Chapter 35

  The black fog swirled around us, moving this way and that, like a turbulent river. My eyes pierced the darkness, and I held Mie’s hand tightly as I went down the stone steps and out the entrance.

  My skin turned gray and loosened faster now as pus and blood rose to the surface. If not for Mie’s constant Flash Heals, I knew death would be moments away. I activated Impact Armor.

  The plan, which I had described with hand gestures, was relatively simple. Run into the Black Zone, wait a moment, Wind Dive onto the roof, then own the little gnome boy with an Ass Crack, Wind Rogue Ult, and Impact Armor unleash.

  The Black Zone, I realized from my fight with the Warrior, adjusted its damage relative to your stats and gear. So, I was pleasantly thrilled to see my health notch by five percent every second. Each time it did massive amounts of damage potential stored within myself. My armor was absorbing an incredible amount of power for me. I let the damage tick for the full ten seconds, and on the next tick when my armor buff fell away, the Black Zone adjusted, and I continued to still only take five percent damage.

  Thank you, God, I thought as the damage recalculated based on my current buff condition. If it hadn’t, I would have just Knocked.

  I let out a breath, shifted to my Rogue, and circled my arms around Mie. I adjusted slightly. Then we lurched upward into the air, our trajectory taking us back into the Safe Zone just above the center of the stone roof.

  I tried to target a player as we fell . . . but couldn’t find anyone to target.

  We slammed into the flat stone roof, legs buckling. Anxiety rose in my chest as my torso fell back into the Black Zone. “Gah!”

  I scrambled back to safety, but there was hardly anywhere to look. The Safe Zone was now five feet in diameter. I scanned it in a moment. Nothing. I looked up into the tunnel the Safe Zone had become, toward the dark sky. Nothing.

  Mie was getting to her feet, overhealing us as she spammed her abilities. “Anything?!” I asked.

  “I don’t see him!”

  Confusion gripped both of us as we looked around. I double checked the player count.

  Players Remaining: 3

  “What the hell?! Where is he?!” I shouted.

  Greg: His dot is moving around right on top of you! He should be there!

  I waved my arms around the remaining safe area as it closed to four feet, thinking he might have been invisible through some mechanic or ability.

  “Sam. What if he was invisible below somehow?” Mie said.

  I cursed; she was right.

  We jumped back off the roof, and I noticed with discomfort our health tick down at six or seven percent per second as we scrambled back to the Safe Zone. A couple stray NPC ghouls rushed at me. I slammed my hammer into one, and then the next as they came at me, and we broke into the Safe Zone once again. The ghouls I had knocked back slammed themselves against the barrier over and over, uncomfortably close.

  I felt around. Nothing. I looked up. Nothing.

  “WHAT THE HELL, MIKE!? WHERE ARE YOU?!” I shouted.

  Greg: I swear his dot is directly on top of you! He should be there!

  I looked down and cold dread swept through me. Is he . . . underground?

  It all clicked, right then. The traps everywhere, the explosives everywhere. He wouldn’t have wanted to be in the open during all the chaos. He was a coward, and a hider. If he could hide . . . he would. I remembered the earthquakes throughout the day. The ground shaking. He had somehow built himself a cavern or something right in the heart of the circle. But . . . he won’t be able to fight us. He won’t be able to do anything down there except—

  I remembered a white and gold pane of glass healing a Warden to full right before he exploded to bits.

  “Mie,” I said, noticing her staff shaking slightly. “I think . . . he wants a heal-off.”

  “A what?” Mie said.

  “A heal-off. God. He would. What a dumb way to play. I think he has those healing traps set up underground,” I said as we both took another step inward, the Safe Zone narrowing to three feet. “I’m not positive. But I think he is underground . . . Remember those tremors?”

  Comprehension spilled across her face. “The little shit.”

  “Yeah . . . Mie,” I said, another realization hitting me like an Impact Hammer blow.

  She looked up at me.

  “It’s going to be up to you.”

  I remembered the mother of the two-year-old . . . I didn't save in time. I remembered her face. I could have saved him . . . if I had just listened to Dan. The stairs were already clear. I could have saved that child if I had just listened to him. I thought about all of our battles in this world. All the orders I had given to the others, only to still end up Knocked and useless. I thought about Fred and his one shot kills, about Clara and her selfless sacrifice. None of our successes had been because of me. Not one. I had to let go of controlling everything. I had to put my trust in someone else. I had to trust Mie.

  “What?! No way,” she said, sounding terrified.

  I nodded. “Think about it. If you heal me at the risk of yourself, then you’ll just Knock, and I’ll have no one to heal me.” After I said it, I shifted to my Rogue and stabbed at the two ghouls still bashing themselves against the barrier. I stabbed over and over until they disintegrated into nothing.

  Our arms were wrapped around each other now.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Mie said.

  “I know. But . . . you have to. It’s the only way.” I passed her some of my health potions.

  “No, like, I really don’t want to do this.”

  “I know. But . . . you have to.”

  “No, Sam. For real—” The Black Zone was touching our shoulders now.

  “I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS! . . . Don’t leave,” she finished with a soft, fear-filled voice.

  “I have to go . . . I love you,” I said.

  I took a step back, shrouding myself in darkness, and pulled her to the center of the Safe Zone. Two and a half feet left, and we no longer had room to both fit. The rot, unpleasant as always, started notching my health down at eight percent a second.

  She looked caught off guard.

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  “No . . . like as a daughter. Ew. Gross, no. No offense, but you’re still a little baby to me, remember?” I said.

  Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “I love you too, man.”

  I looked at her for a moment longer then said, “Goodbye.” Then I turned, blinked, Wind Dove, and started running as fast as I could away from her, praying my animated corpse wouldn’t path in her direction. I popped my best health potion as well, giving me a few more seconds.

  Mie: GOODBYE? Don’t goodbye me. What are you doing?!

  Sam: Making sure my corpse doesn’t come after you . . . and it was a just in case ‘goodbye.’

  Mie: Ugh. I don’t want to do this.

  I Knocked.

  Greg: You have to.

  Mie: Greg. You did not just tell me what I have to do. I’m tempted to lose on purpose just to spite you.

  Greg: You wouldn’t.

  Sam: Pace your heals. Try not to overheal yourself until you absolutely have to.

  Mie: Okay. What else?

  Sam: Save your potions until your heals are not doing enough.

  Mie: Okay . . . What else?

  Sam: . . . I don’t know.

  Mie: IT’S SO CLOSE TO ME! I HATE THIS STUFF. I CAN’T GET ANY SKINNIER.

  The chat went silent, and a minute later my immunity buff was up. I watched my Knocked health notch at ten percent a second. Agony wrenched through me, my mental capacities gave out, and then I died.

  You died.

  You dropped all your character items.

  You lost all your current level’s experience.

  You have no more life credits.

  Initiating Soul Transaction.

  Communication with Hearth prohibited.

  As soon as I appeared in the Soul Space I rushed over to where Greg was sitting on the couch in front of the TV, cradling the blunderbuss like a baby, and said, “Can you still communicate with her?!”

  “I just tried. It doesn’t look like it.”

  I laid my eyes on the screen.

  Mie was on her knees in the center of the stone structure. The Safe Zone was fully gone, and she was healing herself every few seconds, causing the darkness around her to light up. Our camera view was just behind her and over her shoulder. She was looking off in the direction I had run. But the camera didn’t show very far, the rushing blackness swirling and inhibiting sight.

  My hands were sweaty, and my heart pounded. I kept watching her. She was doing great. Never healing until she could make full use of the heal’s health regain. I even noticed a couple high constitution items at her side she had shed off, reducing her health pool and allowing her heals to go further.

  “Big brain move right there,” I said over to Greg, my voice shaking. He had his arms around his knees. His eyes were fixed on the TV, and to my surprise he too looked afraid and nervous.

  “So, has one of your players ever made it this far before?” I asked.

  “No . . . never,” he responded.

  I turned back to Mie.

  The Black Zone started doing more damage per second, and she had to pick up the pace of her heals slightly. I gripped my hands together, unsure what to do with them. A stabbing pain pierced my neck muscles, so I used one to massage at it.

  My stress was high. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I looked away and closed my eyes. Breathing intentionally in a pattern that I found helped reduce stress. My brain cleared, and I looked back up. The damage was coming in even faster now.

  “That’s weird,” Greg said. “The red dot—it’s moving.”

  I looked too, and sure enough, the red dot was moving. It would move, then pause, then move, then pause. “How is this guy still up?!” I said.

  Mie’s health dipped below twenty percent, and as she did, she fell onto her back, the pain wrecking her. I could feel it through our bond. I gripped the back of the blue couch with both hands.

  When she fell back . . . the camera glitched again. It looked like it had bugged out, and for a second, it had popped backward. The screen flashed yellow, showing dirt getting lit up with a yellow glow, and then it snapped back, hovering over Mie’s face. As if her sudden movement of falling backward . . . had caused the camera to slip underground.

  Mie was struggling to keep her health up now and was starting to have to pre heal. Her mana was getting low. As she continued to heal—her health going up and down in great leaps—I snatched up the manual and began reading, trying to think of some way to get her more health faster. I opened my Character Inventory, looking for anything. I switched to the Soul Inventory, and I froze as my eyes hovered over her item representation.

  It had been a long time since I had looked at it.

  {Mie, Soul Sprout}

  Celestial Item, Unique Item

  Soulbound, {Unbind}?

  In use

  {Unbind}

  Description: Unbinds the item from your Soul Space.

  I asked myself the same question I had asked myself every time I’d seen it before. What exactly . . . would unbinding her from my Soul Space do? Would it kill her?

  I hesitated, watching her health once again drop below twenty percent.

  Does that matter? She was almost dead anyways. We both were.

  My mental finger hovered over the Unbind action, and as I did, Mie’s lips moved on the TV. She was seconds away from being out of mana. Her mana potion cooldown had minutes left. I moved closer to the speaker.

  Her lips moved again. And this time . . . I heard her.

  “Let her go, and let me go.” As she said it, I felt fear burrowing through her as she beckoned death.

  The black glass barrier cracked again. Then shattered.

  . . .

  The air was cold and blew out from a nearby vent. There was a constant droning sound that reverberated through the room. Like a white noise machine. A high clear beep! pierced through the emptiness inside me.

  I was numb. Empty of emotion. Empty of everything.

  My girls Ada and Lily were next to me, clutching the bear stuffies my mother-in-law had got them. Ada’s face was bunched up as tears spilled out of her little eyes. But Lily was so small, not quite three. She didn’t, couldn’t . . . understand. She twisted her head toward me, her hair whipping around as she made a goofy face at me.

  I turned inward, toward a comforting well that had once been full of hot bubbly salt water. I pulled on the rope, but the bucket came up dry. I had no more tears to give. It was empty. I . . . was empty.

  God damn it. Why? Why me? Why us?

  Two weeks had passed while doctors performed their tests. We prayed. God, we prayed.

  But the results were bad. There was no brain activity.

  My ears were pounding with my heartbeat as the doctors droning voice slowly came into focus. “It’s time, Sam.”

  I made myself look at my wife’s face. Her eyes were closed. She looked thin. A ventilator was fixed over her nose and mouth. Life support machines were all around, keeping her alive.

  I stood up, and I moved my hand to the ventilator . . . but then I stopped . . . hesitating.

  I leaned in and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. It was still warm. The walls of the dry well inside of me seeped liquid I didn’t know was there. I pulled the rope again, and my tears dripped onto her pillow.

  I whispered into her ear, “I’m going to find you, babe. God damn it. I’ll find you.” My voice caught.

  I pulled the ventilator off her face, turned, picked up Lily in one arm, and grabbed Ada’s hand with the other.

  The well filled once more as we walked out the hospital doors. But not with hot tears.

  No. No way.

  I was past that.

  It filled with dark. Red. Rage.

  . . .

  I was holding my breath as the memory faded. The shards of black glass were starting to float up around me.

  Mie . . . knew about my wife. She had known about her the whole time. She had my memories. She knew about the Unbind action. She had seen her item representation. She knew everything. My head throbbed. She knew everything, and she had given me the go-ahead to push the button.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want this on me. Not again. My mental finger wavered over the Unbind action, and I let out a slow steadying breath, trying to control my emotions to no avail.

  Mie’s health was very low now. We only had moments.

  The black shards bristled, and then all whipped their pointed ends toward me. Everything else retreated. My sorrow. My rage. My pain. It all fled at the sight of fear. Of my fear.

  My eyes focused on the Unbind action once more, and as I did, the black shards shot forward and punctured deep into my stomach. Fear flowed through me, its black poison corroding my insides and making me sick . . . and for the first time in years . . . I let it.

  It slipped its way through my veins and into my heart, and from there the poison only spread faster.

  I hated being afraid. And I desired nothing else but to be rid of it.

  “I’m coming, Rach,” I whispered.

  “Gross,” Greg said.

  Then I slammed down on Unbind.

  The Item {Mie, Soul Sprout} has been destroyed.

  “NO! OH, COME ON!” I bellowed.

  You received a {Mie, Soul Sapling}

  “Oh! Thank God!” I quickly inspected this new item.

  {Mie, Soul Sapling}

  Celestial Item, Unique Item

  One time use item. {Plant}?

  I slammed the new action down with my mind, not considering its implications, and as I did, the newly appeared item vanished from my Soul Inventory. The room shook slightly as a normal-looking door appeared to the right of the TV. I started toward it, wondering what the hell was going on. But then I noticed more logs.

  You planted {Mie, Soul Sapling}

  You received 5 life credits.

  Initiating soul transaction