SAVE POINT 22
Rosabella
"Rainer!" I screamed his name. I dove forward. I raced.
Towards the clearing smoke. Towards the burly Nomad who’d just stood there seconds before, even though I could no longer see him—my friend.
My heart dropped—twisted.
As my legs scrabbled—flew—through the tall grass scrapping against the thick fabric of the body armor covering my legs.
But, apparently, I wasn’t the only one running towards the scene. I heard a bellowing war cry of excitement to my left. And, suddenly, there was a sea of nerds.
Glasses.
Skinny and thick bodies.
Hurling towards me. A scrawny kid in front, wearing goggles, held a smoking RPG bigger than the shock on his face, leading the pack. Neon letters fizzled over the explosion site where smoke rose out of the ground in tendrils:
[RAINER, NOMAD 10: -149 HP 0/151]
[SHAQUILLE.OATMEAL_99, UNIDENTIFIED CLASS UNIDENTIFIED LEVEL: System Reward: RAINER, NOMAD 10 Eliminated +15 XP, 15/100]
No, no, I wasn’t reading the system alerts right. That couldn’t be—
"I did NOT know this thing was loaded," the nerd yelled, waving the RPG around. He was breathing heavily from the movement. His white t-shirt was so large it nearly hung off his frame which was strapped with leather weapon holders where an aviator jacket didn’t cover.
"I think you hit someone," a shorter, wider guy scrambled to keep up with the other's long strides.
“I think he killed someone,” another huffed, “Did you see the popup?”
And the RPG nerd's face went slack as he came to the same conclusion dropping in my stomach, "Oh shit."
'Oh shit.' THAT was the reaction? Those two words defined the entire ending of a life—the entire brevity of it? Of Rainer's life? Such irreverent words for a warrior who'd always been loyal and brave above everything else? ...The warrior who'd showed me how to clean my sword...the one who’d defended me...cried with me??? Tears burned in my eyes now—in my throat. Bile threatened to overthrow my stomach as I recognized bits—that was all that was left of the strong soldier...
Bloody bits.
Scattered, burnt flesh, the smell of which tore at my nose and the back of my throat. …In a blackened crater. Eliminated? Dead? No. But, no matter how I denied it, there was too much evidence all around me. He was gone.
I’d seen the system alerts. Rainer was gone.
I whirled on the group of geeks gleefully howling at the moon and the mess they'd made. Most of them were in raucous giggle fits. ...All except for the two in front who realized what'd just happened. The one held the rocket propulsion grenade as far away from him as he could while a pale grimace distorted his face. But I couldn't gloss over what just happened even if he was sorry. This wasn't a potato gun explosion. This was murder.
"It was an—accident," the goggled one fumbled for words, meeting what was probably indescribable pain in my eyes—the same kind squeezing at my heart. The wind shifted but not even it could dry the tears on my cheeks.
"No," I advanced on them, my fists clenched at my sides like the weapons I knew they were. My boots crunched in the grass, "No. You all shouldn't be here. You all should go home!" My voice trembled in a shout. "This isn't a playground or the set of a movie. These are real people. You just killed one—a real person—"
I choked the last few words out.
[System Reward: Making Enemies Is Sometimes A Power Move +5 XP, 1111/1200]
[System Query: It Appears You Are Trying To Reprimand SHAQUILLE.OATMEAL_99, UNIDENTIFIED CLASS UNIDENTIFIED LEVEL. Would You Like To Intimidate SHAQUILLE.OATMEAL_99, UNIDENTIFIED CLASS UNIDENTIFIED LEVEL? Use 30 Baddie Points to Intimidate?]
[Yes, Intimidate] [No, Thank You]
A power move? Intimidate them? Sure, what the hell. Maybe it’d help them see what complete assholes they’d been. Stupid, reckless assholes. I clicked yes.
[-30 Baddie Points, 630]
[System Reward: They Look Scared! Your Street Cred Just Went Up! +50 Baddie Points, 680]
[System Reward: Intimidated Two Nerd Boys +5 XP, 1116/1200]
I thought seeing the popups would make me feel better, but the truth was I was already feeling too much to handle anything else. Emotions crashed over my head. I was here trying to save myself and the Gamers from the darkness. I didn't need this right now—Rainer’s death? This swarm of people who weren't even from this world? They'd just fuck things up further. They already had. They needed to leave, or I was going to lose it—spaz out on someone.
I gritted my teeth, holding back my own urge to punch something and the tears that wanted to slide down my face as the wind spiraled my hair around my ears. I opened my mouth to tell them all exactly what I thought when—
"Hey guys! It's a temple! This looks like something you'd see in Tomb Raider!" A man shouted from somewhere behind me.
And, as if unchained from an imaginary pen, the crowd roared forward with excitement again.
Hitting me like a stone wall.
I wasn’t prepared. The breath whooshed out of me as a shoulder found my chest. Then, an elbow to my rib—ouch!
[-2 HP, 73/107]
I stumbled backwards.
So many rushing bodies: arms, legs, shouting mouths—all blurring with forward movement. All knocking and kicking and pushing against me like I was in a violent squall of ocean waves—
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[-2 HP, 71/107]
I flailed—
Fell.
Pitched backwards, landing on my back.
[-2 HP, 69/107]
Clink.
Landing on my backpack—shit!
[System Penalty: You Wanted To Spill Your Guts But Spilled Something Else -2 XP, 1114/1200]
What? Spilled something? Wait—the root powder that stopped the darkness in me. I had it in my backpack—SHIT! I added every other obscenity I could think of as I rolled to my side, my fingers fumbling for the zipper to my pack—
Wrenching it open to find—
FUCK!
Tan powder spilled over my fingers and the hem of the black bag, into the dirt where shards of glass jars no longer contained it. My root powder! The one thing keeping me alive and well in our quest to go find more.
Fuck! Fuck, Fuck—
Frenzied further inspection showed that there was only one jar left unbroken. One jar?! Even if I was able to scoop some of the remaining powder into it and fill it completely, that was barely enough to hold me for a few days. I'd been having to take it every few hours and, sometimes, it was worse—
“System!” I called into the racing legs and arms around me—into the last jar I held—“How long do I have on what’s left?”
[System Understands Query…Loading Response…]
[System Answer: With One Jar Of Root Powder, Ingesting Approximately 1 Tablespoon Per Dose Every 3 Hours, ROSABELLA GAME MAKER 12 Can Hold Off The Internal Darkness For Approximately 4 Days Or 96 Hours.]
4 days?! I had 4 days to find more root powder before I…died?! Panic coursed through my body and mind, nearly synching with the stream of feet by my face—sneakers, Mary Janes and sandals, thudding like a rabid herd of bison.
By me.
Around me.
And, yet, I couldn't move.
Couldn't find the will to get up—to shove myself upward. I was too fallen. Too broken. Literally, everything was broken. Everything. Why did I think I could do this? Rainer was dead because of my grand idea to lead an expedition out here, and, now, I practically was too. It was going to take a miracle to get us to The Dragon's Sea Town and more root powder in such little time. Maybe I should just give up now.
Just sit here.
Just drag my feet and sorry ass back to The Higher Place and admit to that awful, wrinkled, prune woman that I'd failed—that they should send an expert team. People equipped for this. While I played puppet queen and dress up, sitting on the throne and doing little else.
I swallowed. God, I didn't know if I could take that though—not one minute more of it. I didn't think that, after experiencing the thrill—after lifting my chin and confidence to the top—that I could bow under that weight again...return to the everyday, mundane again...sink into the expected slog and...be okay with it.
...Now, that I'd tasted freedom.
To return to that kind of gilded prison might—it might just kill me anyway. I blinked at the feet of the crowd, racing by—felt the wind their shoes and movement kicked up rocket by my cheeks. And I felt my tears there—stared at nowhere and at the details of the dirt and the blades of grass shooting up from them... My knee burned; I guessed I'd scuffed it in my fall, and numbness washed me away into nothingness. If I curled up in a ball here, would anyone notice? If I hugged my knees close, would I just be lost in the crowd? Lost, in general, like Rainer? A casualty of the craziness of this world?
My throat got thick at the thought of the Nomad again. An accident? This was all 'an accident'? Was my life simply becoming a string of unspeakable tragedies brought on accidentally? Or was there a plan? A bigger plan? A reason? How could there be a reason for Rainer's death or the loss of the root powder?
Rosabella! Rosabella, where are you?
It was Sparo's panicked voice in my head.
And, yet, I wanted to hide. No matter what I told myself, my mouth didn't want to open—to call out because I didn't want to be found anymore.
I just wanted to sit.
In this pain.
Shrouded in it.
I just wanted to finally give up—give away this pain and life I’d never asked for.
But the red dragon found me. I heard the gasps of the nerd crowd—how they parted before him. I felt the caress of air on my cheeks from his beating wings and heard the crunch of grass under his weight as he landed—I guess his tracker had let him get close enough...
And I didn't even have to look at him to know.
He had me. He'd saved me again.
The grass and sky blurred into two lines of blue and yellow, meshing—overlapping—as I felt Sparo's gentle claws secure around my waist, lifting me towards him.
"He's dead," I sobbed, uncontrollably now, "Rainer's—"
I know.
His voice was maple-smooth—heavy velvet drenched in sadness and concern.
We'll get through this.
And it was the warmest lie I'd ever heard—one I nearly wanted to snuggle into. A false hope I might be able to convince myself to believe if only for a blissful, fleeting moment. But, somewhere, not that far buried in my mind, I knew the truth. Sparo was tethered. He had to stay here, and I had to go. I had to deal with things all on my own again.
Just...not in this second. In this second, I'd try to believe him.
I've got you, Rosabella, and I've got Callen too.
The dragon murmured in my mind.
And I turned in surprise to see that his other talon held a body covered reverently in a white sheet. He did have Callen. He did what Rainer would have wanted. I let him carry me. I stopped fighting—went limp—and let him lift me out of the craziness, watching the nerd crowd get smaller in our ascent…till the threats in my had were larger than the physical ones below…
[Loading 15 Minutes Later…]
I hated goodbyes; I wasn’t good at them. I wasn’t good at shoving down the things that wanted to come up: guilt, sadness, loss, grief.
They were like blades; I swallowed them and got all cut up inside. And it made the healing harder if you were bleeding out internally the whole time—like applying a Band-Aid to the wrong side of the skin...taking care of a cut on an elbow when there was a gaping volcano in my stomach.
Spewing terrible thoughts.
Dark, terrible feelings.
Like magma I had to swallow over and over while it brimmed in my eyes like a secret I couldn't keep. Goddamn. Goodbye?
And that was what this makeshift funeral for Callen and Rainer felt like—looked like. From the outside, we were just a small, semi-circle of friends huddled around a white-sheet-covered body: lowered faces, whispered prayers...so quiet that this meadow had become a church without even birdsong to lighten the mood. Joy had placed a borrowed dagger of Rainer’s on top of Callen's still form—right where his hands were folded under the sheet. And I'd picked the prettiest wild daisy I could find and put it near the dagger. In homage. To Rainer and what he considered an honorable burial—since we'd buried his town together in the Side Mission.
[System Reward: A Funeral Proper Of An Honorable Trader & Nomad +5 XP, 1119/1200]
I could barely read the text through my tears. On the outside, we were quiet, nearly silent.
On the inside, I was screaming.
Not words.
Just a long, drawn-out cry.
No pauses.
No reprise.
Just the same note—a note of loss that I couldn't seem to get off my tongue.
If this place was like a video game, when did the winning come? When did the grasp of loss and death let go so victory could stumble through? The crowd of nerds just over the way escaped Earth, probably to find something new and exciting here. Too bad death and loss were not something new and exciting. How long did I have to hold on to win?
Everyone knew we couldn't stay here. Sparo’d told the group about the broken jars in my pack. Their shifting eyes and nervous expressions told me it was time we moved on.
Forward.
If I could.
I took a deep breath, gauging my throat's ability to make sound. My chest was unbearably heavy.
"It's time to move out," I told them hoarsely, "Sparo, please bury Callen. Make the grave honorable. Joy, you're coming with me." I knew Sparo would have the grave handled; he could probably dig it with one purposeful swipe of his claw. …But doing what we had to next? That was the part I was still unsure about, even if my face said otherwise.
"And the rest of us?" Dormouse's eyes were wide as he asked. He meant him and Mimi. What was their part in this?
"I need someone to stay back and do nerd crowd control. Mimi's familiar with the portals. Think you guys can handle it?" I tried to make it sound like an important duty even though I was well aware it was glorified babysitting.
But the pair nodded shortly, Joy muttered something sarcastic under her breath, and I exchanged a deep glance with the Vodyaracka I couldn't kiss in front of them as he scored an enormous claw in the dirt, making a hole for the shell of what used to be our leader.
Callen wasn’t here anymore. …Neither was Rainer.
But I was.
I had to figure out how to lead us all into a world without this choking darkness.