met him in a game. He was an information broker, who... No, he was a dark broker. A dark broker with whom I went in partnership.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed. The beeping vanished, along with any other sound. The doctors, all still wearing their masks, stopped whatever they were doing and turned around staring at me.

“Are you sure?” one of them asked.

Yes, I thought, not voicing my answer. Claire was helping me complete a quest in Vesperia. It was a difficult quest, a hidden quest... there was something special about it. There was something special about me. I was the only one able to complete the quest. No. My head started pulsing with pain. I was one of the few able to complete the quest, the quest that was a trial.

“Are you sure?” all the voices merged in one.

I could see images flicker before my eyes. There had been clues, hidden clues scattered throughout Vesperia.

“The clues are the key,” I whispered, my grip of the glass slipping. “The key unlocks the lock. The lock that guards the gate. The gate that starts the game.”

I looked up at the gathering doctors. They had lost their human features, transforming into three-dimensional stacks of blocks. Behind them, the room had devolved into a flat two-dimensional background.

“The gate that starts the game,” I repeated. “The game that follows the quest. The quest that needs the level.” The words came easier and easier, as if I was remembering a song forgotten long ago.

The glass I was holding disappeared, splashing water over my legs.

“The level one hundred quest,” I said. The moment I did, reality exploded around me.

Walls of error message windows broke into the remnants of my room, surrounding me from everywhere: connection errors, response errors, menu errors, kernel errors... Never before had I seen system error of such severity. Whatever the alien quest code had tried to do, it had gone through all of Vesperia's defenses and then bulldozed through those of my gear's protections.

“Twinkle, do an emergency restart!” I said, opening whatever menus I had access to. Everything Vesperia related seemed completely corrupt. Before I could access my operating system, everything went black, and I found myself lying in my rig.

“Shutting down system processes,” Twinkle said in typically cheerful fashion. “Full reboot is expected in approximately nineteen seconds.”

I didn't wait that long, disconnecting from my gear and pulling myself out. All the warning LEDs on the side of my game system were flashing red. The amount of software errors had to be in the thousands, and right now, that was okay. Dripping with system gel, I went to the power box and manually pulled out the cord. The lights remained on for a few seconds more, then dimmed to black.

“Is everything okay, Sarah?” my AI companion asked. The concern in his voice almost sounded real. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Everything is fine, Twinkle.” My entire body was shivering with adrenalin. My heart was thumping so hard, I could feel it in my throat and ears. What just happened?

For over a minute I stood there, numb, staring blankly at the wall. I went to the fridge to get a protein bar. My hands didn't stop shaking, making it impossible to remove the wrapper.

“Damn it!” I threw it on the floor and went to the shower.

“Are you okay, Sarah?” I heard Twinkle from my phone.

I didn't answer, leaning against the shower wall. At some point, I started the water. After the time limit was over, I started it again. And again. And again.

“Sarah, it's time for work,” Twinkle's voice sounded like a buzz in the background. “If you have breakfast now, you'll be able to get there on time without running.”

Work? Sure. I looked at my hand. My fingers were wrinkled from the amount of time I had spent in the shower, but not clean. Work sounds good. I started the shower again, this time scrubbing the gel off my skin.

Was the entire quest a death trap? They were rumored to exist, but all cases had been disproven as hoaxes. Could I have been part of an actual one? That would explain the amount of people who vanished, though not why no one was talking about it. Even in today's world, people couldn't keep disappearing without a reason forever. Sooner or later, a cause would be found.

“Twinkle, send a message to Claire.” I stepped out of the shower and started to dry. “And to Firestarter.” At this point, there was no reason to avoid her.

“I'm sorry, Sarah,” the AI sniffled. “You no longer have a Vesperia account. Due to errors encountered, your account was found irreversibly corrupted and purged by the game system. You are not eligible for any in-game refund. Do you want me to open a new account?”

“No.” That was convenient—remove all traces of the quest, myself included. The system didn't care that I had nearly died, lobotomised by a sophisticated piece of malware. All that mattered for it was to keep stability high and negative press low. Deleting all trace of me took care of both. “Purge all Vesperia-related mails from my boxes, and sell off all videos.”

“Sure thing, Sarah!”

Slowly, I got dressed. My uniform shirt was showing signs of wear. When I got to work, I was going to ask Jeff for a new one. As one of the senior employees, I was entitled to it at a discount. Pulling on my shoes, I glanced at the apartment. It seemed cold and empty, like an abandoned fireplace. On with the day. I quietly left, closing the door behind me.

It was a clear morning outside. The crowds flowed in their usual fashion, noisy, smelly, not stopping for anything but traffic. I joined the flow. The billboards were displaying a new set of commercials—health products and two games I had been looking forward for the last four months. After Vesperia, I didn't want to have anything to do with them.

“Twinkle, tell Jeff that I'll be going to work.” My voice sounded hollow. Even faking joy was difficult.

“Message sent,” he said, bursting with cheer and making me envy him even more. You can never feel disappointment, can you? He could only experience the emotions that had been precoded in him. If there was a supreme power out there, I could only wish it did same to me.

Before I left my parents' home, my mother always warned me that I would get caught up in a con. At the time, I had laughed in her face, saying with absolute certainty that I wasn't as stupid as she was. The truth was that people were stupid; those who thought they weren't were the stupidest of all.

Buildings and streets changed as I walked. Before I new it, I was standing at the entrance of my work. And still I hesitated whether I should continue. What would Jeff think when he saw me and learned what happened? At this point, I didn't know, but I strongly hoped it was just a “told you so.”

“Hey, Sarah!” a familiar shout came behind me. “Wait up!”

Putting on a fake smile, I turned around. “Hey.” Kyle hadn't changed a bit, running across the street as if there was a discount sale. He was wearing a new, slightly oversized uniform, making him look somewhere between comic and respectable. “What's up?”

“I got promoted big time!” He grind, putting his arm around my shoulders. “Once you're done, we'll celebrate! I got an additional discount and also monthly e-coupons.”

“That's nice.” Promotion after a week? I never would have seen that coming. Someone must have felt guilty for all the pranks played on him. If I were Kyle's boss, I wouldn't keep him anywhere near a responsible role. Then again, I had never seen his actual work.

“What about you? Solved the riddle?”

“Riddle?” I stepped to the side making him move his arm off me.

“That music riddle you were trying to solve. Did you?”

“Oh.” Keeping my fake smile suddenly became that much harder. “Yeah, I solved it. It turned out to be a big box of nothing. Thanks for the help, though. I owe you one.”

“Ouch.” He shook his head with calculated sympathy. “That's nasty. Sometimes gamedevs are shitty.”

“Yeah.” You have no idea. “At least it's over, and now I can focus on my life.”

“Wow!” Kyle tilted his head. “That's deep. I'll have to remember it.”

“Cool.” That makes one of us. “Look, I really need to get to work. Can we continue this later?”

“Oh, right!” He slapped his head. “Sorry. Gotta get back as well. Catch you in a bit.”

The smell of cleaning chemicals hit me when I opened the door at work. The owners had probably had the previous shift do a full mould disinfect. Legally, all fungus cleaning stores were supposed to go through this procedure at least once per month. With the correct forms and bureaucratic shortcuts, they could get away with doing it once every three. The stench made me want to wish there was a way to do it once per decade.

“Morning,” I said upon entering. “Jeff, I'll need—”

I paused. There was no one in the shop. All the workstations were there, prepped and ready, freshly leaned, as was the floor and walls, but no people. Jeff, my other co-workers, the endless stream of customers that were supposed to be swarming the place at this time of day were all gone.

“No.” My hands began to shake. Not again!

I ran through the room, straight to the storage area. All the equipment was there, plus a batch of fresh cleaning chemicals. Damn it all! I doubled back, dashing to the computer terminal. It was turned off, a single sticky note with a smiley face placed on the screen.

What is going on? I took the note and turned it around. It had the number 100 on the back.

“Congrats,” a male voice said nearby.

Briskly I looked up. “Kyle?” I hadn't heard him walk in. “Kyle, where's Jeff?”

He just smiled at me the way a parent smiles when their child wakes up from a nightmare. Or maybe there was something more to it? All this time, I had regarded Kyle as a lovable loser. His annoying behaviour and crude attempts at hitting on me had blinded me to the obvious. Of all the people I'd asked for help, he was the one who had actually guided me to the solution, not Claire, not FlickerFlacker, not Jeff. Kyle had told me how to find the Sylvan Forest Clue, and what to do to reach the gateway. He had been there all along, since the beginning of the quest.

“Well done, Sarah,” he said, leaning closer. “Welcome to the game.”