27: The Paper Thing

I saw May three more times during the battle. She was happy to see me each time, and I was happy to cuddle her each time. She was turning into a regular old cuddle bug she was, and it warmed my heart to see her reacting to finally getting the love she deserved. Cutest girl I’d ever met. I wondered if there was a better way of seeing her than dying?

The battle took us well into the middle of the day before it was over, the enemy soldiers finally realising that they were fighting a battle of attrition they literally could never win. There was no hope, and so they retreated, leaving us to gather ourselves. On my last death I’d lost my left gauntlet, but I managed to find it after the battle was over, along with the coins I’d lost during the same death, in the crippled remains of a mage.

I wasn’t the first person to take out one of the enemy mages, much to my disappointment. No, that honour went to an Aurelling caster. I didn’t know what his subrace was, but he’d called down some enormous pillar of golden light that had slapped the Pagutum mage to the dirt like the fist of god it resembled. I’d been the third one to take down a mage though! Having died again, I’d climbed the temple once more and launched myself off it. A direct hit on the mage had shattered his shield, and I’d ridden him to the ground with my gauntleted fist wrapped around his scrawny little neck.

With the battle over, the adventurers had lost purpose again, unsure of what to do, until someone had arrived at the square. They were a stealth character, a darkling too, and they'd said that the Phoenix Guild was fighting bitterly to hold the eastern gate and allow non-human adventurers, and those humans siding with us like Grerum, a way out of the city. Effectively, it was an evacuation, and everyone was told to get into their messaging app and spread the word. It was time to leave Tieille.

The next part was tricky. We’d had the advantage when we were fighting outside the temple, able to respawn and rush back into the fight straight away. It had been a problem that no one could think of a solution to, until Grerum had bit the bullet and organised the human adventurers who’d sided with the non-humans.

They were staying behind to guard the gates of the temple and stop Pagutum from gaining a foothold in the square again. Any who died on the push to the gate would group up and try again when there were enough of them, with the humans playing a rear guard once we made it. The idea was that the humans might be able to sneak out of the city later if they got trapped, whereas it would be significantly harder for any non-humans to do so.

So it was that we fought our way through the city. It was intense, hard fighting, and I saw May once more during this time. Rora actually went and got herself killed in a suicide rush on a mage when she saw me go down, so we’d end up together even if we got stuck in the city. She was so romantic. Either way, we made it to the eastern gate… or what was left of it.

As we rounded the corner and the market square and gate came into view, we collectively paused and gaped. What in the hell?

The gate was gone, first off, and in its place stood something wildly out of place for what I had seen so far in the game. I had known, offhandedly, that magitech existed in the game. The mages we’d been dying to had been using it to fly, but this was another level entirely.

In the crater where the gate had once stood, was something that was both a mech, and a ship, and neither at the same time. The best way I could describe it, was an elongated armoured japanese castle that someone had attached enormous mechanical legs of steel onto. Like a beetle but with the castles thrusting up into the sky rather than a smooth carapace on its back.

There were six legs in total like a beetle too, and they held the enormous fifty meter tall structure in a crouch above the remains of the gate, protecting people and carts as they left the city. In fact, the whole thing was built of heavy steel, rather than wood and stone. It was a fucking beast.

Along gantryways across the walking castle itself, huge spherical gun emplacements swivelled and fired, and I thought I was looking at magical cannons of some sort until I realised that there were figures inside them. The mages would cast a spell, and it would get caught by whatever mechanisms were in the cannon. The spell would then be amplified and accelerated like a railgun dart, each shot shaking the air with a loud crack as it crashed down into the enemy. It was breathtaking.

Around the base of the square, trying to force their way toward the gate, ragged lines of Pagutum soldiers fought against adventurers of all descriptions. It was chaos, and it looked like my kind of party!

I was just going to rush in and start punching, but then I saw him. Aurugm. He was smashing people with his shield and skewering them with his spear like he hadn’t a care in the world, and I knew I had to make an entrance. It was practically a tradition now.

“Rora, I’m going to launch myself in again. I see our giant friend from the ship,” I said with a happy grin.

“Ah, more testicle popping with your himbo friend then?” she laughed with a roll of her eyes.

“You bet!”

As we charged into the rear of the Pagutum ranks, I saw my chance. A mage was falling back after his shield had been broken, and I was lined up perfectly with the mage between myself and Aurugm. I jumped into the air to get myself at the right height, then with a boost of speed and a push of my wings, I was flying through the air just above the melee. I was going fast, the air ruffling and plucking at my feathers.

I caught the mage by the scruff of his neck as I flew past, carrying him forward with me, directly into the path of Aurugm’s raised spear. There was a cracking, gurgling crunch as the mage impacted, but I flashed past before I could see my handiwork. Flaring my wings to arrest my flight, I took a look back to see how my little stunt had worked out.

Aurugm crouched, using his knee for support as he held the spear that the mage was impaled on in the other hand. He was roaring with delighted laughter, the body of the mage swinging this way and that as his mirth shook the spear.

“Hello!” I chirped, walking up next to him and leaning forward innocently to see his face.

“You!” he said between laughing gasps of air. “You always know how to make an entrance, no? Oh you make this old man laugh!”

“Hey, we have like, a tradition now, right?” I giggled, getting caught up in his joviality.

“That we do!” he nodded enthusiastically.

“Nice little maneuver there Tami,” Jill commented, walking up and firing a healing beam of light at a nearby adventurer as she did so.

“Thanks!” I smiled proudly at her.

“Tell your group to run up the ramp and into the Ranburu quickly before they rejoin the fight,” she said, looking over at our group that was fighting their way through to us. “It counts as a town, they have their own shrine in there, so if any of them die, they’ll respawn there instead.”

“The Ranburu is the crazy walking castle behind us?” I asked, pointing over at it.

“Yes. It’s an Artifisuki Warvillage,” she commented, smiling up at it. “We found them terrorising some of the local monster tribes out there in the wilderness beyond the borders a while back and we hired them. One of our teams was using it as a mobile spawn point to tackle a raid more easily and keep the local… wildlife in its place.”

“It’s a giant tank! Where’s the village part?” I asked incredulously.

“It’s inside. Go on, up the ramp! Then you can help your friends!” Jill said, shooing me with a shake of her staff.

“Fine, going!” I laughed, trotting off towards the slightly smaller but still very much big fuck off ramp.

The ramp was one of those extendo deals. Telescoping? Was that the term? Anyway, when I got to the top and went inside, I was checking through my character sheet to find my current spawn point when I saw movement to the side and glanced over.

First, I was struck by the huge cavity in the center of the Warvillage. The interior was hollow, with row upon row of japanese old style houses built on each other. Pipes and gantries were strung across the central space. It looked like some sort of M.C.Escher painting, except without the gravity defying aspect.

I was turning to leave, but paused in astonishment when I heard Rusti’s voice call out from further inside. I turned to look, walking a few steps, before I stopped and gaped at them. They had the kid. The heir to this place, quite literally on a leash. What the hell?

“Rusti, you got the kid out?” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Rusti said, their ears flicking in irritation for a second. “I didn’t have time to get all the gold off him at the time, so I just picked him up and ran. He’s been a real pain in the ass since. Wouldn’t stop squirming, and now he’s all trying to run away and get himself blown up or splattered out there in the battle. Thinks he can help, but he can’t, because he’s level one, so I put him on a leash and tied him to that pole.”

“Rusti, you can’t just put kids on leashes,” I said, placing my hand to my forehead.

“Nah, you can, it’s actually pretty easy if you pin them to the ground first with a foot. I can show you if you want,” they said, looking enthusiastic.

“No I mean, it’s unethical… you shouldn’t—“ I started to say, before the kid piped up.

“Why are all you commoners thinking you can steal me! When my dad hears about this, he’s gonna chop your heads off!” the kid said with a pudgy faced little sneer.

“Nevermind,” I said cheerily. “I think I see where you’re coming from. Keep up the good work.”

“Thanks! Figured you’d agree after he opened his mouth. Sucks I can’t join the battle though… do you think…?” they asked, looking hopeful.

“Oh! Damn! Gosh!” I said quickly. “Looks like I need to go help Rora! I’ll see you later hey? Make sure not to die and lose all that gold you’re carrying!”

Turning and walking briskly away, I heard Rusti mutter, “Oh damn, I didn't think about that!”

Well, that was good news at least about the kid. Now we just needed to make sure he stayed alive and maybe came out of this as a slightly better person than his father and we could put him back on the throne! Someday.

For now, I had a girlfriend to run back to, and a battle to help win!

****

The evacuation was hard. It was hard for a lot of reasons. The first was that on average we were underleveled, under geared and outnumbered. It wasn’t clear how, but the Pagutum empire had managed to smuggle an entire legion into the capital, and word was that there was another legion down at the port town of Chaillere too. It was a mess, and the forums were already blowing up with confused and angry messages from the players affected.

Hangshe was silent on the issue too, choosing to hunker down out of the media spotlight rather than release any public statement. Weirdly enough, the government had issued a non-statement on the matter though. No one was sure what that was about, but personally if the UN was taking notice, something fishy was happening.

Either way, it didn’t stop the here and the now of the matter, which was that we’d gathered every adventurer that we could find within Tieille that wanted to leave and we were on the move. Under the watchful amplifier cannons of the Ranburu Warvillage, the Phoenix Guild staged the largest evacuation of a town since World War Three. Not only were we helping the Players get out, but any non-human NPC who could make it to the eastern gate had been welcome too.

The Warvillage itself was packed to the brim with refugees, and beneath it as it walked were hundreds of carts strung out along the road, with many more people walking beside us. The not so gentle thump of the great mechanical castle’s legs became somewhat of a comfort as the cannons continued to roll their fire at any Pagutum scouting party that got too close.

Rora and I were lazily cuddling on an outer gantryway of Ranburu, and it felt nice, especially because although the last few days had been fun and incredible, I was starting to feel a little drained by it all. I needed to take a break.

So here we were, cuddling up on the walkway and enjoying the view. I was in human form, my head resting comfortably on Rora’s shoulder and our arms around each other’s waists. Her body felt so warm and comforting against mine in the late afternoon air that had finally gotten the memo about what the climate was meant to be around here.

“I need to log out early,” I told her quietly, breaking almost an hour of silence.

“How early?” she asked, turning in our embrace to look into my eyes.

“Uh, noon on Saturday,” I replied, feeling an ache in my heart as I realised I wouldn’t be seeing her for around seven days or more.

“I need to log out on Sunday… but I guess I’ll log out when you do,” she said, her eyes seeming to mirror the ache in my heart. How had I fallen so hard and so fast for this girl?

Leaning forward, I gave her a soft, caring kiss, then murmured against her lips, “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” she whispered, running her hands gently through my hair in the way that I was coming to love.

“I mean… technically we could log into the game each night to see each other,” I said hesitantly. “That is, if we’re in the same time zone…”

It was a risk, even asking about time zones. We’d agreed to keep things in the game after all, so something like a timezone would give an idea of where we were based.

“Um… I’m… EST,” she said cautiously, her eyes nervously flicking their gaze between mine.

“I… too…” I said softly, suddenly very aware that a real world physical romance wasn’t out of the question. If she was in UN city it would be super easy, but even if she was anywhere in Canada, it wouldn’t be too difficult. The supersonic trains would get me anywhere in EST Canada in fifteen minutes or less.

Rora gulped as she no doubt realised the same thing, and she lifted her hand as though she was going to summon something from her inventory. I watched her as she stared at her hand, indecision warring across her face.

“What is it?” I asked. “Did I go too far?”

“No… no it’s fine,” she mumbled, putting her hand down. “I’d like to see you in VR some time this week. Maybe Wednesday night? My classes finish early. We don’t want to get short term VR sickness though so I think it would be best if we only do the one night.”

I nodded in agreement. The unfortunate reality was that if you hopped in and out of a pod too much and too quickly, your brain might hate it and go a bit bonkers. I didn’t know exactly what it did, other than it made you unable to log into VR for a bit and made you sick.

“Okay… Wednesday night…” she smiled shyly. “That will make it a bit easier to get through the week then.”

“Yeah… I was already getting anxious about the whole week without seeing you,” I laughed gently, reaching up to stroke her cheek for a moment.

She was about to speak, but paused as one of the Artifisuki bounded past on all fours, their huge bushy tail held back and high for balance. We watched the teenage looking girl leap up off the gantry and into a series of tangle of pipes, where she began worrying at one of them with some sort of tool.

The Artifisuki were absolutely adorable. They were a short race that looked mostly human, apart from two very large fluffy fox ears on their head, and a very large fluffy fox tail sticking out the back. To make them even cuter, they were pretty much universally hoarders with a special eye for anything that they might be able to use in their tinkering. They loved making things, anything from toys to huge walking castle-tanks, and they weren’t all that safe about it. If modern work-safety officers had seen them, they would have fainted screaming.

Case in point was the girl clanging and crashing away in the pipes behind us, her small voice swearing up a storm in what sounded like a stereotypical Irish accent as something didn’t go right. The devs might be fucking up now, but I loved their crazy ideas for worldbuilding. What strange mind thought up this wild idea. Seriously, engineer fox people with an allergy to safety standards and and penchant for blowing things up in spectacular fashion. A crazy person, that’s who’d think this crap up, but it was fun!

“Let’s go find somewhere to sleep,” Rora said as we watched the girl do whatever it was she was doing. “Before all the good spots are taken.”

**Aurora**

We were jolted awake in the early hours of the morning by the frantic blaring of klaxons as the Warvillage alerted the inhabitants to a major threat. Groggily Tami and I went through the process of equipping all our gear, then stumbling out of the house we’d slept in and rushed towards the nearest Phoenix Guild officer we saw coordinating the unaffiliated adventurers.

We were halfway to the Phoenix Guild Ranger when Ranburu shook like it had been hit by a massive smith’s hammer, and the floor shifted slightly. For a terrifying moment we felt the whole structure stagger, the huge steel feet sending juddering vibrations through the hull as it struggled for balance.

“What’s going on?” a healer asked from nearby, her silver Aurelling wings shifting around her protectively.

Poor girl looked like she needed a hug, not that I’d be able to give her one, but maybe Tami might. Tami wasn’t scared of people, she wasn’t afraid that they might jeer and ridicule. She didn’t care about a whole lot when it came to what others thought. I wished I could do that.

“Some fuckin’ cunt hit us with a big ass fuckin’ spell roight to the starboard beam is wot happen’d,” one of the NPC Artifisuki said, giving me a fright as they bounded past carrying a clattering toolbox. “You lot had better go and kick their shit-sucking asses ‘afore we go down like a ton of bricks.”

Tami and I both raised our eyebrows at the colourful language coming from the little Artifisuki, exchanging alarmed looks. What an intense little race they were.

“Pagutum has several of their hovering attack platforms incoming, and one of them is fitted with a truly massive amplifier turret,” the Phoenix Guild guy told us. “They’re like floating bunkers about the size of a house, and they have six of them out there, plus supporting troops and mages. This is it, the big attack we’ve been expecting they would launch to try and stop us. Get ready everyone.”

“So we need that gun taken care of? The really big one?” Tami asked over the other voices.

“Yeah, especially that one. As it is, the Ranburu is going to have to stop walking and hunker down to avoid being tipped over from a lucky shot,” the officer nodded.

“Alright!” Tami grinned, turning to Me. “Ready to go and try to kill a flying gun emplacement?”

“Oh, fuck yeah I am,” I grinned back.

We climbed the many stairs it took to get to one of the gantries outside, and looked out onto the battlefield. It was utter chaos. A magical flare was burning brightly above the Ranburu while spells flickered out of her cannons at blinding speed, smashing out into the enemy forces with brutal accuracy.

The Attack platforms that were a problem were skimming forward with their troops, mages hidden inside them firing spells with equally deadly accuracy. It wasn’t all the mages show however. While those spells shot out, the troops clashed in far greater numbers, and unlike our battle in front of the Temple of Ruin, the adventurers were intermittently equipped with shield breaking enchantments on their weapons. I wondered wistfully how much those cost. I’d love to get one put on my sword, if it had any spare enchantment slots.

As I stood on the gantry, I noted how damn pretty it all was, “It’s really pretty. Reminds me of the UNC foundation day fireworks. Only, like, pointed at people instead of up in the sky.”

Shit! I’d just admitted where I lived! I snapped my mouth shut and searched Tami’s face for any sign that she’d caught what I said. Her eyes had gone wide… did she… she might live in UNC? She gulped, her face flashing with so many emotions at once that I couldn’t parse them all. What was she thinking?

I was still thinking about that when I saw her eyes drift out into the black and go wide. I turned to follow her gaze and noted the single enemy Mage’s Platform that was sitting far back. It had a huge spell accelerator on it. The cannon was trained on the huge walking castle we stood on, and every minute or so it would fire, a bolt hitting the spell absorbing steel plating of the Ranburu and rocking the whole structure gently.

“That thing needs to be like, really broken,” Tami said, pointing out at it.

“Yeah… little tiny pieces,” I nodded, giving her a sideways smirk. “You’re cute as fuck.”

She turned back and blinked at me, and I saw a bit of a blush rise on her cheeks. So cute. She was like an irate steel ingot one moment, and a fluffy labrador puppy the next minute. She was so damn cute. I was still thinking about how cute she was when I saw her get distracted by something behind me.

I turned to followed her gaze. “What do you want with the cannon?” I asked suspiciously, my mind already trying to work out what wild idea she had planned now.

“So… Efrideet, she lifts Saladin… over her head. And she says… She says, ‘I never miss.’” She murmured cryptically, an idea forming in her mind. Oh no, not again...

She rushed past me over to the cannon that was currently being operated by a little Artifisuki mage who was standing inside the spherical control housing. She started babbling, her mouth throwing the words out so quickly that I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.

"Ya want me ta do what wit ya?" The mage asked, his ears perking up with excitement. Clearly he’d followed at least some of what Tami had just said.

“I want you,” she said pointing to him, “To fire me,” she pointed to herself, “Out of that cannon,” she pointed to the cannon.

“Uhhh,” I said, raising a hand like I was back in elementary school.

“What? You’ll just fuckin’ die ya crazy lass,” the mage laughed, already spinning the cannon up ready to fire. “Al’right, step in front o’ the accelerator then, if ya please.”

“Yes yes yes! Point it almost straight up at an angle towards that really big gun over there,” she giggled excitedly, then turned to me. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

“You’re fuckin’ crazy and I luv’ it,” the mage grinned, correcting the angle of the gun. “Ya remind me o’ me sister!”

“If we get this right, I wouldn’t mind being your family, that’s for sure,” she smiled, lining herself up inside the orblike control platform of the cannon, right before the huge cylinder of arcane metal. It looked like her slim body might fit if she sucked in her breath.

“Alright, it’s a deal! You turn that pain in th’ ass Platform into a steamin’ pile o’ slag and I’ll get ye honorary status as a member o’ this crew,” he grinned, spitting in his hand and offering it for her to shake.

She mimicked the little fox man, spitting in her palm and shaking with enthusiasm. Oh no, this was… I should step in and… nah fuck it. This was going to be hilarious.

“It’s done,” the mage said, then pointed to the cannon. “Are ya ready lass?”

“I am so fucking ready,” Tami said breathlessly. She sounded like that when I was eating her out too. This girl was into some strange things and I loved it. She had so many cute, hot little quirks.

With no more warning than that, Tami wasn’t there anymore, the mage having cast some sort of acceleration spell on her that was instantly amplified by the cannon. I looked up into the dark night sky, my eyes instantly locking onto the streak of white-blue light that was my girlfriend as she took her demon form.

Her whole body became charged with lightning as she passed through the thin cloud layer above us and she summoned her powers to her. Then, like she’d been swatted out of the sky by some gigantic invisible hand, she changed trajectory. She must have cranked her speed boost because she gained an incredible amount of speed as she fell. It was all over a heartbeat after she changed direction, her speed becoming hypersonic in an instant as the force of her ability aided descent and the cannon combined into terrifying kinetic force.

I felt her death the instant she impacted the distant weapons platform, but it didn’t really matter, she’d respawn. The people she hit, they wouldn’t. They most definitely would not. She must have hit as the large gun was charging, because as the arcs of lightning radiated out in an explosion of light, the purple of arcane magic joined it in with a far more erratic but no less explosive display. The very ground around it tore itself apart and the platform was rammed viciously into the ground.

The chest shaking rumble of her lightning strike hit us moments later, and the mage and I exchanged stunned looks. What the fuck? How did her new abilities even work? This was ridiculous!

“Well I’ll be fuckin’ damned,” the little fox mage said, his tail standing out straight and frizzy behind him as he turned towards me. “That’s just fuckin’ incredible! Are there any more of her?”

“Nope, she’s unique… one of a kind,” I said, feeling my heart swell with pride.

**Tami**

I entered the dream to the sound of May’s hysterical laughter. She was lying on her side and crying with raw mirth, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the cutie being all happy.

“I guess you saw that huh?” I said, my smile spreading into a giddy grin as I remembered it. I don’t know what had happened after I died, but the rush of the flight had been incredible. For a split second, a single moment before impact, I had become lightning.

May swished her hand vaguely in the air, and a video appeared, hovering in midair. I let out a little hum as I realised it was from the perspective of the mage who’d been operating the cannon.

I watched my death with widening eyes. Holy shit. That was intense.

“How did I do that much damage?” I asked when the video ended.

“It doesn’t say in… in the node descriptions, but the damage your lightning does is multiplied... by your speed,” she giggled, gasping for breath.

“Well that’s just overpowered. What’s to stop me from breaking everything?” I asked, already dreaming of the destruction I could cause with a wistful smile.

“Well I’d like to see you lug one of those cannons around to fire yourself out of every time you need to break something,” May said, still trying to recover from her giggle fit.

“True… but still. This feels like cheating,” I said, not caring at all that it was definitely cheating.

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” the cheeky little shit winked.

“Uh huh…” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“No more talking, hugs now,” she said, pretending to zip her lips.

“Fine, fine... You keep your secrets,” I chuckled, gathering her up for another hug.

****

The rest of our escape back to Chaillere was much less eventful, but still fraught with raids and attacks from Pagutum as they tried to pick as many of us off as possible. The bastards had figured out that the adventurers were respawning inside the Castle though, and so they’d started going for the NPC civilians.

Nevertheless, after an entire Friday of fighting, we made it to the port town early on Saturday morning. I was bone tired, having gotten very little sleep and having been used as ammunition for their cannons a few more times when they tried to to use those long range platforms again. At least the deaths were almost painless, and I hadn’t lost anything major, because after the first time, the Phoenix Guild had started outfitting me with scrap armour and I’d offloaded everything else to Rora when I was fired.

The Ranburu didn’t bother with gates this time. They just blew a hole in the flimsy wall — well, another hole, the one Millie had made was still there — and walked everyone through it and to the docks. At the docks, we found more of the Phoenix Guild holding the district, including that tiger captain. I didn’t see Millie, but her party sense indicator had her already on one of the ships, much to my relief.

It looked like the Phoenix Guild had hired every single ship they could find from here to whatever country Taylor was in. The harbour was full of them, and they were here for us. This was the evacuation part two. We worked well into the day to load everyone onto the ships, but had to stop and ask Jill if we could have a long term room on any of their ships, possibly bound for up Taylor’s way.

I had to log out soon, and Rora said she’d log out at the same time as me because she was going to miss me otherwise. She was so great.

We were shown to a large passenger and cargo ship, where they had special rooms for players to log out in. When we logged back in, through some crazy game logic, we’d wake up in an inn somewhere in the port of our choice along the ship’s route, provided it had time to get to the port in question.

So here I was, standing in the little room and waiting for Rora to get back from doing something. I was going to log out… my changes should be complete… I was going to log out into my body… my true body. I was so damn nervous. I know that May had said that things had gone well, but… I couldn’t help but worry. I was so tired too, I’d probably spend the first eight hours in my new real body fast asleep.

Fuck but I was also so damn excited! I was going to finally look like a girl in real life too! I was finally going to actualise the dream I’d only just realised I’d been holding onto my whole life. I would be Tami. Tami Heaton. Daughter — I choked up at the word — Daughter of Gloria Heaton and Elias Heaton. Twin sister to Taylor Heaton. Holy shit… it was really happening.

I had to sit down on the lone bed to keep myself from falling over, and I started in surprise as a call came in from outside the game. It was Taylor, and I opened it with shaking hands.

My family stared out of the floating screen at me, their smiles warming my jittering nerves. They were sitting in the living room, just a dozen or so meters from where my newly changed body lay. Mum was the first to speak.

“Wow… she looks exactly the same…” she gasped, leaning forward to look at me.

“I do?” I asked excitedly.

“Yeah you do! You look identical actually,” Dad nodded, a huge grin across his face. “Well, apart from the lightning.”

“Oh we were so worried about you!” Mum exclaimed, tears welling in her eyes. “But it’s worked out! Right? This MaTRON person will let you out?”

I nodded, a secret smile playing across my face as I thought of the funny little girl who’s name was May. “Yeah she will. Can’t tell you more till I’m out of the pod I’m afraid.”

Dimly I heard the door open beside me, but I was too distracted by my family to register it properly in my mind.

“I can’t wait…” I said, looking at each of my family members.

“I can’t wait… we can do even more fun twin stuff! All the things we’ve missed out on recently…” Taylor said with a teary eyed smile.

“I can’t believe my little Terry is now— ” Mum started to say, when I heard a quiet choked gasp from the doorway drawing my eyes away from the screen.

To see Rora. She looked upset, wait, had she just heard Mum call me Terry? Oh no… I quickly cut the call.

“You’re… Terry… this whole fucking time you’ve been Terry?” Rora said, her voice rising in panic. “That was Terry’s… your family… and she called you…”

“What?” I asked, standing up to go to her, my heart pounding with anxiety. Did she know me? Or was it the masculine name? Oh god it couldn’t end like this.

“No! No! This is too weird, this is too much! I…” she stammered, her eyes wide with surprise and anguish.

“What are you—” I began to plead, tears building in my eyes, but she pushed past me into the room.

“No! I’ll… I’ll talk to you when I’m ready! This is too fucking weird!” she cried, jabbing frantically at the air with her finger as she navigated menus.

Then she was gone, just like that. Logged out.

I sat on the bed again in a heap, my breathing coming in strange and irregular. What had just happened? Did she know me?

Wait… what was that?

She’d dropped a little piece of paper on the ground. Weird. Still fighting back anxious and confused tears, I bent down to pick it up, and began to read the writing on it.

“Hi Tami… I’m too scared to say this out loud, but you’re just so amazing and I know we said we’d keep things in the game but… I want more. I know it’s selfish and everything, but you’re been so so so much fun. So amazing, so beautiful and smart in that funny one-track-mind way of yours. Anyway… My name is Dawn Bridges. I live in UNC, and my ID is: 37774039KYR78. If you want to talk and see what happens in the real world… please send me a message… and if not. I understand. I’m sorry if this is too much.

Yours, Dawn.”