Early the next morning I left the village. The guards queried where I was going. I just laughed at their words and dismissed their question. After a while I arrived at an obscure spot from where none of the main entrances of the village could be seen.

I inhaled the fresh air deeply. The sun had only just risen and Kiara must still be in bed. I myself had barely slept during the night owing to an excited mind, and my body didn’t feel well rested.

A sprinkling of gold powder and I was staring through the portal at Kiara, still in bed as I had thought, snoring softly.

“Hey,” I said. I didn’t want to be loud, out of fear of giving her a morning shock. I called her a second time.

Kiara opened her eyes a chink. She saw me and for a while kept gawking as though she was not sure of what she was seeing. And then she suddenly sat up.

“Vicky?” she said, flabbergasted. She looked around her as if to check she was really in her room and not dreaming.

“It’s okay,” I said, “I am really here.”

She considered the burning portal with a great amount of confusion.

“But… I don’t understand… this hole… inside my room.”

“It’s okay,” I said to her, “you don’t have to understand for now. Hey, why don’t you come through this hole?”

The shrinking had meanwhile initiated.

Hesitantly, Kiara got up from the bed and approached the portal. She passed one of her hands through it into the game world and caught her breath in surprise.

“Come through quickly,” I said to her in a more hurried voice. The last thing I wanted was the portal to close with Kiara halfway through it.

“Okay,” Kiara said and then she squeezed through the hole. She looked quite out-of-place in Dharti, still in her pink nighty. She observed the trees and the sky, a frown encased on her forehead.

“What is all this?” she said to me. But before I could reply, her eyes fell on the empty space where the portal had ceased existing a split-second ago. She let out a small cry of horror. “Where has my room gone?”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured her, “I can get you back to your room in no time.”

Kiara rubbed her eyes, as though she still thought she was in a dream.

“This is all real right?” she said to me.

“As real as anything,” I said to her, smiling.

“But this shouldn’t be possible,” Kiara said, “and where exactly are we?”

“Have you heard about the game world of Dharti?” I asked her.

“Well, it’s in the news from time to time,” Kiara said.

“We are in Dharti,” I told her.

“But I thought Dharti is a game world,” Kiara said, “Don’t you need a pod or some such device to get into it?”

“Well, yes,” I said, “but not so in our case.”

It was then that Kiara contemplated my attire for the first time. Her eyes moved to the crown on my head, and then to the medieval-ish clothes I sported.

I flashed my teeth.

“I am a king here,” I said to her.

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“A king?”

For the next half an hour I explained to Kiara, as briefly as possible, how I had landed in the game world and my accidental rise to power among the monsters. By the end of it, she wore a perplexed expression and it was debatable if she believed any of my words. However, she seemed to dwell on the positive outcome of everything and her eyes filled up with tears.

“Well at least, you have your legs back,” she said to me. I looked down at my own body. Staying so long in the game world I hardly appreciated anymore how lucky I was that I could move.

I jumped up and down a couple of times.

“I am happy I have them,” I said to her. “Now you tell me, what happened in the real world after I left?”

“The police are still searching for you and the person who took you from the hospital room,” Kiara said. “Everyone is still in shock. I did not tell them that you contacted me because you told me not to.”

I held Kiara’s face with some hesitation, running my fingers over the tear marks on her face.

“You were crying yesterday night?” I asked. Kiara tried to turn her face away, but I kept holding it, forcing her to look at me. Her eyes filled up and I let go of her. She suddenly threw her arms around me in a hug. It was the first time that she was doing something like that.

“I felt very lonely yesterday night,” she said, “I was thinking about you.”

“Well, now we are together,” I said. For some time we just kept cuddling. I was in the lap of bliss. Just Kiara and I together in the woods, looking into each other’s eyes. A perfect scene from an Indian soap opera. I could almost hear romantic background music.

The bliss was short-lived however. Abruptly, Kiara jerked away from me and she kicked something on the ground near my leg. The ‘something’ that was black and the size of a football—and oddly shaped like child— flew many meters and hit a boulder resting beside a tree. There was a splatter of blood.

It took me a few seconds to grasp that the thing was actually a tubby male with countless spines on his back. I had seen similar monsters a few days back. Sam had called the race Porcupino, thanks to analogous similarities with real world porcupines. But those monsters had been bigger than this one. I guessed it was a Dwarf Porcupino then.

The porcupino’s head had impacted the boulder and blood was draining from his skull.

Kiara hyperventilated in shock.

“What is that thing?”

“A Porcupino. A race of monsters,” I said. The small monster was in the last few seconds of his life. If nothing was done, then it was inevitable that the monster would pass away.

“I thought it was going to attack you,” Kiara said, her voice jittery.

Just then I remembered that I had one of Sam’s health vials with me. I quickly drew it out and fed the life-giving potion to the monster. In a few moments the wound on the head of the porcupino healed. He opened his eyes and dizzily stared at us.

"Freaking bitch!" he howled and leapt back to his feet, his spines raised as anger convulsed his small face. His glare was directed towards Kiara who had kicked him.

“Wait,” I intervened, before the monster could do anything that could harm Kiara.

“Why? She nearly killed me!” the porcupine said in a squeaky voice like that of someone who inhaled helium.

“But I saved you,” I said to the porcupino. Kiara was holding my arm and I could feel that she had a shiver on her body. I could well imagine the situation was quite scary for her.

“Get out of the way,” the monster demanded. “I need my revenge.”

“You owe me for saving you,” I barked. “And if you have any honor then you will do no harm to her.”

The monster’s eyes were still pouring fury for Kiara, but he stood at his spot and took no offensive action.

“I thought the two of you would fight,” the porcupine said, “and then I could join in, and have some of the Evilese for myself.”

I grimaced.

“She is my friend,” I said.

“Friend?” the porcupino said, with a great frown on his mini forehead. “But she is not an Evilun.”

“But she is not a player either,” I said to the porcupino. Kiara was a foreign being in Dharti, just like me. Both of us had come here through the portal. I recalled that one of the first acts that I had done after coming to the game world was to help Nora and Nadir, because of which the game world decided that I should be an Evilun.

Kiara had almost killed a monster and I speculated her chances of ever becoming an Evilun were slim.

“Now you better get going from here.”

But the porcupino didn’t move, he just kept studying Kiara. His anger evaporated, replaced by confusion.

“You are right,” he said, “She is not a player. I cannot sense any evilese inside here. Is she one of the Neutral Ones?”

“Yes,” I said, “you can say so for the time being.”

The porcupino kept staring at Kiara for a couple more moments and then he turned on his heels and scurried away, swaying from side to side like a toddler. Our eyes were fixed on him until he was out of sight.

“How were you able to heal him so quickly?” Kiara said, glancing at the blood that was still dribbling down the boulder.

“It’s a game world after all,” I said to her, “there are things that can be used to heal others very quickly.”

“I think I am getting late for office,” Kiara said to me. “Can you do one thing? Can you visit me again through that… hole… at night?”

“I will be very happy to do that.”

“I will look forward to it,” Kiara said, “And are you sure you don’t want me to tell anyone that you are alive and well in this game world?”

I thought over it for a moment.

“For now, keep mum.”

Doing otherwise might encourage unwanted complications.