Tanya's lips were moving at a rapid pace but no matter how I stared I couldn’t hear the words past the ringing in my ears. The Tentarat was practically vibrating in my pocket. I dropped my eyes back down to the drawing of the skull and rose I’d copied into my notebook in the Old Mill. I don’t know what I had expected when I’d whipped it out but this was definitely not it.
She knew. Tanya knew. I might actually be able to find my family. Murdering Theo was no longer my priority.
I raced to her, grabbing her shoulders and pressing so hard that her chair leaned back on two legs.
“What do you mean you know?” I practically bellowed directly into her face.
She blinked at me before answering, “I’ve seen it before. It’s the mark of Melumek’s Lady. She’s the reason the Outsiders can’t go on long missions anymore. At every site where players were ambushed, this symbol is left behind. Only one person made it back alive from one of her ambushes and he’s not… well, he’s not all there anymore.”
“This symbol was at the Old Mill where Stella and Nora were taken. Was it the same with Jacob and the team of Gunslingers?” I demanded, trying unsuccessfully to keep my rapid breathing in check.
“Yes. Most of the time, all we find is a string of dead players. The only times it has been different is when Nora and Stella were taken instead of killed, and when Jacob was taken and Hanley returned alive. That’s only two missions where not everyone was brutally murdered and there were many, many missions before Ryan pulled the plug,” she said.
Don’t let the rage out. I told myself over and over. Keep calm. Don’t let it out.
“And why, might I ask, did you not bother telling me any of this last time I was here? You knew how badly I wanted to find them. Hell, you were the one that convinced that bastard Ryan to let me go. Why did you keep this to yourself?”
Her face paled beneath the red blotches on her cheeks. “Ryan didn’t want to cause a panic. The horde was already moving in. We had to build our resources and if he told the others about this murderous monster with Godlike powers no one would have left the safety of the tunnels.”
“What is this horde thing everyone keeps talking about?” I asked.
“Tanya…” Theo growled from his place on the floor.
Tanya ignored the man, keeping her eyes focused squarely on me. “It is everything you could ever think of. Every monster we’ve ever seen and a whole heap of new ones. It is the undead and the unimaginable all melded into one. It has been sweeping across the country after it rose from deep within the Gibson Desert. No one knows why it's here or what it wants but it's been on a killing rampage. Check your menu. The player count has been destroyed by this.”
I stepped away from her and opened my menu. The moment I did I wished I hadn’t. When this game first began there were 15,446,379 players. That meant only forty-one percent of the entire country's population had made it into the Transfer Zones. I looked at the number displayed above my stats in big, bold, golden letters.
5,312,003
That was just about twenty percent of every single player that had been left behind in Melumek’s cursed land. Eighty percent of us were dead.
“How… I mean… Why?”
I was floundering. There was a reason I had avoided looking at the damn number like doing so would infect me with the plague. So many lives just snuffed out like they didn’t matter. I sucked deep breaths in through my nose, running away from the familiar image that always tormented my mind whenever death was brought up.
A young boy with a head of golden curls. His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by such intense black circles that he resembled a panda bear. His lips were blue and his skin a weird color that was not his own. The red marks on his neck blazed so bright it stung my eyes.
I shuddered and turned away from the others, sucking in breaths as I rubbed my hands through my hair around the bald spot that thankfully seemed to have stopped growing for now. I found myself staring into a golden-framed mirror hanging awkwardly on the wall. I swallowed at the dark and sunken zombie that stared back at me.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
What had I become?
“Fucking hell,” I bellowed, curling my hands into fists. I lashed out, smashing the mirror and then swearing again because, damn, that hurt.
“Joe,” Tanya asked in a soft tone. “Are you alright?”
“I’m not the one tied to a chair, Tanya,” I snapped, refusing to look at her.
“Joe,” Theo said from his prone position on the ground. “We’re not your enemy.”
I roared and spun in place, grabbing him and yanking the chair back onto its legs. The movement seemed easy enough but the muscles in my arms, and something that ran down my side, screamed in protest at it.
“We can help you find them all,” Tanya said.
“If that was true you would have done it before,” I growled.
“Gabby ran away,” Theo said.
I frowned, turning my eyes to the man. “What?”
He looked at me and I saw the pain and the exhaustion that he was battling with. It ran deep, all the way to his core. “She had a dream about Mother Umbra. I told her not to do anything about it but all your stories just made her want to do it more. She ran away to find the legendary-level challenge dungeon and complete the trial.” He looked away from me and whispered so quietly I barely heard it, “She might not come back.”
I don’t know what made me want to make him feel better but the words slipped out before I could stop them, “If I made it through one, she sure as hell can. Gabby is ten times the thief I am.”
A small smile lifted the edges of his lips. “Maybe more like fifteen times.”
“You might be right,” I snorted.
I folded my arms over my chest. What was happening to me? I’d come here to kill the man and instead, I was trying to soothe his hurt soul. Anger seemed to burn hot and bright inside me but never for long. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a serious character flaw. Probably the second thing, right? Yeah, I thought so.
“Shut the hell up!” Frank screeched, breaking the growing tension in the room.
The little Tentarat crawled out of my pocket and slapped against my face, wrapping its tentacles around my head and nibbling at my forehead.
“Okay, would you get off?” I asked, my voice muffled by the tiny creature's body.
“What… what is that?” Tanya squeaked, her voice dripping with disgust.
I reached up, carefully detaching one sucker-lined tentacle and then the next until finally, I was free of it. I held him in my hand, lifting him in Tanya’s direction.
“This is my newest friend. He’s a Tentarat. I’m still working on a name for him.”
“He’s revolting!”
The Tentarat whimpered and deflated into a tight ball, covering its eyes with its small paws.
“That’s not very nice. You’ve hurt his feelings,” I said, rubbing the creature's head with a finger. “It’s alright… ahh… Boopzy. I think you’re pretty cool.”
The Tentarat perked right up, chirping and squeaking as it forcefully wrapped itself around my neck like some sort of scarf. Frank squawked indignantly and flapped over to my shoulder, pecking at Boopzy with his sharp beak.
“Stop it. If you can’t get along, none of you get to ride on me.” Theo snorted. I glared at the man and added, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Can you please let us go now?” Tanya asked. “I promise, we won’t tell anyone about all this.”
I leaned back against the desk behind me. “First tell me everything you know about this Melumek’s Lady.”
Tanya sighed. “I already have. Ryan ordered me to leave the room. Only Hanley knows more and I haven’t seen him for months.”
“He was sent to the front lines against the horde with the other gunslingers,” Theo said. “I thought it strange. The man had been confined to a bed in the infirmary since he got back but Ryan insisted every gunslinger should go.”
“Alright. That settles that. Now tell me, where did you lose Miranda and where was Jacob sent before he disappeared?”
“Miranda left the moment we got back to the mainland, just like I said before. She left during the night while she was supposed to be on watch. She left a note. It’s in the draw you’ve got your ass on. The key is…”
Before Theo could finish his sentence I shifted my bulk and picked the lock with ease. Five bouncing balls weren’t much of a barrier nowadays. I sifted through the scraps of paper in the drawer until I found one with Miranda’s name on it. I pulled it out and stuffed it into my bum bag before turning back to my bound prisoners.
“And Jacob?”
“The gunslingers were sent to Cockburn to look for a Trader. They made it as far as Cockburn Central before they were waylaid,” Tanya answered.
“And remind me again, why couldn’t either of you just tell me this before?”
“You don’t understand how the Outsiders operate. Neither of us had the authority to tell you any of this. Even telling you now could get us banished or killed. Ryan doesn’t care much about extenuating circumstances. There are people here I care about, I couldn’t risk everything I had for someone I barely knew at all,” Tanya said in a rush.
“Besides, you’d been missing for months on end. You can’t pretend that wasn’t suspicious. Even your story about being trapped in another realm sounded insane,” Theo said.
I didn’t much care for their weak explanations. Ignoring their pleas to be let go I took out my notebook and wrote the information they’d just told me. I would add notes on Miranda’s letter later but for now, everyone's patience was wearing thin.
I flicked my eyes to Frank and said quietly, “Hold on tight.”
I took out my blade and twirled it. Tanya’s face paled and Theo began to struggle all over again. I moved to Tanya and tucked the blade under one of the ropes holding her in place.
Before I sliced the rope I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Ryan is working with Melumek. Don’t trust him.”
I cut the rope and Blinked, flying out the doorway and into the hall. Frank’s screech was oddly drawn out in the slow-moving state. Boopzy clutched tighter to me as we made for the main hall.
“Joe, wait!”
Theo’s bellow echoed after me but I didn’t stop my mad rush. I had to get out of the Outsider’s hideout before they all pinned me down. If the scientist I’d bound down below hadn’t risen the alarm just let Tanya and Theo were bound too.