Hours passed. My parents’ voices drifted through the door, their footsteps fading down the hall. “Elowyn, you should rest,” my mother called gently. I forced a nod, hiding the screen from their view.
Nothing.
I refreshed the page until my fingers ached. The forum’s thread list sat empty, each header a small dead thing. Whenever my parents returned, I minimized the browser, smiled, and answered their questions with careful calm.
Then, one evening, the screen flickered. The cursor slid—slow, deliberate as a heartbeat. My chest tightened. Words unspooled across the thread:
Why do you want to meet me here?
My fingers trembled. “I… I need to know the truth. About the game. About everything. You’re hiding something.”
Silence stretched. My father turned a page in his book; my mother folded laundry. Ordinary noises. Anchors to a world that felt thinner every second.
Finally, text appeared, fractured, hesitant:
You shouldn’t be here. You weren’t supposed to wake yet. But… I suppose it’s too late now.
A chill ran up my spine. Real or not? Trick or truth?
Listen carefully. You were trapped far longer than you realize. Months… maybe years. And your friends—they are not gone. But neither are they free.
Arden. Davian. Mikael. Zi. Their names pressed against me like bruises.
“They’re still there,” I whispered.
They were real. But to protect you, I embedded their fragments into NPCs when everything fell apart. That’s why you still feel them. That’s why they linger. I had to run after.
My throat locked. Hope and fear tangled sharp in my chest.
“Then… can I bring them back?”
There is a way. But it is dangerous. If you fail… they will be lost forever. And so might you.
The laptop pulsed warm beneath my palms, like a living thing.
“Elowyn,” my mother said softly from the doorway. “Maybe some water?”
I forced myself to nod, hiding the shake in my hands. “Yes. Thank you.”
When the door closed again, I stared at the blinking cursor, the ordinary room now hollow as paper.
My hands hovered over the keyboard. The words spilled before I could stop them, shaky but certain:
I will go back to the game and bring them. I can’t lose them.
The cursor blinked once, twice, as if the forum itself was holding its breath.
ns216.73.216.122da2
and then Add to home screen.