CHAPTER 12

“If only the last dozen years were just a dream my younger self was having, how wonderful that would be.”

- Inio Asano -

I saw Sarai and lost my breath for now a second time. Yeah, she's real, deal with it. Doing my best and failing to ignore my schoolboy crush, I attempted rational conversation.

“Hey, you”, I said, with all the cleverness I could muster.

That went over about as well as anyone could expect, and her response highlighted how absurd my original attempt was:

“I think this is the last time I'll be able to to talk to you”, she said.

Considering that's not something anyone would ever say lightly, it ran through my head a number of times before I deemed a reasonable response was in order.

And trust me, I ran this back in my head about a bajillion times.

“I think I might be in love with you” I said, with almost certainty.

“All signs point to it anyway”, as I immediately backtracked, as I always do, and always kick myself for it.

“Well, anyway” she said, which is the response you always want to hear to that.

Confession well received.

“Damenocles, and Valanastia” she continued, as if I casually knew what she would be talking about.

“TantaMount bosses, sure”, I responded, wondering where this conversation I wasn't planning on having was heading.

“They're killing people. And I think they might have just killed me”.

And blinked out of existence.

How exactly does one take that surrounded by a room full of classmates and teacher wondering what in the hell actually just happened?

Great question.

“Hah, excellent practical joke”, I said to the room and no one in particular, while motioning to Dono that it was time to bounce, “The uh - restroom population is looking a bit sparse at the moment”.

And dashed out, back to Renna's. Not the smoothest of exits but we can't always be KY.

What I wanted was to do was to get back into the game ASAP and figure out what exactly was going on. Logged on, Clipse greeted me with her standard Zidane headbutt, and I hopped into the verse trying and consequently failing to find Sarai.

She just wasn't there.

Not wasn't there as in probably ignoring me since I'm often an idiot, wasn't there as in I legit don't think she's actually around any more. That's scary to think about in the virtual world, and even scarier in real life. Wait, which is scarier? Another question for another time, I suppose.

I didn't even really know her and I can't get her out of of my head. Does that say more about me or her? Why am I even asking this? I'll say that I'll figure it out tomorrow, which basically means that I won't, and so we move on then.

The posse headed back to the saloon in Lovelost to regroup, since because of Dono we somehow now drank there for free. Logic escapes even the most rational minds on that one.

I sat there trying to wrap my head around the current situation, which was SNAFU at best. Here's where we're at:

1. Oz says that video game characters are killing people irl

2. Sarai also says that video game characters are killing people irl

3. Sarai might be dead now

4. Am I even alive?

I'll leave that last one as a cliffhanger since dear reader can theoretically confirm my existence. But the first three especially have some terrifying consequences.

What do Damenocles and Valanastia want? Oz had ideas about how to stop them but those are great in theory, in practice who the hell knows.

Who or what is Sarai? I had to check myself while phrasing the question since I realized I wasn't even 100% sure that I knew myself.

That was, of course, until she slid into the seat next to me, beer in hand, acting as though nothing had happened, business as ush-.

“Heard that you love me”, she said intensely, with an expression that even after the fact I could not tell you was serious or not; “hope you like dead chicks”.