The Eternal Sleep

Our next three months depends on WHAT?

    Luca gasped as his he came to his senses; he had a vague understanding of having one’s soul unceremoniously dropped back into their own body. He jerked on his bed, muscles tense as though he’d be painfully shocked, his hands tearing the headset off his head.

    Bright light flooded into his eyes, the ten o’ clock morning sun blaring through a crack in his curtains near the bed. He panted heavily, trying to get his bearings, the world tilting dangerously at the slightest movement. Whatever Armando did to get them out of the game, while effective, was not entirely pleasant. Luca could feel his stomach protest from the severe dizziness.

    The sound of this softly pinging laptop allowed him a point on which to focus. Messages were coming in as a rapid pace, both on the general website and the chat mainly used by Luca and his team.

    Luca tried to ignore the rocking of the ground beneath him and rushed to his laptop. He barely made it two steps before his foot hit his school bag and he fell in a pile of tangled limbs, the noise startlingly loud in the quiet apartment. Luca groaned and pulled himself onto his chair, rubbing his head, the adrenaline from falling significantly clearing up his swaying vision.

    Disoriented as he was, he assumed that his family was out of the apartment. It was Saturday, usually his mother worked a morning shift at the restaurant, Jasper would be with his girlfriend and he was under the assumption that Sean had something to do. With this thought in mind, he didn’t hesitate to try and call Armando through the chat.

    The ringing tone was deafening, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. No one answered the voice call, Luca immediately called Jay, he was the first out of the game, hopefully he’d gained his bearings already.

    It picked up on the second ring, Jay’s voice sounding panicked on the phone. “Luca, you’re okay!”

    “Have you heard from the others?”

    “Yea, just from Rena, she a bit miffed but she fine, she’s already searching anything she can on Naijal and stuff.” Luca could hear shuffling on the other side of the call, “I’ll make an open group call, see if you could get though with Olivia?”

    “Yea, definitely, thanks.” Luca pulled the tab aside, already calling the racer.    

    She picked up on the first ring, “Can you explain to me what the heck just happened?”

    “Definitely, but first, Jay has a chat open, I’m adding you to it.”

    “Hay everyone.” Rena sounded tired, “First of all, has anyone gotten through with Mando?”

    A chorus of ‘no’s’ went up, all in varying states of frustration. “Tell me you at least have something.” Luca prodded, already opening his emails from the game.

    “Nothing, the website is a mess, nothing is loading.” Rena sighed, “I mean, I haven’t opened the emails yet ‘cause I thought Mando would be here but I did do some research on Naijal and Aidan, you wouldn’t believe what I found.”

    “Wait, does anyone know if Mando is okay?” Jay butted in worriedly.

    “Yea, I tried to talk him into leaving to but…” Luca spoke up, his mind flashing back to the moment on the roof, “He insisted on staying behind, seeing how this whole thing was playing out and getting us signed up for the game if possible.”

    “Ugh, that imbecile, he could get hurt!” Olivia growled, “If that overload causes the game to crash, his gear could overheat, he’ll be injured!”

    “Look, Mando seemed pretty confident in what he was doing, let him be, we can chew him out later.” Luca rubbed his eyes, pushing away from his desk to pull open his curtains. The ten o’ clock sun glared straight in, lighting up his previously dark room, and making him feel slightly better.

    “Fine, but he’ll regret doing that when I get my hands on him, Rena, what do you have.”

    “You guys are not going to believe this,” Rena paused, fingers typing away on a keyboard could be heard, “At midnight, just ten hours ago, Naijal Sun’s wife, Camilla Sun announced that her husband was retiring from Black Crown Industries.”

    There was a moment of stunned silence, before the chat erupted in chaos. “That’s nuts, how have we not heard anything of that.”

    “To be fair, we’ve been there since eight this morning.”

    “Everybody quiet!” Olivia was the only one who could successfully get the attention of the group, “Does it say anything on Aidan Jhonnes?”

    “Nope, he’s supposedly still on his trip and no one has heard feedback yet, I mean, this did just happen minutes ago.”    

    “Still, has anyone read anything on the emails yet?”

    “Me,” Luca tried to scroll through the notes as fast as possible, barely half his attention on the group, “So far, it’s everything he said on the broadcast, the game shutting down to protect people, the final quest, the month time and the prize money.”

    “What about the groups thing?”

    “Players can work on the quest on their own or work together in a group, this will not affect the final prize and allows the quest’s beasts are far easier to defeat.” Luca scrolled through, eyes moving back and forth, “If a team is decided, one member from the group must be present in the game to sign the contract.”

    “Mando was reading through the email while listening to the broadcast, he must’ve seen that part, that’s why he insisted on staying behind.” Jay groaned.

    “Sun said that the main clue of the quest was in the email, you see which one?”

    “Yea, the second one.”

    One look of the clue and Luca decided that the never wanted anything to do with poems again. He rubbed his eyes again, growling in frustration. In the screen, the clue to what was probably the biggest quest in the gaming history was staring back at him.

’10 cards, 10 places,

Dangerous faces and mortal cases,

Shady, Hasty, Race-y, Lazy, Pace-y,

Dainty, Paint-y, Clay-ty and Rain-ty,

Think I’m silly, think I’m crazy,

A little zesty, maybe pesky,

But

Bright nights and Dark days,

Plant a tail, printed hail,

Lost in mail,

Find the trail,

Tend to tail,

Find me, fight me,

Hate me, Love me,

Trust me, shot me,

Lost in time, do not whine,

A single line,

Did you like my rhyme?’

    “You have to be kidding me.” Jay’s voice trailed off before screeching, “Our next three months depends on that?”

    “What was Sun thinking, this doesn’t even make remote sense.”

    “Hey everyone.” Armando’s quiet voice filtered through the chat; a chorus of surprised shouts echoed.

    “Mando, you okay?”

    “Yes, I logged out before I crashed my drive.” He cleared his throat, “I just got out, it’s absolute chaos in there.”

    “Did you…?”

    “Yea, we’re signed up as a group, we still need to choose a name but we’re in.”

    “When will it be safe to meet up in the game again?” Luca asked hesitantly.

    “Should be a little better this evening or tomorrow.”

    “Yikes… what do we do now though?”

    “It is technically the time on which we agreed to log out… so I guess we do whatever we originally planned to?”

    “It feels so wrong to waste time now, I never really imagined planning of what I’d be doing after a crashing of the game world.” Jay chuckled, Luca joined him and soon enough, the entire group was laughing. The morning’s scare finally becoming more of an exposed nerve rather than the shaky terror that plagued them moments before.

    “I guess I still have homework.” Rena sounded sheepish.

    “And it’s time for me to help my mom with the kids.” Olivia chuckled.

    “Welp, I dunno about you all, but I’m gonna take a walk, my everything is slightly sore from leaning over my tablet.” Everyone groaned good naturedly as they heard Jay’s joints crack as he stretched.

    “I need a nap.” Armando didn’t even hesitate to sign out of the chat.

    “See you guys tomorrow.” Luca pushed away from his desk, leaning heavily on the backrest.

    “Is everything okay?” Luca jumped in surprise as Sean’s voice near his opened door made itself known. He spun his chair around to see Sean leaning on the door in a simple short, khaki pants and navy-blue jersey, his hair sticking in multiple directions.

    “Uh…H-How long have you been standing there?” Luca found interest in fiddling with his chair handles, ignoring the urge to close the door in an attempt to avoid the awkwardness.

    “A… while. I heard when you fell, so I called to make so you were okay, but you didn’t respond. I came to check but you seemed pretty busy, so I didn’t want to disturb you.” He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily, as if he was expecting Luca to suddenly start yelling at him for coming in his room without permission.

    “T-thanks? I didn’t realise you were home, usually you’d be out with mom or Jas. If I’d known, I would’ve had the call on headphones, so I didn’t bother you.”

    “No, no, no! It’s fine, you can bother me anytime… ugh I mean, it’s fine.” Sean seemed to be scrambling for an answer, “Anyway,  well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go out somewhere later, but I wasn’t sure if you were still sleeping so I didn’t check on you in case I woke you up.”

    “O-oh, uh… thanks?” Luca wasn’t entirely sure what to say.    

    Sean stood there uncomfortably, hands in his pockets as he stared at the ground. “So, is you friend… uh, Mando okay?”

    “Y-yea, Mando was just being reckless.” Luca gave half-hearted smile as he remembered the relief he felt when he realized Armando was okay.

    “Good, good.” Sean looked like he had more to say but wasn’t sure how to, so Luca prompted him gently.

    “You mentioned something about going out?”

    “Oh, yea! This evening’s free, so I was wondering if there was anywhere in particular you wanted to go?” Sean’s face lit up with excitement, he raised his foot as if he was about to step closer but seemed to think better of it at the last moment and chose to shift restlessly instead.

    “Uh… anywhere is fine.” Luca couldn’t grasp why Sean was asking him, usually he already had a plan in mind, or it would be a last-minute decision from his mother or Jasper. Either way, Luca always bailed, claiming he had work to do, which wasn’t a lie as that time he was studying with Armando and the others.

    “No, no, no… I was wondering if you could choose a place this evening?”

    “Uh, sure?” Luca hurriedly ran all the places he knew of that gave him even the slightest of interest, “Shutter’s Gamers, I mean, you guys might get bored, so it’s just a suggestion.”

    “Shutter’s Gamers, sounds like fun.” Sean smiled earnestly, “We’re going Shutter’s Gamers this evening.”

    “So… are you… okay?”

    “Yea, yea, I’m good. I probably should stop bothering you now though.” Sean laughed nervously and pointed out the door, “I’ll just go now.”

    “Heh, yea, yea.” Luca shook his head as the door closed. He’ll never really understand Sean, he knew that the older male was trying to connect with him, but he looked more nervous than Luca felt.

    Luca knew he should try to reciprocate and get to know Sean better, but it just felt like he was giving in to a part of himself. The part of him that grew to be independent and never trust anyone was slowly being chipped away.

    He shook his head and turned to face his computer.