CHAPTER 3

“every story written is

marks upon a page

The same marks,

repeated, only

differently arranged”

- Max Barry -

Dono, sipping his beer at 3 o'clock, looking at me like I owed him somethin'.

“Everyone has almost died at some point in their life”, I said, like that was universally acceptable.

The rest of the room met this with radio silence which, to be fair, was probably the right response, considering the fact that some of us were still picking brains off our denim.

Felix looked the most scared out of the group, for completely understandable reasons.

“I don't think I grok what just happened”.

Fair enough big guy, no one does.

I sat back and looked over the last 24 hours of my life, what had happened and what had changed. I reviewed it again and again, and though I might sound crazy, the one thing that seemed to tie it all together was Sarai and her wild ninja chick nonsense.

Crazy, right? Let me give a wee bit of backstory, because it gets all the better.

I'm obsessed with this online game called TantaMount. It used to be a big deal as an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online you know the rest) for awhile but gradually kind of faded into obscurity. It was massively popular when it came out but no matter what upgrades they pushed, or gear levels they created, there were two bosses that no one could ever beat. Everyone assumed that would change eventually, but it didn't, and so it faded into obscurity.

Enter: Me.

I had a lot going on at the time so it became my home away from home. No foster parents, no nagging teachers, no one to tell us no, or where to go. Wait, that's Aladdin.

It was one of those obsessions that you can never really explain to someone properly, and if you claim to not know what I'm talking about I just flat out don't believe you. Go back to trimming your bonsai, sensei.

Snap back to reality. So what, I liked 8 Mile.

“Felix, we're gonna figure this out”, I managed with a straight face and all the confidence I could muster, despite feeling incredibly uncertain.

This somehow seemed to placate the quiet giant, which surprised even me, but I take small wins wherever I can get them.

“Anyone like to explain to me what the guy that just exploded in front of me has to do with anything?” Dono asked, nonchalantly. Nothing ever seems to faze him.

Renna looked quiet and withdrawn, and opened her mouth to speak for a second when Felix rumbled over and gave her a big bear hug. She started sobbing almost immediately.

Not much fazes her either so it was a pretty clear indication of how surreal the whole situation was. Felix the Bear to the rescue, at least temporarily.

I tried to gather my thoughts before speaking since the last thing I wanted to do was create even more panic. But Renna shrugged off Sir Bear and withdrew a bit into herself, quietly muttering:

“I've never seen anyone die before”.

I briefly contemplated the depth of that statement, realizing that even though I had, a life blinking out in front of you is something that will stay with you forever, regardless of whether you knew them or not. We're always a second away from returning to dust.

But let's focus on living.

“There's a glitch in the matrix” I said, immediately regretting the cringe factor but honestly not knowing a better way to explain it.

The collective groans said enough in response, but I was determined to push forward.

“Renna, how many comps do you have floating around?”

Her eyes said Why but the response was “Three, parents' have an office desktop and a laptop, and my laptop.”

I took a deep breath and scanned the room to draw eye contact, since I knew this would sound insane but I had a feeling that somehow, it was the only thing that made sense.

“I need you guys to make TantaMount accounts, and we need to find Sarai there”.

I've never seen the word dumbfounded so literally encapsulated within three faces before, and they stared at me for some time before I realized some kind of explanation was probably needed.

“Something is going on, and she's in the middle of it, and somehow, that's spilling over to us”.

Dono chimed in helpfully as usual: “Cool, but I ain't playin' no cleric”.

Thanks bud.

So, thusly, Sabriel (Class: Warrior, irl handle Renna), Blank (Class: Rogue, irl handle Dono), and Ender (Class: Priest, irl handle Felix), were born, and three recently traumatized idiots joined the virtual world that I'd come to know and love.

But a darkness was brewing and had been for some time, its entrails spilling over into our “normal” existence, and its power growing by day by day.

We were tired, scared, and uncertain, but what was coming for us, and what it would do to us down the road?

At that point, we had no idea.