The voice on the other end of the phone was completely silent, leaving Jay to speak the first word.

“Hi,” he said, the peak of conversational prowess. He started mentally kicking himself but figured it would be even more awkward to keep talking.

“Hello, Jay; call the office if you want to speak with Mr. Georges. This is my personal cell phone.”

Claire’s voice was cold and disinterested.

Jay cleared his throat before he spoke. “I’m not looking to talk to him. I want to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine what you’d have to talk to me about after three days,” she said, scoffing at the idea.

“I know what I did to you probably didn’t make a lot of sense,” Jay said. “So you probably spent a while wondering what happened.”

“Uh huh,” Claire agreed without offering much.

“And it was really messed up.” Jay continued, trying to get her to open up to the conversation. “And I should have called you that night or the next day to discuss what happened.”

“That’s true,” Claire admitted. Then, with more venom, she added, “On several levels.”

Jay couldn’t really explain himself without delving deep into his own psyche. Going that far would involve explaining Taylor Lynn. There was way too much going on there to involve Claire. If she wasn’t interested in running already, she would be after that conversation. He spoke back into the receiver of the phone.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I was having trouble figuring out how to explain it.”

Claire was quiet for a few moments. Jay couldn’t read her mind, but it felt like a thoughtful silence. The kind of silence that hangs in the air while some decision is made. When she spoke again, her voice sounded much more open. He could even detect a pleading note in her voice. She wanted to understand.

“We had such a great time. I haven’t felt like I was on a date with a normal person in a long time. I’d be lying if I said this was the first time something like this happened, but I didn’t expect it from you. It was a sweet moment. It’s not like I was dragging you inside.”

“Have you heard of the phrase déjà vu?” Jay asked, frantically reaching for the first metaphor he could find.

“Don’t condescend to me, Jay,” Claire said darkly. “That’s the most common phrase in the known universe. What does that even have to do with anything?”

He took a deep breath, continuing on the same path he was already on. It might be enough for her to understand if he could explain the general feeling.

“Claire, have you ever felt a moment... it’s sort of like deja vu, but not quite the same. It’s like, you see something out in the world when you suddenly end up trapped inside a memory. Have you ever felt that?”

“Like an out-of-body experience?”

“No,” Jay said. “It’s more like being shoved in front of a mirror where the only thing you can see is something that already happened.”

“To be honest, I can’t say I have,” Claire admitted.

“Oh.”

Jay’s single word hung in the air. He mentally searched for a way to explain without divulging the entire ballad of Jay and Taylor Lynn. The same old song and dance.

“It sounds a lot like locking yourself in a prison of your own making,” Claire admitted reluctantly. She was uncomfortable.

“I’m not building it,” Jay said. “I know it isn’t rational, but it’s not something I’m doing to myself. I wouldn’t do that.”

“If you aren’t, then who is?” she asked hesitantly.

He didn’t really know how to answer that. It didn’t feel right to say Taylor Lynn. There wasn’t anyone else involved in their relationship. Blaming his own subconsciousness also felt like a cop-out.

And then, he realized it probably was of his own making.

But he didn’t know what to do with that. It wasn’t something he could really process on the phone with Claire. It would take some powerful novels or a good therapist. Or maybe Sarah.

“You know,” Jay said, switching the topic but keeping his tone light. “It was a really special night for me, too. I haven’t laughed like that in years. Not in the real world. I had so much fun.”

“Special night? Like I haven’t heard that one before,” Claire said. Then, she laughed. This time it was much more genuine. “But I admit guys like that don’t usually freeze up at the first sign of lips.”

“What would it take for you to give me another chance?” Jay asked. “I think you want to.”

He sensed that there might be an opening, although he suspected she might want an answer to her question someday soon. She would want to know who was constructing the prison. When that day came, he would have to admit that it was probably himself, after all.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Frozen yogurt,” Claire said without a second thought.

“What?”

“It’s going to take frozen yogurt tomorrow. Specifically, during lunchtime.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very high price,” Jay said tentatively.

He started pacing. Part of him was still worried she was messing with him. That at some point, she’d admit the whole idea was a cruel prank Mr. Georges came up with to embarrass him. But he wasn’t about to admit deep insecurity like that out loud.

“You caught me on a particularly good day,” she said cheerily. “Maybe it is better that you took a few days. Lucky you.”

“What makes today such a perfect day?” Jay asked, unable to resist his own curiosity.

There was a common phrase: curiosity killed the cat.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me about that memory you got trapped in,” Claire offered.

“See you tomorrow at noon,” Jay joked.

“That’s what I thought. See you tomorrow.”

But he could tell she was smiling on the other side of the phone. All he needed to do was to meet her the next day at… He realized the problem and spit out his question in a panic.

“Wait, where am I meeting you?”

“You seriously can’t imagine where to find me in the middle of the day?” Claire asked. She added, with flirty teasing, “Some of us have real jobs.”

“Right… see you then.”

Jay clicked the button to hang up the phone and quickly set it to the side. There was no point staring at it since he’d already done what he set out to do. He and Claire could settle things during frozen yogurt. Admittedly, Jay was a big fan of peanut butter chocolate candies.

Instead, he took the time to search the internet for more news about Tumult Corp. For a moment, he considered that the company might be going so far as to spy on his internet usage. He decided he didn’t care.

The news mentioned that Tumult Corp.’s legal situation was accelerating. A few other studios were now involved in suing them for various other things. He tried sifting through some of those clips, but nothing caught his interest like the first.

He researched the original small game studio. The person doing the original interview, now several days ago, was the studio’s lawyer. The game studio was called Galena Development Studios. The company’s owner was more interesting than the lawyer or the studio.

His name was Eric Miller.

Now, Jay Miller knew that Miller wasn’t exactly an uncommon name, as names went. Still, he found it a coincidence that the studio’s owner suing Tumult Corp. had his last name. He just couldn’t figure out why that would matter.

Jay received a text from Taylor Lynn in the middle of his search. The guild party was meeting up in an hour or so to begin the expedition. She told him to hurry up with whatever he was doing offline.

He continued his research as long as possible but never found a link between himself and Eric Miller. The man had a son named Wexler Miller, but the son didn’t look anything like Jay. Also, he was edging a little too conspiratorial. Jay had memories of his parents from when he was five years old.

Soon enough, the clock ticked, and he was thirty minutes away from needing to meet up with his friends. It was time to go to Mercura Island. Before they left, he needed to collect his items from Sarah, talk to her about Claire, and take care of some statistics administration.

He logged into the game, zoning into the beautiful streets of Ilra.

Stepping off to the side, so Jay would be out of the other players' way, he opened his game menus. Inside the menu, he found the Familiar menu and inspected it. Cuddles, who was happily examining Jay’s ear from his shoulder, was listed as a level eleven Strogian Death squirrel.

The squirrel had a laser eye beam ability, which he used liberally. He also had access to an ability called Phase Moment, which is what he had used to escape the deadly attack from the Strogian boss monster during Turmoil Arena. His third ability was much more straightforward: a passive boost to movement speed.

Jay could also see a progress bar of how Cuddles felt about him inside the menu. The squirrel seemed to be exceptionally fond of him so far. Cuddles had no statistic points, but the menu indicated his stats would grow with every level.

Inspecting his own menu, Jay found three new abilities. The first was a dodge he could perform in midair by spending some mp. That ability was fantastic; he could already think of a hundred usages for it.

Secondly, he had an ability he could toggle on. Vital Points would consistently drain mp but highlighted the points on most creatures that dealt maximum damage. It didn’t work on bosses, and hitting the targets was still up to Jay’s aim.

The final ability was his new Synthesization, which would allow him to slot a utility skill from Bestiary monsters into his abilities. He searched through the variety of different options he already had. There was an option to flat-out boost his movement speed from the dire wolf he killed while hunting goblins. There was another option to temporarily harden his defense from the volcanics.

Ultimately, he chose an ability from the Turmoil Arena’s second-round boss, the Beetler Queen. Using the Utility ability of that boss, Jay would be able to grow wings. The cooldown was an hour, and the ability only lasted a minute. But the wings would allow Jay to fly.

Obviously, he chose flying.

Before rallying with the crew, his final order of business was to invest his vast pile of statistic points. He was currently sitting on 45 available points. Looking through his stats, he tried to determine the best way to spend them. His Perception was closing in on 50. But, after running some calculations, Jay thought he might be able to hit 100 Speed.

He would take 100 Speed over more Perception any day of the week. The process was agonizingly slow since he needed to check whether each point knocked him over his Balance threshold. Not having the Balance to back up his Speed gave him a woozy feeling, but it took a few seconds to set in.

Jay found the sweet spot was maintaining a Speed that was less than three times his Balance. Once he discovered that, dumping the rest of the points was easy. He just needed to make sure he kept the ratio correct.

He stared at the result briefly, trying to calm his flaring temper. The experience and bonuses had all been some cosmic joke leading up to this. With 33 Balance and 99 Speed, he had a single statistic point remaining. To reach 100 Speed, he would need to break the proper ratio, leaving him woozy and ineffective.

In the end, he added the final point to Balance, bringing the skill to 34. He wasn’t happy about it, but he would level again—it would just take a little patience. Then, he could see what it was like to have a statistic above 100.

His mood somewhat soured, though still excited for the island expedition, Jay hurried to meet up with the others. Taylor Lynn’s text told him to meet with the others at Nora’s shop. All ten party members were already there. Everyone was already staring at him impatiently.

“You’re late,” Lester said.

“I had to do math,” Jay admitted as Sarah handed him a pile of gear. “Math is sometimes hard.”

Lester chuckled.

Jay transferred all the gear from Sarah to his inventory. His sister had left him three gold Prints, so he rolled his eyes at her. She shot him a look that said, “If you didn’t talk to Claire, you’re dead.”

Fortunately, he was safe on that account. He pulled out the compass and counted the people around him. Everyone he expected was present.

He activated the teleportation item with a deep breath, and a glowing circle emanated from the party. They’d been preparing for this for so long; the situation barely felt real.

Teleportation initiated… Your 9 party members are being transported.

Jay’s immediate thought was: wait, nine members?