The Eternal Sleep

You mean besides the world falling into chaos... not really.

The trip to Shutter’s Gamers never happened, just as Luca had suspected. When his mother came home from her shift, she insisted on the family having a movie night. Sean tried to reason with her, claiming that they’d always be able to watch the movie another day but Luca cut into the conversation, arguing that he did say the place would be lame to a non-gamers like them.

Sean had just slumped in defeat, not offering any movie suggestions when asked. Jasper seemed keen to fiddle with his phone the entire time, smiling at random moments was a clear indication that he was most likely on chat with his friends. Luca’s mind kept running over the broadcast Naijal had post and the information the others had found on the creator, his mother seemed to be the only one genuinely invested in the movie.

Luca hadn’t even tried to watch the film, confused within the first ten minutes and definitely too proud to ask for an explanation. His worry for the squabble that was ‘The Eternal Sleep’ occupied his thoughts, causing him to be bored and fearful of fidgeting in his seat for the next three hours. It had hardly made a half-hour in when Luca claimed bathroom break and never returned, sneaking into his room and locking the door.

He breathed a sigh of relief and immediately saddled up to his computer. Tossing all the odds and ends that cluttered the table onto his bag, he booted it up and opened up all his chats and sites from the last few hours. To his surprise, Armando had already signed in, sending them a message.

‘I’m in our usual hang-out spot, the game has calmed down significantly if anyone wants to join.’ : Armando.

Luca didn’t really have anything else important to do so he chose his location on the screen, lay down on his bed and placed the headset on his head.

The plaza was surprisingly empty. There were still a lot more people chatting in on the grounds and crowding the taverns than he was used too, but it was significantly less than he had been expecting. He pulled up his screens and checked through his inventory and stats. He hadn’t lost anything, nor did he spot any glitches.

Languidly, he used his teleportation charm to make his way to the old building. It was five minutes away and easily became a popular place for the group to meet up and relax. On the way, he glanced at the players around him, they carried pensive faces and held weapons on their person. The message that Naijal seemed to have left everyone slightly frazzled.

The hang-out that Armando spoke off used to be an area previously occupied by NPCs posing as a gang. They had a habit of terrorizing players and stealing their coins, eventually being placed on a quest for removal. Luca and team had taken the request, barely managing to win with skills they’d gotten fresh out of the gyms.

When they’d discovered the hang-out on their mission to find more information, Jay appealed that they took over the place as they own. When the gang was taken out the quest competed, they’d claimed the spot, with the bonus of finding a lot of useful weapons and defenses. Since then, the team used that spot as the meetup point if anything every went wrong or just a place to stay when they wanted to talk and relax.

Luca teleported on the roof of the building without warning, he barely managed to avoid a paint tin aimed at his head, “What the-?”

“Luc, you’re here!” Luca was greeted by Rena’s cheerful face, hands messy from painting the walls of the small room that allowed roof access , no regret hidden in her for literally tossing a can of empty paint at him as a weapon, “You should have messaged us before I tried to attack you.”

“Attack me… right.” He peered over the side of the building where the can lay innocently in a dumpster. “Anyway, where is Mando?”

She pointed to the open door wordlessly, wordlessly returning to her painting. Inside, Armando was sitting cross-legged, back against the wall and multiple screens lit up around him. He had a face of concentration and hardly noticed that Luca had arrived, most likely assuming it was Rena returning for something.

He dropped heavily in front of him, legs crossed and staring at the screens that were back-to-front to him. Armando had a map of the game up again, the emails from earlier and a cryptogram of Luca’s own design up on three separate screens.

After five minutes of the soft vibrational clicks of fingers meeting a hologram, Luca rubbed his eyes in boredom. He made a split decision and stuck his head though the screens to get Armando’s attention.

It worked, Armando screeched and slammed his back into the wall, hands coming up to punch him. Luckily, he recognized Luca’s oddly glowing silver eyes and chose to thump the back of his head on the wall in relief. “Really, was that in any way necessary?”, he screeched.

“Yes, I’m allowed to scare the life out of you as repayment for scaring me.” Luca used his usual deadpanned tone, reserved for his angry moods, a disgruntled look on his face.

“Yea… sorry about that…” Armando chuckled sheepishly.

“Nope, I get to do this first.” Luca held out his gloved hand and brought it down on Armando’s head, “What were you thinking?”

“While I did deserve that,” He rubbed his head in a more instinctual reaction than actual pain, “I was trying to save all you guys.”

“And yes, I am grateful for that, but at what cost?”

“I logged out in time, my laptop and headgear was overheated, but I managed to save the drive and make sure nothing was damaged.” Luca growled, “And I will try to keep my promise on not doing anything reckless in the near future?”, he squeaked at Luca’s angry glare.

“Ugh, fine, that’ll settle for now, we really need to work on your self-preservation skills,” Luca pointedly ignored Armando’s ‘Like you’re one to talk.’, “And I’m very grateful for your help, you were awesome out there.”

“Yea, it’s just something I figured out a while back, wasn’t sure if it would work on other people though.” Armando wrinkled his nose, while he was getting better at it, he hated being on the receiving end of complements.

Luca opened his mouth to issue another round of complaints and complements rolled into one when he heard a small commotion outside. He stood up, pulling the young genius with him, a loud shout sounded and muffled hits. One arm shielding Armando, he readied his teleporter.

He hardly had time to react when the face of Jay appeared in his field of vision. “For the love of the afterlife, I’m going to shoot you one of these days.” Luca hissed, moving his hand from Armando and both of them stepping out to properly greet Jay and Olivia.

“You would, then you would feel bad and give me some of your health mana.” Jay had a cheeky grin on his face. Luca rolled his eyes and didn’t respond, Jay wasn’t wrong, he had done it before.

Jay and Olivia, like Rena and Luca, switched almost dizzyingly from lecturing to complementing Armando. It lasted almost a half-hour, with the group sitting in their usual circle formation. Luca eventually pulled up some of his own screens and began sifting through emails and news-feed for any new information.

“So, any new information?” Olivia looked to them, even in game, she looked a bit tired, they all did. Luca wanted to sleep for a week, this game might’ve meant nothing to normal people with everyday lives, but for them and many other players, this was a place where they came to relax and release some frustration, to been themselves freely without being judged.

“You mean besides the world falling into chaos?” Luca leaned his head on Armando’s shoulder, shifting his eyes back and forth for any new information that he might have, “Not really, unless you consider a strange poem and the challenge of a life-time.”

“Great,” Jay stressed on the word, rolling his eyes, “Is there any good news?” he propped his head on his arms, face sullen.

“I mean… we are in the competition; we could try to win.” Rena was clearing up her inventory of old paint cans, making a list of any new colours she’d need to buy later.

“We could… if we understood any of it.” Armando rubbed his eyes, “Sorry Luc, but the de-coder isn’t finding any hidden messages or references.”

“Yikes, either Nijal is a really good poet… or a really bad one.”

“Guys, we still have time to decide,” Olivia grinned, “Besides, my race is still on for tomorrow.”