A World That Never Was

“Eddie, we’ve already been this way.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’re the one with animal traits; shouldn’t you be more attuned to stuff like this?”

Eddie grumbled lightly but didn’t respond to Aliyah. After he had had his fun running away from her want hearing her panic about being left, Eddie allowed Aliyah to catch up and they began on their way back to Lykeria – or so Eddie thought they were headed back in that direction. The forest they were traveling through was too thick and tall to see above the trees and you couldn’t rightfully tell which way you were going.

The two of them had likely been walking around at random for the past hour or so without much success at all and Eddie was beginning to become very tired of this forest. More so he was angry that Natasha had just darted off without staying to see if they would actually manage to find their way back.

“You think they would have like some kind of map for us to access or something. I mean really?” Eddie complained, stepping over a large tree root that sprouted a ways out of the ground and then reentered.

The game was almost too life like. The only possession you had were what was on your person and you had no backpack or carrying sack for belongings and the like. There was no map to help you find what you needed and there was no way of communicating with other players without being in the same area as them. True the game had a drop down friends list from the accessible user interface but you could only check to see if you friends were online or not.

More over you felt everything that your character felt and that included from pain right down to a breeze against your skin. Eddie was sure there was no actual danger in this or else how could it had sold so many copies and actually be legal but he wondered how it was that you could experience something like pain in your mind but it not actually affect your body at all.

“You there, don’t move.” A voice came down from a tree that Eddie and Aliyah were passing under “Your movements’ll alert him.”

Both Eddie and Aliyah looked up to see a man crouching low on a high branch. The man carried a bow in his hands and he wore a dark green cloak with the hood up about his face, shadowing his features from sight.

“Who is this ‘him’?” Eddie questioned.

The man descended with great ease and quickness down closer to them before lifting a finger to his lips insisting that they not speak.

Casting a glance towards Aliyah, Eddie perked an eyebrow and Aliyah gave a light shrug as a response before turning her attention back to the man. Eddie too looked to see what he was up to.

The hooded man pulled an arrow from the quiver at her waist and drew back the string of his bow. It wasn’t until this moment that Eddie realized that there was a strange creature in the distance and it seemed to be feeding off of something. It surprised Eddie that he could even see that well at this distance in this poor lighting.

A soft twang sounded and in an instant the arrow from the man’s bow buried deep in the chest of the beast and it fell dead in the same instant.

“Perfect shot” The man said to himself, dropping from the tree and to the forest floor next to Eddie and Aliyah. Dark leather armor protected the man from the knees up to his arms; he wore metal shin guards and bracers and from his belt hung many pouches and a dagger. Sliding his bow into a strange holster opposite his quiver the man began to walk towards his kill.

“You should be more careful out here, these beasts are particularly territorial.” He addressed Eddie and Aliyah who, subconsciously, began to follow after him.

As they drew closer to the creature, Eddie could see that it somewhat resembled a massive dog but its upper half was considerably more broad than its lower half. The creature was about the size of a bear but carried all the features of a dog and four long spikes protruded from its back.

“W-what is that?” Aliyah questioned.

The hooded man drew close to the downed creature and crouched next to it, pulling his arrow from its chest and cleaning the tip with a rag “Guryui.” He responded to Aliyah but said no more.

“Why did you kill it?” Eddie posed the question this time.

“I’ve been tracking it for a few hours now; finally baited it in with that rabbit’s corpse.” He then replaced the arrow in his quiver and looked over his shoulder at Eddie and Aliyah “I believe it is my turn to ask a question in this game of 21: Why are two seemingly fresh players wandering so far into the Lykerian Forests?”

“To make long stories short, we got lost.”

The man shook his head lightly before he began to rummage around in a small that was strapped to his torso and had been hidden behind his cloak. “Tell ya what, help me hull this beast along and I’ll take your right back to Lykeria.” He offered.

Eddie nodded his head at the offer and moved a bit closer to the dead animal as the man began to tie up the beasts forelegs and hind legs together with a bit of rope.
“Grab the hind legs and I’ll grab the fore.”

The two of them worked together to lift the heavy creature from the forest floor and the three of them moved out.
~
The man refused to give his real name but since Eddie and Aliyah insisted so heavily upon it he told them ‘If you must call me by a name, Bane will suffice’. Bane was a Teifling, or a half-demon, and he belonged to the Ranger class but focused more on the arching aspect of the class. He didn’t like to talk about himself, or talk much at all for that matter, but he did tell them that he had been playing Chasm for around a year and he knew this area rather well which was why he so effortlessly lead them through the massive forest and to the main road in what seemed like less than thirty minutes and would have likely done so even faster had they not been carrying the body of the dead Guryui.

The endeavor of carrying the huge beast was becoming tiring for Eddie and his arms were beginning to drop down.

“Could we pause for a moment?” Eddie questioned, a light grunt followed his inquiry.

Bane stopped forward movement and lowered the upper half of the Guryui’s body onto the ground. He, unlike Eddie, didn’t seem to be the least bit tired. Thankful for the break, Eddie nearly dropped the lower half of the beast and let his arms hang loosely at his side.

“Arms hurt?” Aliyah questioned.

Eddie turned his head to look at her and saw she had a smile on her face, one of those smiles that told you that inside the person was laughing at you and enjoying your state of discomfort. Eddie didn’t gratify her with a response and just turned his head to Bane.

“Bane, can I ask what you’re moving this body into town for?”

Bane looked over his shoulder at Eddie, his hood still hung low over his face and you couldn’t make out any of his facial structure except for his chin “You sure ask a lot of questions, don’t you? This is how I make my money in this world; well, this and the occasional questing. I find this to be easier.”

“It seems to be. The first quest we went on turned out to be a trap by some group called Obscurity.”

“And you two survived? Impressive, I must admit.”

“Well, we had some help from a friend who happened to be looking out for us.” Aliyah admitted.

“Still, the members of Obscurity are ruthless. Anyway, that explains how you ended up lost in the first place.” Bane said this as he crouched down to lift the upper-half of the Guryui again and motioned to Eddie to come on.

With a reluctant sigh Eddie readied himself and then lifted his half of the animal and they started off down the road again, heading straight for Lykeria which could be seen a little ways off in the distance.

The main road was busy as caravans and wagons made their way to and from Lykeria or followed a different road that branched off from the main.

As Eddie looked ahead the Chasm logo dropped down in his face and displayed a timer that had just reached fifteen minutes and was counting down from there informing him that his trail time was going to expire soon. About six seconds passed and the timer disappeared.

“Eddie, did you see that?” Aliyah questioned.

“Yeah.” He responded to her before addressing Bane “We only have fifteen minutes left in our trial. I’ll help you to Lykeria then we’ve got to go.”

Bane simply nodded his head and continued on the path.

Another ten minutes might have passed before they were passing through the gates into Lykeria and headed directly for the leather shop where Bane could get his kill skinned and be paid for his contribution.

The streets of the city were packed much like how they were when Eddie first saw it just yesterday though unlike yesterday he would be moving through the market area of Lykeria and this area was even more teeming with people than the other area.

The entire sector looked to be a giant shop. Stands and tents were set up everywhere and everyone’s merchandise was on display for any customer to see as they moved along. You would think this was asking for a thief to just run by and steal whatever they so pleased but soldiers walked the streets and every merchant seemed to have some sort of personal guard to keep an eye on things.

The leather shop was on the fire side of the market place and it was a very large red tent with the words ‘Leather Working Professionals’ above the entrance. It was just as Eddie was helping Bane hull the corpse through the entrance and to a table when the Chasm logo once again appeared in front of him and counted down from ten seconds allowing him just enough time to drop the body on the table and give a small wave before the world around him went black and the timer hit zero, the words ‘time expired’ blinking above it.

Eddie was greeted by a pounding in his head as well as the voice of Aliyah calling his name from next to him and a hand on his shoulder. Pulling the helmet from his head, he looked over to Aliyah who fostered a worried look on her face and was standing next to him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Is everything okay?” She asked.

Eddie wondered what she meant. Did his headache show in his face? “I’m alright, just a little headache. Why?”

“You were just sitting there, not responding to me. Didn’t you hear me?”

Eddie’s face twisted into a confused expression “How long have you been out?”

“A minute or so…It said our time expired and then automatically pulled me out.”

Eddie began to grow worried but quickly shook his head and shrugged “I’m sure it’s nothing…just a bit of system delay or something.” He concluded and left it at that.

Aliyah didn’t look convinced but she nodded her head lightly and the two of them discussed how they were going to pay for their subscriptions to continue playing the game. Payment was $6.25 per month and payment options were broken up into four month periods.

“We could just ask our parents to throw us 25 bucks every four months.” Eddie suggested.
“You really think they are going to do that?”

“What other choice do we have? We spent $50 just buying these helmets and it’s not like we have jobs.”

At that moment Eddie’s cell phone began to ring and he made his way across the room to take it from beside his bed where he had left it. Picking the sleek, black Motorola phone up, he saw that it was Damien calling.

“Yeah, wassup?” He answered.

“Did you just wake up or something? I called you two other times, man.”

“Oh. Naw, Aliyah and I were playing Chasm.”

“What?”

Eddie forgot he hadn’t told Damien about Chasm since he hadn’t talked to him since he first got out of the hospital yesterday. Quickly, Eddie explained what Chasm was and gave a brief summary of what had gone on since they started playing; during this time Aliyah took her back and went to change into actual clothes since it was around two o’clock in the evening now.

“Word? Man, I’ve got to come over and play that sometime.” Damien had clearly been excited by what Eddie told him.

“That’s cool. I’m sure you can just sign in as my character for a little while once I pay for the subscription and all.”

“Sound good. Well hey, if you and Aliyah aren’t too busy being game nerds you want to come hang out? I’ll call up Skyy and Mark and we can all go chill somewhere.”

Eddie looked over to Aliyah to see if she was okay with that and she was already nodding her head lightly; Eddie’s phone projected noise pretty well and Damien was sort of loud so she could hear just about everything he was saying.

“Alright, man, we’ll be there in a little while.”

“Tell Aliyah I said hi…”

“Hi, Damien.” Aliyah said practically into the phone. Eddie hadn’t even realized she had walked closer to him.

A chuckle came from Damien’s end “She heard that?”

“Well, you’re not exactly the quietest person, D.”

“Not exactly? He doesn’t even rank in the top 3 million.” Eddie grinned.

“Whatever, yall. Peace.”

“Bye, Damien.”

“Peace, man.”

Eddie hung up the phone and went to get ready to go.