Short Stories

The rotten smell of burning corpses lingered in her nostrils. She ignored it and continued across the desolate lands, the only scenery were a few massive rocks. Nerida looked out into the distance searching for some form of life, anything whether it be friend or beast. She sighed, releasing some tension. In her gloved hand, a long yew bow was grasped firmly.

“Reveal yourself,” Nerida whispered to herself. She paused, thinking that she had heard a noise, but it was nothing more than her own feet falling quietly upon the hard rocky ground.

Something was lurking there; she could feel it in her gut. Another noise sounded, and she spun around, slipped an arrow from the quiver upon her back, and pointed her bow at the disturber of the peace. It was nothing more than a small dark-violet colored slime-like being. The creature bounced up and down, slowly making its way towards Nerida. She released the arrow. Miss. Quickly she replaced the lost arrow with another and took care to properly aim.

The arrow froze in midair. Nerida attempted to move, but she was stuck as well. Sweat droplets formed upon her brow as the gap between her and the deformed blob shrunk. This can’t be the end! She attempted with every ounce of strength she had to break free from the invisible chains that held her in place. The mob licked its lips; its excessive drool left a trail of saliva, a faint purple color from the bits of slime that had been sliced off by Nerida’s arrow, behind it.

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The message, “Disconnected from the Sever,” popped up on my screen, bolting me back into reality. The game screen suddenly disappeared, revealing the plain blue background of my laptop filled with various icons. I stared at the screen, my mouth hung wide open. Only one thing was crossing my mind: Did Nerida survive the crash?

“Hun, coming to bed yet?” Justin asked. I tore my focus away from the laptop screen to glance over at him. He stood there in only his plaid pajama bottoms, his pale tan chest rose up and down. His eyes were full of worry for me; it wasn’t the first night I had evaded bed. “It’s two in the morning already. And if I have to I’ll drag you there myself.”

“Okay,” I said. I frowned still worried about my little anime pixilated character as I made my way towards him. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it before practically pulling me down the hall towards our bedroom.

“You know babe, you really need to take care of yourself,” Justin said concerned the second we were both laying under the covers. His hand still firmly grasped mine as if I was going to escape and head back to my technological vortex.

“I know, I’m trying,” I said and pulled my hand from his. Flipping over, I put my back towards him. I didn’t want to see those dark blue eyes of his staring at me.
Justin sighed, the worry replaced with frustration, as he said, “Fine, Lea. You’re lost to that damn world of yours.”

I stared at the wall, tears filled in the corners of my eyes. I did love him, but I loved my pixel character too. Justin’s breathing calmed down and the light snoring began. Wiping away the tears with my hand, I closed my eyes, hoping to drift off into the dark void of sleep.

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A petite sized girl with wavy auburn locks was sitting on a bench and besides her sat a stocky boy, who nervously ran his rough hand through his messy ash-blonde hair. The girl smiled and glanced off towards him several times, too shy to speak.

Working up the courage the boy said, “What’s your name?”

“Lea, I’m in Mrs. Post’s class with you, Justin,” she replied, her eyes caught hold of a falling maple leaf.

“Oh so you’re a second grader too?” he asked with excitement and scooted closer to her.

“Yes, well they let me skip a grade.” Her smile grew into a grin and her focus was drawn to his face. She noticed that his had dark blue eyes like the dark depths of the ocean. “You have really pretty eyes.”

“Uh, thanks. You’re just really pretty,” he said. His face turned red, embarrassed from his comment.

“Let’s be friends!” the little girl exclaimed and grabbed the boy’s hand.

The scene blacked out and then a new scene appeared. The boy and the girl were much larger. They sat on a crème colored couch and the girl was leaning her head on the boy’s shoulder. In each of their hands were controllers and their eyes were focused on a television in front of them. Mini-karts zoomed around a colorful track.

“I’m going to beat you!” the Lea exclaimed, her head upright now.

Fingers clicked away at the buttons and the only other sound was the buzzing of the little karts and ringing as a trap was set off by one of the computer generated karts. Neither of them took their eyes off the scream, fear that they would lose speed or miss a pixel box holding their next weapon.

“Fuck!” He dropped the controller in frustration as the girl’s kart sped across the finish line.

“Let’s take a break Justin,” she said. She placed the controller on the low pine table in front of them.

“One more round Lea, please?” he begged before picking the controller back up out of his lap.

She planted her lips on his and moved closer, nearly on top of him. His hands let go of the controller as he placed his hand on her back firmly holding her. He returned the kiss. Lea pulled her head back, her mouth turned upwards into a sly smile before saying, “Okay one more.”

Everything blurred and Lea sat in front of the computer. In one corner of the screen was a colorful world in which a tall human with pointed ears, dressed in what could best described as Lord of the Rings attire, stood, and in the other corner a word document was open with a half a page of writing. She stared and held her hands just above the keyboard willing words to flow through her head in order to finish her research paper.

“Having trouble sweetie?” Justin asked as he stood behind her. His hands lay on her shoulders, squeezing every now and then hoping to relieve some tension.

“Yeah, I just don’t know what to write for my psychology paper,” Lea said before spinning around in her chair to face her concerned boyfriend who had just come home from work.

“You know you’ll never get anything done with the game off to the side.” He pointed towards the open window. He sighed and pulled her up out of the chair. “It’s due Friday, right?”

“Yeah, I have a couple days left. I’ll get it done.” She pushed a strand of her dark brown hair that she had dyed a week ago behind her ear. It was the wrong color, but she didn’t mind since it was the same color as her character now.

“Good then we can go out tonight for dinner.” He smiled and headed out down the short hallway of our apartment.

“Okay, be there in a second,” Lea called out to him before bending down into a slight half crouch and typing: “Going out, catch you guys later.” She pressed the red “X” and the screen disappeared, leaving behind only the word document open on the screen. She sighed, sad that she was losing valuable battle time, but she hadn’t been out for a few weeks despite Justin’s constant bugging.

She hurried to get ready, brushing out her hair, and putting on fresh clothes before stepping out in their tiny living room.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Justin commented before asking, “Ready to go?”

“Of course love,” Lea said and nervously, biting at her finger nails. Her mind not thinking about where they were going, but rather trying to calculate how many more days it would take to level from thirty-nine to forty.

Things faded and Justin stood there with his hands up in the air and Lea stood leaning against the kitchen counter. The sun was shining through a nearby window; a small little blue bird flew by off into the distance. Justin’s arms relaxed, but there was still a buzzing tension between him and Lea.

“Lea, that fucking game is taking over your life,” Justin yelled breaking the silence.
“It’s not!” Lea whined. “I haven’t even touched it today.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.” He turned towards the sink; dirty dishes were piled in the murky water. “You haven’t even washed the dishes in days.”

“I’m sorry, but I am not your damn maid!” Lea started to walk over towards the dark blue couch in the nearby living room. She sat down afraid, facing towards the black screen of their small T.V.

“Lea, look at me please?” Justin stood firmly in his place. She wasn’t turning around she just stared at the T.V. lost in whatever world she had been playing in. “Fine Lea. I’m done trying. Go ahead and fuck up your life even more.”

He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Lea placed her head in her hands and cried. She was disgusted with herself. She hadn’t even managed to finish her psychology paper and already was failing her this semester of college classes. Sighing, she got up from the couch and headed down the hall towards into the room where she kept her laptop. He’ll be back.

She sat down at the desk, flipped open the laptop and waited for the screen to light up. Then she logged into World of Warcraft, her latest game addiction. The humanoid creature with its elfin ears pointing straight up, long flowing dark green hair, and scantily clad in armor stood in a warrior’s stance. She firmly clutched the handle attached to a long silver blade. Lea clicked the up arrow key and her character Ithildess moved across the darkly lit graveyard, ghosts floated all around her. She sunk deep into the world of make-believe and pixels.

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I rubbed open my eyes, I’d never had such a vivid dream like that in a while, yet it wasn’t a dream. It was my reality. I turned over to apologize to Justin and tell him that I would change my ways, however, he wasn’t there. He had pushed his half of the covers halfway down the bed. Probably just in the kitchen. I got up out of bed and made my way over to the closet. Opening it, I noticed that only my clothes were left hanging.

Frantically, I hurried down the hall, but he was nowhere to be found. Neither were the few objects he had scattered to show off his own personality. Even the picture of the two of us smiling and holding one another close as we posed in front of a large oak tree had disappeared. Justin couldn’t be gone for real this time. He always came back, always.

“Justin, I’m sorry,” I whispered to myself knowing that it was a fruitless plea.

Frustrated I ran towards the door and pounded on, but after a yell from my neighbor about the noise I stopped. My hands were pushed against the door as if I was readying some magic beam to draw Justin back into from wherever he had gone.

Tears ran down my cheeks. I gave up my futile attempt to relieve my angry on the door and scurried off to my computer room to escape the horrors of reality and seek comfort from my online friends. I knew that by mindlessly killing off hundreds of monsters I would be able to forgo thinking about Justin and what I was going to do now that my boyfriend of three years had just left me stranded in a time when I really did need him.

The laptop’s screen lit up, a glowing light drawing me in. I logged in to a game called Fiesta that I’d been playing for a few months now. The server screen appeared and chose my server and then chose my character a short female character with perfectly straight beach blonde hair. She wore a tightly fit red vest over a loose short sleeved button up and an incredibly short red skirt. I clicked her, she waved, and I clicked again. The loading screen appeared and then the world that I had called my real home, not the silent chilling apartment I’d been living in for two years now.

My character Nerida stood in a town, flurries of snow fell from the endless sky and the bustling of others moved about me. Shroom-like homes were everywhere, some with little boxes above them announcing the wares they were selling or buying. I stared out in front of my towards a statue of a warrior of Roumen clutching with both hands the handle of a two-handed sword.

Words appeared in the chat box: “Hey Nerida, how have you been?”

My hurried fingers typed back, “Fine, boyfriend left me.”

Another person jumped in and asked, “Why?”

“Because I’m addicted to this game.” My fingers flew across the keyboard. I was so used to fluidly typing that I no longer needed to stare at the keyboard like Justin did every time he would sit down and type up a paper for one of his classes.

‘I’m sorry, but obviously he doesn’t understand.” My guild master said.

“I don’t know anymore. I am addicted. I’m sorry guys, but I just can’t do this anymore.”

I dragged my mouse over the home icon, it prompted me asking if I wanted to rest or quit. I hovered my mouse over the quit button. I’m sorry Justin I should have done this earlier. I clicked quit before I could be drawn back in by the pleas of the many friends that I had made, but really they weren’t true friends, just pixilated characters with sunken eyed people staring off into a fake world. Unlike them I was choosing to change my life. The fantasy world disappeared and I was left to deal with the real world that I had let fall apart by my destructive gaming