Still leaning together, Saber and I took refuge inside my house. I shut the door against the all-encompassing fog outside. It felt as though the fog had swallowed us whole.

The air in the living room was stale and still. The only sound was the gentle humming of the overhead light fixture and the shuffling of our feet as Saber and I moved about the room. By the dark circles under her desperate eyes, and her disheveled hair, and the slight tremor of her hand, I could tell she hadn’t been doing well either.

But here we were, the ordinary suburban house I had grown up in. The beige walls were adorned with family photos, but now they seemed like distant memories. Mother. Father. Did they miss me now? The furniture was familiar and comforting, but it was also a reminder of the life I had lost.

“Sophia,” Saber said in a raspy voice. “Thank goodness. I thought I’d never see you again.”

Saber stood before me, her blue eyes glistening. She was still dressed in her usual plate armor, but now it seemed out of place in this suburban setting.

“What happened?” I asked her. “Did you…just wake up here too?”

Saber told me she had been around for what felt like a day. But it was hard to tell; the sky neither brightened nor darkened while she had been here. As the hours passed, it merely maintained the same shade of nondescript, misty gray. But thankfully, she had spawned in her house that was across the street from mine.

“I heard voices so I came,” she said. “Was I so glad to see you. Who was the other person you were talking to?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said. “Her name is Alice. The creator of this game, I think.”

I huddled up on the couch, and Saber sat down beside me. I told her what happened. How 6E12 was freed, how he killed Fink, how he razed the town. I told her about Alice’s arrival and her battle against 6E12. And I told her how Hei came to our rescue, and how he fought, and…

“…And then he was gone,” I whispered. I forced those words painfully out.

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Saber stared out, but not at me. She seemed to be staring into the wall, into nothing in particular.

“He didn’t die, did he?” she asked.

“…What?”

“I mean, he just disappeared. You didn’t see him die, right?”

I clung on to the fabric of the couch seat. And I didn’t know what to say. I felt confused, caught off guard. Maybe even a bit angry at the bizarreness of what she was saying.

“Did you see him die?” Saber asked.

“All that was left was a single hand!” I exclaimed, on the verge of coming apart. “Saber, please…”

“Did you see the hand melt into light?”

That gave me pause. Did I see it melt into light, as all corpses did here?

Did I?

Saber placed her hand on mine. "Sophia, I want to make a promise to you. I will help you find Hei. If he was teleported to somewhere far away, I’ll help you find him again. If he was banished, we’ll free him together. If he was sealed away, all of him but his single hand, we’ll undo the seals. We'll find answers and we'll find Hei. He’s my friend too, so I promise you that."

Saber sat beside me, huddling close. Lost as we were in this world consumed by sorrow, she must’ve been saying these things just to comfort me. Yet still, I couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope at her words.

"In return, please promise me one thing too,” she continued.

“Huh?” I asked.

"No matter what happens, no matter how hopeless it may seem, I want you to keep smiling. Can you do that for me?”

I couldn’t help but let out a stifled laugh.

“That’s so…”

“Corny?” Saber guessed.

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Well, regardless. Where’s all your equipment?”

That was a good question. I was wearing nothing but pajamas, while Saber had her full gear equipped.

We set out to explore my house. It was a place of refuge, a place of comfort. And yet I didn’t even know why it was here. Was this a perfect copy of my real house? As we moved from room to room, we found nothing of much significance, until we stumbled upon the pantry and the fridge. To our surprise, there was food enough to last us a few weeks, but no more. Saber confirmed her own house had even less to eat.

"We'll have to venture out," I said, my voice heavy with resignation. “Sooner or later.”

At last, when I checked the master bedroom, which had belonged to my parents, I found my gear inside the closet. My crossbow was there, as was my Battlehat and coat. Before I could take proper survey of all that I had found, Saber tapped me on my shoulder.

“Look,” she said. “Is that a laptop?”

“…Eh?”

Upon the desk my father used, indeed, there was his laptop.

Strange. I didn’t remember seeing my own laptop inside my bedroom.

I walked over.. Gingerly, I flipped it open and pressed the power button.

The screen lit up with a familiar, musical jingle.