He expected her to freak out. Matter of fact, he was counting on it. Lara was so simple-minded that he wouldn't be surprised if he found out that she died just breathing in the wrong air. So when she did not start screaming immediately at his unjust fairness, he was impressed. Leo seemed even more impressed than he was, watching Lara in a critical way as though he expected her to fail them and start crying all over the ground. The baby troll was still trying to wriggle its stone-like body out of there, so Leo pushed it with one foot and it rolled towards Lara. She jumped back when it touched her feet, then gripped Draven tightly by his arm. “I can’t kill it,” she whispered. “Why not?” Draven asked. “It’s a baby. We don’t kill babies.” “It’s a monster,” Leo chuckled. “This baby monster will grow up one day and bite off your ass if you don’t kill it straight away.” Draven bent down and hit the rock three times. The troll unraveled, showing itself. It was too weak and powerless to
It was the chirping of a bird that woke him up. It felt weird, the happy sound of a bird singing. Draven sat up and rubbed his eyes awake, realizing that it was indeed not a bird.There was an open translucent screen before him, like a hologram but way clearer. He rubbed his eyes again, then peered closer. It was his dashboard, the one that showed his balance. His heart jumped out of his chest and jumped right back. He remembered the previous day's warning; Money must be spent before 14 days.Is this how it was going to be now, waking up every day to your balance, knowing that you just spent it because it is real money? How had they accumulated that kind of money anyway? It wasn’t much. Just about…Draven preened closer as he calculated his money. It was twenty thousand dollars. His mouth opened and then closed right back. It was too much, way too much money than he had seen in his entire life. Well he wasn’t seeing it, but it was real and they were literally begging him to spend it!
They were killed and massacred for two days. Two. Literally anything in sight-monsters and fish. Actually the fish were for Lara. Draven was trying so hard to teach her. He wanted her to know everything there is to know about killing and whatnot. He killed fish, grilled them and ate them, all the while giving her the key knowledge to killing something.She seemed okay with this; perfectly fine, in fact. On the fourth day, Lara took her own fish by herself and killed it, then roasted it. She was very pleased with this. She danced around all day and Leo encouraged her, laughing at how well she’s turning out. Draven stopped checking his dashboard; he hadn’t even checked out his tasks yet and saw if they were processed. All he thought about was money.“Look how happy she is to have made a kill.”Draven looked up at Leo’s voice, confused for a moment. “What?”“She’s happy she killed a fish.”His eyes roamed about, not understanding where Leo was driving. “So?”“So, she shouldn’t be happy t
Leo and Draven stared at the forest before them. It had been a solid three minutes and both of them said nothing, only stood side-by-side. Lara was somewhere jubilating or doing god knows what, but Draven was sure that she was stupid enough to think this would be a trip. When he called Leo to come look at what he discovered, the poor guy didn’t say anything but stare at the forest before him. Draven cleared his throat to begin with.“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?”Leo chuckled dryly. “Yeah, I’m seeing what you’re seeing.”“So you know this is bad news.”“It is bad. It is really bad.” Then he turned to look at Draven. “You know why it is bad? Because this is all your fault!”“What? How is it my fault we got to pass through an evil forest?”“It is your fault because my life and game are synced with yours now. Why can’t I have a different path from yours? Why do I have to follow your own path every single time?"Draven scoffed. “That’s what happens when you’re in a group. And gue
Draven wasn’t sure he should be surprised that Lara was being called a Beanie or that the teenage boys thought he and Leo were involved in whatever it is they were talking about or that he even had a gun in the first place! What were they doing with a gun? How did they get it? Was this game only partial to people with no influence because what in the hell was this?Leo gave him a ‘I told you this girl is sus!’ look while Draven struggled to grasp what the situation was. Lara’s head was held high, looking him straight in the eye. Her eyes were dark and blank.“And she cut her hair too, boys,” the leader said as he smacked her empty head. “Hear that? It landed without any obstructions!"Draven cringed at the sound of the slap on Lara’s head, but she didn’t move an inch. It was almost as if she was trying so hard to be brave when the both of them knew that she was as weak as a snail.Or was she?Have they been wrong all along? Okay maybe not, but he alone. Leo had told him several times
The forest swallowed the boy whole. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. There was nothing left of him but black dust rising in the air. They all knew what it meant: death.“You’re asking me to walk into this with both my eyes wide open,” Leo said.“It’s not so bad if you think about it,” Draven replied.“Not so bad? Someone just turned it into a puff of smoke!”“Maybe it was meant just for us?”Leo shook his head. “Nope. Maybe it was meant just for you and you wanted to drag me into this.”They heard a rustle behind them. Leo and Draven turned, only to see that the other guy was running. They let him go. It wasn’t like he was going to survive long anyway. He was alone, injured and without weapons. He’d be dead either by a monster or a human. Either way, he wasn’t going to survive long.Draven and Loe looked back at the forest. It was brimming with thunder, and not inviting. Draven wished there was another way to go through this, but the system had already declared that h
Nothing happened.Leo waited for a few more minutes, his eyes closed. Nothing happened! He opened his eyes with a smile on his face, and that smile automatically froze. They were in the forest, the forest that he specifically did not want to come to. He was pushed into this, and now he was going to die in a place he did not recognize; a place that other players couldn’t see. Draven released their hands and walked forward. There was a sizzling sound and when they turned back, they saw that the curtain of the world was pulling down over them. Lara was stunned. She hadn’t seen this before, until Draven pushed them all into it. Now it felt as if that curtain stretched to accommodate her and make her one of them. Now she could see what they were talking about and she immediately regretted taking that step.She could have easily said she didn’t see any portals or whatever this place was. One thing she was sure of was that it reeked of evil, and she never did well with evil. She couldn’t ev
“I know you guys are talking about me,” Lara said. “It’s alright, I didn’t hear a single word.”“It doesn’t matter what you hear," Leo said. “But you know what? Why don’t we talk about this now that the topic is up?”“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Draven said, his hands raised palms up in mid air. “Let’s not get into a heated 6 here, alright?”Leo scowled at him. He wanted to say so many things at once, but he also knew he needed to keep his chill. Truthfully, Draven was the patient one. He would never be as patient as she was concerning any matter. Or was he just patient when it came to Lara? Leo squared his shoulder at the thought that had just entered his mind. This was serious. Was he really hesitant because it was Lara? Did he… like her? Leo internally vomited from his organs. He belched and gagged just thinking about it. It’s not that Lara is unattractive—well, she was unattractive since she’s practically bald now— but this was also a game. Everything in here would be a game; what was the