-Alice-

Let’s see. Oh, this shade is nice. The clothes are boring, but Izzy said I can get cute clothes by playing the game. Green eyes are so cool. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have black hair. I wonder if I should dye it IRL.

Maybe not. Blonde hair and blue eyes are rare after all. However, there was nothing permanent about making an avatar. I could do something like… this.

I took the sliders and moved them all the way to one side. Within a minute the characters boobs grew to comical proportions. The waist became so thin that I could probably choke the crud out of her kidneys and snap her in half.

Turning away from my laptop I looked to Izzy. He was sitting at the table looking at his phone after eating breakfast—while also ignoring the delicious bagel I heavily wrapped in cream cheese.

“Izzy! Your bagel is getting cold! You need to eat it within the next—” I checked the time on my phone, ignoring the clock on my laptop since I’ve never been able to understand time zones and messed it up as soon as I got it. “—5… no, 4 minutes,” I said, ending in a much calmer tone.

“Bagels?” he glanced at the table where the item in question stared back at him. Making a face of disgust he pushed it away.

“Izzzzzzy!” I complained.

“Disgusting. I'm not eating that.” He went back to his phone.

“But, Whhyy!” I whined, almost turning my laptop into a… floorbottom.

Izzy sighed as I noticed the patterns of one of his shower thoughts about to be poured into the real world and make my head hurt with artistically thought out details.

Sensing the bombardment of words that was about to come, I decided to record it. Not because it was a crazy event, but because I wanted everyone to feel my pain.

“Bagels are like the overachieving, carb-heavy cousins of donuts who showed up to the family reunion with a PowerPoint presentation. I mean, who decided that dense, chewy dough should be a breakfast option? It’s like biting into a tire! Meanwhile, donuts are the fun, free-spirited party animals, dressed up in colorful icing and sprinkles, ready to celebrate life.” Preached Izzy.

“Izzy please eat the bagel.” I replied, wishing he would stop his blasphemy.

To my surprise he continued being difficult. “Bagels are just like, 'Hey, I’m a bagel. I pair well with cream cheese and existential dread.’ Oh, ho, ho, but Donuts on the other hand, they’re like, ‘Let’s live dangerously and top ourselves with bacon!’ Honestly, if bagels had feelings, I’d feel bad for them—like they’re just sitting there on the counter, waiting for someone to take them seriously. But who wants serious for breakfast when you can have a donut that screams, ‘Life is awesome.’”

He then went back to eyeing the bagel—like it was under suspicion for murder. For a second I could swear the bagel was sweating. I ended the recording there before he committed bagel genocide.

I should be mad, but in this situation I had no choice but to laugh. “First off, bagels are delicious, and second, you need to eat it within the next… 3 minutes.” I insisted.

Izzy sat back in his seat. “You know you can just give me my meds. There's no need to sneak them to me in food—like I’m some kind of pill tucker.”

“That’s not as fun though. Besides you have trouble taking pills. It’s easier to crush them up and mix them into cream cheese.” I responded.

He sighed in resignation, then compromised with my demands, “Fine, but I’m only licking the cream off.” He said.

What a waste of a bagel. Oh, well, as long as he takes his medicine it’s fine. I went back to my character creation and looked through a few more options.

After a minute. Izzy came over with a now clean soggy bagel. Then gave my screen a glance. “You pushed the sliders to the right didn’t you?” he asked with the slightest hints of amusement in his voice and a devilish grin on his face.

Crap, was this like one of those taboo things? A meme perhaps? Did I do something embarrassing and frowned upon? I always seem to walk into these things—like when I held that N64 controller the wrong way.

That thing had so many handles! How was I supposed to know you were only supposed to hold the middle and right one! Izzy even said himself, some games needed you to hold the left one, so I wasn’t wrong. I guess watching me reach all the way over to move the analog stick was hard for him to digest, but it totally wasn't my fault.

I tried to defend my actions. “Not all of the sliders!” I responded, feeling like he was making fun of me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Hang on.” He said taking the laptop from me.

My husband began messing with my character. “Izzy you’re gonna mess her up.”

“Here.” He handed the laptop back to me.

I took it and immediately looked at the changes. The character now had blonde hair and blue eyes. A lot of the proportions were evened out. She still had very nice curves but they were less exaggerated and didn’t make her look like a blow up doll. Darn, but I wanted to play as a blow up doll.

“You can play as Alice, like from that book you like.” He said.

“I see. I do like that idea.” I said. Originally, I didn’t actually have a plan for the avatar. I simply messed around with character creation, but basing it off of an already existing character—especially one I really liked, made me grow slightly more attached to it.

It wasn’t right though. “Hang on.” I said, before messing with the sliders once more. Eventually I got the results I wanted. This time I flipped them all to the left. Creating a little blonde girl.

“Oh, yeah. I guess that character would be a brat. I was making her look more like you.” Said Izzy.

“Aww, Izzy, I’m not that beautiful.” I blushed, looking away from him.

“What are you talking about? Your 100 times hotter than that.” He leaned in and we kissed for the third time that morning. He was so sweet.

We pulled away and I asked, “So, are you gonna show me your little country or whatever?” I asked.

“Its not a little country. Entropy is actually one of the bigger ones in game.” He responded almost offended.

“Yeah, yeah” I waved him off, “I know how proud you are of your virtual land.” I mocked while rolling my eyes. It was only a game. It wasn’t like he actually owned a whole country.

Izzy sighed. “It might be a game, but it’s also something I put lots of work into. My country, the NPCs, the structures and relationships I’ve built through time and effort. Even the reputation and respect I’ve built through my actions in game aren’t fake. It might be virtual, but there is weight in all the work I put in. The country I helped to build isn’t something only I could have done. I have an entire guild of people. Even my enemies helped shape it by acting as obstacles we needed to work around.” He explained.

“Sorry, I didn’t really think of it like that. You did say the game is different for every play through.” I apologized.

“It can be depending on you. You can build a different type of character and get a different experience. If you stick to the main game by sticking around in the starter NPC area, Arvoes, you can pretty much experience the game the same way every time, but if you head out into the player countries. Well, you’ll have all kinds of new content to play with. Countries change all the time. People are always fighting for land and resources and end up creating new towns or cities in the process. As a land owner I can even design dungeons in my lands. The developers can also create pop up events for different countries. That’s how the game stays popular.” He explained.

“I see. That sounds kind of cool. What should I pick as a class?” I said.

“Well, there’s a bunch and each one has different game mechanics. So different that each one feels like you’re playing another game. Don’t feel like you have to stick to the same one. Changing classes is easy. You just need to talk to the right NPCs to unlock them. There are also advanced classes you can unlock through leveling and special actions. You should start off with a melee fighter since they’re easier to level up in the beginning.”

“Assassin sounds cool. There’s something neat about a little girl running around with a knife.” I said.

“That’s not a bad choice. It takes a bit more skill, but you can do lots of damage if you know what you’re doing.” Said Izzy.

“Alright, I’ve started the game.” I said as I pushed the little button to finalize my character.

“Get to level 20 and I’ll swing by in game.” He said.

-Present day-

My eyes slowly opened. Did I black out again? I looked around and found myself still strung up. My arms had been wrapped up in black tendrils. They seemed to be barbed since I could feel blood running down my arms.

It also hurt a lot as they dug into my flesh, as if burrowing into my skin. I wanted to reason and pull Izzy’s consciousness to the surface, but after nearly destroying my voice and annoying Squirmy in the process, he cut my tongue out and pulled several of my teeth.

I couldn’t handle this. I wish he’d just kill me already, but every time that came to mind I shook my head and thought about Izzy. He was still in there. The man I love.

I couldn’t give up. Never, give up. If only I could still talk. I’d call for him. Call for help. Even though it hadn’t worked the first 100 times I didn’t know what else to do. In this situation all I was capable of was to cry horrible noises from my mutilated mouth.

We were so high up that even if I were to get free, all I could really do was jump to my death. Fighting him would only make everything worse. Squirmy sat there in a body that looked so much like Cain. Was this some kind of mind game for him? It pissed me off more than it scared me.

If only I’d been stronger. Why did I quite playing? I never even got a single class to max. I was always switching from one to another and couldn’t even get myself properly geared up. I had so many classes and had no idea which one to focus on.

I almost laughed. Listen to me talking about games. Izzy would be so happy to hear me right now. When did I turn into a gamer?

Cain looked like he was sleeping. I had no idea what he was doing. His lower half had merged with the monsters head. He couldn’t chase me if I got free, but then again. That would mean climbing down the back of the boss.

That wouldn’t work since he could make tendrils out of its body and catch me. Looking down the monsters back I couldn’t help but feel like it had an entire ecosystem on its back. It resembled a forest, but spikier.

There wasn’t any trees, but the nasty massive horns dripping with poison could easily act as them. It was a death trap. Even now I could see the minions lurking in that forest like lice. They were the strongest of the bunch. Each one was near level 100. Most were around 80 and the highest one I’d seen was 94.

Beyond them I could also spot what looked like cocoons. Some were small and green colored while others were huge and black. I had no idea what they could mean, but I wanted to know.

The more information I gathered the better. Maybe Shadow might come. Luca was dead. I don’t know how, but those were the facts. You’re supposed to come back to life when you die, but I guess that wasn’t a thing anymore.

I haven’t died since I got here. I survived simply because I didn’t want to get hurt. I wonder if Izzy would be sad to know his guild mate was gone. Did he even realize? Did he care, or was this the same guy that killed Jack all those years ago?

Regardless, I want to save him.