“Next question,” I say, tabling the godly attention for later. That’s a can of worms, that’s going to need a lot more information to tackle, and I have other questions that are more pressing, “where are we?”
Without missing a beat she answers immediately, “The castle of the lizard.”
“You know what I meant,” I snap, “where is this?”
“It’s not the old world,” Samie comments dryly, “though if you want the exact details, I’m afraid I don’t know, I’ve not completed the tutorial.”
Samie was obviously skilled, and she had been here for a least a few weeks, but she was still here, was the tutorial harder than I thought? I had made considerable progress today, but I still needed 4 more artifacts just to complete this level. If I had to do the same thing in every section, I would be here for months. “How do we complete it?”
“Get past the minotaur,” she says, quickly holding a hand up and falling silent. I glance over her shoulder and see a lizard-porcupine sniffing at the floor. We wait a minute, and it wanders away the other way, “but rushing in blind is a death trap, so people tend to clear 1 to 3 of the side levels first, you can get some items that are very useful in sneaking past.”
“People don’t fight it?”
“People have.” She says with obvious annoyance, “don’t think anyone has come back from that experience alive.”
Hint taken. Seems my single Acolyte skill would come in handy. “Do many people pass the tutorial?”
Samie shrugs as if she could care less, “No idea. I’ve met people who said they were going to complete it, but I never saw them again, so I don’t know. Once you pass you can’t come back, so there’s no real way of knowing. Some people stay on purpose, sacred of what’s beyond this.”
“And you?”
She glances back, something calculating in her gaze, “I have my reasons.”
How very enlightening. I sigh, moving on, “Then what about this stupid game itself? Do you know how it works or-,”
“It’s not a game,” she bites, venom leaking into her voice, keeping her eyes glued to the path ahead, “you die here and that’s it. It might be formatted like a game, but it’s anything but. You start treating it like a game and you die. This is real.”
I knew that already, but it’s interesting how angry she is about the fact. There might be something there she’s not telling me, though there are other questions I should ask first before she clams up. “Then do you know why we are here?”
Samie’s quiet for the next two turns and I’m about to ask another question when she stops at another door, something dark and solemn on her face, “No.” She twists the handle roughly, something snaps in the mechanism, and she pushes the door open. “Maybe it’s some cosmic fluke or maybe we have some higher purpose,” she laughs at that one, face twisting into anger, “or maybe it's just a whim, something for the gods who are so invested in you to entertain themselves with.”
Well, if Samie hated the gods so much, I suppose it does explain her attitude earlier. But why does she speak of the gods in this world as a fact? As if they have done something to wrong her personally? Why bring up the unseen eyes focused on my back? I force down the shiver that thought causes. If they are watching, I’m not going to show them anything worth seeing, so they can screw off.
There’s obviously much I’m still missing about how this world works and the beings that have control over it, but Samie is getting worked up, might be time to switch the conversation into something less volatile.
So, I blurt the first question that pops into my head, “Why Samie?”
She glances back at me with a frown, from where she’s crouched digging through a chest, there’s a vague look of confusion and annoyance on her face. “Are you stupid?”
“Well sorry for trying to be nice to you,” I bite back moving over to the desk and starting to roughly pull-out drawers. Good gods this woman is frustrating, if I didn’t need her to answer my questions-
'Breath Nova,' I think, forcing myself to take a deep breath, staring blankly at the stacks of paper and quills in the drawer, 'just let her cool her head then ask something useful.'
I open the next drawer, pulling out a small hourglass, its gaudy, golden with little gemstones set into the base, with red colored sand, and a little angel figure at the top. It’s absolutely hideous, Chalice would love it. Slinging my backpack off I nestle the hourglass inside the coat next to the gemstone.
“It was my name before.”
I startle at the voice, turning back to Samie, who has moved over to the dresser, and is currently staring intently at a child’s sundress in her hands, “Samie was my name in the old world.”
“And you chose to keep it?”
Carefully she folds the dress and places it back down, “I had no plans on staying here.”
I shift my gaze back to the hourglass I just happily picked up for an NPC of all things, maybe I was forgetting why I was here too. “That makes two of us,” I note, setting the hourglass back down on the desk. “Do you know how we get back?”
There’s a sigh and the soft clink of a drawer closing, “No.” there’s a true annoyance leaking through her tone, she’s not lying. It is spoken with such finality that I’m about to ask my next question when she speaks, “It’s the question everyone asks when they start and they-,”
“SHATTER.”
Startled I spin around, only to find nothing threatening or immediately obvious. There’s a broken hand mirror at her feet, a thousand broken images of Samie covering the floor. Her eyes are filled with a longing anger, guilt, and regret lining her face, her hands are ever so slightly shaking, “Everyone forgets.”
“Forgets?” I echo, confused by the word choice. Sure, there will people who don’t want to go back, but most people should not want to murder monsters in a weird fantasy land right?
Samie looks up at me, through me, as though she is searching for something even beyond the “nauseating” aura I carry, almost as if she’s looking at the old me. “How long have you been here?”
I’m startled by the sudden shift of our conversation, unsure what me being here has to do with anything, but I humor her, “About a day, maybe two.”
Something dangerously close to pity crosses her face, “What’s your name?”
A dark and foreboding fear starts twisting in the bottom of my stomach, but I force it down, anger rising to defend the sudden confusion I’m feeling, “Nova,” I bite, “I already told you-,”
“Your original name,” she clarifies, eyes never leaving mine, “what is your old name?”
The dark thing grows bigger, but I huff crossing my arms, “don’t see why I need to answer that.”
“Amuse me,” there’s something in the tone of her voice, something desperate that makes the anger fade.
“It’s-,” I blink as the name escapes me. What the hell? I know my own name what is-
I glance over at Samie sharply, the pity is back, open and honest and filled with her own regret. “We call it the shifting,” she whispers. “A side effect of this world, or a twisted way of helping us adapt,” she looks down at her blue hands, “you forget the original world and everything related to it.”
“Your lying,” I spit even as I scramble to remember my own name. I know who I am, I KNOW.
“I wish I was,” she says, open and broken in her own pain, “some people don’t even remember they aren’t from this world. They completely become the player, forgetting everything-,”
“Daniela,” I force out, as Samie raises an eyebrow, “Daniela,” I repeat tossing my name with a desperation I never thought I would have. I had hated that name all my life, but it was mine. And for a few seconds it wasn’t. Were there other things I was missing? I remember what I’m fighting for, my sweet adorable little brother, my twin, my Zeke. I needed to find him to keep him safe like I promised. The rest of my family was waiting too, my dad and stepmom. Benjamin my little brother who was going through his dinosaur phase. Kenna my 6-year-old sister who had just lost two teeth at once and acted like her world was ending because the tooth fairy wouldn’t take both her teeth. And little Tyson the oops baby who had just turned 2. I remembered everyone, they were still there, I hadn’t forgotten them, and I would make sure I never did.
“It gets harder if you fight it.” Samie warns, “It’s easier to forget.”
“It might be easier,” I agree, constantly repeating the names of my family in my head, “but I’ve never done things the easy way, and I’m not starting now.”
Samie laughs, actually laughs, doubles over clutching her midsection and she shakes. Laughter breathy and close to the sound of a dying goose. It’s the nicest, most human thing I’ve seen in days.
“That makes two of us then.” She says, smile easy and unguarded for the first time, “Let's both do our best then, Daniela.”
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