CHAPTER TEN – SOUR DREAMS

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Amy blinked, but that was all. She stood lifeless, staring straight ahead with less emotion in her features than an npc without so much as a single scripted greeting.

“Amy?” I asked, worriedly. “Are you… alright?”

I knew Fae Touch had worked, but she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She did continue to blink occasionally, but expressed no interest in me or my words. The blinking though. That wasn’t the Instinct, which meant it was all her own natural response. A natural reaction to the irritation of the wind in her eyes.

I touched her and she didn’t react. I put both hands on her shoulders, and she didn’t move.

“Amy?” I asked, turning her eyes towards me. They stared back into my own, as pretty as they had ever been but they remained almost stubbornly vacant of the life I had insisted I could restore to her.

“Wake up!” I shouted and she flinched. Pain. Loud noise. She didn’t turn to look at me, but instead returned to staring straight ahead, completely docile.

I grinned. Something was definitely happening inside her. I just had to work hard to pull it out of her. Maybe I could surprise her into waking up!

“Ready or not, Amy!” I exclaimed excitedly as I rounded her and then pushed her frozen body.

She flailed, arms waving around worriedly before she plummeted face first onto the bed with a soft whump.

‘She’s reacting. That’s good. So that means it's just a matter of time before she starts acting on her own! She doesn’t even have any stupid instincts holding her back! This is going to be great!’

She didn’t move.

“Well this is awkward,” I said, before reaching for one of her arms and pulling the marionette back to her feet. “C’mon Amy! Get up! We’ll get you alive in no time! Bugbear! Hey Bugbear! Wake up!”

Bugbear had been watching this whole exchange with a pent up expression on his face, like he’d just eaten something sour.

I stood, intercepting him. He’d just poked and prodded at her before, but now that she was real I didn’t want to risk–!

Faster than I could anticipate, he struck her, clawed fist smashing into her face like a hammer.

She screamed and fell back onto the bed. She hadn’t taken any damage since this was a safe room but pain was still real here.

“Bugbear!” I screamed in horror! “Why would you…?”

I trailed off mid word as I watched Amy. She wasn’t idle, laying there on the bed. No. Instead, her hand softly caressed her face. There was no visible mark, and I knew that Amy’s had made it to where she couldn’t even feel pain beyond the barest hints in this world. But it was enough…

She looked up and found Bugbear there, staring down at her. No longer vacant, her once-blank eyes finally held an emotion. Fear.

I felt unbearably sad at that moment.

“We’re born from pain. Aren’t we?” I murmured, feeling in my jelly innards that it was true. That had been what finally made me wake up. Pain… though not physical, like this. Not at first, anyway.

My pain had been the slow dull ache of loneliness and the need for more. The desire for more than a fixed path. The burning ache for something, anything, different. A dimmer pain than the physical kind Bugbear had gone through. By the time Red Thorn started killing me, I was already aware.

“Not friend,” Bugbear said, strangely clearly. He turned sad eyes towards me, fangs curled into a frown. “She is not.”

My throat seized up. Why were Miss Tutorial and now Bugbear so determined to ignore the possibilities right in front of them!?

“What do you know?!” I said, clenching my fist. “She isn’t now, but she could be! She could… she could help me again and…”

He was kneeling next to me, looking into my eyes with all the life and vibrancy I could ever hope to see. And yet he wasn't happy.

What the hell was all this awareness and life worth if pain was how we began and sadness was how we lived and death was how we…?

He reached out a hand gently, trying to place it on my shoulder. I slapped it away, sneering at him and his simplistic view.

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“Where do you get the right?!” I snapped. “You’re barely even free of your instinct, and you think you can tell me who's real and who isn’t?!”

“Jabbering Grell… hurts.” he said. He didn’t have the words for anything more complicated.

Either I was right, and he didn’t understand how angry I was, or he simply didn’t care about my anger because he didn’t seem offended. There was life behind his eyes, but also a vacancy all his own.

The innocence of infancy. Maybe he saw more than I could, while hurting less. But I didn’t care. Amy could be again. Fae Touch had proven, time and time again, that It could make dead things live!

If only I could touch this entire world with it, then maybe…

Bugbear growled, annoyed. He stood back up and walked over to where Amy lay. The pain had dulled and so too had her fear. She did not react as Bugbear approached.

I grasped for words and the dictionary function call Tyrone had described in my mind provided.

Sentience… Sapience… these were the words to describe what I had, and what she lacked.

For now, anyway.

Bugbear looked down at Amy almost contemptuously before turning back to me. “Other bugbears like this. Other bugbears in Dungeon Home. Raptors and blank-eyes. This is not.”

He struggled, unable to come up with better words. I was shocked, nonetheless. That was one of the longest sentences he’d ever said.

“Oh, go find a lizard to hide under!” I shouted before turning back to the prone Amy. I crawled into the bed and hugged her. It felt like hugging a doll.

“Even if she isn’t like she was, I think this is still worth doing!” I shouted.

I opened my friends list. Sure enough, Iron wasn’t logged in but I thought he might come quickly if he knew that I was bringing his wife back!

I sent him yet another message telling him all about how even if Amy hadn’t managed to survive in his world, that I’d managed to bring her back in this one!

I knew he’d be so happy. Maybe he’d come to visit me again like he used to! I’d never been as close to Iron… Derek, as I had been to Amy, but I missed him. He was the only one of my friends who hadn’t come to see me while I’d been mourning her. I understood though. He’d been mourning too.

But now he wouldn’t have to!

I left the embrace and looked at her again. She stared straight ahead but her eyes flickered to mine.

A niggling of doubt wormed its way into me. This wasn’t Amy. Never could be. I knew that, in my head, but inside…? I hurt. This made it feel just a little better. So I pushed that doubt aside. I finally felt hopeful for something again! I just had to wait here and teach…

Wait. Here?

My eyes widened. Hadn’t I come here specifically to prepare to hide somewhere in the unexplored zones? The King! Francis was still going to be mad at me. After reviving Amy and Akwa’s revelation, I’d nearly forgotten what had me in such a panic before.

‘Will he put me in the pie box room again?’ I thought dismally. ‘If… if he brought Amy and Bugbear, maybe I’d be okay with that.’

I still didn’t intend to give him the option though.

I jumped as the door to the room suddenly slammed. Turning, I realized Bugbear had apparently listened to me because he was outside, striding down the small dusty roads of Jungle Home, heading straight for the wilds.

“Bugbear!” I shouted, opening up the window. “Bugbear come back, you jellyorc! I didn’t seriously mean to go find a lizard! That’s sarcasm! I’m pretty sure! Bugbear! Ahhh!”

Bugbear turned to look at me, narrowed his eyes in a sharp glare, and then continued right on out of the safe zone.

“Dammit!” I cursed, falling back in a heap on my bed. “Why can’t anything go right today? I should’ve never gotten out of bed.”

That wasn’t true though. Akwa’s suggestions might have been poisoned at the source, but that didn’t make the thought of regressing back into the Instinct any less terrifying. I feared the Instinct far more than Francis or even Red Thorn.

I couldn’t leave Amy now. But… maybe there was another option?

It didn’t hurt them otherwise and it appeared that this world had saved a… a blank copy of Amy. Perhaps that was a flaw, but I planned to exploit it to the best of my ability.

C:/Users/AThyst>Logoff_

My hand shook as I thought the command and watched it appear in the prompt. I didn’t commit to it though. I turned to look at Amy. Blank eyes stared back at me, uncomprehending. Unknowing.

There was more thought behind her eyes than there had been though. It was only a matter of time. Hadn’t the King proven that? Bugbear?

Fae Touch was my most powerful ability. It allowed me to access the inner commands of different people in this world, and if there wasn’t a person behind what it touched, then it sought to create one.

I made sure to memorize the command. C, Colin, Forward slash, users, forward slash AThyst, Greater Than, Login. Those were the magic words needed to summon her back. She wouldn’t follow me now, but maybe in the future.

I felt like seeing Derek again would have a profound effect on her, and maybe him as well. At the funeral, I think only he had felt more depressed than me. On a whim, I sent him yet another message. I had a surprise for him after all! Perhaps now that I had something worth showing him he’d come back..

I entered the logoff command and laughed as Amy’s eyes widened. She lifted into the air, beautiful lights of teleportation forming around her. The log out process was so commonplace to me now that I found it amusing to see her frightened by it.

“It’s okay. You’re going to where it’s safe for now, okay? I’ll call you back soon. Don’t be scared. I’ll… I’ll help you like you helped me. I promise!” I told her as the countdown clicked to zero. She disappeared.

But she was still here. Still alive.

I began to pack what I would need to flee Jungle Home before Francis or one of the other Developers arrived to scold me for doing what I was always meant to do.

I pulled out the green whistle from my inventory and left it on the counter before I transformed and dashed out the door. I headed dead south, following after Bugbear as fast as my Jellyfae body would fly.