File Two: Achievement Unlocked

I winced, and Ryu breathed in through his teeth. I licked my lips, and my left arm trembled. “Who are you, anyway?”

The shadowy figure puffed on his cigarette before flicking the butt across the room. He crushed it under his foot and twisted his ankle back and forth.

“Hey! No smoking in here! My ‘rents are gonna ground me if they think I smoked in here.”

I watched the figure study Ryu from head to toe. He snorted. “Yeah, you, smoke. Sure.”

“If you really are a Glitcher, then how can you be here? I thought you all hide out in the Deep Web.”

Eugene’s shaky voice startled me. I had been too busy pressing my fingertips into my side. The burning stopped, but I still marveled at the possibility of sustaining an actual serious wound in the real world.

“Bleeding ceased, D, but, honestly, I thought you weren’t going to pull through.”

I sat up from the couch and locked eyes with Ryu. “There’s no way it could have—”

Ryu shoved a blood soaked towel near my face and pointed to two other towels crumpled up on the coffee table. He crossed his arms over his chest and opened his mouth.

“Not now. Not you. I haven’t died yet, so I’m still—”

“Not the point, hun.”

The figure came near to me. I thought I saw his tattered cloak shift just enough to show a glint of something metallic, but I forgot about it as soon as I felt his stare tear through me. “You got a name, Glitcher?”

The man smiled a little and touched his right forefinger to his lips. “Your boyfriend is concerned about you, and yet, you spit out a question at me with such spunk. Perfect.”

I glared at the man and turned my gaze to Eugene. He typed away on his computer furiously. “Hey, Eugene, I’m cool with you, dude.”

The man strode over to the geek and leaned his body over his shoulder. “Interesting stuff. Careful, those topics might get you into trouble, though. What are you up to?”

“Building a new super computer with less than regulated and legal tech.”

I hoped the man missed the ever so slight waver in Eugene’s voice. I only picked up on it because we’d known each other since the pre-education program for toddlers with over anxious parents. Whatever he actually searched for scared me.

“Travis, love.”

I followed Travis’s movements through the garage. He seemed everything that I imagined a Glitcher to be. Strong. Enigmatic. Protective. But, something in his aura drew me to him. “Doireann.”

A choking cough echoed from Eugene’s chair, and a chuckle sounded from Ryu’s direction.

“Fitting name. You’ve healed enough.”

A mirror appeared before me and began moving toward my feet. “Wait, what’s going on?”

“We decided to make you one of us. It provides a certain amount of protection. That, and I never met someone who received such a small wound from a glitch and wanted to experience that kind of pain over again.”

I recognized my preferred reality spread out before me. I focused on Ryu’s eyes as the mirror started to swallow my shoe.

“Busy. Go without me.”

Ryu nodded, and then I felt myself dematerialize. I moved my hand in front of my face. The breeze cooled my face. It seemed too real. I found myself disoriented without my HUD and the obvious video game feeling of my streaming VR. I hadn’t messed around with Altered Plain too much. Travis and Ryu appeared in a flash on either side of me. Ryu’s arm hung around my shoulder.

“I got chu, D.”

I smiled, until Travis cleared his throat. I took in his smooth, tan face and shoulder length black hair. My pale skin and red, frizzy curls stood out in harsh contrast to Travis’s features. I considered the mystery man handsome, almost better than Ryu. If I confessed my thoughts to Ryu, I could be certain of his jealousy, even though we shared no romantic interest in each other. My childhood friend simply contained a raging flame within him.

“Well, you don’t seem fazed.”

“I dabbled in Alternate Plain to solve some of your puzzles.”

Travis clapped a few times and paused in between claps. “So, we made the right choice with you. Tell me, are you afraid of the dark?”

I raised my eyebrows and cocked my head slightly. “No.”

“Good.”

I fell through the earth. The green plains faded away, and I entered a thick blackness that weighed me down and made me sleepy. Whispering flooded my ears, but I didn’t understand what the voices said, and then I observed a trench below me. “Whoa.” Lights twinkled in the crags of the trench, and music floated on the air, along with laughter. I gaped at the village in front of me and guessed that most of the people about were NPCs.

“Welcome to the Mariana Trench. The place past the dark where secrets lie.”

A shudder crawled through my wound as Travis spoke. He took my hand in his right one, and I gripped Ryu’s hand tightly as we hovered toward the village. Shouts of welcome did not drown out the drums rumbling like thunder in the background. Faint chanting followed the drums.

Travis yelled, “We call Doireann to the sacred place where she is to be tested in her fate! We hope to welcome her as one of our own! Should she fail, death by her viewers would be more pleasant!” Travis let go of my hand and squeezed my shoulder harshly. His grin exuded charm and trouble.

Next Chapter: File Three: Level Up