It was many hours later. Peter lay in bed again trying to get back to sleep but it was proving to be an elusive stranger. To be fair, he knew that he had slept most of the day away and though the fresh dose of painkillers had dulled the ache in his arm somewhat the injury was still managing to make itself known. Peter sighed and closed his eyes against the spinning room. He told himself he could figure it out in the game.

The transition from reality to VR was swift, the light brightening until it was a ball of flame lancing into his squinting eyes. Peter found himself sitting on the ground, slumped against a wall in a dirty alley. He clambered to his feet and staggered to the street.

A new sight greeted Peter, just when he thought he had seen everything this game had to offer. A shining cart stood proudly in the centre of the square, a tall chimney wafting smoke into the air. It somewhat resembled a school bus but one made from steel, brass and wood. Emblazoned in foot tall letters on the side was the name “Capital Coaches”. A rotund man stood by the open door with his stomach poking out from the cloak draped from his shoulders. It too had “Capital Coaches” on it, this time in gold looking cloth.

One gold, each way! Capital Coaches! Cheap, comfortable, and reliable!” Bellowed the man. “For all your transport needs, ride Capital Coaches!”

Peter winced at the volume, and his stomach turned a bit. The world wobbled as the external stimulus threatened to eject him from the game. Dinner had been much bigger than what had been originally intended, but his dad had been oh so right, it WAS a great steakhouse. Peter had been introduced to the wonders of Diane sauce.

A whole gold piece for a ride to the capital seems a bit steep to me, Peter thought, so he turned in the opposite direction and walked away. On the other hand, I’ve only been playing for a couple of days and I’m really not sure about the exact value of the currency. Everything I want to buy is well outside my price range and I’m totally not being paid as much as I’d expect for the work and the dying though. I wonder if this is Dad feels every day? Maybe not the dying part, but.

Determined to put some distance between himself and his problems, Peter made his way back out into the fields around the town. In fact, the further he went from everyone else, the better he began to feel. He pulled DB out of his inventory and lifted him into his hood. A glance into the inventory space interface while it was open left him in no doubt that DB was eating their rations, there was nothing left in there that was remotely edible. There were even tooth marks in the stone knife.

Peter tilted his head back to talk into the edge of the hood. “Hungry are we? You couldn’t have left any for me, could you?” A defiant snuffling was all the answer he received. “Fine, well, if you’re going to eat every damn thing I pick up then I’d best get to picking up some more. You’re helping though.”

Peter spied some berry bushes not far off and hopped the low wall into the next field as he pulled his sickle out of his inventory. The pop it made when closed brought a tear to his eye and made the world wobble again. He really needed to get some holsters made, this inventory nonsense was for the birds. He got down on one knee and set DB on the ground beside him with instructions to watch out for enemies. A few minutes work netted a decent handful of small red berries. Peter began to wonder if these berries had any secondary effects as he poured them into his inventory. He focussed on the pile briefly and was rewarded with a flash of information. Wolfberry. Nutritious berry that provides satiety for a long time. May have additional effects if processed or combined with other ingredients. Peter munched on one and offered another to DB. The taste was similar to the goji berry jam that had been drizzled on his ice cream at dinner. Delicious.

That had been one awkward meal, for certain. He and his father had walked mostly in silence a few short blocks to the restaurant, despite his dad’s attempts to engage him in conversation until he had eventually stopped trying at all and made a phone call instead.

Peter just hadn’t known what to say. His parents had essentially accused him of trying to top himself. The hard part had been realising how easily everything that had occurred could be interpreted as exactly that. His parents were fighting and he was pretty sure most of it was his fault, whatever they said. The school bully had chosen him as their favorite punching bag. He had spent the last week in a game discovering every possible way there was to die, however inadvertently or unwillingly. When you follow the narrative, if it had been a character in one of the books he used to read, he was surprised they hadn’t put him in a padded room with a wonderful new jacket. Still, his dad had said he trusted him and was trying to reach out. And Peter had essentially stonewalled him. Not a good way to build trust there.

Peter moved to the next bush and began stripping it too as he worked through his feelings about dinner. It wasn’t just the crazy thought that he might end himself. His whole family was going through hell. There had been a stilted conversation about what his mum and dad were arguing about. He dad was super cagey about it, looking around the room rather than address him directly. A mumbled sorta-explanation about misunderstandings and anger issues. The only time his dad had really smiled was when he had spotted his friend from work. The guy had come over from where he had been sitting at the bar to have a quick drink with his dad and say hi to Peter. Though the well dressed man had been kind enough to buy Peter a “fire engine”, a raspberry and lemonade drink that tasted a bit like cough medicine, he made Peter feel a bit weird. The adults talked in jargon about work stuff with their heads close together for a bit, then the man left with a “see you tomorrow Iain” and a smile.

With the second bush left naked and DB given two more Wolfberries, Peter sat on the wall and just enjoyed the peace. There were various animals wandering the nearby fields and a few figures bumbling about either fighting or avoiding them, but none near enough to bother him. These were the moments that Peter treasured in this game.

Then it all came crashing down again. The fields melted away and Peter’s room replaced it. His stomach seemed to be rebelling against the virtual food, because it was doing its level best to escape. He dashed into the bathroom, clenching as hard as he could until he could get to the toilet. Slamming the lid up he bent over and released the pressure in a torrent of meaty, dairy, sweet, and yuck. Especially the yuck. Even after there was nothing left he stayed locked in the same position, his whole body rigid as cramps wracked his midriff. Finally they released and he slumped against the porcelain.

Though it was bare moments later when his mother rounded the doorway with her night robe flapping like a cape, Peter was barely awake. She gathered him up and helped him disrobe and ran him a warm shower. Only once he was sitting in the shower recess with the water washing away the mess did she flush the toilet and mop up the overspray.

“Mum,” Peter croaked, “I don’t feel so good.”

His mother sniffed, then again, harder. “I know, and your father and I will be having words about this when he gets home.” His mother kept wiping down the bathroom with disinfectant cloths.

Peter’s forehead crumpled into a frown. “He’s not here?”

Dropping the cloths into the toilet and flushing them, Peter’s mum shook her head. “I have no idea where he is right now. He said he needed to go for a walk.”

First confusion, then another round of dry heaving tore through him. Peter keeled over and let his drool and whatever was coming up his throat mingle with the stream of water from overhead before washing down the drain. Soon tears joined them, though they were invisible in the shower.

“Come on honey, sit up. You’ll just make yourself sicker lying down like that.” Peter’s mother helped him back up. “I’m going to get you a cup of warm milk. That’ll soothe your throat. You wait here.”

“Like I have a choice,” Peter muttered as his mum disappeared into the kitchen. Where the hell was Dad? Why would he go for a walk at this time of night? Peter just wanted to go back to sitting on that wall, eating Wolfberries with DB.

DB! He hoped his little buddy was ok. The little guy had been running around on the ground when Peter was forcibly ejected from the game. Peter knew he hadn’t stashed the second pile of berries, they’d been on the wall beside him at the time, so at least the voracious rodent wouldn’t be left hungry. Still, he absolutely had to get back into the game as soon as possible, “possible” being the operative word there.

Peter’s mum came in and turned off the water and assisted him to his feet with an “Upsie doodles.” Peter grimaced at the baby talk but didn’t protest. He let himself be guided into the kitchen where a seat was already pulled out and a mug of milk sat wafting faint streamers of steam into the air. He sat gingerly and picked up the mug, blowing gently to cool it before taking a sip. The drink soothed the fire in his throat as promised.

“Thanks, Mum,” he whispered. “I feel better already.”

His mother sat down on the opposite side of the table with a mug of her own. Peter could see the dark bags under her eyes. Her eyes were as red as his felt. “Shush, you just drink up. It’ll settle your stomach too.” She took a sip from her own mug and grimaced. “That needed to brew longer, that’s for sure.”

Peter nodded and sipped his drink in silence. A twinge from his arm reminded him of the damage done earlier. The painkillers were wearing off, and the bandage was soaked through. Seeing where he was looking, his mother put her drink down and fetched new dressings and some drugs.

Two capsules were placed in front of him. “Take these and we’ll change that,” she pointed to his bandage, “once they kick in.”

Peter swallowed them with a mouthful of warm milk and soon was feeling light headed again. His mother carefully changed the dressings, being very careful not to reopen the wound. It had already leaked a bit from the ordeal and the skin had gone pale and wrinkly from sitting in wet bandages. Peter poked it curiously.

His mother swatted his hand away. “Stop that, you’ll start bleeding again.” Finishing securing the bandage, she handed him his mug. “Finish up and off to bed with you.”

Peter took her advice, quickly downing the last of his drink he ambled back into his room. He paused at the door and looked down the hall to where his mum sat at the table still, staring off into the distance, her mug completely disregarded. Shrugging, he slipped into bed. Whatever problems may exist they were lost in the cotton wool that had taken up residence in Peter’s head. Moments later he was asleep.