“Doing what needs to be done is the hardest duty of a Seeker. Life rarely gives us alternatives when facing its brutality.”

* Rathborne of the Order of the Raven.

The silver glow of the lamppost’s light expanded in the darkness. Slowly, the world came into view and my ears were filled with the roar of voices, loud and fierce like an angry mob.

“What else can we do!?”

“Just relax, will you? I’m sure it’s just a glitch!”

“Glitch my ass! We can’t log out!”

I turned around to see a group of Seekers, probably at least ten of them, huddled together and arguing. I looked carefully, but Rey wasn’t among them. Jacob stood at their center, shaking his head like he was ready to punch somebody.

“Jacob!” I shouted, striding quickly over to them. “Have you seen her?”

Jacob’s eyes found mine and I saw in his face an expression I hadn’t seen before. Whatever attitude he’d had when we first met was gone, replaced by something more akin to…pity?

“Rand,” he said, his voice barely audible over the chatter around him. Throwing his hands into the air, he roared, “Quiet!”

And it worked. Somehow, Jacob had managed to establish himself as some sort of authority figure in The Weeping Hills, and within seconds, a silence fell over the town. The icy moonlight felt like a spotlight beaming down on me as the Seekers turned to face me. I felt like the odd man out, someone not included in something everyone else knew.

“Where is…Adele?” I asked him. He didn’t answer right away, and when I saw the look in his eyes, I started to really worry. I repeated myself. “Where is she?”

“I—I don’t know how to say this, Rand, but—”

“She lost it!” Someone spat. “Killed me and ran off!”

“Shut up, Corlin!” Jacob bellowed.

“What are you talking about!?” I roared, a tension rising in my chest.

“She’s infected, Rand,” Jacob said sadly. “She’s one of the Bloodless now.”

“Would you stop calling them that!?” Someone scoffed beside him. “Stop making this so dramatic.”

“Oh, you think this isn’t serious?” Jacob asked, turning angrily to face him. “Did you not see what happened?”

“What happened!?” I shouted, stepping forward to snatch Jacob by the sleeve and turn him to face me. “Tell me!”

My heart was a pounding piston inside my chest. Seeing Rey and her parents on her stream had shaken me up more than I realized, and the hysteria in town wasn’t doing a thing for my nerves. If I didn’t get some answers soon, I was going to lose it.

“The same thing that happened to Konrad,” Jacob finally replied, his voice weak, uncertain. “She just—froze, stood there…staring vacantly at the ground…”

“No…”

“Her eyes turned red—”

“And then she killed me!” Corlin screeched, his voice a terrible whine like a crying baby’s. I glanced at him and saw that indeed his health bar was much lower than it should have been, indicating a present death penalty.

“It can’t be…” I muttered, more to myself than anything, but Jacob answered me.

“I saw it happen, Rand. We had to fight her off. She just went berserk...we got her down to low health and she ran off faster than any of us could keep up with her.”

“But—why?” I stammered. “Why would she do that? Do you think it has anything to do with the monolith?”

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“What monolith?”

“The monolith!” I shouted back to dumbstruck faces. “None—none of you saw the monolith?” Jacob shook his head. So did the others.

“Because she’s one of th—th—them…” Corlin tried to reply, but as he spoke, his voice seemed to catch in his throat like he was speaking over a weak connection with clogged bandwidth. I glanced over at him, and saw he was standing awkwardly, with one hand raised in the air in front of him like he was gesturing as he spoke.

“Corlin…?” Jacob said cautiously, taking a step away from him. The rest of the Seekers did the same, forming a ring around the frozen player.

A choppy shiver ran through his body, shaking him like a video skipping frames. He let out a strange grunt as his eyes gazed down at the ground in front of him, vacant and unfocused.

“It’s happening!” Someone shouted. The sound of steel being drawn rang out through the town square. I took another step back and raised my axe. What happened next sent buckets of ice water through my veins.

It started with his pupils—which were blue. Flecks of red appeared like slashes an axe might make in a slab of wood. They grew rapidly, expanded out, invading the whites of his eyes like an eyedropper full of blood squirted into mug of milk. Within seconds, nothing was left but red.

Is that what happened to her? I glanced over at Jacob who stood beside me at the ready. He nodded slowly—sadly, as if he understood what I was thinking.

Corlin’s inhuman scream tore through the town square like sheets of metal being ripped apart by a giant. I jumped back as he lunged forward, brandishing a Butcher’s Blade, its cutting edge aimed straight for my face.

He swung wildly, as though his arm wasn’t part of his body but instead was a long slab of meat with a weapon attached to the end. I blocked the blow and stepped aside as he flailed out again, shrieking like a bat, snapping his teeth at me like a rabid animal.

“Don’t let him bite you!” Jacob shouted as he aimed his casting bone at Corlin and fired. A bright golden arrow appeared and slapped through the air before embedding itself in Corlin’s gut, chiseling off a quarter of his health bar.

Someone stabbed him from behind with a Bloodletter, and I followed up with a heavy two-handed blow that chattered awkwardly across both of his arms, but was enough to get him down to half. Then, the rest of the Seekers joined in, unleashing a flurry of attacks on Corlin who swung madly at the center of the mob.

Blows rained down on him and his health plummeted. Raising my axe, I delivered the final, finishing blow. With a furious roar, Corlin’s health vanished and he died. His body went limp like a rag doll and landed on the cobblestone with a heavy thud of bone against stone. Ethereal wisps emerged from his corpse, twisted and dance out of existence. Behind us, at the lamppost, he was already respawning.

“Get ready!” Someone shouted.

“Relax,” Jacob snapped, silencing him. “He’s white for 5 minutes.”

“Oh, right…”

We all relaxed slightly as Corlin rematerialized. He was no longer an immediate threat, but just the sight of him was terrifying. Moments ago, he’d been just like the rest of us. Then, all of a sudden, something changed—a madness hit him, and he was transformed.

He stood there vacantly again, looking at everything and nothing at the same time. Then he twitched, dropping frames, an uncanny jittery tinge to his movements, and without warning, spun on his heels and sprinted away. His speed was incredible, much faster than should have been possible, and I watched as his silhouette disappeared into the mists of the withered fields.

For a moment, no one spoke. My head was full of cotton. I could feel it fighting to push through my eye sockets as I tried to snatch a single thought from my mind and focus on it.

“Jesus…” someone whispered. I glanced over at Jacob whose brow was twisted in concentration.

“Why did you say not to let him touch me?” I asked. He turned to me, but didn’t answer right away. “Do you—do you think it’s contagious?”

He didn’t have to nod or respond. His eyes said it all.

That would make sense. If Rey had been…infected, and then killed Corlin, that could be a reason why he turned, but why? It couldn’t be a real game mechanic—one that somehow took over a person’s mind and turned them into nothing more than a wild animal. Even for Mizaguchi that would be too much, and most definitely illegal.

My thoughts went to Rey and I felt a stab of dread as an image of her flashed through my mind—eyes red, face contorted with rage as she cut down Corlin with her Mortician’s Scalpel.

It is said that sane men went mad once they felt the sweet cutting sensations of steel flaying open the flesh of a recently diseased corpse…

I shuddered at the thought as a spiteful rain began to fall, the first few drops spattering down on the shoulders of my shirt like lardish swollen marbles, sending a deep chill through my body, right down to the marrow of my bones.

I thought of her out there, my one and only friend, raging aimlessly throughout the dangerous world, lashing out at anyone who got in her way and felt my hand tighten round the handle of my axe. I knew I had to find her, but what would I do when I did? After seeing Corlin in the grips of this mysterious madness, I felt more lost than I’d felt seeing Rey lying motionless on her bed, her terrified parents frantically trying to wake her.

Had I made a mistake coming back here? I didn’t even have a plan when I logged in—I just raced forward like I was the one to save the world. I was a level 1 Meat Sack for Christ’s sake! What was I going to do?

The black squid clouds above me dripped their inky mess upon us, causing a sullen mist to gather at our feet. Remembering something I’d heard when I logged back in, I opened my character sheet and saw the logout button was gone. Not greyed out, not impossible to select—gone. For whatever reason, we were stuck here.

Whatever, I thought, biting my lip as a fresh dose of anger rose within me. That may have mattered to the rest of them, but not me. I’d come back to find my friend, and even if I was able, I wasn’t leaving without her.