The entire way back nothing happened. I kept an eye on the dirt in case roots would shoot out and attack me. The dogs sniffed around in search of other monsters. Rose tapped a foot impatiently while biting her lower lip.

Nemesis noticed first. “It’s speaking.”

“What?” I got closer. The vines were receeding to reveal the battered and broken [Tree of Woe]. Bark had shattered. The core of the tree had rotted from the inside out.

Nemesis had zero fear of my arch-foe. She knelt down touched the wood lightly with her green hands. “I think I can understand it. But it’s not like the other trees in our grove. It’s, harsh. Not baby talk. Drunk maybe? Like pass out drunk where you can’t really articulate. Like, really, really drunk.”

I picked up a piece of dislodged bark. Half a face on it still retained enough life to speak. It reminded me of a mirror shard with some horror face talking. Soundless, creepy, and repeated dozens of times on other broken bits laying all over. Nemesis waved a hand and the vines gathered up some of the larger chunks, holding them until they were almost a full face.

“That’s weird,” Nemesis responded. “I can hear it. Because it’s a tree? That almost makes sense.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I forget this is a game.”

My response was dry and in dire need of a drink. “I try to remind myself of that when my hands are in someone’s guts trying to hold their stomach in.”

She stared at me with one of those dead expression faces that’d told me I’d overshared. I shrugged then pointed at the tree.

“They’re last words,” I said. “It’s what people do when they die. They try to say something. Normally it’s gibberish, or a person’s name. Sometimes they ask about family that,” I drifted off then shuddered. “Guess I carved a bit of humanity into it. Go me.”

I didn’t feel proud. It would have been better if the creature exploded into balls of light that turned into loot drops. There’d been none of that so far.

Rose shook her head and folded her arms across each other. “You’re a druid. You should listen to it too. You’ll probably get a skill.”

I stared at the piece in my hand. The bark crawled slowly, reminding me of a overweight body, gasping for air as they passed away. I pushed the thought aside and focused on listening. Rose had a point, [Druid] paths should be able to understand plants if we tried. It couldn’t be weirder than knowing the dogs were hungry without looking at them.

My body dropped. Nemesis sat back and put an arm on my leg. I barely noticed as a sound of rustling leaves grew louder.

Trait [Natural Understanding] gained!

I brushed the message aside and focused. Dog whimpers were pushed to one side. The sensation of Nemesis hand grabbing my leg faded. StoneMason and Rose drifted further into the background until all that remained was me and this wall of broken wood. The remaining cracked faces still sobbed.

“It’s your fault,” the shard in my hand whispered.

“It is?” I questioned absently. My forehead tightened.

“You just ran.” The leaves whispered.

I said nothing.

“You cow-“ the partial face sized.

It was gone. I stared blankly, remembering all the names I’d heard for my horrible creation over the Fridays gone-by. Demon of the northern wastes. Harbinger of woe and other ill tidings. The [Tree of Woe] plagued me no more.

Upon the ruined bark, faces grayed. Most of them had belonged to girls I barely remembered. Every single failed represented relationship that went sideways because I didn’t want kids, couldn’t handle them, and felt annoyed when someone spouted that kids were our hope for the future.

“We did it.” Nemesis stared at me and smiled briefly. “But it seems wrong too.” She turned back to our defeated foe and crawled over the large trunk. Her fingers trailed along the bark’s uneven surface, up and through the faded timeline of my past mistakes, all the way to the first face, where her finger stopped.

It didn’t worry me that Nemesis wanted to take a close look at all the faces of prior lovers. I didn’t have any issues with her comparing to those gone before. Social media made the process even easier and if we were going to meet in real life, my past would have to be a somewhat open book.

What bothered me, was the way her green skin paled to nearly white and her jaw dropped.

I stood up and let Nemesis process her feelings. A second later I’d brought up the quest text and noticed that it now showed [Remove Woe] from the [Tree of Woe] as complete. Below the crossed-out text sat a row of useless question marks.

“That didn’t solve it,” I mumbled. My chest heaved from an abrupt sigh. Of course, defeating this ghost of my past couldn’t be as simple as running around. I walked around trying to keep my legs from falling asleep.

“What’s the loot?” StoneMason asked followed by Rose asking, “What do you mean that didn’t solve it? I demand skills.”

“I don’t-“ my words were cut off.

“Why does this look like me?” Nemesis shouted abruptly while stomping a thin leg.

We all stopped to look at Nemesis. I blinked slowly and glanced at the giant, dead tree. Four dogs were leaping through the leaves and playing tog-o-war over the biggest branches. They kept getting between me and the tree stump. I sidestepped to get a better view on the [Tree of Woe]’s remains. My gaze drifted back and forth between Nemesis and the bad carving of my first girlfriend.

“Oh Voices. He’s thinking.” Johnny whistled slowly. “This isn’t going to end well.”

“This is my face!” she poked at it.

“No it isn’t,” I said firmly.

Her head tilted to one side and nostrils flared. “I thought this tree was for your ex’s?”

We’d discussed that point to death by now. “It is,” I confirmed.

I bent closer and studied the fragments. It might be some weird melodramatic quest. My tree contained all those past lovers and it stood to reason that she might be impacted by some ghost of ex-boyfriends from the same source.

The faces that had been snarling at me before had none of their prior anger. They were strangely quiet and almost serene. They reminded me of the heavily sedated. A sort of slack expression that might be sleep, or possibly death.

“Why is my face up at the top?” She shook with barely suppressed rage. “Is this some sort of sick joke? Are you fucking with me, or is it the game?”

My blood ran cold for only a moment before I brushed it aside. There was literally no way for Nemesis to have that face, at all. That face belonged to a women from almost twenty years ago.w

“That’s impossible. I don’t know you in real life and hadn’t met you in game until after I made this tree. Besides, you look nothing like that. You’re way,” my attempts at rationalizing dripped away. She was green.

I tried again, “It has to be a game trick.”

But if she didn’t look green, then maybe. A bit around the eyes. The way she bit her lip. Only if she’d managed to keep the exact same figure without an ounce of middle age weight. The girl from my memory, Liz, had kept herself in shape during high school. She’d easily laughed at my dumb jokes like Nemesis did. Even the way she grinned was the same, like she caught me doing something funny and kind of naughty.

Her eyes went wide. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Finally, I came back around to the biggest reason I never would have noticed. Nemesis looked like a hot woman wearing a sexy Halloween outfit. She looked like that regardless of what position we’d ended up in over the last month of dating. Nemesis had a mole in the exact same spot on her inner thigh. It’d been years, but I still remembered that mark on Liz.

My brain short circuited. “But you’re green.”

She must have been making the same connections as I had.

“Ken,” she said firmly. “I can see it now. Even with the warped nose, those scars, I can see your damn face under all that. The same eyes. The same ones that Beth got.”

I took a deep breath and fought back the budding panic. My throat dried and I gulped. “Liz?” I responded with a far less sure tone. “Liz Legate?”

Her eye twitched.

“No,” I said. “No.” My words grew stronger. “No, it can’t be. There’s not possible,” reality dawned on me. My eyes tore away from Nemesis to her daughter, Rose. “No. Fuck no!” I shouted the curse and winced but couldn’t stop myself from rambling. “Not possible. Not possible at all. Tell me it’s not possible. The game’s just messing with us.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

It wasn’t. A violently flashing box nearly blinded me. I scanned the title, then did another double take and read the entire message.

Event Notice!

Woe To You

You’ve successful removed the [Spirit of Woe] from [Tree of Woe]. However, the [Spirit of Woe] has found a new vessel. A better vessel. One intrinsically tied to your wandering soul.

This is probably bad for you.

It couldn’t be good. With every passing second it seemed more unlikely that Nemesis was another playing simply seeing some other version of the game world.

A Traveler versus Traveler personalized event is now in effect. Actions taken here will impact all aspects of your life as a Traveler, regardless of the body you chose to take in the future. The [Curse of Nemesis] is now activated. This curse is effective across all universes tied to this one.

“What?” Traveler versus Traveler confused me for only a second. It likely meant Nemesis would be encouraged to kill me. My heartbeat sped up and the world stared to narrow. The edges of my sight blurred.

Also, the LeCroy family will be charging you for damages. Actual totals pending assessment.

I’d been kicked while down. That would set me even further back on repayment and make my redemption plan impossible. I couldn’t ponder it now and violently waved away the messages with both arms.

“How?” I didn’t even have the energy to finish uttering my question. My head pounded and I automatically counted the beats. They sped up and thudding in my ears became yet another bad sign.

Nemesis had no such restrictions. She’d started cursing up a storm. Plants around her waved wildly and multiple vines spouted out of the ground. “This is bull shit! I can’t believe I let you fuck me again!”

Too high. That’s what my heartrate had reached. The ground kept tilting up at me and I couldn’t get the [Staff of Thaddaeus] to stay in one place. I tried reason and put up a hand to signal defeat. “I don’t want to fight.”

Nemesis stared off into space than wildly waved green arms through the air. “Shut up! I don’t need any god damn quest to tell me to kick his ass. Of course, I’m going to. Twenty years of hell. Then this. This un-fucking-mitigated steaming pile of horse shit!”

She proceeded to rant at the sky. Rose simply stared at us. She might not have reached the conclusion I had. I hoped at least that much was wrong, but I knew. I was a damn doctor. I knew Liz’s features combined with mine might look like. Rose was it. A bit dirtier. Ragged hair. Her chin and nose were mine.

“I know this is your fault Hermes! You let me sleep with this asshole again. You know I hate him. You know what he put me through!”

My legs grew shaky. The thought rolled back around as I thought about Liz’s age. Mine. Roses and their kids. Liz had been pregnant when I’d joined the service. Rose was her daughter. The timing fit.

My head couldn’t keep two thoughts strung together long enough for them to make sense. I needed an out from that circle of hell. “Who are you talking to?”

Sarge whimpered nearby. My fingers reached out to scratch his head, an action that would calm him down. Not me. I was fine. But none of the dogs were anywhere nearby. That stood between Nemesis and I, heads swiveling back and forth in unison.

“You okay Friday?” Johnny asked.

The answer was no. I tried to convince us anyway. “I’m not panicking. I’m calm. I’m perfectly fine.”

“We should go,” StoneMason said.

Nemesis waved wildly. “Hermes? Where the fuck are you!” she shouted at the sky again.

“Mom?” Rose asked.

StoneMason wasn’t staring at Nemesis. He watched Rose with a pale face. “Relationship sharding.” His granite body shook with each thudding step away. “We should run now. Far, far away.”

“You guys can’t log out?” Johnny asked.

He shook his head. I tried but found the button didn’t let me out either. My head shook in unison with StoneMason’s. We were both taking quick shallow breathes.

“Weird. I can.”

StoneMason groaned. “You’re not. In trouble. We are. Lots.”

“What?” Rose asked StoneMason. One eyebrow shot up. “What did you say just now?” She stepped closer ot the giant. He cowed.

I repeatedly pressed the logout button. It did nothing.

Nemesis continued ranting at the sky. The vines around her were balled into a dozen angry imitation fists and shaking with her. “Hermes! If you don’t show up right now, I’m going to kick your ass!”

Rose’s head tilted. “What am I missing. Did you two date, before you got online and pretended to be rabbits? You’ve been with a lot of guys. What’s different here?”

My eyes tightened. There would be no way that Rose’s attitude could help.

“I’ll deal with you next,” Nemesis said. He flipped out a small blade and jabbed herself in the arm. Blood flowed freely and I habitually threw a heal out. She ignored my token gesture, or didn’t notice. “Hermes. Last time.”

I turned to run.

A wall of vines had formed behind me. StoneMason dug at the wall in panic. I backed up to it and watched Nemesis.

Rose tilted her head and her eyes went wide. “Crap, he’s awake.” She logged off abruptly, becoming barely a footnote in the budding disaster. That grown woman I’d been watching murder monsters with a disturbing level og glee, might be my daughter.

I couldn’t ask Nemesis. I didn’t want to breathe to make her irater.

Nemesis acted like she hadn’t heard Rose. Blood dripped from the cut palm. She flinched and shook the arm, sending liquid splattering over the disheveled turf. I watched, wide eyed and counting my pulse.

A circle traced itself upon the ground. Runes spiraled out in what had to be the game’s magic language, [Lithium]. I vaguely remembered some of those markings. Ones for relationships, past lives, symbols that might time and an impossible distance. They wer the same runes I’d used when summoning a portal for my revenge.

Liz had a twin. I remembered the scrawny guy who’d been pining over some girl in high school. He’d kept his nose in poetry books and barely saw the sun.

The circle completed. Blood red light flared, so bright I shielded my eyes.

In it’s wake the circle had vanished, leaving a new creature. Small tiny wings carried a red cherubic like body. Skin pulled tight over and impossibly round skull. Beady black eyes glared at me and I couldn’t tell if the creature was angry or amused. It might have been both, or hungry. The black and hold pitchfork in its hand looked closer to a dinner fork than a weapon.

“Nemesis. Sister. Greenlooks terribleon you.”

The creature spoke too fast for me to understand completely. I’d picked out the word sister, and green.

“It’s a game Hermes. I can look like whatever I want.” Nemesis shook. Her hands were in tight fists. Blood still trickled from the wounded palm.

The cheribue grinned, wide enough to nearly split it’s skull with a freakish display. “And sleep with whomeveryou want.” The imp banged down it’s pitchfork. I did a double take. Somehow the weapon had grown long enough to plant itself into the ground.

Nemesis’s body glowed green. The ground shuddered. Trees cracked and the earth shifted all around as fresh trees sprouted. “That’s not the same.”

“Choices. Alwayschoices. No one exempt. Notyou. Notme. Nothim.” He lifted the pitchfork out of the earth and pointed at me. I blanched and stepped backward, banging into the briarpatch and scrapping my arms.

“You put him here.” Nemesis pointed at her brother. Her monstrous imp brother named Hermes. I knew that name, but couldn’t quiet place it. Someone had spun a tale in a barroom about events before my time.

“Can’tsay.”

“Why did you do this to me? To us?” Nemesis gestured toward where Rose had been, but her daughter had vanished.

“Rules,” the imp said slowly. He spun a lazy arc over his sister’s head. The confusion of what I was seeing didn’t’ help my panic. “Whatshould I say?”

“Say? Oh I get it. You’re useless. Fine.” She waved both hands in disgusted. “Don’t say anything. I’ll just kill him and sort it out later.”

“Thendo that.” The hyperactive imp smiled. “But it’s between youtwo. I can’t helporhinder. Don’tcall me likethis again.”

Hermes, if that was the imp’s real name, wing’s carried him in between me and Liz. He smiled at me. A wicked, evil grin that I’d only see on the faces of those truly insane. Then he vanished in a puff of black smoke. The smoke faded, leaving me staring across the distance toward Nemesis.

I looked left. StoneMason had made some progress on the wall but it wouldn’t get far. Even with all his [Brawn], those vines were miles beyond him. I could see it now. Any girl who’d be able to summon an imp like that out of the blue, had way too many ranks for us to fight. Even if we teamed up, it’d do no good.

 “Ken,” Nemesis said with a clear tone of doom.

“Liz,” I said, swallowing. My throat felt dryer than ever.

She stepped closer. The wall StoneMason had been working on surged higher.

I could heal myself forever and maybe outlast her.  StoneMason might be able to overpower the vines. Those thoughts both meant nothing compared to how easy it would be to be done with this.

“Just let her kill you,” I whispered to him with more certainty than I felt. Dying would be miles faster for both of us. Then I’d start Friday the fourteenth in another game, another town, well away from her. Then, after I’d had a moment to process all this crap, I could figure out what having a daughter meant.

“I’ve been waiting for this, for years.”

Some detached part of my mind, the one that watched people die and managed to get up in the morning, studied Nemesis’s movements. The way the vines responded to her will extensions of nature’s rage, were impressive. If the nature versus nurture argument mean controlling plants or animals, then Nemesis clearly had chosen nature.

The dogs barked their brains out in warning. I ignored them. Vines slipped around both legs then slung me up high into the air.         The world spun and my stomach lurched. Dizziness pulled at my head as the ground came back into view.

“You’re just as bad as Jim!” Nemesis yelled.

Around in a mid-air loop I went. I took a shuddering breathe. These vines were kinder than the rocket experiments on a prior Friday.

StoneMason was fighting back the vines on him.

“Heals!” he shouted.

“Die!” Nemesis yelled.

My stomach lurched as the horizon tilted sideways. Hair fluttered up. Bile crept out my mouth. Head went over heals as I traced out a spell for StoneMason. 

The world continued to tilt. My arm hit the ground first, ruining the spell. The elbow buckeld backward. Pain launched up to the shoulder. Then my face smashed next. Everything ached. I shuddered, or tried to but it hurt too bad. Vision had blurred to near nothingness.

I couldn’t move, and watched as StoneMason died. He’d been freed before me.

Nemesis waved an arm. UP I went, high into the air, and back down again. It repeated until my health reached nearly zero.

I let it happen. I rode out the ghost of agony and hoped she’d finish it sooner. This nightmare had to stop. I needed out.

“I,” vines wrapped around my mouth. The budding thought stifled as they pulled tighter and around my broken arms.

“You put me through hell. You’re a coward. And you don’t deserve a daughter as sweet as Beth.”

Then before I could say a word in my defense, a quick jerk of the vines removed my remaining health bar.

For a moment, blackness held me. There were no messages of my character death and the pains stretched on. Those would go away if I stopped panicking and let the endorphins do their job.

“So, what will you do Ken?” I couldn’t answer. My voice didn’t work. “Run and hide from your responsibility, or stay and fight?”

There was no possible way that impish creature was the scrawny kid from way back then. It was impossible.

Finally the log out button responded, and I found myself shooting out of the ARC. Out the front door I ran, gasping for breath, and holding my head. My teeth chattered uncontrollably and I reached out to claw at carefully manicured grass. Dirt crumbled. In the distance a door slammed, making me nearly jump out of my skin.

“It’s just a mild panic attack. I’m okay.” I wasn’t but continued to reassure myself without conviction. Breathing slowly helped. A clinical detachment about my own condition helped. Safety facts poured through my mind.

There were no bullets. It was impossible for anyone to be in my apartment. The alarms hadn’t gone off. “I’ve got this.”

The words sounded as hollow as ever.

Minutes passed as my heartbeat slowed. The pounding settle and my vision had reached blurry but functional. By then I’d run through what happened a dozen times. Nemesis being Liz explained so much but felt utterly impossible.

What was worse, was how well we’d clicked. Almost two decades later, a lifetime of experiences, and everything still worked. Except I’d screwed up our relationship years ago and that still burned. I’d had quests to solve my in-game mistakes, but none of those were related to the real life ones.

My chest hurt. One hand rubbed it as I ran through signs for a heart attack. My neck felt fine. There was no odd tastes in my mouth. Only dryness and steady thuds. Dumbly, I repeated the last words I’d heard from within the ARC, “What will I do?”

Then it hit me again.

“I have a kid.”

And my kid, had issues.