Immersion World

by Max Jager

  Seeing the opening, Elliott quickly stabbed his sword into the part she had broken off and killed the wasp on the spot. "Brooke! Do that again! We can kill them if you break their armor and I hit em."

  "Got it." Brooke replied. The two of them stuck close together, the next time a wasp came at them they both evaded and repeated their strategy, killing a second wasp. However, after they killed the second one, two more wasps came at them at the same time. Each wasp singled out one of them, which forced them to separate. Brooke was dodging and evading the attacks, and was striking at the wasps every chance she got, but she was only hurting them and breaking their exoskeleton, she wasn't killing them. The two of them couldn't kill the wasps quickly, and the number of enemies they were facing just kept increasing.

  Sophia was really struggling, the wasps just kept coming and she couldn't get a single chance to use her bow. She was stuck on defense, if she stopped evading for even a second to take aim at one of the wasps she'd be hit by another one. But, on the plus side, the wasps were very easy to predict. They flew in straight lines, and didn't do much other then try to stab or tackle their target. It was really easy to just keep sidestepping them.

  Chloe, on the other hand, was fighting alongside them and was struggling, but was doing a lot better on her own. The first wasp to attack her came flying at her stinger-first. She sidestepped the attack, then used both of her small iron hand-axes to cleave off its stinger. Forcing it to resort to trying to tackle her. But when it flew in to try and tackle her to the ground she sidestepped and struck at its wing, rendering it unable to fly. As the fight went on she eventually had three wasps that were on the ground, without a stinger and unable to fly. They were still trying to chase her and attack her, but were otherwise unable to keep up with her movements. It wasn't long before Fate, George and Matthew ran out of wasps to fight and moved over to assist Brooke, Elliott, and Chloe and Sophia with theirs.

  On the last battleground, Carley and Jess were struggling to hold their ground on their own. The wasps were the same size as Carley, and Jess was a mere two inches taller then Carley. They were among the smallest in the group, and were having an especially hard time with these giant wasps.

  As the first wasp swooped down to take a stab at Carley, he quickly evaded the attack and struck the wasp in the side with his sword. But it couldn't pierce the exoskeleton. When the wasp came back for another attack Carley was preparing to aim for the wing in his next attack, however he heard Jess scream and his attention was drawn to her instead.

  One of the wasps had turned to attack her, and as soon as she saw it coming she panicked and froze in fear.

  "Jess! Move!" Carley shouted out as he jumped out of the way of his own wasp, jumping towards Jess. But Jess didn't move, so Carley did the only thing he could do. He didn't have the strength to pull her out of the way, so he jumped at her and used his full body weight to shove her out of harm's way. Although, that left Carley standing in front of the wasp instead. Carley attempted to evade the attack, but he was trying to do too many things in such a short timeframe, he didn't have enough time to evade. The wasp's stinger stabbed through Carley's shoulder and knocked him to the ground.

  Carley shouted out in pain, and the wasp pulled its stinger back out only to backup and land on top of Carley to pin him to the ground. It was far too heavy for Carley to get it off himself. But before the wasp could do anything it was struck hard in the side by a mace. Jess struck the wasp hard enough to knock it off Carley and knock it back a couple feet.

  "Oh my god! Are you okay Carley?!" Jess worriedly shouted, as soon as she hit the wasp off of him she grabbed his unharmed arm and pulled him onto his feet. Paying no attention at all to the other wasp.

  "Jess!" Carley shouted out. As soon as she took his hand, instead of letting her pull him up he tried to yank her to the ground. But he wasn't strong enough, she was stronger and she just pulled him onto his feet. Thinking quick, Carley used the momentum from her pulling him, and her lack of balance, to sweep her legs out from under her and shove her backwards. Pushing her out of the way just in time for the second wasp to swoop by. Again, Carley had spent too much time getting Jess out of harm's way, he wasn't able to evade, although this one hadn't been aiming for him and didn't hit him directly. The stinger grazed his side, leaving a deep cut and knocking Carley right back onto the ground.

  Carley rolled out of the way to avoid being pinned down again and weakly stood back up. As soon as the next wasp came at him he quickly sidestepped the attack and slashed his sword through its wing, knocking it to the ground. He took a couple steps towards it and suddenly dropped his sword.

  With a confused expression on his face Carley looked down at his hand. A pins and needles-like feeling was rapidly spreading from both of his wounds, in his attempt to shut out the pain he had shut out all feeling in his arm and hadn't noticed it until now. His left arm was paralyzed, he couldn't move it at all anymore. He quickly picked up his sword with his right arm, but he was unsure of how well he could fight with his non-dominant arm.

  Jess, noticing that the wasp could no longer fly, rushed over and began repeatedly striking it in the head with her mace. After three blows the wasp started to stand back up, and after a fourth it lifelessly collapsed back to the ground.

  The second wasp turned to protect the downed wasp, and flew at Jess in an attempt to stab her with its stinger. Carley tried to shout out to her to move, but the wound on his side was also turning his body numb. His lungs had gone numb now, and he was struggling to breathe. He couldn't inhale enough to yell and was starting to struggle to stay standing. Carley clenched his fist and grit his teeth, he wasn't used to this, he was used to being fine after taking many blows. He was used to, and good at, just resisting whatever pain he felt and continuing to fight. But this poison… No amount of pain resistance was going to do anything about that… His body was rapidly failing and falling into paralysis as the poison spread.

  However, out of nowhere, an arrow struck the wasp in the torso and knocked it out of the air. Carley caught a brief glimpse of everyone else in the group rushing over, it would seem like they took care of their own wasps. But it was just a brief glimpse before he collapsed and was sent into a coughing fit. He curled up on the ground, struggling to try and resist the poison.

  Seeing him fall Jess quickly ran over and rolled him onto his back. "What's wrong? Um… Um…"

  "Jess move! He must be poisoned!" Sophia called out and rushed over to kneel beside Carley. Inami, Snipes, Brooke and Elliott also rushed over to Carley, while the others stood watch keeping an eye out for any other monsters in the area.

  "Poison?" Jess asked worriedly, but she didn't move or make space for anyone else around Carley, they all had to work around her. "I can fix that!" She quickly began rifling through her bag, then she pulled out a small blue potion bottle. "Antidote, works on poison, right?"

  "You have one?" Sophia asked, then noticed that Jess was holding it. "I don't know what an antidote looks like, if you say that's one then I'll take your word for it."

  Jess nodded, and went to pour the antidote down Carley's throat. But Carley stopped her and took the antidote with his good arm to drink it himself. At first the symptoms seemed to worsen, and stayed that way for about ten seconds, before they slowly started getting better and within another twenty seconds they were gone.

  "Thanks." Carley said between gasps for air, then he took a moment to catch his breath. Once he caught his breath he started trying to get back up, but Jess placed a hand on his chest and held him down. "No." She stated, then pulled a potion out of her bag and handed it to Carley. "Not until you are recovered."

  Carley shook his head. "I'm fine, really. I just need to stop the bleeding and I'll be okay."

  "Carley y-" Sophia started to scold him, but was interrupted by Jess.

  "Did you hit your head?! You're not fine! That thing pierced through your shoulder! THROUGH your freakin shoulder! You have a hole in you! That's not fine!" Jess kept him pi
nned down with her one arm and insisted on him taking the potion.

  "No really, I'm okay. Lets not waste resources." Carley argued.

  "Carley. You really should-" Brooke started but was interrupted.

  "No! You're not okay! Carley you're taking the damn potion whether you want to or not. I saved you twice now, once when you got pinned and once again with the antidote, don't make it a third time by doing something stupid like this." Jess argued. "This is why you need me here, you won't survive without someone out here to look after you."

  "My friends here look out for me." Carley quietly murmured.

  "No. They don't." Jess argued.

  "Excuse me?" Brooke stepped closer to Jess. But Elliott quickly stopped her before she could take more then two steps.

  Jess shot a glare at Brooke when she spoke up. She firmly placed the potion in Carley's hand, then stood up to face Brooke. "You have something to add?"

  "We're a team. Jess. We've all been looking out for each other." Brooke stated as she glared back.

  "No, you haven't. You put everything on Carley and I can tell. He's been looking out for you and nobody has been looking out for him!" Jess growled back.

  "Jess, they did help a lot." Carley murmured, but wasn't heard.

  "My brother and I are her friends Jess. And so are most of the people in the group, we've done a lot for her." Brooke argued.

  "Really?" Jess almost laughed. She crouched down beside Carley again and gently took his injured arm, rolled back his sleeve, and held it up. He had numerous scars across his wrist that weren't healing completely. "These, were not here when I lost him." She let his arm go and stood up again, turning to Brooke. "So tell me, whoever the hell you are, this happened while he was with you, he got these scars during his time with you, how did you help him with that?"

  Brooke took a step back. "I only saw her do that once, I didn't know she was doing it more frequently..."

  Fate lowered her head a little, she had known he was doing it, but hadn't thought it was her place to stop him.

  "So you did nothing? You weren't looking out for him, like I said." Jess insisted. "What about the scars on his back?"

  "Hey! Those were there before we met her." Elliott interrupted.

  "No. Not all of them, he has new scars. None of his scars ever came above his collar before, these new ones do. You can see them even when he has his hoodie!" Jess countered.

  "That wasn't us." Brooke argued. "The killer she ran off to fight did that, we saved her from that guy!"

  "Yeah, you saved him from the killer after you let him go off alone to try and stop the guy. Who was looking out for him when THAT happened? Last I checked you were all in the camp, completely clueless until I came. He almost died because nobody was looking out for him!" Jess only seemed to get angrier when that one was brought up.

  "We went out to save her, and we did! You just sat in camp and did nothing!" Brooke shouted back and clenched her fists.

  "Jess… That was my fault." Carley quietly spoke up, but was not listened to.

  "I couldn't go! I can't fight, I don't know how! It isn't going to do anyone any good if I go after him and die before we find him." Jess argued. "I get it, he probably snuck off on his own to handle it. That's Carley. But it never would have happened if somebody was there to look out for him, and absolutely nobody was!"

  "We were there! Every step of the way!" Brooke tried to take a step closer but Elliott was keeping her back. Brooke growled and yanked herself out of Elliott's grip, then took two steps closer to Jess. Brooke, despite being younger, was three inches taller than Jess.

  "If you were there that wouldn't have happened. You didn't bother to look out for him, and almost got him killed." Jess growled at her. "And don't think I'm stupid. When I couldn't find you guys in town I asked around to find out where you went. The innkeeper said she saw him, and said he looked to be in really bad shape. She said he was sleeping in the damn hallway! How the hell can you let him get that sleep deprived and do nothing about it, yet still tell me you were looking out for him!? How is that looking out for him?"

  "We got the doctor to heal her and restore her stamina!" Brooke shouted back and took another step towards Jess.

  "Yeah. I spoke to that doctor too. She told me that she only healed three of you, and that one of you had a small cut, one had a broken leg, and Carley was in such bad shape she didn't really know how he was still walking around! She told me that he had several broken ribs, that had been made MUCH worse, because he'd been traveling, fighting, and running around on them for DAYS. Not to mention the stabwounds and other problems he had. The only other person who had a wound that old was the girl with the broken leg, and she wasn't made to walk on it!" Jess took a step closer and continued glaring at Brooke as she shouted at her.

  "That was me." Sophia spoke up. "I broke my leg, and I couldn't walk on it. We offered to carry Carley too but she refused."

  "Yeah, you offered, but none of you actually carried him. Anyone with half a brain can tell that Carley would say no, even if he really needed it. You don't ask someone like him those things, you just do it." Jess shot back at Sophia, but her attention was focused on Brooke. "I can tell by looking at your clothes that he wasn't the only one to get hurt, your clothes are all torn up, clearly from stab and slash wounds of your own. So why the hell was he walking around with his wounds for days when everyone else was healed? Care to explain that one?" The smaller woman got into Brooke's face as she shouted that one at her.

  "Carley refused the potions." Brooke countered. "And a lot of our recent wounds were healed by Carley herself, she learned a healing spell."

  "I didn't want a potion. They tried, hard, to get me to take one." Carley spoke up, but was ignored.

  "That could have killed him! It nearly did kill him with how bad it was by the time he reached the city!" Jess shouted at her. "But no, once he refused the potion you were more than happy to just use it on yourself, and let him suffer. And you say you're taking care of him? You're looking out for him? No, you're not. Maybe you're mistaking being nice to him as looking out for him, but in the end of the day you weren't looking out for him at all. You were looking out for yourself. And where were you today, when he was pinned by the wasp? Not there. He would have died if I wasn't there, and it's a miracle he hasn't died while you were supposedly looking out for him."

  "I was never looking out for myself, we've all been taking care of each other. You have no right to go off telling us we weren't, you haven't been with this group for the last week." Brooke argued.

  "Yeah, I do have the right. I'm his girlfriend, I know him. I know he's drawn to the wrong types of people, I know he can't tell the good people from the bad, and I know he has a tendency to befriend people who are trying to take advantage of him. And when I finally find him I find him with you people, and all the signs point to the fact that you're all clearly taking advantage of him. And you know, I was nice. I held my tongue and gave you a chance. But I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you lying to him or me about how you 'look after him' when you very clearly don't." Jess growled at her. "Carley is my boyfriend, not yours, he belongs to me. You're getting way too close to him, and you're just hurting him, so back the hell off."

  George and Matthew both looked back at the others with a very confused expression on their face.

  "Oh, so the real reason you're so pissy with me comes out." Brooke rolled her eyes. "Since she's been in this world I've done more for her then you have! And Carley is a close friend of mine, so you back off. I have absolutely no intention to get in the middle of your relationship, or to damage it in any way, so calm the hell down. You'll ruin your relationship by yourself if you don't stop acting like such a b-"

  "STOP! You two!" Carley shouted out. The shouting startled just about everyone. Carley was always so quiet, nobody knew he could actually speak loudly. But, it did get them to stop arguing. They both looked down at Carley. "I will drink the potion if you two stop arguing, and only if you stop argu
ing."

  They both shot one last glare at each other and stopped for the time being. Brooke walked back over to Elliott.

  "Everything that happened to me prior to finding you was my own fault, nobody else's." Carley spoke up. "They did everything they could to help me out, more than they needed to. And Jess, you of all people should know that I don't want to be with anyone but you. We've been through so much together, nobody could replace you. I don't know why you would question that." He stated, then drank the potion and laid back down.

  Jess lowered her head a little, "You're acting weird. I don't understand why you want to stay with them so much. Just leave them and come back to the village with me."

  "I want to stay with them because I want to find a way out of this world. I don't want to be trapped here. I said that before." Carley mumbled.

  "You'll die before we find a way out of here if you do that. Just stay safe and let someone else find it and get us out." Jess stated.