As Saffie stood in the waiting room of Dax’s hospital ward the next morning with the vial of antidote in her hand, she was filled with an odd sense of calm. She had been pouring every ounce of her energy into working towards this day for the entire summer, and after so many ups and downs, it felt surreal that it was finally here. She had been through so much, in fact, that she felt like a completely different person to the one Dax would remember, and she wondered if he would even recognise her.

On a small TV hanging on a wall bracket in the corner of the waiting room, the news buzzed in the background.

“Investigators are yet to locate the developers and servers of the illegal augmented reality video game Overworld that caused thousands of Londoners to become mind-controlled. Here to tell us more is Scott Phillips from the UK department of technology.”

“Thanks Angela. The problem we’re facing is that the game’s data is being passed through an unfathomable amount of virtual networks, making the source impossible to locate in the real world.”

“Are you saying that we may never find out who is behind Overworld?”

“That’s correct.”

The sound of the TV was cut off by an excited voice.

“Saffie! Lovely to see you, darling!”

It was Lauren, the nurse Saffie had gotten to know over the summer.

“I heard you were involved in that whole video game thing! That’s so scary!”

“Yeah, you could say that,” Saffie agreed.

“Well, you’re good to go in and see your uncle, although… I’m afraid there’s been no improvement to his condition. We got our hopes up a few evenings ago when there seemed to be a small amount of twitching, but it hasn’t happened again.”

Lauren evidently hadn’t made the connection between Dax’s coma and what she had seen and heard on the news. The twitching had to have happened as a result of Jade taking control of everyone’s movements. The control presumably just hadn’t been powerful enough to fully animate Dax in his comatose state.

Saffie took a deep breath and smiled at Lauren.

“Today is the day,” she said.

“The day for what, my darling?”

“The day Dax wakes up.”

The nurse squeezed Saffie’s shoulder and gave a sympathetic look before leaving Saffie alone. Saffie couldn’t blame Lauren. She had told her Dax was going to wake up once before, and she had been wrong.

Saffie didn’t waste another moment before entering Dax’s room. With a few checks around her to make sure there was no one in the vicinity to stop her, she made a small incision in the top of his IV pouch, and carefully, she poured the entire contents of the antidote into it. The colour of the liquid changed immediately, and it began seeping down through the tube that fed into Dax’s wrist.

As it entered Dax’s body, Saffie stared at his face and waited with bated breath, while Acorn hopped up onto his bed beside him, his little chest pounding away rapidly. Saffie tried to listen for any change in Dax’s breathing, but all she could hear was the steady beeping of the cardiogram.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

And then…

Blue particles began forming to the left of Dax that eventually morphed into a yellow, round, furry creature.

Before Saffie could react, there came a voice:

“Saffie?” It was the voice she had longed to hear again for so long; a voice she had feared she might never hear again.

She wasn’t imagining it.

Dax was awake.

Saffie immediately pounced on him and squeezed him so tightly she knew she had to be hurting him. But she couldn’t help it.

“W-what… where… h-how?” Dax stuttered, and Saffie just laughed, fighting back tears of relief.

“I have a lot to tell you,” she said.

The days that followed were filled with Saffie incoherently rambling about errands, spells, poisons, potions, glitch-hunters, and a particular boy who had come into her life only to be gone again too soon, with Dax having to stop her quite often and remind her to slow down, even though he was as equally fascinated by everything Saffie was telling him as he was filled with pride.

It was a while before the doctors (who were very confused about Dax’s miraculous and sudden recovery) gave him the all clear to leave the hospital, and Saffie spent the majority of her time helping him get settled back into his flat. Despite insisting he was fine, he was still a little shaky on his feet, so Saffie would help him up and down the stairwell, and occasionally pick him up groceries, making sure to include a few packets of marshmallows each time to replace the ones her mum had thrown in the bin.

During this period, Acorn and Fumble had a whale of a time chasing each other around, even when they were in Saffie’s house, as Peter had agreed to have the Faraday Cage dismantled.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Before long, Dax was back to full health, and now that the storm in South Wales had passed, he booked two coach tickets to Swansea so he and Saffie could take the Onyx to the Oracle.

The morning they were due to leave, Dax arrived at Saffie’s house an hour earlier than she’d been expecting, and he asked her to put the Onyx in her backpack while he had a private talk with her mum and dad.

Saffie had no idea what Dax wanted to talk to them about, but she knew her mum wouldn’t appreciate it, as she’d barely said two words to Dax since he’d woken up, and seemed to be trying to avoid him at all costs. Whatever they ended up talking about took longer than Saffie had anticipated, so she just sat on her bed patiently until eventually she heard Dax’s heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

He entered the bedroom and shook his head at the sight of the bare walls and floral bedsheets.

“This breaks my heart,” he said.

Saffie nodded slowly.

“I used to love coming back to this bedroom. Whenever it had been a tough day at school, this was my safe place. But it doesn’t feel like that now. When I’m out of the house, I don’t enjoy returning to this room any more.”

“What if you don’t have to?” said Dax.

Saffie looked up at Dax and frowned.

“It’s what I’ve been talking to your mum and dad about,” he said. “I’m not the best cook, I can be quite messy, and you’d have to get up a bit earlier each day to make it to school on time, but if you can put up with all that, there’s a home for you with me.”

“But… mum and dad… they wouldn’t let-”

“If it’s what you want,” said Dax, “I’d be willing to go to court over it, and I’ve made this clear to them. Given everything you’ve told me about how they treated you while I was gone, I don’t think it would be a very long court case. Deep down, your mum and dad know this as well. It’s not their decision to make. It’s yours. You don’t have to give me an answer just yet - take as much time as you want to think abou-”

“I don’t need to think about it,” Saffie said, “My answer is yes. Of course it’s yes.”

When they went downstairs, Peter and Holly stared at them.

There was silence for a moment, before Holly said:

“You’ve chosen to live with your uncle, haven’t you?”

Saffie nodded.

Silence again.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to get some things,” she said. “But right now I need to take what’s in my backpack somewhere.”

She made to turn around and leave, but Peter stepped towards her. He stopped for a moment, and then did something he hadn’t done for years - he hugged her.

Saffie squeezed him back.

“Thank you for all of your help on that night, dad,” she said softly.

“I still don’t fully understand what we were involved in if I’m truly honest with you, darling,” he said, “but I know that I’ll cherish those memories forever. Now whatever you need to do with that thing in your backpack, you go do it. And after that, you go on to be the greatest wizard… magician? Whatever it is - you go on to be the greatest there is.”

Saffie chuckled.

“Okay dad,” she said. “If I can.”

Peter stepped back and looked at her.

“Scan,” he said.

Saffie was confused for a moment, until her dad gave her the warmest of smiles and said:

“If anyone can, Saffie can.”

After two buses, one coach, and a long trek by foot, Saffie and Dax finally boarded a small rowboat and set off for Tusker Rock. Around them the calm sea lapped against the boat’s sides, and the air had that lazy dreamlike haze that can only be found at the end of summer; an air rich with the memory of adventure.

Perched on the tip of the boat’s bow was Fumble, with Acorn clinging to her ears on top of her, while Dax rowed at the stern. Saffie sat facing him, with the backpack carrying the Onyx clutched in her hands.

“I bet players think I went on some crazy hunt for that thing,” Dax said. “But the truth is, I just got a really strong glitch signal one day. I found it sat there in the middle of an alleyway along with the spawner chest. I had no idea the kind of damage it would end up causing.”

Saffie stared at the backpack, lost in her own thoughts, and Dax slowed his rowing.

“You know we can’t break it open again, don’t you Saff?” he said.

Saffie nodded sadly.

“I know.”

Saffie couldn’t deny that she had considered it many times since Nate had dissipated. Would there be a line of code that she could change to somehow bring him back? She didn’t know, and neither did Dax, but she had to force herself not to think about it any more. Every player knew of the Onyx’s existence now, and Jade would no doubt only be the first of many power hungry players to want possession of it if it continued to exist. There was no question about what Saffie and Dax had to do. The Onyx had to be destroyed.

“I still can’t believe the chest spawned you an ephemeral,” said Dax. “It’s very rare they do that. I wish I could have met him.”

“So do I,” said Saffie. “I invited him to come with us. He should have been here with us right now.”

Dax took a deep breath.

“Maybe he is, in some way.”

Saffie nodded, trying to hold back her emotions. She wanted to believe it was true, but as much as she had searched for any kind of sign over the last few days, there hadn’t been one. Though it was difficult, she was slowly coming to accept that whatever code Nate had been made up of had truly disbanded, and he no longer existed in any form whatsoever.

“We’re here,” said Dax.

Saffie turned to face the front of the boat again, and watched as the island emerged through the haze. It was was like one giant mass of rusty shipwrecks, with seaweed-covered cabins jutting out at odd angles, cogs and cargo cranes strewn everywhere, and the metal girders of ships’ frameworks curving into the air like giant, skeletal ribcages. And then, in the centre of it all, the single bright white figure of an angel; the Oracle.

As they made contact with the island’s rocky shore, Saffie and Dax clambered off and pulled the boat out of the water, then made their way inland, being careful not to skag their clothes on the sharp obstacles as they went.

When they reached the Oracle, Dax said:

“Go ahead. You’re the one who rescued the Onyx from the clutches of evil. It’s only right that you should be the one to destroy it for once and for all.”

Saffie pulled the Onyx out of the backpack and gave it one last look before placing it into the Oracle’s open palms. She stepped back, expecting something grand to happen; some mini explosion, a flash of light, or a sparkle of some sort. But none of those things happened. Instead, the Onyx simply vanished as though it were nothing more than a simple, little glitch.

They stayed on the island for a while, enjoying the tranquility of it, until Dax said:

“I guess we’d better start making our way back. We’ll need to get you ready for returning to that wretched school.”

With just a couple of days left before the start of the new school year, Saffie would usually have been filled with dread at this point, but this year, things were different.

“I’m… actually not worried about going back to Willow Grove. I have at least one friend there now - Ruben.”

“Wait,” said Dax. “Isn’t that the one who poisoned me?”

“Yeah,” Saffie said with a wry smile. “Who would have thought?”

Dax let out a chuckle.

“Come on, let’s get out of this place before the tide comes in.”

Dax made to head back to the boat, and Saffie was about to follow him when she noticed something in the distance. Out to sea, just above the horizon, was a twinkling glint of light. She stopped and stared at it.

“Is that… a star?” she said.

It was the only light in an otherwise smooth, twilit sky.

Dax approached her side and peered out.

“What am I looking at, Saff?” he said.

“That bright light in the distance. Is that real or in Overworld?”

She glanced at Dax, but could tell from his expression that he couldn’t see anything. Whatever it was, it was only meant for her.

She felt Dax’s large hand squeeze her shoulder.

“You okay, kiddo?” he asked her.

As they turned and began making their way back to the boat, Saffie smiled and said:

“Perfect.”