I tried to purge the paranoia from my mind as I put all my focus towards gathering more juunberries. The twenty minutes passed and nothing had happened, but I still felt the sense of unease that was gnawing away at the back of my mind.

“I guess that’ll have to do.” I thought looking at the pitiful amount of juunberries I had managed to harvest. “I guess I shouldn’t have been so up tight.” I sighed closing my inventory and turning back towards the meeting spot.

I had only managed two steps forward when the woods shook at what sounded like the a giant explosion going off in the distance. My heart began to race as I realized the sound was coming from our meeting spot. Fearing the worst, I moved as fast as I could while maintaining my hidden status. I took a few points of unnecessary damage as low hanging branches caught me running past, but at this point those few health points were the least of my fears.

I burst into the clearing only to witness a sight that caused my heart to sink in my chest. Between my friends and I there stood a massive monster; easily over eight feet tall. It was a large rodent like creature with two thorny vines wrapped around it. It’s name read ‘Briar Nightmare’ and it had four health bars. What grabbed my attention the most though, was the colour of its cursor.

The colour of a cursor in Sword Art Online displayed enough information for a player to get a rough idea of what they were facing. If the cursor was green, it was a normal player. If it was orange, it was a player that had injured or killed another player. If it were yellow, it was an NPC or friendly pet. For monsters though; things worked a little differently.

Monster cursors were by default, red, but the shade of red determined how over or under-leveled a player would be facing them. The Frenzy Boars I used to grind when I first logged in had an almost pastel pink cursor now. Mobs at my level would have a bright red cursor. As for the giant monster before me. Its cursor was such a dark shade of crimson that I first thought it was pure black.

“I-impossible…” I stammered falling back onto the ground. I was level 22. At my level I should have been more powerful than any monster for the next several floors. There was no way we could have run into an enemy this strong so far down. But here before me stood something strong enough to kill me in one hit.

My legs shook refusing to listen to me as I sat on the ground staring up in terror.

“Makku? Is that you?” Stern called out as he dodged an attack. He couldn’t see me while I was hidden, but he must have heard me fall back.

That was right. My friends were fighting, and I had to help them. But could I?

The Briar Nightmare seemed to be unusually agile for its size. It bounced between targets at frightening speeds meaning that even if Stern and Sterra tanked for me, the moment I aggroed it I was guaranteed to be hit at least once. The Briar Nightmare’s cursor was almost black for me, and due to my skill sets I wore very little armor to improve my hiding and acrobatics ratings. If I faced this beast I would more than certainly die.

I flinched as Sterra attempted in vain to dodge an incoming vine strike. Both their health bars were now in the yellow, it was clear they wouldn’t last much longer. Even if any of us could have afforded the newly discovered teleport crystals from the higher floors, this monster wouldn’t give us a chance to use them.

“There’s no choice!” I grimaced, forcing my uncooperative legs to listen to me. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I drew my dagger. If I moved fast enough, I might be able to get one critical stealth attack in before it noticed me.

“STAY HIDDEN!” Sterra cried out desperately stopping me in my tracks. “YOU NEED TO GET BACK TO TOWN!”

I was left dumbfounded as Sterra switched with Stern just as he was thrown back into a tree.

“You need to trust us!” Stern shouted attempting to shakily pick himself up. “We need you to inform the other players about this monster. If we don’t hurry, countless other players might wander in here and get killed!”

Deep down I knew what they really meant, but I didn’t want to accept it. They weren’t ding this just for the sake of other players, but also for me. My lip trembled as countless hopeless thoughts ran through my head. Grinding my teeth I sprinted forward.

Running as fast as I could while still maintaining my steadily dropping hidden rating, I ran behind Stern and Sterra just as they were about to switch out.

“You’d better escape once I’ve left.” I whispered to the first two close friends I had made in this game of death.

“Of course.” Stern smirked. “Save us a seat for when we get back!”

The Briar Nightmare looked in my direction as the last few numbers of my hiding check finally failed. Before it could react however; he was faced with Stern and Sterra jumping in unison with sword skills active.

Without looking back I ran all the way back to the Town of Beginnings, barely noticing the tears streaming down my digital face.