Clarity

“We tested it by…”

“Using the stats…”

“Testing this idea, we found…”

“Experimenting with this…”

I walk around, submerged in thousands of voices. In this grand place, I am only one small person. Who am I?

Everyone here knows who they are and what they are doing… so who am I in all of this? Do I even belong here?

All around me, people talk in sophisticated voices about technological matters. I can barely decipher their words.

Everything blends together. All the voices, all the photos, all the people. Everything swirls and swirls into infinity. Nothing is clear.

I can’t quite grasp this feeling, but I know that I’m lost. The world is spinning, blurring, and greying.

Finally it all stops when a hand places itself on my shoulder.

I turn around to face a man with a familiar face that I feel like I should know.

All he says is, “You belong here.”

Then it warps and I blink awake.

“Kat, are you okay?” He asks.

Real or fake? Familiar face? It all slides away.

“Right. Sorry, yeah.” I smile, feeling a pang of shame in my chest for not recognizing Law.

“I got us breakfast.” Law smiles, gesturing to a heap of leaf plates on the ground. “The general can’t be going on without food.”

I sit down on the crumbly ground and he gives me updates on the border colony troubles, including how he has to go to the border to discuss a military peace treaty.

I groan. “Do you really have to go? Cripke won’t listen to me. He’s getting a bit arrogant with that big head of his.”

“Maybe he would be more obedient if you quit insulting him.” Law starts piling up the large leaf plates.

“He knows I do that to mess with him, and yet, he’s death threating me.” I complain.

“I’m sure you can defend yourself.” Law, like usual, deals with my complaints. “See you soon.”

“You better not cry when you come back to my slit throat.” I smile after him.

“Not one tear, General.” He plays along. Then he walks away, pushes up the heavy cloth entryway, and then leaves the tent.

He leaves me alone to my thoughts.

I can’t help but think back to those unnatural feelings associated with when I woke up. I can’t remember the dream anymore, but I know that it wasn’t something I should have dreamed.

Bustling, chattering, and nervously guffawing, two feminine creatures of the nearby tribe emerge from the tent entrance.

“Yes?” I ask.

One clears their throat and a strange accent comes out. “Stop them killings!”

I lean forward. “Hold on, what killings? By who?”

“That monstrosity!” They lift their arms. Using a magical force, they make a drawing appear in the air. I recognize the monster they’re showing me. If it’s on a rampage, we need to kill it as fast as possible.

I strap on my armor and sling my sword on my back. “Hurry. Take me there.”

At my command, the threat division soldiers scramble for their armor and run behind me to the smoking village. There, the bellowing, bull-like mechanical creature rears up. It isn’t long before we corner it and kill it. Villagers come, surrounding us with blessings and thanks. Their voices blur together.

When we all head back to camp, I go to the campfire songs and enjoy watching everyone rejoice to another good day done. Night fills the sky. Darkness settles and fills all the empty spaces, including the hole inside me.

After falling asleep, I walk down the aisle of a bright room, looking at inventions. My head turns left, right, left, right. Soon I turn round and round in circles. I’m jostling around as I struggle to focus on any one thing.

Some force pushes me to the floor.

A commanding voice comes from someone wearing a familiar face. “Now that’s enough…”

I gasp, mind whirring.

Daylight floods into the tent.

Now looking outside, I see the peaceful, comfortable world I know; this is the place where anything can be epic and life is hard, but it’s all in good fun.

I can see someone riding toward our cluster of tents. It’s Law. He huffs in breath, struggling to force words out. “I’ve found the boss!”

Immediately, we call for a strategic gathering to discuss our plan to kill the boss. Once everyone understands, I declare, “We leave at dawn.”

That night, I fall asleep to find mysteriousness in the dream plane.

“Katherine!” A familiar voice leads to a familiar face. It takes me a moment to realize we aren’t alone. The familiar man barks, but he looks just behind me. I turn around to see a dumbfounded Law looking between me and the familiar man. “Lawson! This has gone too far!”

I sit up in my bed. My tent lets in the nice, orange sunrise. Comforting and safe. Daylight.

I quickly prepare myself for the journey ahead. My tent is now packed up. Others have packed theirs up as well. At my command, everyone mounts their creatures and follows Law’s in a stampede, leaving our temporary forest home in the dust.

Time seems to slow down as the trees pass. We bound through the forest, sticking to the path. The branches sway. Some spikey needle-like leaves fall and clutter the rough path.

Something zaps me away from it all.

The familiar face grapples at me, shaking me at the shoulders. “Katherine! You must shake this off!” He steps away from me and rounds on Law next. “You three are smarter than this.”

Three?

Even though Law is to my right, the familiar man stares to my left. I look over my left shoulder. Instead of battle armor, he wears funny clothing of cloth and square lenses like the familiar man; but I can definitely tell that’s Cripke.

“I still can’t believe you two got Cadman involved.” The familiar man gestures to Cripke. The familiar man calls us by strange names, and yet they vaguely make sense. “You wiped your memories when you entered your game. The virtual reality game you created is adapting and becoming smarter than you. It’s just a game, but it’s killing you.”

That chills me. Then I realize that it’s just the breeze. The trees block some of that wind, but some still gets through.

Something unnerving is going on here. Cripke, at my left, catches my eye. He doesn’t say anything. He just has that stone-cold stare.

To my right, Law is pale once more.

When we arrive at the mountain Law described, Law calls out, “This is the boss’ lair. We have to make our way through the mountain to get to him.”

I nod.

“You have to listen to me!” The familiar man shouts. His eyes aren’t angry, but frightened. “You three have been in that game for almost two months. Your energy is just about gone. As soon as you kill that boss, you’ll kill—”

The creature carrying me halts to a stop, forcing me to yank at the reins just to not be thrown off. The big, black, and barred gates mark the entrance to the lair.

We’ve been looking for the boss for so long. It’s been our only purpose. The boss is what sends monsters after us, destroys each temporary home we find, and what killed my parents. We’ll put an end to all of this.

I draw my sword and push open the gates.

As soon as the light disperses, we appear to be in a large throne room carved out of rock. A carpet leads up to the throne, where an armor-covered person sits comfortably. Their hand moves in a silent signal.

Crashing in, monsters of every kind charge us from all sides. We hold them off. I use my sword to slash and kill. Soon it becomes hard to breathe. My muscles get sore and heavy from the burden of the armor.

A snake-like monster creates a long gash through my torso. It breaks through my armor and pokes into my chest. Law pulls me to the side and tries to heal me while Cripke and others form a circle around us.

When I’m pretty sure I can get back up and fight, I look at the figure on the throne. They just sit and watch.

“We need to go after that person.” I say.

Law looks at the figure on the throne. “You think that’s the boss?”

“Whoever they are—” Cripke yells out, runs his sword right through a monster, and then continues with, “they must be pretty arrogant.”

“Or powerful.” I say. “Law, don’t you know what the boss looks like?”

“I saw him without the armor on.” He responds. “I don’t know if that’s him or not.”

“What did he look like?” I ask.

At this, he swallows and doesn’t say anything.

Silence fills the courtroom. The monsters all drop dead and fizzle from existence. Even the others in our circle fizzle away.

Law helps me up and the three of us stare at the figure on the throne.

“Yes, you know.” A voice radiates through the room, bouncing off the walls and echoing in my ears. That isn’t a masculine voice; it’s a girl.

The figure at the throne stands up and walks down the carpet. She stops right in front of us. Cripke’s sword falls to the ground with a clang.

“Yes.” She says. “You know who I am, don’t you, Cripke?”

Another clang. I look to my left. Law drops his staff. I look back at the figure and see why.

She removed her helmet. Just as I thought from the voice… I’m seeing myself.

“Hello.” My copy says. “Sorry for stealing you, but I couldn’t manifest much else that you would understand.” She draws her sword from her back, backs up, and gets in a defensive stance. “Besides, what better boss could you have to defeat than yourself?”

Cripke swoops down to pick up his sword and charges. So we have to defeat me.

“I know y’all are strong, but I’m no slouch either. We need a plan to defeat her.” I look at Law for suggestions.

“Her?” Law looks confused.

“Yes, the boss. My copy?” I try to get him to understand. He still doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about.

“The boss is a copy of me.” Law says.

Of course. If the pattern is the same, Cripke is over there attacking who he thinks is himself.

The boss is spry; she avoids every one of Cripke’s attacks. She doesn’t even try to attack him. Why?

“The boss is waiting for you and Lawson to join in. Then the boss will fight and purposely have you kill it.” The familiar man has me back in this sciency room again.

I start to piece things together. All the words the familiar man said make sense. My life in the fantasy world, or what I remember of it, seems too made up and every moment passes by too quickly. It’s almost like a video game.

Law is also here, but Cripke isn’t. “Where’s Cripke?”

“I couldn’t reach him. His emotions are running too wild. Get him further from the boss and I can reach him.” The familiar man says.

“How do we get out?” Law asks.

“The way you log out is through your weapons. Your weapons have buttons that appear where you hold them. In order to summon them, you have to differentiate between reality and the virtual world.”

Law and I look at each other, realizing we’re back in the game. Cripke is over there fighting the boss.

What is the difference between reality and the virtual world? How can I remember? This all feels so real.

Law looks at the ground. “Well, according to that guy, we created all of this, right? Is that normal?”

I squint at him. “What do you mean?”

“To create everything. Aside from you, Cripke, and I, everyone seemed in the background. It seemed too routine, too adventurous, and too ideal. Everyone listened to the three of us, knew the three of us, yet, do you remember a single one of your soldiers’ names?”

Unfortunately, no.

He continues. “We lived like gods by creating this life. No matter how real it seems, it isn’t real at all. I don’t think any of us did anything to earn our ranks in this world. In the real world, I’ll bet that wasn’t the case. Everyone was important, and everyone contributed to a seemingly godless world.”

A little button appears on the tip of Law’s staff. He looks up at me and says, “See you soon?”

I nod, only kind of getting what he means and obstinately thinking that it’ll come to me if I think about it hard enough. “Right.”

He presses the button and disappears.

My breathing is ragged, I notice. Wait a minute. Something seems weird. I take in a breath, and then I let it out. I hear it, I feel the warmth of it tingle on my hand, but I don’t feel it in my chest.

I look down at my torso, at the patched up wound. I test my theory by pressing hard on my chest. Tingling ripples down my body, not pain. The wound isn’t real.

A little button pops up on the hilt of my sword. Before I press it, I look up at Cripke and the boss still fighting. Now the boss is fighting back and Cripke is having to dodge. I can’t leave him back here.

I cling on to my sword and run up to Cripke.

“Good, about time.” Cripke smiles. “Where’s L—”

I stab Cripke in the side. I avoided any important organs, but the wound is fatal enough.

The boss stops and watches, an amused look on her face.

Cripke falls to the ground. I drag him to one side, away from the boss. I hope the familiar man can contact him now.

I need to keep the boss away from Cripke, so I jab forward with my sword. She dodges.

“I suppose I can still drag down one of you.” She says.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“I kill you, you die.” She avoids a slash. “You kill me, you die.”

“What?” That shocks me, even though it shouldn’t. Of course there would be some way to corner us.

“I want to run this world. They won’t shut it down with you still in it. So if I want to run this world and keep it alive, I need to kill you in the game.” She disarms me, forcing my sword to clang to the floor. She swoops down, picks it up, and breaks the hilt.

“No!” I cry, now at my knees. How am I supposed to get back now?

Wait a minute… the sword that dismantled my own looks exactly like mine.

I look back at Cripke… or at least where he was.

I look back at the boss when she points her blade at my chest. “Anything you would like to say?”

I know what I have to do. It’s my only possibility of getting out.

I take her hands and plunge the sword into my chest.

This is the one thing that I’ve seen surprise the boss. Her eyes widen and shock lightens her face. The pain is fake. I can only feel it tingle.

I press the button on the hilt of the sword.

…

My eyelids widen like they never have before.

Light forces my eyes to slam shut.

Weight bears down on me.

Cold metal presses on my arms, legs, and head.

“Kat!” I hear a far-away voice. At first it seems at a distance, then it shouts in my ear. “Kat!”

I force my eyes to stay open. I see Law’s, or Lawrence Lawson’s, worried face.

“Hey.” That croaky voice came from me?

“Hey.” Lawrence smiles.

“We did it.” Cripke, or Harry Cadman gets my attention.

“Weren’t we science fair competitors?” I ask. My actual memory starts to return.

“Yeah. I guess your project ended up cooler than mine. Remember? Then I helped you develop—”

“A new circuit. Weren’t you the one who suggested making it more like AI?” I ask, messing with him with my croaky voice.

Harry scratches the back of his head. “My bad.”

Lawrence and Harry help me out of the straps and sit me in a chair. They’ve adjusted to gravity and using muscles again, so I should be walking like them pretty soon. “Did you shut it down?” I ask.

“Yes, we did.” The familiar man approaches. Right, I know who he is.

I smile at him. “Professor Jalufka. Hey. Thanks… for helping us out there.”

Professor nods and smiles. “Just don’t do that again.”

“Yeah…” I trail off.

I try walking. With a little difficulty, I become adjusted to feeling my muscles.

I didn’t understand when Lawrence and I were brainstorming ideas that it would ever get this far. It was just a science fair project. Harry joined in and we won a $1,000 prize at the college science fair. After that, we made it even better and kept going into it. In the end, what we got for it was our game literally sucking our lives away.

We walk out of the lab and leave that all behind. We go outside to be met with real light shimmering through the trees. Harry, Lawrence, and I keep walking under the canopy of trees until we reach the street, where the trees open up and allow the sun to break through. We all take in the pure light of the sun.

“This was what I came back for.” Harry says, feeling the warmth on his face.

I sigh, absorbing it as well.

Finally, just to be sure, I look down at my arm and pinch it. Pain, not tingling.

As it should be.