SAVE POINT 5
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Rosabella
I grasp the gray-haired man's hand, shaking it...feeling the firm hold of his fingers.
Glowing letters pop up over our entwined hands.
***Covenant Sealed***
I gasp and pull my hand back.
The pink-haired girl raises her eyebrow at me, studying my face with disdain. "What, you didn't think you were gonna get away with breaking it, did you?" she spits, "It's a deal, a covenant—"
She's lecturing me like I'm five.
I know what a deal is. I just—
I swallow.
...Didn't expect it to be quite so concrete, that's all.
...I just made a promise to a group of crazy people. That has to be a rooky mistake, but how else am I going to save Dad? ...And what is this place?
I stare up at the dilapidated skyscrapers again, feeling a wave of unease light every hair on my arms despite my heavy coat. Green ivy climbs up the walls of the nearest building, entwining through shattered glass and structural steel. Dark clouds, overhead, mirror the dirt and grime that smudges the buildings, and the huge boulders that litter the street appear to have fallen and broken the streetlamps in half decades ago... Why does it look like New York City if it'd been abandoned for over 200 years? And where the fuck is Ming's restaurant?
Panic sets in, seizing my heart.
If I can just find the restaurant Dad and I frequent, maybe I'd be closer to not losing my mind—
"Joy, just give her a moment," the gray-haired leader states, brushing a sweeping hand towards the other girl, "This is all new to her."
His eyes swivel to lock on mine.
And I blink into his flint-gray orbs, like seeing them for the first time—like an anchor in that moment.
"Rosabella," he speaks slowly—something I'm entirely grateful for—"I'm Callen, and this is Joy."
The pink-haired girl scoffs as he points at her, throwing off his hand.
"She already introduced you to the other two, Rainer and Dormouse. I'm glad we found you. Welcome to The Game." His voice is soft and understanding—like he can, somehow, see right into my gasping heart.
The world isn't spinning.
I won't let the world spin.
"Can someone explain where the heck I am and where my Dad is?" I ask, feeling like the words are as hollow and confused as my core.
Callen nods. He opens his mouth to start when the pale, dorky kid with the dark wave of hair steps forward abruptly from the back.
"Your Dad's held in Somergot Prison, the highest-hold security penitentiary here. You're in The Game. It's an altered version of reality," he rapid-fire dictates, "a dimension overlapping Earth's. Technically, we existed before you so..."
He trails off with an entitled-raised eyebrow and that useless nugget of information.
The group gapes at him, especially Callen. "Thank you, Dormouse," he mumbles, sounding like he'd rather not thank the kid for anything, "for that incredibly overwhelming bit of information."
I blink at all of them.
An alternate—
An alternate—wait—
"Hold on," I raise a hand. "You're asking me to believe," I stutter, "that I just waltzed into an alternate reality?"
"Dimension," Dormouse corrects swiftly, nodding his head once.
My eyes grow wider at his interruption.
"...Oh, and I shot you in the back with a portal dart so, there was no waltzing, Princess," Joy adds smugly, throwing her pink hair over her shoulder and shaking a finger at me.
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"...Seriously?!" I crow.
But the faces of the group are still and serious.
They're...they're serious...
"Have you ever seen a dragon?" Rainer—the middle-aged stout one with the long, brown hair and warrior vibe—muses, chuckling a little to himself with the sheer joy of the question as his fingers play with the ruby-laden hilt of a very large sword strapped at his waist.
And his question stirs something in me...
A memory?
A foggy flicker...of remembrance?
> "Have you ever been in a dragon's mouth, Rosie?"
Dad's voice.
Joking with me as I laugh—a young, happy giggle—in the background.
Dad's voice in my head.
He used to say that to me all the time when I was younger...it was our thing—
"Rosabella?"
Callen's voice.
I snap back to...alternate reality.
"Yes?" —An automatic, embarrassed reply since he'd caught me spacing out.
He squints at me, his gaze deep as the stubble on his cheeks wrinkles, "Have you ever been in The Game before?" His words seem to hold a weight to him that is lost on me.
I shake my head.
I don't know what he means. ...What does he mean? He gaze is so intense.
"Welp," Rainer interrupts, shouldering past Joy and Dormouse towards a side alley and only looking back long enough to nod at us and throw a bow over his shoulder," I don't know about you guys, but I want to see some dragons instead of Kumbya-ing. This is a results-based mission, and I get results. Missy there has a promise to keep."
His worn, calf-length, leather boots crunch over the gravel and dirt underfoot as he moves towards the gap between a skyscraper which has fallen into another building, creating a V-shaped, shadowed opening. Vines grow up one side. Rocks fill the other—which only looks like a slight hindrance to the middle-aged man as he heaves himself over it all rather easily.
"He's right, we should go," Callen notes.
I struggle to catch up mentally, "Where are we going?"
"The old trainyard," Callen clarifies without clarifying.
I blink at him, not understanding.
"To see your first dragon," Joy says. And the mirth in her eyes and sneer on her lips speeds the rhythm of my heart more than I want to admit.
***
The group is hard to keep up with. They walk rapidly, with large easy strides.
Fording across a stream with quick steps...
All but jogging back into the thick forest filled with fledgling, lime-green sprouts shooting up towards the sky and hundreds of giant Redwood trees, enormous as castle towers.
I scamper forward—tripping as my toe hits yet another rock—and sweating profusely in this stupid, winter jacket when it is most certainly spring here.
My hair plasters to my neck.
Annoyed, I swipe my hand across my forehead again and yank at the jacket zipper, tugging it down with something close to anger.
Why am I so slow? What's wrong with me that I can't keep up? I'm supposed to be the young one and, yet, the two older guys are so far ahead...
The budding thicket around us, looms between me and Joy's shadow—the last one in line that I've been following.
Thorns snag at the flesh of my arms and face, creating little, red creases there.
My health bar pops up—is it my health bar?
Some type of persistent, purple wasp buzzes around my face as I thrash at it. It stings me in the hand.
"Shit!" I swear, shaking out my throbbing palm and stepping into the glade to find all four members of the group staring at me.
All of them, except Callen seem annoyed and unamused.
I pull my coat off, letting it fall like a puffy marshmallow to the dirt and grass, leaving me in a long-sleeve t-shirt which is still completely unnecessary in this balmy weather. "Is it just me, or is it hot out here?" I huff.
They all continue to stare.
...Except Callen who's gaze flickers between us like he's going to attempt to Band-Aid this entire situation.
"We have to remember her skill level," Callen lectures the others, "She's only at 15 endurance."
"If she practices on the way, she might level up by the time we get there," Joy says wickedly.
Callen scowls at her.
"Don't be mean," Dormouse pipes up...and I instantly like him more.
"Will someone explain this skill level thing to me?" I pant. ...Really, I'm just hoping it'll buy me more time to heave in air over my knees—
"The lower your endurance, strength and agility, the more quickly your health bar goes down, and the closer to Game Over you are. You train in those areas, and they'll grow. You train through challenging your limits. And you can replace your health with a health pack at any time as long as you have one," Dormouse blurts rapid-fire, looking shocked that all that came out of his own mouth.
I clear my throat, really hoping I didn't hear him right about one part, "Hold up, 'game over'?"
"Yep, as in dying," Joy growls menacingly, like she's enjoying this, "Here and on Earth."
"Oh, wow," I gasp.
Is there less oxygen after that fact?
Or is it just harder to get into my lungs?
"Ready to see that dragon?" Rainer interrupts, parting the looming brush with one hand.
And, through it, I get my first glimpse of charred forest.
Trees burned so black that some have gaping holes in them.
And silver scales, ducking behind a rusty train car tilting off the tracks in the distance...
The ground shakes with footfalls that give me a taste of the size of the thing.
This sure was a lot of shit for just trying to get my Dad back...