"Kyra, Kyra wake up!" It was Marc's voice. Kyra blinked open her eyes and a wringing pain greeted her behind her eyes. Groggily, someone pulled her into a sitting position.

"Wh-what?" Kyra pressed on her temples as her brain throbbed.

"It's been... a few hours." She looked to her side and saw Marc smiling at her. But something was wrong. Behind him, instead of the poster-plastered walls of her bedroom, there were trees. A lot of trees. In fact, as far as she could see in the blinding sunlight, there were only trees.

"WHAT THE? Where are we?" Kyra jumped up, immediately regretting it as her head exploded. She hugged her head.

"Um... yeah, the map says that there's a Villager Town nearby." Marc stuttered. Kyra looked at him, raising an eyebrow. Marc had a blue hologram screen in front of him, like the ones that appeared a few hours ago.

"The what says there's a what where now?"

"Check your status screen."

"My what?"Kyra's eyebrow arched. Marc looked as if lightning struck him for a moment, his hand jerking away from the screen.

"Um... just think 'menu' to yourself." He stumbled on his words and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Menu?" Kyra questioned, but a game-like hologram popped up in front of her. She yelped in surprise. The screen was the same as the ones that appeared before everything vanished in faint blue glowing squiggles. There were four choices in the menu: Status, Inventory, Map, Friends.

"Click status." Marc said. Oddly, Kyra felt an urge to comply and clicked status.

[STATUS]

Name: Kyra Malixi

Path: Path of the Peasant

Level: 1

Class: N/A

Health: 31/31

Mana: 35/35

Stamina: 20/20

Vitality: 3

Strength: 5

Endurance: 4

Agility: 6

Intelligence: 16

Perception: 2

[SKILLS]

ACTIVE:

PASSIVE:

Jack of all Trades Lvl. 1

Marc practically shoved Kyra away as he basically devoured her screen, examining every bit. Did Marc grow bigger? She didn't remember him towering over her this much, while he was taller than her by nearly half a head. Then Kyra realized. Marc had stopped hunching over. Normally, when Marc stood up, walked, or did anything really, he had a habit of hunching forward and Kyra was not sure why.

"Of course, she didn't specialize. Phew. Alright, that settles it. We're going to that town."

"Hmm?" Kyra snapped out of her thinking, secretly wondering how her stats compared to others. And to Marc.

"C'mon, let's go!" He pulled her arm.

"Hey! Gentle! Ow!" Kyra yelped in pain as Marc's grasp almost broke her arm. "Jesus! When did you start working out?" She rubbed her arm, where it was already starting to turn red. In the bottom left corner, Kyra took notice of three bars hanging around her left leg. She tried to kick it away, but her leg past right through.

Marc chuckled as Kyra stumbled, "yeah, that's your stats bar. Always there. Can't get rid of it." Marc said. He then mumbled something under his breath and smiled. "It shows your health, mana and stamina. In that order."

"Nice?" Kyra wrinkled her nose.

Just then, as Kyra was still fumbling over her screen, something rustled the bushes.

"Kyra get behind me!" Marc pulled out an 8ft tall, double pointed spear from nowhere. He slashed it through the air with expertise. Kyra's eyes widened and she let out a yelp as the deadly weapon materialized from thin air.

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"HELP ME!" A child ran out of the forest, their little face red as a pumpkin and their blond hair plastered onto their head like a gold helmet. They ran straight into the clearing, their little fists pumping. That kid dashed behind Kyra and grabbed her plaid shirt.

A fraction of a second later, a pack of twenty-some five feet tall wolves came screeching into the clearing, snarling. Kyra screamed, turning around to run. These wolves stood almost eye to eye with Kyra. Something shimmered above their heads, but all Kyra could see were the razor-sharp teeth and menacing eyes. Every inch of her tore at her to run and run and not look back until she was safe or until they caught her. But before she could even move, Marc had vanished.

A second later, he reappeared in the middle of the horde that had formed in front of Kyra and the child. Three wolves had fallen already, turning into glittering dust. Kyra could barely see Marc as his figure continuously blurred through the wolves. The sharp tips of his red spear twirled as if it was on fire. Blood dripped on the ground. Wolf heads dropped with a matted thump and shattered.

Kyra watched in awe and horror as Marc ruthlessly tore through the bodies of the wolves as if they were butter. He barely glimpsed at the fallen creatures as he moved on to the next. Marc's face, as he stopped to stare at Kyra for a moment, was empty of emotion. His eyes were as lifeless as the severed head of the wolf he just slaughtered, his sight unwavering. Marc even looked bored as his spear dripped bright blood into the grass. Then he was blurry again.

When all the wolves have disintegrated into dust, Marc sauntered around, opening a screen once in a while. Moments later he returned, shirt spattered with blood and his spear long gone.

"You know what, let's set up camp around here," he glanced at the little kid and Kyra's eyes followed him. Her heart pounded and warned her by instinct. The man in front of you is dangerous, her brain alerted her as Kyra took a defensive stance. Glancing at Marc's face, there was blood spattered across his cheek, overlapping the birthmark by his lip.

Marc furrowed his brows as Kyra continued to gape at the sheer sight of him, dripping in the blood of wild beasts. You don't just murder 20 wolves in 2 minutes and have all of them disappear after they die and not expect a reaction.

"There might be more people like him." Marc said after Kyra just stood silently in awe. The little child stared blankly at him, their little face devoid of the panic that they wore as they ran into the clearing. Kyra observed as the child nodded their head, frowning and leaning themselves onto Kyra and away from Marc. She felt the kid wiping their tears - or sweat - on her shirt and she rolled her eyes. Children are annoying.

"That's a great idea, Marc, but um," Kyra cleared her throat - cooling her head and calming her pounding heart - and gestured to the open forest around her, "in case you haven't noticed, we aren't in my house anymore." She smiled.

Marc simply shrugged and called out a screen, then dragging something from within it. Then he chucked it at Kyra, who caught it and grunted at its weight. It was a heap of army green cloth and by the clinking sound, some metal pipes. He pulled out another bundle and began to unwrap. Not wanting to be left behind, Kyra unfolded hers as well. Her eyes blinked and realized it was a tent.

"It's okay Kyra. I think we'll be fine for tonight." Marc smiled, and Kyra resisted the urge to punch him. She didn't want him to trigger him into his 'gamer mode' like he just did back then, with the wolves. While his glare was much colder, Marc gave off the same unbreakable focus and calm as he did with his games, even if he was on the brink of dying in a round. It was what Kyra dubbed 'gamer mode' because Marc was unlike himself when he played his games. A much more mature and clever version, might she add.

<<<>>>

The fire cackled brightly as Kyra and the little boy huddled around it. No matter how many times Kyra looked at it, it felt so weird to sit there, knowing that the fire had sprung out of Marc's palm as if it was nothing. When Kyra demanded Marc to show her his palm, there had been no burns or soot or device or anything. Kyra had raised an eyebrow when the temperature dropped at sunset, but Marc just lit a fire with his hands as if it was the most normal thing to do in the world.

Kyra called up her menu, not bothering to select any of the options. She stared at the screen for a long time and sighed. This whole thing was like a dream and a game mushed together. Kyra would really like to believe that this was all in her mind but staring at the bruise on her arm from when Marc grabbed her, she better start adjusting. At least she had Marc, who seemed to have gotten so much stronger in such a short time. A sick feeling grew in her stomach as Kyra thought about Marc's strength. How did a weak boy like him become so strong?

Kyra sighed again. If this was a video game, she'll just have to grind. A lot. She wondered how long it would take her to become like Marc killing the wolves today. That agility and power. It reminded Kyra of her PVPs against Marc in their gaming sessions, after Kyra spent a few all-nighters grinding her character up and adjusting to the controls. Yet somehow her Master level character seemed sluggish and dumb next to Marc's, who held similar stats. Judging by the way Marc's fingers moved, it was surprising that his phone kept up at all.

And today... it was like he had yanked his character from the game and inhibited him. Recalling what happened, Kyra frowned as she looked over to the little child warming themselves with the fire. Looking closely, Kyra still couldn't tell if they were a boy or a girl. They had short hair like a little boy, but girls had short hair too. They clothes didn't provide much of a clue either. It was a childish t-shirt with a picture of a dog and shorts.

"Hey. What's your name?" She called out to them tentatively. The pitch black woods seemed to be filled with sleeping monsters. Even if Marc said he was going to kill all of them when he left a few minutes ago, a part of Kyra's brain told her that it was likely he'd miss a few.

"I'm..." the child stopped and thought, "Tiny." He smiled.

"Say, Tiny, are you a boy or a girl?" They stayed silent and leaned their head to one side.

"I'm a boy." He said, a little confused at the question.

"Okay, so Tiny, how did you know we were in the clearing?" What Kyra found weird about the situation was how the boy knew she and Marc were in the clearing. If Tiny tried to escape from those wolves, begging for help, Kyra should have heard the calls for help from deeper in the forest. Not just when Tiny bursted into the clearing. It was as if he knew Kyra and Marc were there.

"I... just did." Kyra scoffed at his reply.

"Alright, that's enough," Kyra stood up and crossed her arms, "who are you, really?" And thinking about how Tiny didn't even flinch when a blood-soaked Marc walked back after the wolf massacre, Kyra's inkling grew into a full conspiracy. The more she thought about it, the more holes in the boy's acting there was.

"My my my, you figured it out, eh?" The boy smirked, an unfitting emotion for a boy his age, Kyra thought. Unless...

"Yeah, well, your acting is trash." She rolled her eyes. "If you want to fool me, at least win an oscar before you try." The little boy cocked his head sideways.

"Oscar? What's that?"

"Nevermind that. Who are you?" Kyra raised her voice in frustration. But then it faltered. They were no longer in the forest. Instead, there was empty space.