by J P Carver
“There are a lot more here than I expected,” she said as she handed over a candle. “Didn’t think this many would care about the principal.”
“They don’t, not really. A lot of them are here for Aya,” Geo said and nodded toward the little shrine that was being added to by a group of students. Aya’s school picture was there, almost as if she had actually died. It was surreal to see. The shrine for the principal was far smaller.
“Aya always was the popular girl here.” Peyton looked around the crowd. “Think she’s here?”
“Aya?”
“No, Lupa,” she said and tapped the back of his head. “I don’t think she would miss a show like this, especially if she learned that we diced up her dear brother.”
“She knows we’re here then.”
“She had to know already, but she won’t be happy that her brother was taken care of… by you.”
There it was again he thought and didn’t flinch as he turned to look at her. She was gazing at him, as if she could see through him and into the secrets he was hiding. He gave a short sigh and faced the crowd again. “I told you what happened. We’re not going to do this again, are we?”
“You’re so cold that I’m surprised I’m not shivering,” she said flatly and turned to the crowd. “I don’t like it, there was warmth in you before, kindness and now—I don’t feel anything from you.”
“Guess this game just killed it all,” he said with a slight snarl he clamped down on. “I’m just stressed. I’m fine.”
“You can’t keep secrets from me, Geo.”
“Then there is nothing to worry about,” he said and then took a step forward as he caught movement in the darkness. “Hey, isn’t that — yeah, that’s Mason.” He pointed toward someone moving across the lawn of the school and toward the closed doors. No one else seemed to paying him any attention.
“What about him?”
“Where is he going?” Geo said with a glance at Peyton. “Everyone is out here, why is he sneaking off to the school?”
“Maybe he’s getting more candles or something,” she said and Geo just stared at her until she dropped her shoulders and sighed. “Fine, we’ll follow him. Not like there is something else we should be doing, like looking for Lupa.”
“That’s my point, maybe he is Lupa,” Geo said as he blew out his candle and pushed his way through the crowd.
“Doubt it,” Peyton called after him.
They caught up with Mason in the hallway which was dark save for one light at the end of the hall. It almost felt like the first time they went to the otherworld. There were no monsters, here, only a boy who was digging through his locker in frantic motions.
“Hey,” Geo called with a raised hand and Mason froze. “Lost something?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked as he stepped away from the locker. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you,” Peyton said and took a few steps to stand to the side of Mason. “What are you looking for?”
“Nothing… nothing important,” he said and slammed the locker closed. “How’s… how is your sister?”
“Doing better. I rather talk about you though. You’re being weird.”
“Am I?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think I am.”
“You know what’s going on, don’t you? But you’re not who we’re looking for,” Peyton said and pushed her way in front of Mason, so close that their noses almost touched. “But you aren’t an AI either. You’re… something different.” She sniffed the air between them. “What are you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—” His voice broke when Peyton slammed him into the locker, the bang echoing through the hall.
“I’m tired and stressed and honestly, I just want to kill you so you’re out of our hair, but that’s not going to help us. Start talking or we’ll see what kind of stuff you can live through.”
“Take it down a notch, Peyton,” Geo said and came to stand beside them. “So you’re not Luda, but you know her.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Geo leaned in. “I know you’re lying, I can see your blood pumping through your body. It’s moving much faster now that I mentioned her.”
“I don’t—I don’t know her,” he said as his eyes looked everywhere but at him. “I know of her though. She was close to my… my master who you killed by, the way.”
Peyton let him go and he dropped to the ground. “That puppet guy was your master?”
Mason nodded slowly and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. There were stitches all along his arm, holding together patchwork skin. “He created me, controlled me until recently. Now that I’m on my own… Luda will come for me, I’m sure of it.”
“Is Luda Miss Flagg?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said as he pulled down on his sleeve. “I’ve never met her out here, only in the other world.”
“Wait, you can move between words?” Geo asked and Mason nodded again, his lips going thin. “Can you take others with you?”
“Why?” Peyton asked, looking between them.
“I don’t go there. Without my master the other children have become much more dangerous. I was here looking for my needle and thread so I could close up the holes in the fabric of this side.”
“No,” Geo said and looked to Peyton. “You’re going to leave them open. We can use that place to grind levels.”
“Levels?” Mason asked.
“You don’t know about any of that stuff, I guess,” Geo said and looked down to the ground. He wondered if he would react the same as Klara… “I need you to take us to one of these tears right now.”
“Now?” he asked and Geo reached out and took his arm, pulling him away from the lockers.
“Now.”
“I need my shears and needle and thread and—”
“You have five minutes. Find them,” Geo said and could feel the glare on the side of his face from Peyton.
Encased in String
“Here, this is the closest one,” Mason said and stopped before a classroom. Home-Ec. Geo fought a smile as Mason opened the door.
“Isn’t the gym one closer?” Peyton asked as they entered.
“That’s been closed.” Mason went over to the blackboard and pulled a large pair of shears from his back pocket. He held them for a moment as his hand ran along the green stone. He then found whatever he was looking for and slammed the shears into the blackboard.
The green stone cracked around the shears in all directions. He then slid them down, and the crack became a tear, like cutting through fabric. On the other side was the dreary and dim world they had been to before.
“There, you can enter through here. The tear will close though once you go through.”
“You’re coming with,” Geo said as he went to the tear. He peered into it and saw no puppet students in the room. “We’ll need you to get back out.”
“I—I can’t. I can slip through anywhere in that world, but I don’t know how you will get back.”
“We killed a sub-boss last time, and it opened up the way we entered,” Peyton said. “I bet if we do that again we’ll open a new safe room.”
“Safe room?” Mason asked.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re still coming with us and if you try to skip out on us, I’ll find you when we get out.”
“Geo…” Peyton said, and he turned to her. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Stay put,” Geo said and went over. “What?”
“What do you mean what? You’re threatening people now?”
Geo rolled his eyes. “I got a plan for him and you're one to talk.”
“Care to share this plan then?” she asked and Geo turned away from her. He felt her hand catch him under his jaw and forced him to look at her. “Why are you continuing to keep things from me?”
“I’ll keep what I want to keep.”
“You’re becoming really aggravating lately,” she said, her n
ose scrunched up in annoyance. “You aren’t as smart as you think you are, I will figure everything out.”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Besides, you’ll figure out what my plan is in a few minutes. We need to grind levels if we’re ever going to get out of this stupid game. This is a good place, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said and looked at the shimmering opening. “I don’t trust him, though.”
“Good, because I don’t either,” Geo said and walked off. “Let’s get moving, Mason. After you.”
Mason opened and closed his shears a few times before he put them away with a sigh. He then reached into the tear and pulled himself in. It was like looking at a distorted mirror, he was there, but warped.
Geo followed next and as soon as he entered Peyton and Klara appeared beside him in their armor and race features.
“Goddamnit, again? I was in the middle of taking a shower…” She sneered as she wrung water out of her hair which was plastered to her head and the sides of her face. “Wait, how did we get here? You found another safe room?”
“No, we got an all-access pass with our friend Mason here,” Geo said as he stepped away from the girls. “But I wonder if he can be something more.”
“More?” the three asked almost in unison.
“Yeah, we already killed his master. I wonder if he can be like Klara,” Geo said as he opened his inventory and found the Mania cube he got from killing the Puppet Master. He took it out, tossed it once between his hands and then threw it at Mason. “Catch!”
The cube hit Mason in the chest and glowed a brilliant red. For a few seconds that was all it did and Geo couldn’t help the annoyance that crawled across him. Then steel strings began to shoot out of the cube.
They moved like snakes along the floor before doubling back and surrounded Mason. They engulfed him, circling around him until they entombed him in the metal. The steel itself started to bubble and shift, almost as it was straining to hold something inside. The steel strings expanded and grew into an effigy of a person.
It was taller than the room and had to hunch over. As it grew and shifted something started to leak in the seams between the strings. Blood.
“What—what the hell did you do?” Peyton called as she readied her spear. “What the hell is that?”
“Hell if I know,” Geo said. He hadn’t expected such a change, in fact all he expected was that Mason would become like Klara, not some monster. Still, he didn’t think this was a bad turn of events. He could feel Sanguine buzzing on his back. It desired to be used and the itching in his arm thudded along with the buzzing. It wanted this fight and Geo had a feeling that the blade knew this would happen and had pushed him down this path.
He drew the blade as he heard Klara start her chant to bring about one of her demons. He hoped that they would stay out of his way.
The creature attacked first, tentacles of metal sprang from it and smashed into the ground where Geo had been a moment before. Geo moved the second the tentacles appeared as he saw the change in heat in the metal body and could read its motion as if someone had painted it out for him.
With a swing of his sword the tentacles broke apart like metal bands springing free. Purple blood sprayed out from the appendages like a broken hose, dosing the entire area, including Geo.
The blade responded, and the blood was consumed, sucked up into the blade from. Geo could feel the buzzing becoming stronger until it was all he could hear. The buzzing in his ears was like a tune of battle for him. He charged forward, the bloodlust hounding him as he went, and drove his blade into the creature. With his
It was like he punctured a dam, the blood poured out from the wound and sprayed the walls and the ground in a swell of purple. It covered Geo, but that wasn’t enough. He had to taste it, to drink of it to cure the aching hunger that had been building in his gut. He did just that, ignoring the blood soaked boy kneeling between the metal shards that were left over.
He drank until Peyton and Klara pulled him away and after that, his memory was blurry until he woke in the classroom, still soaked in the blood with a very angry Peyton staring down at him.
Bleed Out
He sat up and shook the blood from his hands. His mouth tasted like puke, it coated his tongue and throat and he swallowed dryly. She moved with him so that her eyes were always staring into his.
“What?”
“Don’t you what me,” she sneered. “You know what and you will do some goddamn explaining.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” he said and looked around the room. “Where’s Klara?”
“Well, after you tried to cut her in two, I thought it would be better if she took Mason into the other classroom.”
“I attacked her?” He looked down at his hands. “Mason is alive?”
She looked like she was about to hit him, but restrained herself. She stepped away from the desk he sat on and crossed her arms while staring at the floor. “somehow he made it through that.”
“Then it worked?”
“Yes, not that it matters. You attacked both of us when we tried to pull you away from… from drinking that blood.” Her face paled as if the memory itself made her sick.
“Oh, sorry.”
“That’s all you’re going to say? Sorry? Fuck off, Geo,” she said and turned back. She closed the distance between them and took hold of his shirt. “You nearly killed us. If I hadn’t been faster than you Klara would be dead and I’d be missing my arm. You turned on us.”
He tried to brush her hands from him, but she tightened her grip. “Like I said, I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The three of you would have respawned back at the safe room.”
“That doesn't matter to you? You attacked us, Geo. You tried to kill us, not that monster.” She let him go and he nearly toppled from the desk. “I knew you were playing with something you shouldn’t have, but I had hoped you’d learned enough not to. It’s that sword.”
“I have it under control.”
“No, you really don’t. Hand it over.”
“What?” he asked, eyes wide and staring. She continued to hold her hand out. “I’m not giving you my sword. It was my drop, I’m the one that killed the monster for it.”
“You think I’m trying to steal it from you?” She flicked his forehead. “Stop being stupid. I couldn’t use it even if I wanted to, but it’s warping you Geo. You have to realize that by now, don’t you? You’re different, cold even. You feel no guilt over almost killing your party?”
He stopped himself from shaking his head, but he couldn’t even muster up a little self-hatred. He was a bit pleased that was the case. He had dreamed for years of having the ability to stop feeling guilty and that feeling would have been worth almost anything if it didn’t leave him feeling so hollow.
Peyton placed a gentle hand to his cheek and made him face her. “I’ve been worried sick about you since I first noticed you were acting strange. Please, don’t make me continue to worry.”
“Why?” he asked, and it came out in a croak. He wasn’t sure what he was asking why to, but Peyton gave him a sad smile.
“I know, I’m just an AI and I helped force you into this game. You won’t believe me, but I want you to be safe, to be happy. I want you to stay you though. That heart of yours is too kind to be buried under your grief and hatred.” She blinked a few tears from her eyes and they trailed down her cheeks. “Please, give up on the sword. Not just for me, but for Klara and possible Mason as they're part of your party. They deserve a sane leader.”
“I never wanted to lead anything.”
“Those that lead best rarely want to lead at all,” she said and leaned forward. She placed a kiss to the top of his forehead and looked back to him. “Please hand it over. I want the Geo I know back.”
“… I can’t.”
“Geo…”
“I’m sorry, but I rea
lly can’t,” he said and looked down at his legs. “We can’t access our inventory here.”
She gave him a half smile. “Always an excuse, but okay.” She let out a sigh and leaned against a desk. “Why d'you do it? I mean, why did you give him the cube?”
Geo shrugged. “I wanted to fight something, and I remembered what happened with Audra and the cubes. Since it was his master's I thought it might have a similar effect.”
“Nothing we’ve seen would give you that idea.”
“No, but like I said, I wanted to fight something. Though, a part of me thought he might join my party like Klara. I was just hoping something would happen. Didn’t expect the big deadly tentacle monster, though.”
Peyton shivered. “It was scary, but not nearly as scary as you.” She held his gaze, and he got her point. “So did it work?”
Geo opened a window for the party and found a new name: Mason Feather. He focused on it and more information appeared.
Name: Mason Feather
Level: 11
Health 700/700
Mental Status: AI Complex, Controlless ( -20)
Body: 12
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Stamina: 550/550
Psyche: 80/100
Affinity: 7
Experience: 0
Skills
Shear
The threads that keep us together are not as deep as we hope. One snip or pull could have us unraveling to the floor.
Using the shear weapon, cut into the very fabric of your target, causing soul damage which can not be healed by normal means.
Damage is weapon damage times 2
Spells
Patch
A patch is a temporary fix. Do not rely on patches when the underlying issue is yet to be resolved. Burying a problem only allows it to grow.