“I’ve never heard of Virginia, is that a kingdom of elves? I am from a small place in the Wilderwood to the north of here.”
Sphiel slammed her fist down on the rock. Pain throbbed in her hand. “I get it, you’re a troll, and you’re really good at it. But, please, I’m begging you, either tell me about yourself or just stop this. I have a bad case of anxiety and things like this make it flare up. I can’t handle people treating me like this.”
Balanos’s worry deepened. “I’m not a troll, I’m a dryad. Your friend that came with you to rescue me was a troll, though. I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. Tell me what to do and I can do it. I’ll do anything you tell me to do, even if it’s to leave.”
It was Sphiel’s turned to be confused. “You can do whatever you want. But if you are going to just sit around and mess with me, I suggest you go.”
Balanos’s head dipped. “As you wish, I can leave you. I am hesitant to leave the person who saved my life, but I don’t want to cause you trouble. I will unroot my tree and find another place to plant it.”
Sphiel shook her head. This player was really into his character. The elf could appreciate that. She played this game partially to escape the real world and this person was probably no different.
Balanos walked over to his tree and wrapped his arms around it. There was a small white flash around the base and it became uprooted. The elf hand out her hand. “Wait a minute. I’m sorry, you don’t have to go.”
The dryad placed his tree back into the dirt and it became rooted again. “Okay.” He walked over and sat cross legged on the rock.
“You don’t have to tell me anything about yourself if you don’t want to. You don’t know me in real life so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to share. That is, if you don’t mind listening.”
“I don’t mind listening, but I do know you in real life. Are you in disguise?”
Sphel rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I was so testy earlier. I have an issue I’m trying to work through and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”
“What is that?”
Sphiel shared her anxiety problems with the dryad and how they’d been affecting her. “So, basically, I’ve been creepily looking out at people while they are walking down the street and living like a smelly old hermit for the past three years. I’ve been playing this game to combat the problem, but I never thought I’d ever get the chance. Now I’m faced with the challenge and I don’t know what to do?”
“What is the challenge.”
“You’re going to think it’s pathetic if I tell you.”
“No I won’t. I think you’re a brave heroine. You saved my life.”
Sphiel laughed. “If only I was that brave for real. I’m just a meek little girl hiding off in my room. Right now I’m facing the dilemma, a quest, as my psychiatrist put it, of opening the door to my room and stepping outside.”
“Are there monsters beyond the portal?”
“There might as well be. There’s nothing outside of my room, in my house, that will hurt me, but that still doesn’t stop me from being scared.”
“Do you understand the root of your fear?”
“No, that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out for ages. My psychiatrist has come to the conclusion that it’s probably just some chemical imbalance in my brain that didn’t show up until the right consequence triggered it.”
“I’m not certain what a chemical imbalance is, but maybe I can still help. If you show me the portal in your house perhaps I can look at it and see if there are any problems.”
Sphiel laughed. Yeah, this guy was too into his character. Oh well, she could play along.
“My house is in a land far, far away from this one. I teleport there after I leave this place. Sadly, I can’t take you with me, good dryad. Otherwise, I’d be happy for you to help me.”
Balanos sighed. “In that case, I can only offer you advice. Do you have any allies in the area?”
“Yes, my sister. She’s going to be present when I step through the door. My dad probably will be, too.”
“Then you’ll have protection. Place your faith in your friends and you should be okay.”
“I do. I have complete faith in them, but that still doesn’t stop me from being scared.”
“If you are the reason you can’t step beyond the portal, and you can’t figure out why you have the problem, then it’s beyond your control and you shouldn’t think about you. Think about your family or the adventure you had when you saved me. If you think about everything else, it will take your mind away from the problem and you can do what you need to do.”
Sphiel furrowed her brow. It was a simple idea, but it might work. Maybe that was her problem. She was trying to do this for her sister and father after all, it’d make more sense to just think about them.
“Okay, I can try that.”
“Great, I’ll be here, or wherever else you want me to be if you need support.”
The elf gave a half smile and placed a hand on the dryad’s shoulder. “Thanks. You know, you are pretty weird, but I appreciate your help.”
Balanos frowned. “Is there something about me you’d like me to change to be more normal? I know the ways of the forest and can adopt some elven customs if you prefer.”
Sphiel chuckled and went back to her meditations.
FOURTEEN
Mandy logged out of the game sooner than she normally did. She took off her VR band and placed it on the side table. Her sister watched her, confounded.
“Hey sis, you feeling alright? Did something happen in game?” Natalie said, leaning toward Mandy.
Mandy nodded and held up a hand. “I’m good. No, I think I’m better than good.” She took a deep breath and looked over at the door. It stood, barring the way to the rest of the house. It was unassuming, doing nothing wrong. At least, she didn’t think so. There was a light coming from beneath the crack of the door, illuminating the fright that lay outside it. The knob was slightly to the left, leaving it almost half open. It wasn’t doing anything, but she couldn’t help but think there was something sinister in its blamelessness.
“Or, maybe not quite so good,” Mandy wrung her hands.
Natalie gripped the armrests of her chair. “What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing bad, at least, not yet. I had a conversation with another player.”
“About what?”
“About me, about,” Mandy waved a hand around, “all this. My room, and in particular what’s in it.”
“Uh, your computer?”
Mandy snorted. “No, me doofus.”
“Sorry, but I don’t follow.”
“We talked about me being stuck in my room, living here like some hikikomori, staring outside and watching people walk down the street.”
“What about it?”
“I,” Mandy looked at the door and tightly gripped her wrist. “I think I want to do something about that.”
“Isn’t that why you’re playing the game?”
“Yes, but I want to do more than that. I want to try going outside.”
“Like, outside the house.”
Mandy blanched. “Hell no, at least not yet. I mean, just outside the room.”
“Oh, okay we can do that.”
“Thing is, I need your help. I can’t do it alone.”
Natalie nodded. “Sure, I don’t mind. Want me to stand outside like last time?”
“No!” Mandy stopped. “No, I’d rather have you with me. I want you to stand by me.”
Mandy got up and walked toward the door. Her legs were lead and her palms started to sweat. Confusing thoughts rushed through her mind and rammed into each other, creating a shower of mutlicolored spiders skittering around her psyche. They spun moldy, musty webs in the crevices of her brain.
What was she doing? Why was she walking past the corner of her bed? Because she wanted to go outside. She felt stupid for asking herself. She knew what she wanted to do, so did her brain, it just didn’t want to fun
ction properly.
Natalie hopped up from her chair and rushed to Mandy’s side. She put her arm around her elder sister’s shoulders. They were quivering, as was the rest of her body.
Natalie helped her take slow and heavy steps toward the door. The portal, which seemed only slightly sinister at first, loomed over her. It cast its malevolent shadow that swallowed her body.
The world around Mandy was dark. It was like she was in that necromancer’s basement again, surrounded by all of those nasty things he kept there. Gross experiments that perverted life itself.
Mandy shivered uncontrollably when they reached the door. She tried to get a hold of herself. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the peaceful field again. There was nothing but blackness behind her lids.
Mandy reached out for the doorknob, at least she thought she did. Her arm didn’t want to function. Neither did she. She threw a glance back at her bed. It sure looked comfortable. With her head resting on the pillow, snuggled deeply beneath her blankets on a cold winter night, it was the most comfortable place in the world. The room felt many degrees colder.
Natalie waited for several minutes for her sister to open the door. When it didn’t happen her sister reached out and twisted the knob and pulled. The door swung inward, revealing the hallway.
Everything around Mandy spun. Her heart raced. Her limbs froze. She couldn’t make out anything, save for the little stain in the doorway she dropped a slice of pizza she dropped an age ago.
How could Natalie just reach out and open the door so easily? What power did she possess that Mandy didn’t? Whatever it was, Mandy wished she’d shared it with her. Maybe it would stop her from sinking downward.
Mandy fell to her knees, clutching her chest. There were no monsters beyond that portal. It was just a hallway, the same hallways she walked down time and time again when she was a child. The one she ran down when she won the state spelling bee when she was nine. She was a different person now. A coward that stayed in her little hovel, hiding beneath her covers, hoping all of the horrors beyond would just go away.
Another memory floated into her mind of when she was nine. There was a thunderstorm and she was underneath the covers, shuddering, praying that the violent storm would just go away. Her dad came into her room and pulled the covers off of her head. He stroked her hair and told her it was alright. The storm created bright, scary flashes and loud booms that shook her house, but they couldn’t hurt her. He knew nothing would hurt her, the same way her sister knew nothing would now.
That’s why Natalie opened the door like she did. That was why she went into the outside world every day, and went to school, and soccer practice. Natalie hadn’t been to soccer practice in a while. There was a heavy pang of guilt in her chest. She was too busy trying to make sure her sister didn’t have some kind of breakdown, like she was now.
Natalie moved to close the door, but Mandy reached out and grabbed it. The elder sister continued to clutched her chest and used the door to slowly pull herself to her feet. Her vision was swimming and her legs were turning to rubber. But she was standing, and looking out at the hallway.
“Mandy, you okay?” Natalie said.
Mandy looked at her and grimly nodded. She held out a quivering hand and her sister took it. “Walk with me,” Mandy’s voice was barely audible.
She stared at the eggshell white paint on the wall of the hall and took one step forward. She took another. Undulating electricity writhed in her legs. It wanted her to go back. She wanted to go back. She looked at her sister one more time and took another step.
Her toe was on the line that separated the opening of her room into the rest of the hall. This was the closest she’d come to stepping beyond the boundary in a long time. The last time she was brought into her room from the outside, she was a quivering, sobbing mess. She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She saw herself, her father, and her sister out eating ice cream. It was in celebration of something, something big. Natalie’s soccer game perhaps.
“Sis, you’re doing really good, you don’t have to do this,” Natalie said, her words swam on an undercurrent of uncertainty.
She didn’t have to do this. It would be nice if she could just sit in bed and read a manga or watch an anime. A silly one, with dumb characters and humor that made her inner child grin. That would be much nicer for her, but it wouldn’t be so nice for everyone else in the house.
Mandy stood at the edge of her doorway, just like she did at the edge of the clearing before she went out into the Wilderwood. Except she wasn’t Sphiel, but Mandy, Mandy the mighty, undertaking this quest to save her and her father from a life of looking after her.
Mandy the Mighty took a deep breath and lifted her foot into the air. Were her shoes made of concrete or was the air just heavy? Probably the latter. It sure as hell was hard to breathe.
She gritted her teeth and leaned forward. The enemy was just beyond, waiting for her. It was going to envelop her and tear her to ribbons. It didn’t want her to pass. She saw the smiling faces of her father and sister and she knew what she had to do.
Everything was moving fast for an instant. She didn’t feel her sister’s hand in hers, but she knew Natalie was there, somewhere. The rush passed, and she slowly opened her eyes.
She was in the hallway, halfway down it. Through the portal she saw a blue couch that’d been in her family for at least a decade. She watched Akira on that couch with her father, a movie he’d been excited to show her when he found out she was into anime.
She was outside. In the hall, away from her room. Her vision stopped swimming for a moment and she looked back at her sister, who gawped at her. The air was cooler out here. Gooseflesh appeared on her arms. Dad always liked to keep the house cold.
Mandy turned and looked at her sister. Natalie ran up to her and threw her arms around her. They embraced like that for several minutes before she felt moisture seep into her shoulder. Her sister was happy, and she had no doubt her dad would be as well.
The electricity stopped spasming through her muscles and Mandy embraced the cool atmosphere of the hall. She closed her eyes and saw a peaceful field.
FIFTEEN
The jubilation when her father came home from work and saw Mandy standing in the hallway was worth the extreme fear she’d felt in that doorway. Natalie tried to coax her onto the couch but she couldn’t get there, at least not yet.
Her psychiatrist’s reaction was one of shock and exuberation. He chastised her for taking such a risk so quickly, but congratulated her on seeing it through. Dr. Braun advised that she make “expeditions” into her house, going further until she was as comfortable going through it as she was with her bedroom.
Mandy brought up the idea of going outside, but Dr. Braun said she shouldn’t move so quickly. He told her it was nice that she was making such progress, but baby steps were the best way to handle these issues.
Mandy wanted to hurry up and be able to face the outside world. She wanted to feel the air on her face and be able to walk up to someone and say hi without the fear of falling to the floor and twitching like a mad woman.
That was the main thing that stopped her. She felt that if she went completely bonkers, she would lose all of the progress she’d made thus far. So she sat back, and enjoyed the small victory that came.
The next day she was in game, ready to do something to celebrate. She walked with her head held high into her clearing to see the dryad sitting there, smiling with his legs crossed on her rock.
The air around the clearing seemed fresher than it normally did. There seemed to be some sort of mystical property surrounding the place that made Sphiel’s skin tingle.
The elf grinned and leaned against the boulder. “Hey Balanos.”
“Good day to you lady Sphiel. How goes it?”
“It goes well. I just undertook that quest I told you about yesterday.”
“How did your run in with the portal go? Did you make it outside?”
“I did, and I am prou
d to say it worked out. I took your advice and things went smoothly.” Sphiel smiled and looked away. “Almost smoothly, but it happened. I made it into the hallway.”
“That is wonderful. I’m glad your quest was a success. Did you find any monsters blocking your path?”
Sphiel laughed. “Only imaginary ones.”
“Those can be the worst kinds. I know little of illusion magics, but they can render a target helpless in the wrong situation. It’s best to keep away from those as much as possible.”
“You have no idea. So what are you doing today? Just hanging out here?”
“Whatever you’d like to. I’m up for anything you’d find exciting.”
Mandy furrowed her brow. “Uh, okay. Well, I’m in the mood to celebrate but I don’t know what to do. I think I’d like to go somewhere. Hey, you mentioned that you were from the north of here. Would you mind showing me that place?”
Balanos nodded. “There isn’t much to see there and it wouldn’t make for a good celebration. However, it’s not far. Though I warn you, there are goblins in the area. The goblins that were there were responsible for stealing my tree and locking me in the basement.”
“Well if there are any goblins in the area, we’ll kick their butts, at least I will. You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.”
“I would happily follow you into battle, lady Sphiel.”
Sphiel shrugged and beckoned Balanos to lead the way. The dryad walked up to his tree and touched it. There was a bright flash and a white staff appeared in his hand.
The two walked along a western path that led out of the clearing and then turned north. As they were walking they met two snarling, black wolves.
Sphiel rushed forward and met one that was running toward her. With a swift cut, she sliced it across the face. It yelped but ran toward her again, and she met it with a series of fast strikes that left its face and back a bloody mess.
The creature staggered toward her, relentless in its assault. Sphiel lunged forward and ended its existence with a quick thrust that caused it to fall to the ground dead.
Sphiel's Song Page 8