Grey opened the menu and held their hand over the log out button, but didn’t press it. They could probably go a little longer, maybe get a little bit of grinding done.

  “I’m going to look around the temple,” they said to Sonya “Stay he-”

  They looked around only to see that she was gone. They sighed and continued down into the corridor to the right. They were completely devoid of enemies, players, or even more traps. It was a seemingly endless grid of featureless corridors. It was just like them to find the only pit trap in the whole place. Still, Grey could see what Sonya meant: what could a place like this have been used for? Or, better yet, why build a place designed like this at all?

  Still, they enjoyed the quiet. This was the first time in the game they’d been well and truly alone, and despite how much they mediated their friends' more temperamental personalities, they didn’t like socialising with random people on their behalf as much as they made out. They cared about the others enough to not complain, but they had to admit, they liked the peace and quiet this liminal space provided.

  After who knows how long spent walking aimlessly, they found another player in the intersection of one of the corridors, pulling her sword out of another scorpion.

  “Oh, hey,” she said, “didn’t realise there were more people down here. This place is super empty.”

  Something about her voice seemed oddly familiar, but Grey couldn’t place it. Her face was definitely new to them.

  “My party hid from the sandstorm,” Grey explained. “Surprised you didn’t hear us.”

  She shrugged. “I was a bit busy. Where are they?”

  “They’ve just logged out. Do you need healing?”

  “Nope.” She slid her sword into a holster on her back. “Full health.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realise. I…” They looked up over her head, expecting a name tag, but there wasn’t one there. “There should be a name tag there, right?”

  Suddenly, the name tag came back into view.

  LAdybug

  Lancer Level 12

  200/200 HP

  “Must have just…glitched out I guess.” She shrugged. She walked towards the exit behind Grey. “Well, it was nice to meet you Al- I mean, Skibabylon. We’ll see ea-”

  Grey held up their staff, stopping her in place.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve become very paranoid of this game recently,” they said, “and you are doing a really bad job.”

  She sighed. “It’s always something, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I’m still not used to this quite yet. I never got to go out in the game like the other guy did, people always got brought to me. Could you give me some pointers?”

  “No. Are you a friend of that old guy who was helping James?”

  She looked at them incredulously. “What? Of course not! I’ve wanted him dead since I was born. People like me were made to fight him.”

  “If not, what are you then?”

  She smiled. “Oh, come on. We’ve met before, you know it deep down. If not me, then you’ll remember my brother.”

  “Brother?”

  “Rumor has it you killed him, over in the free world. He was called Draconautis.”

  Grey pulled the staff back and swung at their head, but the person vanished. Grey staggered forward, surprised by just how hard they swung. The person who they were just talking to then walked out of the corridor next to them.

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  “Never liked the guy, but he did the dirty work for me,” she continued. “He used to bring allllll the bad players over to me to play with. Now he’s gone, I’ve got to pick up the slack until my master makes a better Outrider. They do take a while to perfect.”

  “Your master needs to make better monsters. Draconautis went down easy.”

  “Don't worry, we've learnt plenty from where that dumbass went wrong. Draconautis only died because he got cocky, overstepped his bounds, and went hunting where he shouldn't have. If he stayed here, you’d never have killed him. Do you really think I’d be as easy to kill on my home turf?”

  “We’ve killed one of Kable’s monsters, we can kill the rest.”

  Grey threw an energy bolt at the woman, which sliced right through her skull. She kept walking forwards all the same.

  “Kable?” She repeated. “Oh, my. You really are delusional. Now…”

  The person’s body split open, armour and skin breaking apart as a seemingly endless wave of hands poured forth. Grey didn’t have time to run. The hands quickly took Grey’s limbs and held them in place. Grey struggled in vein to break free, only to be met with more resistance as they began to twist and pull at their joints. The hands broke Grey’s staff and crushed the holy symbol around their wrist, cutting off their access to their magic. Some of the hands reshaped, forming a circle, and from it an eye grew in the centre. Grey recognised it, but had no idea where from.

  let me show you

  James yanked the crowbar out of Grey’s hand and slammed it down onto Draconautis’ remaining eye. The half skeletal monster collapsed immediately, but James kept battering the skull until it caved in.

  “That’s enough, James,” Patrick said. James stood up, black liquid dripping from the crowbar as he chucked it away.

  “Well?” He said “Do you get it now? I di-”

  Grey looked around in surprise. They were back on the construction site, Draconautis’ broken corpse on the ground in front of them.

  “What the hell did you do?” They said, before wincing as they realised they still had broken ribs.

  “Grey, are you ok?” Amelia asked. “You look like you were hurt pretty bad.”

  Grey staggered away from her. “This is my memory, isn’t it? They’re putting me back into my memories.”

  Patrick cocked his head. “Did you get hit on the head or something too? You’re ok, Grey. We’re safe now.”

  “No, I’m not…”

  It took a moment for Grey to realise that Patrick wasn’t speaking with his voice.

  “I just wanted to confirm you really killed Draconautis.” Patrick crouched down next to the creature’s corpse. “Wow, you burnt him real good. And his skull’s a puddle now. James must have been mad. Wonder who the bad influence is.” He stood up and smiled. “Ok then, let’s dig into what I actually wanted now.”

  Grey blinked, and they were a child again. They were standing on a balcony, a hand on their shoulder, looking over a city. It was a bright, cold winter day, the sun casting shadows on the city’s fine architecture that had survived despite the constant efforts of modernisation. It was a beautiful day, and a place and time they’d buried for a reason.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” The woman who had her hand on Grey’s shoulder said.

  Grey couldn’t disagree, until they looked down. Smoke from burning cars and Molotov cocktails. Civilians blinded by tear gas, staggering back as the riot police hunted them down like foxes and hounds. The few who had avoided the gassing pouring bottles of water into the eyes of the hurt, if they weren’t trying to avoid being smashed by batons. Defiant war cries drowned out by constant screams.

  “Why…why are you showing me this?” Grey hated how young and unsteady their voice sounded back then. They’d ran away because of how weak it had made them feel.

  “Because this’ll be yours someday, my dear.” Unlike Patrick, she was speaking with her own voice. A voice Grey had tried hard to forget. “This city, its people, will be under your wing. You’ll be a figurehead for our family. You must make us prosper in this hard, unforgiving world. They will be the ones who try and stop you, and you need to learn not to give them quarter.”

  Grey was silent, collecting their thoughts. They couldn’t bring themselves to look at her. Unlike the previous memory, Grey didn’t have the choice to control it. They hadn’t learned how to control their emotions so well at this age. They had no choice but to let it play out.

  “I want to help those people,” Grey said. “They look like they’re hurt.”

  The woman’s hand gripped their shoulder tightly for a moment, before she kept speaking.

  “The ants below you are dissenters. They don’t understand what gifts our family has given them. You should not respect them, nor should you help them. It would be better if you did not consider them as human.”

  “But they look human to me.”

  “Believe me, my dear Alex, when I say that you cannot recognise a true human just by looking at them.”

  Grey glanced up at her, wearing a fine ballgown covered in thick frills and lace, cloaked in the smell of sickly sweet perfume, skin unnaturally smooth from endless plastic surgeries.

  “Ok,” They said, bluntly.

  Time stood still. Grey saw a humanoid figure made of hands walking out from behind the woman. Trapped in that child’s mind, they couldn’t help but be terrified. That unblinking eye had been watching him all this time.

  deeper

  With that, Grey’s trip down memory lane continued.