Chapter 88 17.X Interlude: A Near Death Experience

Guidance had never been a fighter. Hell, she didn't even have the tendency to play a full damage-oriented character in any game that she played. She was either a magic caster or a full-on support type that would safely direct the flow of battle to her advantage. Safely away from battle, her own sense of danger wasn't fully built for the stunt she just pulled earlier.

And yet, she still wanted to see what she was capable of.

"T-that was close..."

Closing the door behind her, Guidance almost collapsed onto her bed, a hand hovering over her nonexistent wound as she stared at the ceiling. Even now, the memory and adrenaline of that moment lingered in her mind, the sensation of dying almost within reach before she willingly pulled herself out of it.

"I almost died..."

Her whispers were both haunting and in disbelief. It was a fact that she never truly realized would ever happen to her. At least, not this early in her life. She fully expected to die early, of course, what with her unhealthy lifestyle and lack of exercise, but to think that she almost didn't even hit thirty? That was a rattling experience to go through.

"Should... Should tweak some of the macros..."

With an absent whisper, Guidance forced herself upright, her eyes wandering towards her [Manifest] as she raised it up for her to use. Letting her instincts guide her, her hands flitted across the keyboard, inputting and deleting parameters for her own [Moves] as she customized them to her specifications.

"Fix this... Tweak that..."

Minutes passed. Then many more.

"Tch..."

With every keystroke, new lines were written. More code was made, and somehow, she could already tell that she was doing a poor job. Her mistakes shone against the immaculate code, her annoyance starting to rise as she sighed.

"What the hell..." Guidance grumbled, pressing on the backspace button as she fixed yet another errant line of code. "I'm making a lot of rookie mistakes right now..."

As time passed, more and more errors began piling up. Her hands shook as she typed, making her commit even more errors than she made good code. Eventually, she found herself catching countless syntax errors before she could even correct herself.

"W-what... What's wrong with me?" she asked herself with a tinge of annoyance. "My fingers won't move as I want them to..."

Sure enough, each keystroke was becoming more and more of a burden as her accuracy faltered. Her usual speed slowed to a crawl, her hands trembling far too wildly for her to even input a basic sentence.

"D-Dammit..."

Guidance growled in frustration, her screams being cut short in favor of not making a scene in the middle of the early morning. What the hell was wrong with her? It wasn't like her to have this much of a problem. The only thing she knew that could cause this was that she was having a panic attack, and that wasn't happening to her any time soon... Right?

"Deep breaths... You can get through this..."

Closing her eyes, the dev took a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity as she forced her shaking hands to calm down. Her mind, however, was still whirring with possibilities. Possibilities that were only made more pronounced as soon as she stopped thinking about her code.

"It's fine... You're alive..."

It inevitably went back to that time somehow. Even as she tried to distract herself, that near-death experience still kept repeating itself in her head again and again. That feeling of fleeting life... the sensation of bleeding out by an attack that shouldn't have even dealt that much damage... It was simply that much of a nagging thought.

"Not dead... not dead...."

With each deep breath, Guidance kept repeating her words like a mantra. Though, why did she even have to reiterate such a fact? She was fine. Her heart was still beating, and she had fully healed from a fatal wound not even a minute after it was inflicted. Why would her mind linger on such a memory?

Opening her eyes, the dev raised her hands up to her face, her trembling fingers still showing to her that she was far from recovered from her near-death experience. Her heart hammered inside her chest, and the adrenaline never seemed to have left her system even after the danger had long passed.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Staring at her hands, her mind inexplicably replayed the same memory to her again. She wasn't even fazed anymore. At least, that was what she told herself even as the cold sweat on her back made it harder for her to ignore what was happening.

"I'm not gonna be stuck on this..."

With a growl, Guidance practically threw her [Keystroke] back to bed before then throwing herself back into her sheets. Willfully closing her eyes, she forced herself to go back to sleep. A good nap always helped in resetting her emotions, and she wouldn't suffer her mind constantly throwing the fact that she almost died right back at her like a broken record.

"Just need some sleep," she whispered to herself. "That'll fix this..."

The proverbial tick of the clock echoed within her room as she waited... waited for her mind to reset itself. To stop her mind's eye from constantly replaying the phantom sensation of dying to her over and over again. It wasn't even that bad!

"Ugh..."

Tossing and turning, Guidance kept her eyes shut, refusing to give up even as the images of her own funeral kept flashing at her nonstop. She didn't even have a lot of friends back home. Why would she even feel terrified of her inevitable death?

"D-dammit..."

Tears trickled through her eyelids even as she wiped them off by burying her face into her pillow. The gnawing feeling in her chest made itself all the more apparent as she refused to sob. There was nothing to cry about, just like how nobody would mourn her passing even if... if she died...

"I'm making myself upset!"

She screamed into her pillow, hoping that it would at least muffle her frustrations and prevent them from being heard. She had no right to cry about anything! It wasn't even that bad! Why in the world would dying even matter to her when she'd be too dead to care by the end of it?!

"Ahhh!"

Her muffled screams echoed across her room, her tears soaking into her pillow as the images refused to leave her. Why? Why would her mind betray her like this? And over such a simple act of almost dying too!

Guidance groaned, annoyed at both the memory and herself for being this affected by it.

"And here I thought I was more well adjusted than this..."

With a sigh, the dev resigned herself to a sleepless night. Staring into her ceiling, hands found themselves clasped together. She could only hope that time would help her with her annoyance.

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