Kade opened his eyes to find himself lying down on a sofa opposite of Sera. He closed them again and took a deep shuddering breath.

Inside of him he could feel various emotions fighting for control. Predominantly anger, shame and worry. Anger at the other person, shame at his loss and how rusty he’d become and worry of what it meant that others now knew he existed.

He had also felt very close to losing himself in combat again. The thrill, the blood, the fight. It had brought back old memories. And he was mildly scared. He’d tried to leave that him behind.

He felt his neck, remembering the feeling of iron passing through. He shuddered. There was plenty of fear of dying. He thought he would be okay after all the VR games he’d played, but… it’d never been this real.

He ran a hand over his face and peeked at Sera from behind his fingers. She was graciously ignoring him, pretending to be fixated on a book.

Briefly he wondered if he should say anything, but understandably he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He had too many things to sort out.

He looked over to Sera and their eyes met. Thankfully, she caught his silent message and his view changed as the lid of the capsule hissed open.

He stepped out, looking into his messy room. For a brief moment he stared blankly into space before stepping out. He had twenty-four hours before the game would let him log back in. That meant four days in game.

He dropped onto his bed face first and looked at a picture of him smiling with both his parents. His parents looked back.

His father stood, smiling broadly from under his bushy moustache as if he was in on a joke that only he knew, and his mother, her smile shy, like sunrays from behind the clouds. He missed them. Both of them.

What would they have thought? What advice could they have given him?

He got up and prepared to do something he hadn’t done in far to long. He went for a jog. It was an old habit of his, from back, before he’d started gaming.

Barely five minutes in and he remembered why he didn’t jog anymore. It was agony. He had a stitch on one side and his legs were burning. To add insult to injury his jogging shoes were now somehow too small in the time he hadn’t worn them.

The jogging turned to more of a brisk stroll, before slowing down to a walk. But it still did what it was meant to do. It gave him time to think.

There were several things that needed thinking about.

Firstly, there were people near him, which ruined his plan of a secluded life in-game.

Secondly, if the first encounter was anything to go by, they were probably hostile.

Stolen novel; please report.

And thirdly he’d broken his own promise. He’d fought another person and come very close to losing himself again.

Sure, it was in a game and they’d attacked first, but last time had been counted as self-defence too. His breath caught in his lungs for a moment as he remembered the sound of cracking bones, the way the bone had bent and snapped under his fist. There was a reason he’d made that promise with himself. He didn’t want to lose control. That simmering violence… that was not who he wanted to be.

He knew from experience that it was far too easy to become desensitised from things like that. It starts off small, simply a way to level up in a game and the next thing you know it’s a habit in the real world. Violence wasn’t an answer, at least not always. In games it held no consequences, but if he let that define who he was, then…

He sat down to take a breather on the park bench. Leaning back he looked up at the sky.

If he wanted to live peacefully in the game then, as he saw it, he had three options before him.

One, ignore the people, hoping they would leave him alone, or two speak with them, apologise and hope they would leave him alone. Neither of those two were very realistic.

The first scenario won him a little time. There was a village, which meant people and people need resources, food, water, stone, wood. That meant that eventually they would explore the forest, finally discovering the waterfall and, with it, him. While he could hope for a peaceful coexistence, it was unrealistic.

As the village grew, so too would the demands for the previously mentioned resources. He would never find peace. So that option was only be delaying the inevitable.

The second option was also a flop. If they were hostile, they would attack. There were more of them than him and he had injured one of their own. He didn’t even have anything to offer them in return for leaving him alone. Even if they were friendliest, the first scenario would come into play, which left the last option.

He would have to convince them to stay out of the forest. Since he had nothing to trade that meant a show of force. He would have to go in and confront them.

Go in, convince them that the forest was off limits and he wasn’t worth the trouble, then leave again before they could call his bluff. Smoke and mirrors. He wouldn’t even need to kill anybody. Just scare them, leave and let the tale grow in each retelling.

Something flashy and unpredictable. Now there was something he hadn’t done in a while.

Getting to his feet he slowly headed home, considering how to pull it off. He had a fair bit of experience in similar stunts like these from his earlier gaming career, where he’d needed to convince other players that it was a bad idea to mess with him.

It usually meant he had an easier time robbing their items, before selling them. Not his proudest moments, but he’d needed the money.

Which just left the execution of his plan, playing on people’s fears.

He grinned, his blood coursing from the excitement, or maybe just from the thought of getting revenge. He didn’t like dying.

Back at home he looked at the clock, only to realise that he still had twenty-three hours left. He groaned and after a refreshing shower got to doing some of the plentiful chores, starting with the kitchen.

He began cleaning out the fridge, throwing away all the old food, before moving on to the kitchen top. From there he headed into the living room, picking up dirty clothes and placing used bowls and plates in the dish washer. He looked at the clock. Twenty hours left to go.

Heating up some instant noodles he continued the mindless cleaning spree. Heading into his room he just dumped all the clothes from the floor into the washing machine. He was too lazy to sort through them all. They were probably all dirty anyway.

Games found their way back into their covers, books back to their rightful positions in the shelf and figurines and such were freed of dust. Even his desk got a quick once over, though most of the stuff just vanished into one of the drawers. He vacuumed, mopped and changed his sheets. He even ironed his one good shirt!

In the end he collapsed onto the sofa, too tired to even turn on the TV. He looked at the clock. Only nine and a half more hours to go.

Finding an old alarm clock, he set a timer for nine hours. Never had a day seemed so long!