Chapter 16 #2
I settled into the body-hugging gaming chair Lin had bought for the house.
She’d never said it was for me, but given how she felt guilty about the roommate situation, the timing was obvious.
People always seemed to feel guilty when it came to me, and I really wanted the chair, so I let myself accept the silent peace offering.
I’d use it while I lived here, but ultimately it was hers, not mine.
While COTSA loaded, I took some more deep breaths to release the pre-battle jitters and shook out my hands, popping my knuckles.
I pulled my headset on and rolled my shoulders back.
ScarlettSaber appeared in the spawn town.
No one else was there yet, so I got to work, emptying my inventory completely.
Then I put everything I thought would be useful for this fight back in, including the combined major health and ability potions I’d been saving up for this encounter.
Next, I went to buy more health, ability, antidote, and any other potions I thought might be useful to fill in the last spaces of my inventory.
By the time I was done, they still weren’t online. I checked my watch. Was it finally broken? Had it sped way up instead of stopping like normal watches did? The numbers defied me. Unfortunately, they matched those on the screen.
Had I gotten the time wrong, or was this the finale in a game they had been playing all along? The ‘see how long the silly girl will wait’ game. They could still just be late. I knew they lived together in a dorm room. Maybe they’d had a surprise inspection?
I leaned back in the chair, then wasted time chatting with the town NPCs, looking to see if there were any good quests available.
We, or I, would need new quests once we defeated this boss.
Unfortunately, they were all easy quests I had already done by myself or with my old group.
I frowned. Thinking of RogueStriker and his dragon girlfriend denning in my room brought out my homicidal tendencies.
It also reminded me of how my old group had fallen apart.
My frustration mounting again, I searched out NPCs farther from the town center and the quests they offered.
The numbers continued to climb, only slightly obscured by the scratches on my watch face.
Still, no one came. Not even a message. They weren’t even online.
I bit my lip. Something could have happened to delay them.
I knew they had some event going on today.
That was why we were meeting as late as we had planned.
Maybe they were stuck in traffic, just as irritated as I was.
It wasn’t like they could call me. We hadn’t exchanged any private information. Yet.
Unable to hold it any longer, I left a message for them, set my headset on the desk, then rushed to the bathroom and back, in record time. Still no sign.
The faded COTSA background music floated from my headset.
Something I could barely hear. The room was still a mess.
Maybe Charisse would forgive me for snapping at her earlier if I picked it up.
I checked my screen every couple of minutes as I folded shirts.
Air blew from the vent. I checked again with every dress I hung up.
I looked at my watch. A door somewhere in the house opened and shut.
I threw away trash. Checked again. Wiped down furniture.
Checked my screen. There was no change in status.
The room was clean. The clanking of dishes and running water came from the kitchen telling me Lin was cleaning too.
Stephanie sure wouldn’t. I looked at my computer.
Were we supposed to meet at the site instead of town?
Had they started without me? I crossed the room and my butt hit the chair so fast it was as if I had fast-traveled.
My headset was back on in the blink of an eye, and ScarlettSaber stood on the edge of a field.
No one was in sight. I waded through increasingly thicker mobs.
It took me longer to defeat them by myself.
I began seeing underlings—the tougher, more unique monsters that you had to defeat to get to the boss.
This was definitely the site of a boss. Overwhelmed by strength and numbers, I turned back.
No one had faced this boss recently, if the carnage behind me was any indication.
IK wasn’t like RogueStriker. I knew it in my bones.
Now those very same bones were telling me something wasn’t right.
Had something terrible happened to them?
What if they had been rushing home and had gotten in a car accident?
I would never forgive myself if they were lying hurt somewhere, and I had been questioning their motivations and character. I might never talk to IK again.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. I hit the snooze button on my alarm.
Rubbing the crust in my eyes only seemed to make it worse.
I let my arms flop back onto the bed. Waking up took too much effort.
Charisse had come home, seen the clean room, lain down, and covered her head with her pillow.
I didn’t think she was ready to forgive me yet.
I’d stayed online until way after midnight, and when I’d finally turned my computer off and gone to bed, I had tossed and turned, imagining horrible things.
As I dragged myself out of bed the next morning, I looked over, but Charisse was already gone.
Still mad. Tumbling down the ladder of my loft bed, I put on the first things I saw.
They could have been dirty for all I cared.
That was the extent of my preparations. Not brushing my teeth one morning wouldn’t kill me.
And maybe if Ni saw this side of me, I could ruin any future thoughts about him.
Besides, it seemed I hadn’t been good enough for IK.
He hadn’t even seen me and had already decided that our relationship was over.
Without checking my messages, because what was the point, I tossed my laptop into my backpack and hurried to class, feeling like I’d been run over.
I made a mental note never to drink; this felt terrible, and a hangover was probably worse.
Why was the sun so blinding this morning?
It was giggling at the shadow in my soul.
Everyone’s voices were too loud, including the flock of blackbirds on the green that were practically screaming to be fed.
Dad didn’t need me anymore. Stephanie and RogueStriker hated me.
Charisse now hated me. VerdantArrow, ShadowImp, and IvoryKnight obviously hated me.
We could add the girl I just bumped into to the list. Maybe I could piss off Lin before the day was out since I was on a roll.
The friendships I’d made were such fragile things. Broken as easily as my dad’s promises.
Why was the campus so packed today? Each person was like a mob created to be an obstacle between me and my classroom. So many strangers. How could I not know anyone on my campus? Each person I passed took on new meaning. Any of them could be VA, SI, or IK.
I wouldn’t recognize them by their faces because I had never seen them.
I wouldn’t even recognize their voices because of my hangups.
All I knew was what they had told me. Dorm-mates, somewhere on this campus.
Or maybe they lived off-campus, like I did.
Were they on their way to class, laughing at me, or writhing in pain somewhere?
Had all the clocks stopped wherever they were?
Computers frozen because of a massive hack? Maybe the internet was down.
I was caught in a flood of bodies moving toward the computer building with as much inevitability as my thoughts continued to careen out of control.
Perhaps IK had broken his fingers and couldn’t type—I ignored the possibility of voice-to-text-chat.
Or maybe his computer had been fried by lightning, like mine had been.
That could have taken out all of their computers if they shared a room, right?
That would explain why none of them had shown up or contacted me through COTSA.
I wished I had a phone like everyone else, not that I would have given them my number before.
Outside the programming basics class, some students were talking; the ups and downs of the hubbub were punctuated by gasps.
I pushed past them, through the heavy door, flopped into a random chair, and dropped my head straight onto the table.
That’d leave a beautifying mark on my forehead.
At least I’d get the attendance counted even if I wasn’t in class mentally.
Students clambered into the seats behind me as if they were trying to break a world record for making the most noise.
Their words finally filtered through the fog in my brain and registered.
“Did you hear that Galbraith’s in the hospital?”
“What? Are you talking about Nigel? The one who usually sits in the middle?”
Could they take their conversation somewhere else? Couldn’t they see I was trying to sleep? Wait. Ni was hurt? That was terrible. I should do something. He was such a nice guy; he didn’t deserve to end up in the hospital. Then again, I bet he already had a room full of flowers and balloons.
“Spill.”
My eyes stayed shut, but my ears were wide open.
“The team was ahead on points, so Coach let him in to play, and he got tackled. Had to be taken off the field by ambulance. He had a concussion and broken bones. I heard he’s still unconscious.”