Chapter 12

Chapter 12

A small breeze pushed the fire, causing the lighting against the girl’s face to change. No . . . that isn't Lily. It did look a lot like her, and I was desperate to see a familiar face . . . but it wasn’t her.

I noticed that the area was blanketed with a new fresh layer of white snow. Our fire continued to rage in front of me, resisting the cold and wet and creating a dry circle around itself, its defiance to the universe reflecting in the girl’s eyes. I inspected her nameplate.

Human#2514841772100712

Level 3, Shade Elf

Human? That was what she had picked for her name? Or did she let the system give her a name by default?

Also, why is she in a level seven to ten area at level three? I looked from her level to her eyes. They continued to narrow in on me with an intense focus that conveyed an aura of very real danger. Something told me she could hold her own just fine.

I glanced around, checking for more nameplates, but there weren’t any that I could see.

“Woah there,” I said. I put my arms up slow and steady, as I continued to look around.

“Don’t move,” she said stiffly. Her voice was sharp and calm.

Despite the warmth of the fire, I could see that she was cold. Her lips were blue, and she shivered in spasms which caused her arrow—that was still directed at me—to bob up and down. She had a hooded green cloak that fell around her shoulders, and a thick layer of snow covered them. Her hood was pulled up tight around her head. Did she spend all night here? Logged in? I looked at the wet snow at her feet. It was disturbed around her, but no tracks led to or from her location.

The area was much colder than The Rolling Hills and The Notch, and based on the layer of ice beneath my feet it seemed like it had fallen far below freezing last night. I looked at her, my chest tightening.

“Okay, take it easy. Someone else is about—”

There was a pop as Mie appeared.

The stranger’s eyes widened in surprise, and her arrow . . . released.

Intentionally or not, I didn’t know. But I said, “Oh shit!” as I activated my new Parry ability.

THUD!

Too late, the arrow pierced into my pectoral as I spun my spear like one of those baton twirling . . . cheerleaders. A low white number floated up over my head, and I saw an icon with a black needle appear over my health bar. A debuff.

{Minor Shade Poison} for 60 seconds

{Minor Shade Poison}

Description: Affected target takes 1 damage per second. This effect can stack up to 20 times.

I groaned, the pain like a close-range paintball to fleshy skin. It wasn’t near anything I had experienced so far in this game, and the arrow thankfully wasn’t deep, but it still damn hurt. I looked at the debuff closer and recognized that the damage over time—if stacked—would be really good. I was also thankful my Ring of The Sole Survivor counteracted it to some degree.

I didn’t have time to keep thinking though, because the stranger turned and bolted in one motion, dodging Mie’s staff swing as she went.

“Wait!” I tore after her, doing my best to stay on my feet on the icy ground. She was fast and nearly outpaced me, and I think she would have, if not for my significant level advantage. When I was fifteen feet away, she turned on her heel and dove backwards away from me. Suddenly, it looked like she was flying horizontally. Her cloak whipped like a tornado as she spun through the air. Still in motion, she pulled out her bow, drew the string to her cheek, and sent another arrow my way, diving and twirling in midair all at the same time.

THUD! It hit me in the thigh.

“Gah! STOP SHOOTING ME!” I yelled. It took my health down to seventy percent, and I saw another stack of poison appear. The number of stacks went to two, and the timer refreshed back to sixty seconds.

Mie was yelling at me from behind, but I kept running, my momentum keeping me going despite the piercing pain that now lanced through my leg.

Her dive ability finished, and she landed smoothly on her feet and kept running. Movement caught my eye. The flash of another yellow nameplate. It appeared and disappeared near a boulder to the girl’s upcoming left. Damn it. Either this was some insane trap, or she had been followed. Probably the former.

A bolt of blue electricity shot out from behind the boulder as an elvish-something mage in a purple robe appeared. The spell collided with the girl’s chest, freezing her in place. The normal blue debuff stun effect encased her as little lighting arched and crackled all over. I glanced at the debuff.

{Stunned} for 4 seconds

I inspected the mage’s nameplate after I saw the girl’s health bar drop by half. Okay . . . never mind. I had thought that maybe she was the bait, but turned out she was the prey.

NursingHomesAreHell#19281(Milton)

Level 5, Sea Elf

He isn't wrong, I thought as I read his name. I studied him, still running.

Outside of his blue robe, I caught a quick reflection of light coming from his hand. I looked closer and I saw he bore a ring. It looked a lot like the same one I had, but it was only pushed halfway onto his finger. His hands seemed to be webbed liked one of those creepy-ass lizards my kids had had as pets. I shuddered remembering the way they molted and shed their skin all over the place. I wonder if this guy sheds.

I took all this in in a moment, and I activated Vaulting Strike on the Sea Elf just as I saw the movement of another player behind him, still mostly hidden by the large boulder. As my ability completed, my spear went completely through the guy's neck.

He died, instantly.

You received 100 XP!

That was way more XP than the snow cats gave. Something registered in my mind. These players were killing other players . . . for more experience. But wasn’t that the point of the game though? To get stronger than anyone else? To survive the longest? The thought made me sick—well, that thought . . . and the sight right in front of me.

“Gah!”

Blood spurted away from the mage’s neck in thick, pulsing lines with the rhythm of his heartbeat. It spattered against me and the white snow beneath us as his gross part-elf, part-lizard-looking body flopped sideways.

The sight was terrible, like something I might have seen on an EMS run.

I straightened out of my landing stance, now noticing two orcs and a dwarf all half coming out of crouches and ready to pounce on the girl. However, they looked stunned as they watched their dead friend continue to gush blood. A moment later, he sparked green and blue, so I went ahead and looted him, ignoring the loot logs as I looked at the other three players. The dwarf was level eight, and the two orcs were six and seven.

The dwarf turned to the others and said, “I thought you said she was alone?!” He pulled a blunderbuss off his back.

“She—she was!” one of the others stuttered.

I dove behind the boulder when the gun went off.

BOOM!

Pain erupted as little pellets shredded my leg. My health dipped under a third, and I was about to slam on a health potion when Mie’s golden pane of light fell through me and restored me to near full health.

I looked for her . . . and found her still a ways off in the direction of our fire. God. She is so damn slow . . .

I glanced toward the girl’s direction. She was gone. Cool. Yeah, I’ll just take care of the rest then—

My thought was interrupted as I rounded the corner of the boulder and watched an arrow zip in from the direction of a thick tree and sink into the meat of one of the orcs’ legs. He cried out like a baby seal, and I saw a little black poison needle icon appear over him.

As the dwarf desperately tried to reload his gun, I landed a Sweeping Strike on all three of them. They all fell to the ground, getting tangled up with each other, and each gained the rooted debuff. I also registered that the blunderbuss had some sort of loading cast time, which seemed to take forever. The bar over the dwarf’s head had been about two thirds full when the sweep interrupted it.

With the root in place, I focused the dwarf with three quick Spear Throws back-to-back-to-back. He went down in moments, three spears sticking out of him. More arrows thunked into the two orcs whose legs were wrapped with transparent chains. I downed a stamina potion, swept their legs again, and renewed the rooted debuff. Then I backed up, preparing another Spear Throw. One of the orcs threw his axe, which bit into my bicep. I stored the axe into my inventory as another Flash Heal fell over me.

“What the hell?! What class are you?” the axe-thrower said.

They think I’m healing myself with an ability, I realized. Or maybe he was confused by the multiple spears? I chuckled at that, paused, then said, “Wait. You guys have life credits left right?”

They exchanged a look. “Uhh . . . yeah, but—”

I cut him off by sending another spear into his midsection. He doubled over. Then I said, “I’m a uhh . . . spear-thrower-healer-doer . . . guy.”

“What the fu—?” The speaker’s health bar turned gray.

A moment later, Mie came panting up, just as the girl and I finished the last orc. I quickly looted all three corpses.

The scene that lay before me was horrible and I sort of felt bad dropping their life credits by one . . . but they were player-killers . . . so I . . . mostly just chuckled, remembering their confused, pain-filled expressions as I told them my made-up class.

Those players all kind of sucked . . .

“What are you laughing about?” Mie asked between gasps for air.

I heard her question, but then the short girl with purple eyes hesitantly stepped out from behind a tree. She was so small. She couldn’t have been even five feet tall.

I yelled over to her, “Uhh, YOU OKAY?” I stored all my weapons and gave her a friendly wave.

Keeping her distance, she gave a confident half-arc wave and yelled back, “YEAH! AND THANKS!”

“NO PROBLEM! UHH MAYBE WE SHOULD STOP YELLING AT EACH OTHER? YOU KNOW, SO WE DON’T ATTRACT ANYTHING ELSE OUT HERE?”

She stood still for a long moment, then took a few quick paces forward. She was still about ten meters away or so, but at least we didn’t have to yell. I noticed her health bar was at about half and that she was clutching her rib cage. That stunning spell had dealt some serious damage.

Sam: Send her a Flash Heal.

Mie: What? Why?

Sam: Just do it.

I had about a million notifications I was anxious to comb through, but this was more important. We needed to fill out our party, and somebody with her skill set—a ranged damage-over-time specialist, could make a lot of sense. She also . . . wasn’t actively trying to kill us, and she had seemed to be helping with the player-killers. She seemed trustworthy—I felt at my pec where her arrow had skewered me—maybe.

Mie raised her staff, and the girl took a couple steps back, but a moment later, the golden glass pane fell through her and restored her health to full. She relaxed, coming even closer. She really did look a lot like one of my kids. Were all Shade Elves child-like? Or was this a child . . . that had died in the real word? I pushed that thought away. It was too sad.

“Thanks for not abandoning us back there,” I said. “I thought for sure you had run off.”

“Same here.”

Okay . . . so not much of a talker this one. That was probably good . . . Mie did enough talking for all of us.

She looked above Mie, at her nameplate. “Uhh, IFartedInFrontOfHer?”

“Yeah, funny story,” Mie said.

“Don’t—” I tried to cut in, but she had already started blabbing away.

“Imagine your worst date ever. Now imagine if, as the entrées are coming out, you fart, like a loud fart—”

“Mie, please stop.” But she kept going.

“Now imagine, a few seconds later, you are trying to eat your meal. You’re both chatting, desperately trying to make small talk and trying to ignore the obvious sound that just came out of your butt, when BAM! The smell hits you full on, and you are just praying she doesn’t smell it too. It was one of those ones where enough time passes, and you thought were safe. Except then, you see her reaction when it hits her, but you’re, like, still hopeful at this point she will continue to ignore it . . . but then she starts gagging—”

“ANYWAYS,” I said loudly. Trying to stop the dumpster fire introduction. “This is Mie. My name is Sam.” I held out my hand. “I’m assuming your name isn’t . . . Human?”

She was looking at Mie as if she was some kind of insane person . . . Not far off really. I wonder if she realized that story is about me . . . about my past. I really hope not.

She clasped my hand confidently. “No, I tried to see how long I could wait in Character Creation. My name is Clara.”

The moment we shook hands, a few more options appeared, hovering right next to her head under the ‘Trade’ option. One was called ‘Invite to Party.’

I looked over at Mie, as our quick handshake finished. Mie shrugged at me, indicating she had seen the same option and didn’t care one way or the other . . . so . . . I selected it, and I saw Clara’s eyes glaze over as she read what I assumed was the party request prompt.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She looked back up and said, “Why would you want a low-level like me?”

I thought for a moment. Something told me she was the no-nonsense type . . . so I said, “Honestly, I have no idea what I am doing. I just know a party of three must be better than a party of two, and seeing how you are the first player who hasn’t been . . .” I glanced at the corpses nearby. “. . . an asshole. I'm willing to take the risk. Oh, and you have a damage-over-time class . . . we don’t have that.”

She stood completely still for a long moment, snow still falling all around us. Then the log came in.

Player Human#2514841772100712 has joined your party.

I saw her party icon appear in the upper left of my party interface. I noticed a green bar indicating she was stamina based.

“Okay then. What’s the plan?” Clara asked.

“Well, we have been told grinding is the best way to gain XP.”

She gave me a weird look. Looked me up and down, then said, “No thanks. Also, I’m confident your guide is pulling your leg.”

God damn it. Apparently I really need to stop using that term.

“No. Not that. It’s . . . a gaming term. I take it you haven’t played many games then. It means basically killing a bunch of mobs . . . monsters. Anyways, our—uhh—I mean . . . my guide . . . hasn’t been . . . the best when it comes to advice.”

Mie said, “Who, Greg? Dude, Greg is the actual worst. Don’t lie to her.”

Greg: I feel like you guys should know by now that I can literally hear everything you say. Like, all the time.

Mie: Oh, trust me. We do know that, Greg. . . We do know that.

Greg: . . .

Clara: Hey there Greg!

Greg: Hello

I sent Clara a quick DM. She had been added to my list of contacts once she joined the party.

Clara: Whoops, I mean . . . shut the hell up Greg.

Greg: Hilarious guys. Real fucking funny.

“What has your guide recommended as the best way to gain experience?” I asked Clara resisting the urge to laugh out loud. Fuckin Greg.

Clara kept quiet, then said, “Uhmm . . . not much . . . since I . . . killed him.”

There was a long, awkward silence.

Then Mie turned to me. “I told you we could kill Greg if we wanted to.”

I pulled up my direct messages to Mie.

Sam: Clara probably thinks we both have different guides. Might want to keep it that way. Just . . . stop talking for a sec.

Mie: Roger that. BUT WE CAN KILL GREG! THIS IS GREAT!

Sam: I could kill him you mean . . . You are a baby.

Mie: Oh . . . right. YOU CAN KILL GREG! THIS IS GREAT!

“You, uhh . . . killed your guide?” I asked.

Clara was giving us a strange look, but answered. “Yeeah. . . he came at me . . . and . . . I was able to take a broken table leg and . . . I killed him.”

We both stared at her with wide eyes. I did not like that, apparently, there were no rules about what guides could and couldn’t do to their Soul Space occupants. I hadn’t thought about that.

“I’m so sorry,” I said . . . what felt like too late. “I guess we lucked out with Greg.”

“Who are you today?” Mie said taken aback . . . and talking fast . . . again. “This is Greg we’re talking about. I could see Greg doing some messed up stuff. He probably is right now. Messing with our helpless bodies.”

“For the last time, Mie. Our bodies disappear when we are not there.”

I stiffened, watching Clara to see if she’d caught that rather obvious slip-up . . . to see if she caught that we shared the same Soul Space.

“How do you know?!” Mie responded.

“I don’t . . . but it would just be so . . . messed up.” I glanced uneasily at Clara.

She looked at Mie and gestured at me while she said, “He’s right. Your body disappears completely. It’s not just invisible or something. It’s gone from the space. My guide . . . he would . . . barrel at me when I reappeared . . . try to grab me . . . He wouldn’t have rushed the way he did . . . if I was still there. I died a couple times during entry . . . and to be clear . . . I did fend him off . . . both times. The second time . . . I done killed him.”

Holy shit, this topic is dark. She had a rapist guide? Ugh. The afterlife really sucks. I was about to change the subject when Mie said . . . more Mie stuff.

“Wait so, how do you know he is dead?”

“The table leg was punctured through his eye socket and sticking out the back of his head . . . and he wasn’t moving . . . so . . . But you’re right, maybe he up and resurrected or something. I haven’t gone back to check.”

So she hadn’t ever logged out. She had stayed logged in during the cold night.

“My turn to ask a question,” Clara cut in. “Whose guide is Greg’s, and why isn't there another guide in the room?”

I sighed . . . Our deception had lasted all of a minute.

I told her most everything as briefly as possible, but I didn’t mention that Mie was an item . . . or a baby . . . or that she had all my memories. I just told her that we thought there must have been a weird glitch or something that caused us to have a shared Soul Space and guide. For all we knew, maybe that was what happened, and who knew? Maybe it wasn’t just us.

Clara seemed satisfied with the explanation, and after a touch more discussion, we started heading north toward a narrow pass called Merchant’s Way, and I finally had a moment to scan my logs and loot.

You killed players x3!

You received 375 XP!

You gained multiple levels!

You reached level 11!

Congratulations! You reached level 10! You may now select your second Battle Art {One-Handed Axe} or {Dagger}!

Dagger? I had not seen that coming. I wasn’t really the sneaky rogue type, so that was a hard pass from me. I quickly chose One-Handed Axe.

You unlocked the Battle Art {One-Handed Axe}

You unlocked the skill {Dual Wield}

You unlocked the gear type {Plate}

You unlocked the ability {Quad Strike}

Active Ability: {Quad Strike}

Description: When wielding two weapons you deal back-to-back Basic Attacks with both weapons.

Cost: 30 Stamina. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

You unlocked the ability {Axe Crack}

Active Ability: {Axe Crack}

Description: You deal a crushing axe blow to your enemy that does 100% additional damage and stuns your target for 3 seconds.

Cost: 60 Stamina. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

The readouts were great, but to be honest . . . I was a little underwhelmed. This was all pretty typical MMORPG stuff. The Dual Wield skill was way over done. It was basically a cliché at this point. But still, I was glad to have it as an option now that I could wield axes.

The stun pickup was good, but I don’t know. . . I guess I was just expecting to see a larger power leap here. I dealt high damage, yes, but without Mie . . . I would have been dead five times over at this point.

I will admit, the unlock on plate was interesting, as I was still wearing all leather gear. Meaning it hadn’t swapped my armor type out or anything. It looked like I could just equip both now. That was cool. I had been wondering if there was some sort of weight mechanic with armor. I could definitely feel gravity’s effects . . . and Mie was constantly out of breath running with her heavy armor on.

I swapped in a couple plate items for some basic leather armor I still had on. I had looted the plate from the guard fight, but hadn’t passed it to Mie since she had gear that was already better. The plate had slightly higher stats than my leather. I did a couple sprints, and like it would have back on Earth, moving felt harder. I kept scanning my logs, noticing more.

Congratulations! You reached level 10! Parties led by you, now enjoy access to the Passive Ability: {Death’s Door}, and the Active Ability: {Hand of God}.

I inspected the new abilities.

Passive Ability: {Death’s Door}

Description: When a party member’s health drops to zero, instead of losing a life credit immediately, they become {Knocked}. If all party members’ health pools drop to zero, this ability loses its effect, and the entire party dies.

Active Ability: {Hand of God}

Description: Placing your hand on the body of a party member suffering from {Knocked} revives them to 50% health.

Cast Time: 10 seconds

That looked promising. I dug in further.

{Knocked}

Description: You fall on your hands and knees, unable to cast abilities or perform any action. You are ignored by NPCs and mobs. Your movement speed is decreased by 90%. You are {Immune} for 2 minutes. After the 2 minutes of immunity, you remain Knocked, and your health pool is set to fifty percent of your current max health. When you are Knocked, you can be resurrected by someone in your party through the use of the active ability {Hand of God} at any time.

Oh man. A growing excitement had sparked in my chest the moment I started reading the descriptions. I knew these mechanics very, very well. I read them over one more time and it started to really sink in.

Getting Knocked was a common mechanic. But it wasn’t typically something you would see in a MMORPG. It was much more common in battle royale games. Last party standing . . . I slapped my forehead, baffled at how I could have missed the correlation. This was basically a battle royale. It was just at a scale I couldn’t comprehend and in a system that felt like a MMORPG.

The fact that we had uncovered these abilities was huge, and anyone trying to solo would be severely outmatched against a party with these abilities. I read through the abilities again. Being Knocked and ignored by mobs felt really important. But I noted that it didn’t mention players. Okay so, if you are Knocked, you get two minutes of immunity, and mobs ignore you completely, but after the immunity is up, players can still kill you. That made sense.

I liked the immunity effect. Oftentimes in battle royale games, players would kill an enemy they had knocked instantly, even when the strategy of it, in my opinion, was absolutely . . . stupid. There were arguments to be made to finish off the player instantly, so they couldn’t be revived, or feed their teammates information . . . but most of the time, that wasn’t the right call. I had seen it done countless times . . . mostly to me.

While the assailant finished me off to get the plus one kill stat, I would shout some profanity as Phil nerd-shushed me—‘shh shh shh,’ so he could hear—and rolled over the enemy team, who was now out of bullets and easier to perceive because they had revealed their position to him, by killing me. They lost the game . . . but still, the damage was done . . . because I was dead. At that point, I had to sit and watch Phil for the rest of the game like a noob.

I sighed, a smile spreading across my face. For the first time since the get-go, I wasn’t feeling behind. I was even feeling like we might have an advantage. I knew the battle royale format well. Usually there were around one hundred players though . . . Here there were still some four hundred thousand . . . I couldn’t wrap my head around that just yet, so I took a look at the notable loot we got off the enemy players.

We got twenty-two silver, a handful of Weak Stamina, Health, and even Mana Potions. There was some jerky that healed more than the bread, and a few other common items that for the moment seemed worthless until crafting became a thing.

We rolled for four uncommons items and two rares. Two sole survivor rings, two sole survivor necklaces, a rare staff, and a rare axe.

Mie, I swear to god, was cheating. She won everything but two items, one of the rings and the axe . . . both of which Clara grabbed.

Thankfully—unlike Mie—she passed the axe over instantly. I took a look.

{Grimhew’s Axe}

Rank: Rare

Grade: Fine

Slot: One-Handed

+1 Constitution

+3 Strength

+5 Endurance

+[3%-6%] Critical Strike Chance

Happy with the pickup, I checked everybody else's advancements. Clara had leveled to level eight, and Mie matched me at eleven. Clara leveled five times?

I knew that experience was split evenly between Mie and me, because we had confirmed that when I took an entire pack of cats out by myself, she got half the experience. But . . . I didn’t know it was evenly shared with those who were not part of the party. How did that work? She must have gotten an arrow in each of the enemy players. She had done a decent amount in that fight . . . but I had done the majority of the damage. Ah well. It’s good she caught up a bit.

“Hey, would you mind sharing your abilities in party chat? I want to see what you are capable of and how we might be able to synergize with your abilities,” I asked Clara.

“Sure.”

It was great to have something of a damage-over-time-based class to work beside. She shared three of her abilities, two of which she had used on me. There was the shade poison tipped arrow ability, which was considered a passive. All her arrows deal the same Minor Shade Poison debuff, I realized. That was fantastic.

I looked at the other two she sent over.

Active Ability: {Diving Shot}

Description: You fire an arrow while diving in the air in the direction of your choice. You become hard to target. Your other cooldowns reset.

Maximum Distance: 10 feet

Critical Strike Chance: +25%

Cost: 40 Stamina. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Active Ability: {Dead Eye Blow}

Description: You fire an arrow shot at range that deals 200% damage but roots you for 1 second.

Maximum Range: 100 feet

Critical Strike Chance: +25%

Cost: 50 Stamina. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 10 seconds

There was potential with that Diving Shot. Your other cooldowns reset. I read that again. There was some double casting potential there. I figured if she could figure out her stamina supply, she could be a great initiator, and the constant damage she’d deal would be a great asset over a long fight.

After some deliberation, Mie picked up the Shield Battle Art. It was between that and two-handed sword. Right now she was a healer, but we really needed someone who could take hits, and we had picked up a common wooden round shield. I have to say . . . it only made her high-school-play look even worse. She sent her two new abilities over.

Passive Ability: {Shield Bash}

Description: Knocks back a single target up to 20 feet and deals damage relative to player’s strength.

Cast Time: Instant

Cost: 50 mana. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Active Ability: {Holy Armor}

Description: All damage up to 200% of targeted player’s health is absorbed. Resists all effects. Lasts for ten seconds.

Cast Time: 2 seconds

Cost: 75 mana. Scales with player level.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

That Shield Bash seemed okay, but the Holy Armor felt really good. If she could take some hits . . . she just needs to be able to grab aggro. That was another thing I had picked up from the Hearth Manual. It spoke at length about Threat generation, and most of it was typical to any old MMORPG. The only new mechanic for me was called a ‘New Threat' roll. It occurred every time a new character dealt damage for the first time. Basically, there was a small chance that all the threat that had been generated so far would be dumped onto the new attacker. I didn’t mind that mechanic so much. It meant mob stealing could backfire on other enemy players, but we still had to be careful and make sure we all had dealt some damage to each mob in every fight before we could relax into a rhythm. But, with the damage I was dealing now, it would be damn hard for anyone else to come close to ripping aggro from me after everyone had dealt damage at least once.

After that, since they had shared their abilities with me, I shared my abilities with them.

Mie immediately snickered. “Really? Axe Crack?”

“What’s so funny?” I said.

“C’mon . . . Axe Crack? You of all people . . . totally would get an ability called . . . Ass Crack.”

“Oh come on. It’s not like I had a choice . . . ” Then I registered what she just said. “What do you mean I of all people would get an ability called Ass Crack?”

“You don’t remember freshman year, do you?” she asked.

Greg: Pause please. I need to piss.

Sam: This isn’t On Demand Greg. You can’t just pause us, Jesus.

Greg: I’m gonna pop some popcorn. This seating is way better.

Mie: GET OUT OF MY BED GREG!

I sighed deeply. “Anyways, yeah, I remember. Thanks for that.” Clara was close by and listening to everything. Freshman year of high school, I had been a little overweight . . . okay . . . a lot overweight. It had been a challenge reining in . . . the crack. Thankfully, that season of my life was pretty short lived.

Mie was about to start talking again, but I glared at her and said, “Don’t you even dare.”

She must have sensed my ire through our emotional connection, because I caught a grimace on her face and she didn’t start back up.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was close.

Clara was looking back and forth between us with a curious expression. “Wait. Did you guys know each other before you done and died or something?”

I hesitated, thinking. At this point, I still hadn’t put a ton of thought into who or what Mie was. But her presence had been nothing but an advantage so far . . . sort of. I guess technically I was working with half the life credits as everyone else, but overall I didn’t see her existence in my Soul Space—or my actual mind—as a bad thing. I glanced over my shoulder, toward the invisible camera that Greg was likely viewing us from. Are others watching? Do they know about Mie?

Greg: Why are you looking at the camera? Stop. It’s weirding me out.

Mie, to my surprise, hadn’t babbled her lips off, and instead was looking at me expectantly.

Looking back at Clara, I kept my voice as low as possible. “Let’s just say for now . . . yes, we know each other, but let’s . . . leave it at that.” I made a gesture with my head that suggested others were listening.

Clara stared at me for a long moment. She probably didn’t understand my odd glances over my shoulder if she hadn’t logged back out, but I implored her with my eyes to let it drop . . . for now.

After another moment of holding my gaze, she nodded. “We all have our secrets.”

She had no clue, how true that statement was. She had no . . . god damn. . . clue.