“Now, Taro! Do it now!”

Taro leaped into the air and reconstructed his body into an enormous grizzly bear. His teeth were sharp, his claws even sharper.

With a powerful blow to his stomach, the king went flying across the room.

This was it! … an opening.

He may have been too fast for me to land a hit, but now that Taro had worn him down with his spells and beast-shifting, the time had come for me to finish him off.

My blade pulsated in my hand as I ran towards him. I could already taste victory.

I took aim and slashed at his throat, but before my sword could connect to his neck I froze. My sword no longer glowed, nor pulsated, but looked dull and lifeless in my hand. It wasn’t even a second later when I felt a blow to my neck, decapitating me and ending the game.

GAME OVER.

The overlay melted away, pixel by pixel, revealing the open field before us once again. I sat on my butt, defeated, externally and internally.

“What the hell was that?” Taro shouted, fingers pressed against his temples.

I glanced down at my sword… no pulse, no vibration—nothing.

“Were you even trying?” he yelled, this time close enough to my face that I could see the veins in his forehead. “Dude! That was our chance! Ugh, you know what? Ah, forget it.”

He walked off in a huff, kicking his feet and saying things under his breath. I heard most of it, but it didn’t register. I just sat there, staring at my sword and wondering what happened.

It stopped me from killing the king, but wasn’t that what it was made for? Kings blood only, the note said. Unless…

“Riu…” Taro said softly as he approached me. I looked up at him. He had a somber look on his face. “I’m sorry, dude. I just… what if we win the V-Games and get sent into the game for real? I don’t want you to die. I guess, it just made me… scared. I think I might be scared, Riu.”

I saw his grip tighten around his staff. His eyes avoided mine.

It made sense he was scared; hell, I was too, but I couldn’t admit it. The words mushed together like peanut butter in my mouth. I struggled to say anything for a while, Taro glancing at me between shaking his head and kneading the back of his neck.

When I finally spoke, I was reminded of why I chose Taro as my partner.

“That’s why I have you, Taro,” I said. “You’ve always had my back, ever since we were little. I trust you to protect me. We won’t die because we have each other.”

“But I didn’t protect you—not this time. I thought you had him. What if next time…”

“Next time you’ll have my back,” I reassured him. “I know you will. My sword just kinda stopped on its own. Might just be a glitch in the game.”

Taro rolled his eyes and gave me a halfhearted smirk. “If you say so.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

He took a deep breath and sighed before suggesting we head home. We both plastered on a confident smile, but our eyes betrayed us.

At that moment I wanted to let him know I was scared too, maybe I should have. He could have taken comfort in knowing I also thought we wouldn’t make it out alive.

The walk home was quiet. Neither of us said anything, silence cutting their air like a knife. After a while, I attempted to strike up a conversation but was struck down by a half-assed laugh that died abruptly in his throat.

Taro always felt like a big brother to me—stronger, smarter, with his head on straight. I know he only agreed to be my partner to protect me. While he loved VR games as much as any other 17-year-old—and was damn good at them, I don’t think he would’ve chosen this path if it weren’t for me. He always asked me what I needed to prove. “Why are you always chasing the next big thing?” He thought I had some deep trauma to work through. Was it true? Maybe. All I knew was that the world needed saving, and I had been chosen to help save it. Wouldn’t you have answered the call?

“Well, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow,” I said to Taro as he walked past me and opened the door next to mine.

“Yeah, see ya,” he replied, leaving me perplexed.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to not be—” the door slammed shut. “—late…”

He must have been upset, but I didn’t harp on it. Selfishly, I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on with my sword. I ran into my apartment and laid it out on my coffee table.

It laid their lifeless like any plain old sword—worthless. Was it mad, too? No, that wasn’t the case, surely?

I retrieved the note from my desk upstairs. “May Crimson taste only the blood of the king.”

I looked at the sword. “Crimson, right?” I asked it, half expecting it to glow.

Nothing.

“Maybe Crimson is the name of the owner? No… that doesn’t make sense. Just what are you and where did you come from?”

I picked it up and took a closer look. Strange symbols were etched into the hilt, a foreign language perhaps, or a code of some sort. The blade was double-edged and perfectly straight. I ran my fingers over it, captivated by its beauty.

‘So… pretty…”

My gaze lingered long enough to hear a whisper.

“Blood. That’s what you want… real blood.” A faint, flicker of red shot through the blade. “I…”

knock, knock.

Ripped away from my trail of thought, I blinked away my sudden confusion. I felt like a dark cloud had extended its hand and pulled me under, feeding me thoughts of bloodlust and violence like candy.

I dropped the sword, and it hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Knock, knock, knock!

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” I called out, backing away from the blade slowly, until I reached the front door.

A young girl stood in the doorway, looking quite shy with a petite frame. She wore a familiar blue and white uniform I couldn’t quite place.

“H-Hello, Mr. Ito. My name is Mai, I work with your mother.”

My mother? What could this girl possibly want with me?

“Okay… Can I help you?”

The slender girl fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “She didn’t show up to work yesterday, and it’s not like Mrs. Ito to be a no-show—without so much as a phone call! So, I got worried, but she wasn’t answering her phone or the front door. Is she hurt? Do you know where she is? Is she okay?”

Concern filled the girl’s eyes. She stared up at me with anticipation. Sadly, I wouldn’t be able to relieve her of her worries.

“I’m sorry, Mai,” I said, glancing over my shoulder, thinking about the sword I left in my living room. “I can’t help you. I haven’t spoken to my mother in… well, quite some time.”

“Oh,” she replied, sounding disheartened. “I just assumed you two were close. She talks about you all the time.”

“… She does?”

“She does. It’s why I know where you live. We usually walk to work on Fridays… I mean today. She pointed to this apartment a while back and said how proud she is of you for getting your own place.”

Talking about how proud she is of her son, huh? She always did like to put on a show.

“That’s nice,” I replied, brushing off my mother’s apparent compliments. “But I can’t help you. She’s probably just sick, or out chasing a story.”

“Chasing a story?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure she’ll turn up to her next shift.”

When the girl left, my heart raced with anger. Of course my mom ditched work to chase a story. There was no other explanation. It’s what she did best—leave.

For a moment, the situation distracted me from my destructive thoughts, but when I entered the living room and saw the sword on the floor, they came flooding back to me, sharp and painful.

I was beginning to think this sword was more of a curse than a gift, and whoever left it for me knew I’d take it to the V-Games. As much as I wanted to leave it behind, I wasn’t sure I could… It wouldn’t let me.