Trapped in a Game Pt. 04

"Fuck off," I responded in annoyance, but she was smiling mischievously.

"Oh come on, I'm just teasing you... although I am curious. Our 'raven-haired' sorcereress... what was it- Kelly, you called her? Is she really your sister?" she asked.

I kept my gaze fixed on the wall beside us, as if I were studying it intently, but I could feel a tightness in my stomach as my nerves began to kick in.

"Hmnn. So she is, huh..." she noted, before continuing; "I'm not judging you or anything, but that's certainly... interesting. Although- I can't say I really blame you. None of this is real anyway. We're all just... acting out our fantasies in one way or another."

As we went about the rest of our pre-rest activities and got into our tent for the night, the words kept resounding in my head.

Acting out our fantasies?

My mind went back to Kelly's observation when we'd followed Dana on her midnight rendezvous.

"One of them is in love," had been my observation back then, but Kelly thought they both were.

She'd mentioned that Dana's relationship with Trevor was pretty problematic; he had a family, and she was pretty young herself.

Come to think of it, she'd probably never met him in real life, right?

I mean he was much older and married, and sure, they'd been playing games together for some time, but real life meetups were hardly a thing for gamers.

At least it was in my time.

You're not that old, Josh, I thought to myself, heaving a long sigh as I settled into my bed roll.

"Well you're looking extra gloomy," Dana muttered, and I glanced over at her with a disapproving shake of the head.

"Being trapped in depths of oblivion not gloom inducing enough for you?" I asked, and she pondered it a bit, before giving a shrug:

"We've kind of been trapped in Hell since day one. Different scenery, sure, but same thing more or less."

As she settled in to her own sleeping mat, she winced a little, and I remembered that she'd been wounded when the creature had attacked.

"Didn't you heal that?" I asked, and she rolled her eyes as she shifted onto her side.

"Yeah, but it still hurts. This game is bonkers," she muttered with a sigh.

I thought back to the soreness I'd felt the next day whenever I'd taken any serious damage, and how real it made our game bodies feel.

Was it a glitch, or was it an intended part of the game's design?

"I think I have something that might help," I replied, retrieving my herbalism kit from my inventory and taking out one of the healing salves that were stored inside.

When I'd applied this to Serra's wounds, they'd significantly reduced the pain and discomfort she felt despite not restoring her hit points by a whole lot.

As I approached, Dana glanced at me warily, studying the salve in my hand with reluctance.

"What is it?" she asked, as I handed it over.

"An herbal concoction. Ginseng, valerian roots, and garlic, basically," I added, and she rolled her eyes again.

"And this helps with pain?" she asked dubiously, and I shrugged.

"It usually does. I use it as an alternative to healing spells though, so I'm not sure if it'll work since you're already healed."

As she studied the salve hesitantly, she straightened her back once more with a wince, before nodding.

"Fine fine, but I'm kicking your ass if some weird shit happens to me," she warned, as she suddenly pulled her priest's robe over her head, removing it and dismissing it to her inventory.

"Fucking hell!" I exclaimed, as a pair of large, well-shaped breasts suddenly sprung free before me, and I quickly turned away, covering my eyes.

Why aren't you wearing a bra?! I thought, as my face quickly began to turn beet red.

"What?" she asked innocently, as if undressing like that was only natural. "This isn't my real body, so why should I care?" she continued.

I let out an exasperated sigh as I kept my eyes averted, before holding out my hand with the salve in her direction:

"Here. Just apply it to the wounded area-"

"I want you to do it," she responded curtly.

"What? No!" I replied, but as I spun back instinctually in protest, I once again came face to face with her seminude form, and my face began to redden further in spite of myself.

Dana was smiling at me teasingly, her hands folded under her bosom and lifting them up slightly to accentuate the roundness and shapeliness of the fleshy globes.

"I- uh, can't do that," I muttered bashfully, rubbing my head as I tried to keep my eyes averted.

"Ehh? And why not?" she asked in a playful, innocent tone.

"I just can't."

"Oh come on~. I'm your healer. It's your duty to take to protect me, right? To take care of me? So come on. Take care of me~," she continued in a suggestive singsong tone.

She leaned back a little, arching her back to push her breasts invitingly up on her chest, before nodding towards the place where the creature had torn across her torso, and I sighed as I approached her, before gingerly stooping to her side on the floor.

"Good boy!" she announced smugly, and I grumbled a little as I took a little dab of the ointment from my herbal kit, then carefully applied it to where the wound had been, marked by a faint little scar that ran from the left side of her stomach almost to the middle point between the swell of her breasts.

She inhaled deeply as the cool ointment made contact, then cooed a little as I gently rubbed it into her milky white, flawlessly soft skin.

I gulped, trying my best to focus only on the required task, but the moaning sounds that were coming steadily from her lips and the way her chest heaved gently as I worked, made for some pretty solid distractions.

"Good?" I asked, and she bit her lip thoughtfully as she made a show of inspecting my work.

"I dunno, I think you missed a spot," she replied, and I as I began to inspect the scarred area, she reached for my hand and guided it to the place right beneath her right breast and I gulped, as she pushed my hand further up, slowly and sensually, towards the soft fleshy mound that stood ever so enticingly upon her chest.

"See? They don't feel like real breasts, do they?" she asked, and I sighed as she squeezed my hand into the soft flesh.

She was right.

I knew she was.

When Kelly was in my arms all those nights, I longed for the real feeling of her warmth instead of this computer simulated version.

It wasn't that they felt fake or plastic, mind you.

In fact it was quite the opposite.

Every feeling was too perfect; there was no flaw, no imperfections, and while in theory perfect sounded like everything you could want, in practice it instead left you with an unsettling feeling of being disjointed from reality that you couldn't quite shake.

"You're right. They don't feel like real breasts... but what difference does that make?"

"Huh?"

"Whether they're fake or not they're still breasts that belong to you. You still feel something when they're being touched, don't you?

"Yeah, but only because a program is telling my brain to feel something. It's just a trick; like everything else in this world. Nothing here is real, Josh. You're not really here, and these bodies are just illusions," she spoke almost in a whisper, and leaned in, closing the space between us as she continued, "we're trapped in a pretty shitty situation, but maybe it doesn't have to be all that bad. It's just the two of us and these flawless bodies that aren't real; we could put them to good use."

I bit my lip, and looked away as she continued to study me expectantly.

"So what about your friend from earlier? Did that mean nothing?"

"That was just a fantasy Josh... like Kelly. Isn't she your fantasy? When you wake up, all of the time you spent with her in here will just become a distant memory... just like this. So why don't we make some really nice memories?"

She slipped a hand around my neck and closed in on my lips, but as our lips were about to meet, I withdrew from her, and she gave out a tired, frustrated sigh.

"You think you can't have real experiences in this world, just because it's fake? You're wrong. We still feel fear, anger, happiness, love; and even lust. So what if this world is fake? Does the nature of this reality define its meaning completely? Our lives are on the line, and that simple truth dictates everything right now. You might be living out your fantasies or whatever, but Kelly means everything to me. She always did."

"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked, a disbelieving airy laugh coming from her before she continued, "I don't get it. I saw the way you were with her... your sister. Is that really the way you two were before you came in here?"

"We were never physically intimate-"

"See?" she cut me off incredulously, "this is a just fantasy and you know it!"

I sighed, moving away from Dana as I slumped onto the ground, putting my hands on my knees in front of me.

"We weren't... but that doesn't mean that we were just ordinary siblings anyway."

She continued to study me, and I sighed before continuing:

"When Kelly was fourteen, she was friends with this bratty little kid whose parents were just too rich for their own good. So her friend's parents decide to throw this grand party to celebrate their kid graduating from middle school; formal attire, live music, rented out a ballroom; the whole works. Even picked out a selection of evening gowns at this crazy expensive store. So we get there, and Kelly sets her eyes on this pretty pink dress. The clerk insists she tries it on even though Dad has already said it's 'way too expensive for a teenage party' and everyone there is just floored. She looked amazing. Like a princess, or an angel or something. So she gives mom and dad her best pouty 'please please can I?' look, but they just aren't having it. The poor thing just couldn't hide her disappointment. She cried softly on the way home, then locked herself in her room for the weekend. She looked so broken, and I couldn't stand it, so I spoke to Dad and he just laughed and gave me one of those 'you can't always have what you want' speeches, and said that she only thinks it's the end of the world because she's young, and she'd get over it. Of course I knew logically that he was right, but something in my brain just refuses to accept conventional logic when Kelly cries. So I got a part-time job at this warehouse, only to realize I was nowhere near to making up the ridiculous cost of that dress. So I started skipping a few days of school each week, and working overtime later at night. I figured I was barely getting by at school anyway so what hell? I mean half my teachers didn't even know that I existed. So graduation day comes and I leave the dress on her bed when she comes home from school, and she goes nuts. She won't even take it off! Hell, mom has to remind her that she can't wear it for the week it'll take from her school graduation to the party. Dad gives me a hell of a lecture, but Kelly is smiling so what do I care? She thanks me every day, and I begin to wonder why her happiness makes me so happy. I have a euphoric week, until..."

"The party?" Dana asked, and I nodded as I paused to take a breath.

"Yeah. The party. She gets dressed up. Mom takes her to get her hair done, then puts on waay more makeup on her than should ever be on a fourteen year old... and she looks- gorgeous. Beautiful. Stunning. Simply... unlike anything I'd ever seen. Mom and Dad are gushing over her and I just can't take my eyes off of her. Everything goes by in a blur, until she's ready to leave and she comes up to me, and kisses me on the cheek and says, 'You haven't said anything to me all night. How do I look?' holding her skirt out and giving me a half-curtsy display. 'Prettier than any fourteen year old that ever existed,' I reply, and she blushes before saying something about probably not even being the prettiest girl at the party. But just like that she's out the door, and as I go to my room I shut the door and think to myself 'she's going to make some unsuspecting guy unbelievably happy one day, but as I turn on the light I suddenly see myself in the mirror, and there's tears streaming down my face. Why? I thought, why am I crying? She's happy, isn't she? Aren't you? Of course I was, I couldn't be sad when Kelly was happy. It was physically impossible. But the thought suddenly occurred to me that one day I would have to give her up... I wouldn't be the most special person in her eyes anymore... surely that day comes for every brother, except I lie in bed and the thought just keeps coming into my head; that I always want to be that special person to her... the only one that she looks at with that special smile. I know it's wrong, and I hate myself for even thinking it, but it doesn't stop me from feeling like that anyway."

Dana studied me thoughtfully, before sheepishly withdrawing her robes and putting them on again.

An eternity of silence seemed to stretch before us before she finally spoke:

"I really did love him."

She spoke the words in a half-mumbled whisper, tears welling in her eyes and threatening to fall.

"But he just used me, Josh. He lured me out there just to get his hands on that invite... to get himself out of this game."

"W-wait, what? What do you mean by that?"

She wiped at her eyes, a bitter smile crossing her face.

"I keep forgetting, you know nothing," she muttered with a sigh, before continuing, "the invites... there are six on each server, and if you collect them all, you can safely log out of the game. It's a ticket out of this hell."

"What about the court beyond the realms... was that just meaningless rhetoric?"

She shook her head.

"The info was leaked this morning, and its already gone down on the EU Eastern server. When the invites are gathered, the players are transported to another realm where a battle royale between the players begins. You fight, or you all die; and one gets out of the game for good. But if you have all six... you're automatically free."

I pondered the info.

"So Trevor-?"

"He bought the five passes on our server this morning... all he needed was the sixth. The one we came here to get."

"You knew his plan?"

"To get the invite? Yeah. To betray everyone... he left that part out..." she mumbled quietly, and tears began to well up in her eyes again.

I had thought she was stupid to have met up with Trevor like that, but now I understood.

She trusted him.

She loved and trusted him, and he betrayed her.

I, of all people understood what that was like, and now that I understood I felt an overwhelming feeling of sympathy for her.

"I'm sorry," I muttered, but she shrugged, a little bitter laugh escaping her lips as she wiped at her eyes again.

I placed a hand on hers, and as she looked over at me, a questioning look in her eyes, I tried my best to convey my sympathy as genuinely as I could.

I smiled at her, but as she smiled back-

*Beep! Beep!

-a warning bell went off in our minds signaling to us that something was happening outside.

"What was that?" she asked, as I made my way to the tent flap.

"I'm not sure," I responded, as I peeked gingerly outside.

The alarm which sounded wasn't the alarms from the rituals I'd casted around the tent, instead it was the watchful eye spell which I'd cast above our tent; an invisible eye that kept watch on the surroundings for signs or signals of trouble.

I double checked that the coast outside of the tent was clear, then signaled to Dana that it was safe to come out, and as we got out of the tent, a huge burst of light erupted somewhere off to our left.

"What is tha-"

"Serra!" I cried out.

You came! I knew you would!

I dashed into the tent, and Dana followed me as I quickly gathered up our belongings, before abandoning the tent and taking off in the direction of the light.

"Are you sure it's her?" she asked, her voice tinged with uncertainty, but despite having no way of proving that it was indeed her, I knew in my heart that it was.

"Yeah, come on!" I called as we hurried along the corridors.

I pulled up my character interface and tried to send her a message, but the message failed.

We're probably not close enough, I reasoned, as we followed a series of pathways which seemed to go into the direction of the light, only to have to backtrack a bit as the path quickly began to wind away to the west.

We tried several more paths, but the branches were almost infinite and the nagging feeling began to gnaw at my mind, that we were wasting time that we didn't have.

Dana handed me her canteen and I took a quick sip as we paused to take quick stock of the situation.

"What do we do?" she asked, and I stopped to consider the problem.

Maybe I could create platforms and climb my way to the top of the wall like I had before, but that feeling that time was short still remained.

Arcane eye, I thought to myself. I could use that...

But using it would use a significant portion of my total magic.

It was a gamble for sure, but something in my mind told me that this was a crucial moment.

I readied myself and took a deep breath, but as I lifted my hands and prepared to cast the spell, a terrible wail suddenly echoed down the corridors, emanating from somewhere across the great labyrinth.

"Was that-?"

"Shadow monsters," I muttered.

And it came from the same direction as the light.

"Is it a trap?" Dana asked, and I shook my head.

It was a beacon.

Serra was here.

But in signaling us, she'd drawn hell incarnate upon herself.

This was no time to hesitate.

"Arcane Eye!" I shouted, and I suddenly felt the surreal sensation of my vision rising up and out of my body, rising above the wall and giving me a view of the labyrinth's passages that snaked perilously out about me.

I quickly traced a path from amongst the infinite winding passageways, then closed my eyes, allowing my vision to return to that of my character avatar.

"This way!" I called, as I pulled a very reluctant Dana with me.

We followed the passages quickly now, making steady progress to the place from whence the light had come, but as we made our way there we suddenly came to the place where we'd destroyed the shadow monster not long before, and what I saw there brought me to an immediate halt.

I walked over to the spot where my attack had left a sizeable crater in the earth floor, except the rubble that was left in the wake of the strike no longer looked like bits of broken earth and stone. Instead, it appeared to look like little chunks of rotting, festering flesh, and as I touched it I cringed as they were coated with a slimy sort of transparent ooze.

"What the fuck is this?" Dana asked, and my mouth fell open as realization suddenly dawned.

"A dimension devourer," I muttered, completely flabbergasted, "we're inside a dimension devourer."

"W-what?" Dana stuttered.

I was so sure that we were on a different elemental plane that it never occurred to me that we might be inside the belly of a gargantuan sub dimensional monster.

This labyrinth wasn't made up of walls of stone or any like materiel.

It was in fact the flesh and tissue of the monstrosity that we were now within.

Shadow stalkers.

That's what that thing was; a parasitic feeder that lived off of the remnants of anything unfortunate enough to find itself in the belly of the great gargantuan beast.

"We need to hurry," I called, as the urgency once again pushed me into gear.

I quickly consulted the eye, and as we neared the place where I was sure Serra would be I got my first visual confirmation that it was her.