SAVE POINT 68

Loading Inner & Outer Turmoil...Er, Meadow Level...90%

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Rosabella

"Rainer!" I scream his name. I dive forward. I race.

Towards the clearing smoke. Towards the burly warrior who just stood there seconds before even though I can no longer see him—my friend.

My heart drops.

And twists.

As my legs scrabble—fly—through the tall grass scrapping against the thick fabric of the body armor covering my legs.

But, apparently, I'm not the only one running towards the scene. I hear a bellowing war cry of excitement to my left. And, suddenly, there's a sea of nerds.

Glasses.

Skinny and thick bodies.

Hurling towards me. And a scrawny kid in front, wearing goggles, holds a smoking RPG bigger than the shock on his face, leading the pack.

"I did NOT know this thing was loaded," he yells. He's breathing heavily from the movement.

"I think you hit someone," a shorter, wider guy scrambling to keep up with the other's long strides yelps.

And the RPG nerd's face goes slack as he comes to the same conclusion that I have, "Oh shit."

'Oh shit.'

That's the reaction? Those two words define 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...defended me...cried with me???

Tears burn in my eyes now—in my throat. Bile threatens to overthrow my stomach as I recognize bits—that's all that's left of the strong soldier...

Bloody bits.

Scattered, burnt flesh, the smell of which tears at my nose and the back of my throat.

He's gone.

Rainer's gone.

I whirl on the group of geeks gleefully howling at the moon and the mess they've made. ...All except for the two in front who realize what's just happened. The one holds the rocket propulsion grenade as far away from him as he can while a pale grimace distorts his face. But I can't gloss over what just happened even if he is sorry. This wasn't a potato gun explosion. This was murder.

"It was an—accident," the goggled one fumbles for words, meeting what's probably indescribable pain in my eyes—the same kind squeezing at my heart.

"No," I advance on them, my fists clench at my sides like the weapons I know they are. My boots crunch in the grass, "No. You all shouldn't be here. You all should go home!" My voice trembles 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 choke the last few words out.

As emotions crash over my head. I'm here trying to save myself and the Gamers from the darkness. I don't need this right now—this swarm of people who aren't even from this world. They'll just fuck things up further. They already have. They need to leave.

I grit my teeth, holding back my own urge to punch something and the tears that want to slide down my face as the wind spirals my hair around my ears. I open my mouth to tell them all exactly what I think when—

"Hey guys! It's a temple! This looks like something you'd see in Tomb Raider!" A man shouts from somewhere behind me.

And, as if unchained from an imaginary pen, the crowd roars forward with excitement again.

Hitting me like a stone wall.

I'm not prepared.

The breath whooshes out of me as a shoulder finds my chest. Then, an elbow to my rib—ouch!

I stumble backwards.

So many rushing bodies. Arms, legs, shouting mouths—all blurring with forward movement. All knocking and kicking and pushing against me like I'm in a violent squall of ocean waves—

I flail—

Fall.

Pitch backwards, landing on my back.

Clink.

Landing on my backpack—shit!

I add every other obscenity I can think of as I roll to my side, my fingers fumbling for the zipper to my pack—

Wrenching it open to find—

FUCK!

Tan powder spills over my fingers and the hem of the black bag, into the dirt where shards of glass jars no longer contain it. My root powder! The one thing keeping me alive and well in our quest to go find more.

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Fuck!

Frenzied further inspection shows that there's only one jar left unbroken. One jar?! Even if I'm able to scoop some of the remaining powder into it and fill it completely, that's barely enough to hold me for a few days. I've been having to take it every few hours and, sometimes, it's worse—

Panic courses 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 can't move.

Can't find the will to get up—to shove myself upward. I'm too fallen. Too broken. Literally, everything's broken. Everything. Why did I think I could do this? Rainer is dead because of my grand idea to lead an expedition out here and, now, I practically am too. It's 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've failed—that they should send an expert team. People equipped for this. While I play puppet queen and dress up, sitting on the throne and doing little else.

I swallow. God, I don't know if I can take that though—not one minute more of it. I don't think that, after experiencing the thrill—after lifting my chin and confidence to the top—that I can bow under that weight again...return to the everyday, mundane again...sink into the expected slog and...be okay with it.

...Now, that I've tasted freedom now.

To return to that kind of gilded prison might—it might just kill me.

I blink at the feet of the crowd, racing by—feel the wind their shoes and movement kicks up rocket by my cheeks. And I feel my tears there—stare at nowhere and at the details of the dirt and the blades of grass shooting up from them... My knee burns; I guess I'd scuffed it in my fall, and numbness washes me away into nothingness.

If I curl up in a ball here, will anyone notice? If I hug my knees close, will I just be lost in the crowd? Lost, in general, like Rainer? A casualty of the craziness of this world?

My throat gets thick at the thought of the warrior again. An accident?

This was all 'an accident'? Is my life simply becoming a string of unspeakable tragedies brought on accidentally? Or is 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?

Sparo's panicked voice in my head.

And, yet, I want to hide.

No matter what I tell myself, my mouth doesn't want to open—to call out because I don't want to be found anymore.

I just want to sit.

In this pain.

Shrouded in it.

I just want to finally give up—give away this pain and life I never asked for.

But the red dragon finds me. I hear the gasps of the nerd crowd around me—how they part before him. I feel the caress of air on my cheeks from his beating wings and hear the crunch of grass under his weight as he lands.

And I don't even have to look at him to know.

He's got me.

He's saved me again.

The grass and sky blur into two lines of blue and yellow, meshing—overlapping—as I feel Sparo's gentle claws secure around my waist, lifting me towards him.

"He's dead," I sob, uncontrollably now, "Rainer's—"

> I know.

His voice is maple-smooth—heavy velvet drenched in sadness and concern.

> We'll get through this.

And it's the warmest lie I've ever heard—one I nearly want 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 know the truth. Sparo is tethered. He has to stay here, and I have to go. I have to deal with things all on my own again.

...Alone.

Just...not in this second. In this second, I'll try to believe him.

> I've got you, Rosabella, and I've got Callen too.

The dragon murmurs in my mind.

And I turn in surprise to see that his other talon holds a body covered reverently in a white sheet. He does have Callen. He did what Rainer would have wanted.

Loading...15 Minutes Later...

I hate goodbyes. I'm no good at them. I'm no good at shoving down the things that want to come up.

Guilt.

Sadness.

Loss.

Grief.

They're like blades. I swallow them and get all cut up inside. And it makes the healing harder if you're 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's a gaping volcano in my stomach.

Spewing terrible thoughts.

Dark, terrible feelings.

Like magma I have to swallow over and over while it brims in my eyes like a secret I can't keep. Goddamn.

And that's what this makeshift funeral for Callen and Rainer feels like. Looks like. From the outside, we're just a small semi-circle of friends huddled around a white-sheet-covered body: lowered faces, whispered prayers...so quiet that this meadow's become a church without even birdsong to lighten the mood. Joy has placed a borrowed dagger of Rainers on top of Callen's still form—right where his hands are 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.

On the outside, we're quiet, nearly silent.

On the inside, I'm screaming.

Not words.

Just a long, drawn-out cry.

No pauses

No reprise.

Just the same note—a note of loss that I can't seem to get off my tongue.

If this place is like a video game, when does the winning come? When does the grasp of loss and death let go so victory can 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 are not something new and exciting. How long do I have to hold on to win?

Everyone knows we can't stay here. Sparo told the group about the broken jars in my pack. Their shifting eyes and nervous expressions tell me it's time we moved on.

Forward.

If I can.

I take a deep breath, gauging my throat's ability to make sound. My chest is unbearably heavy.

"It's time to move out," I tell them hoarsely, "Sparo, please bury Callen. Make the grave honorable. Joy, you're coming with me."

"And the rest of us?" Dormouse's eyes are wide as he asks. He means him and Mimi.

"I need someone to stay back and do nerd crowd control. Mimi's familiar with the portals. Think you guys can handle it?" I try to make it sound like an important duty even though I'm well aware it's glorified babysitting.

But the pair nods, shortly.

And Joy mutters something sarcastic under her breath.

And I exchange a deep glance with the dragon I can't kiss in front of them as he scores an enormous claw in the dirt, making a hole for the shell of what used to be our leader.

But Callen's not here anymore.

And I am.

I have to figure out how to lead us all into a world without this choking darkness.