“Chosen One,” Rosa called out from behind me, her golden locks tumbling down her perfect face like a waterfall, her head slightly tilted to the side in a sort of childish innocence. A perfect smile on that perfect face, the bell like quality to her voice, everything about her was perfect, yet somehow, she still gave me an unsettling feeling whenever I looked at her.

“Oh, Rosa,” I said awkwardly, waving away the map. “Fancy seeing you here.”

What was I saying, of course she was here. The Yggdrasil housed the Faerie Palace too. Where else would you find the Faeries’ Princess if not in the palace? This isn’t a “your princess is in another castle” situation, why am I so surprised?

She nodded in the sort of regal way that I once saw the Queen of England do on television, and folded her hands in front of her dress.

“Likewise. I’d have thought that capable Chosen Ones such as you would have completed the tutorial quests a long time ago,” she raised her eyebrow. “I’ve heard of foolish Faeries wasting their time sinking in denial, and worried for your wellbeing, but when I thought of how capable the Chosen Ones were, I knew immediately that I must have been mistaken.”

Was I getting sassed? By Rosa? ROSA?

“Ha, no, of course not,” I said, like a liar. “I was a little busy during that time, but now I’m ready to get back on track.”

“Is that so,” Rosa’s gaze was sharp as she stared at me, her gray speckled eyes seeming to bore holes straight through me. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t even a little bit spooked. “I’m quite glad. It would be terribly concerning if one of our strongest Champions weren’t even trying to return to his full strength.”

Maybe it was a side effect of the whole coming to another world thing, but despite these words being the sort of thing I would wholeheartedly expect game Rosa to say, coming out of this Rosa’s mouth, they sounded… off. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Frankly put, she didn’t sound concerned at all. Disdainful maybe, but most definitely not concerned.

I don’t know about the other Chosen Ones, but I definitely got off on the wrong foot by throwing a fit the moment I got here.

“Ha. Ha ha. Thank you, I’m touched,” I slowly inched backwards towards the stairway leading down the tree. “But if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of returning to full strength to do.” I pointed down the tree. “You know, in the Hallowed Moors.”

“Yes, of course,” she tilted her head, her eyelids slowly drawing closed, the glaring lasers in her eyes shutting off and giving me a bit of breather space. “I will leave you to that, but only after you answer a simple question of mine. You see, I’ve been observing you for a little while, and some of your actions have piqued my interest.”

My throwing a fit? Was that very interesting?

“You seem to get along very well with the small portion of my subjects that you’ve already met, a quality most Chosen Ones don’t seem to care very much about,” she raised a hand to gesture vaguely in the air. “You see, as Chosen Ones, you lot are inclined to ignore us NPCs, despite how hard I worked to make sure that even the lowliest of townsfolk had something interesting to share. Yet you, you who wanted to dismiss all of this as a mere dream, managed to get along so well with one of the families. I’m glad the Chessmaster I hid amongst them was finally able to have so much fun in such a long time.”

Her eyes opened again, and she stared up at the sky.

“And so it made me wonder, whether you would be different from the rest of the…filth,” she spat out bitterly, so uncharacteristically so that it made me jump a little. “Whether you would grow to become one of them, wallowing in your own tragedy. Labelling us like dolls on a shelf, breaking whichever one doesn’t fit your fancy. Denying the hell we went through in order to facilitate the perfect world for our Creator.” her voice softened. “Or are you like her, and see us for who we really are?”

Who? What? I’m very confused.

“You… You lost me there.”

She smiled.

“Bad_Luck. How badly do you want to kill The Decay?”

****

Johan woke up feeling uneasy. It wasn’t any sort of ordinary uneasiness, that he’d feel before having a meeting with his boss, or when trying to call his sister. It was a different sort of uneasiness, a deep, squirming feeling inside his gut that writhed about like a den of snakes, twisting and turning in a sort of nasty feeling that kept him from falling back to sleep. It gnawed away at him, telling him that something was wrong.

He sat up with a jolt and scrambled for his phone. Was he late for work?

The screen lit up with a soft glow in the dim room. 6:15 am, about an hour before he had to officially get up for work.

Phew. Not late. At least that was good.

But if it wasn’t being late for work, then what on earth was he feeling uneasy about?

Unable to fall back asleep, he begrudgingly rolled out of bed and into his favourite bunny slippers, shuffling to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Yes, coffee. That would settle it. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, but at least coffee would settle the rumbling hollowness in his gut.

He shuffled quietly past his flatmate, Xing’s room, light seeping out through the crack under the door and pooling into the dark corridor. Xing was up early, he mused to himself as he dumped instant coffee powder into a mug. Or perhaps he hadn’t slept yet. Now that would be worrying. Xing had a bad habit of losing track of time while playing video games. Had been all the way back when he started crashing at Johan’s place in their university days despite his ordinarily well kept nature.

He hummed as he stirred in some hot water. Ah, the good old days of college debt and deadline fighting. Xing might not have been amazing at everything as stereotypical Asians might be, but he was a good deal better at organizing schedules than Johan was. That was part of the reason why Johan had let him claim half of his apartment when Xing’s parents essentially kicked him out, and continued to let him stay even long after they’d both graduated and started working as lackeys at overtime jobs.

That, and because he got used to only having to pay the landlord half the rent.

He glanced worriedly at the light under the door as he passed by again on his way back to his room, a steaming mug of coffee nestled firmly in his hand. He hadn’t seen Xing come out of his room since the night before, but had assumed it was because it was a Sunday. In fact, now that he came to think about it, that light had been on every time he passed by Xing’s room. What if Xing had finally lost his common sense and started playing non stop like one of those teenage game addicts? He scowled. If he had actually pulled two all nighters, it might be best if Johan reminded him to sleep before he ended up with a corpse on his hands. Yes, it would probably be a good idea to do that.

He knocked on the door twice before pushing the door in.

As expected, the computer was on, the glowing monitor showing the familiar title screen of Briarwood Rebirth, the game that Xing liked so much. Stacks of paper were piled up in the corner of the room, the swivel chair in the centre lying on its back like a beached whale, the wheels at its base spinning round and round slowly. The bed lay undisturbed, the mattress flat and without so much as a dent in it, as if no one had slept in it since the last time they were made. There was no sign of his flatmate.

He had seen Xing go into his room Saturday night. Xing had seemingly stayed in the room for a day without coming out. The light of the monitor had been on for a day and two nights. The chain lock over the front door was still in place. Xing had gone into his room. Xing hadn’t come out of his room.

Xing was gone.

Johan dropped his mug.