A few moments elapsed. The face of the queen dissolved into an inky mess. The same transpired with my body too and I could no longer feel it.

Colours swirled about, mixing randomly. A question boggled me: If my eyes too were gone, then how was I watching everything?

I realized I was no longer Vicky. Rather I was consciousness in its purest form. No longer did I care about what had happened, what was happening and what was going to happen next. I would just observe it all, being nothing but a non-participating onlooker.

The vibrant colours played with each other for a while. I kept on watching. Eventually some of the colours decided not to move and took permanent positions. Other colours followed suit and acquired the shapes of objects. A circular disc of orange burnt at a certain point.

It dawned on me that I was gazing at the sun, lying on my back. The sky was lacking clouds today. I heard some giggles.

A boy came into my view. An eight year old kid. He had an odd face. Like that of a human, but with an odd coloration. The face of a dead child, except he was very much alive.

“Father, you fell asleep!” the boy said.

Father? The body was calling me ‘father’?

I sat up with a start. I had a flashback. The time bomb exploding, me falling atop the zombie queen, the mixing of everything…

A notification.

As a result of the explosion of the time bomb, the reality of Dharti has altered. The core rules still remain the same, so does your affinity. However, other things have changed significantly. You are recommended to take a look at your stats.

Also, do know that you are the only non-player who remembers the time before the explosion of the bomb. The players retain their memory since their brains are in the real world. Be careful not to talk about the past with anyone.

I examined my stats.

General Information(Under influence of Critical Event):

Name: Vicky

Affinity/Inclination: Neutral One

Level: 6

2(Health/Strength): 5731/6000

Stamina:589/600

Mana: 561/600

Spells/Abilities: nil

My heart fell into a manhole. Even the symbol for Luck was missing.

This was the same as having no powers. Months of toil lost in an instant. How was I going to make ‘Crucial Achievements’ when I lacked even my basic abilities?

I exhaled, feeling defeated. I fought to look at my situation positively. At least I had retained my neutrality, so nobody would be attacking me for no reason. So yay?

Just then a stick hit my head.

It was the boy again.

“Father, look, Tulip is climbing that tree! He’ll fall!”

He was pointing excitedly at a tree a few meters away. Another boy, perhaps a couple of years junior to him, was trying to climb a small tree. He wasn’t faring very well. Every time he ascended a foot he would slide down by a couple.

I absorbed my surroundings more clearly. I was at the bank of a river, a wind ruffling my hair. Judging from the distance between the banks I reckoned this was the big river, not one of its tributaries.

Another twig whacked my face.

“Ouch!”

“Father! You don’t love me! What’s happened to you?”

The older boy sat down and began to cry. The smaller kid, Tulip, meanwhile continued his relentless attempts of conquering the shrub. But then he placed his hand on some insect, perhaps a grasshopper, and he was scared out of his wits. As I stood up, Tulip jumped down and fled to me and buried his face in my hip out of fear for the small insect.

“There is something there, father,” Tulip said, looking up at me. His face too was odd like the older boy. I got his stats.

General Information:

Name: Tulip

Affinity/Inclination: Neutral

Level:1

Health/Strength:89/100

Stamina:80/100

Point number one: There were two half-human, half-zombie boys that were calling me ‘father’. Point number two: Hadn’t I fallen on the queen at the time of the explosion?

As the realization hit me, I shuddered with horror.

I proceeded to do the most irrational thing. The shock that I had fathered kids with a zombie woman was too much for me.

I shoved Tulip aside, so that he fell on the ground and immediately burst into tears, and I broke into a run for the river. I dived into the water and threw furious strokes.

I wanted to swim away. Away from everyone and everything. I swam as fast as I could, trying to outpace the river current. The water was cold, but I hardly paid any heed.

Screams ruptured the air.

The kids. They had leapt into the river after me. Did they even know swimming? They were crying for help.

But I refused the touch of sympathy.

Why should I bother? The boys weren’t my responsibility. I hadn’t put them into their mother’s belly. An image of me sleeping with the zombie queen flashed in my mind and I retched.

More cries.

My heart drummed, and I was well aware physical exertion was only partly the cause behind that.

Come on Vicky. Those are children. Yes, computer generated ones. But they are still kids! Show some humanity.

More cries.

I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t let them perish. I couldn’t be so callous.

I took a 180 degree turn in the river, and threw myself in a vigorous front crawl. The boys were fighting to be at the water surface, making random grasping and flipping motions.

The older child sank below the river and didn’t emerge again. Shit.

I put double the energy into my strokes. In a minute I reached Tulip, who had somehow managed to remain afloat. I pulled him to the edge of the river. He was completely drenched, not just with water but tears too. Looking at him I was ashamed of myself.

“Stay here,” I instructed him in a strict tone.

“But Kanim—”

“I’ll get him,” I promised, assuming that Kanim was the name of the older boy.

As I descended underwater I could barely see anything. A shape that I thought was the boy turned out to be a large stone resting on the river bed. My lungs were pleading for air.

A minute went by. I could not hold my breath anymore. I ascended to the surface, took a big gulp of air and dived down again. Despair enveloped me. As the seconds passed, the prospects of rescuing Kanim were dimming.

A log of wood stuck between some rocks on the river bottom, appeared more human-like than what I had previously thought.

It was Kanim.

Fighting against the current to reach him, I was able to get a hold on his clothes. The boy was heavy. He had obviously swallowed a lot of water, and was unconscious. As I made my way to the surface, I could see stars in my vision. I had been deprived of sweet life giving air for too long and a dizziness was taking a hold on my brain. Nevermore had the idea of quitting and breathing in water seemed so attractive. It would be so easy. I would have nothing to worry about ever again.