Life: Online: A gamelit novel

by Shiloh Hunt

  The witch’s cellar was stacked to the ceiling with them. In most of them, creatures moved. In some, there was no movement at all — and hadn’t been for quite some time. Kitty avoided looking at those. There was some kind of order down here, it seemed. Some of the players had been sorted by species, some by the colour of their fur. A few of the cages held only a single player: a white and black panda cub, a stumpy zebra, a baby snow leopard.

  Kitty was pressed into a cage with seven lions, all moving about, bumping into her, stepping on her. Kitty had given up trying to soothe them after several failed attempts and a few paw-bashes to the head from the more stubborn players. So she huddled in the cage, eyes lifting at every sound from above.

  Her chat console had been disabled. Whether it was another glitch or an intentional phase of gameplay, she had no idea. But it meant she didn’t know where Lucy and William were. They weren’t in the cellar; she’d yowled her paws off trying to get them to answer her, strained her eyes staring into the cages were other wolves and tigers were being held. But they hadn’t replied. And she was pretty darn sure they would have. Wouldn’t they?

  The cellar door creaked open, throwing a large square of light into the middle of the cellar floor. Motes sparkled, flaunting their freedom as a draft of warm air teased them around the beam of light. Kitty watched dispassionately.

  The witch descended the cellar stairs. She wasn’t ugly; in fact, the woman was nondescript. But Kitty had seen what hid under her skirts. She knew what was coming. Her shoulders stiffened as the witch turned to their cage. The fur on her spine stood up in a ridge as the witch stopped, hand rattling the lock binding their cage.

  “Now!” Kitty surged upward and forced the cage door from the witch’s hand.

  But it seemed, despite minutes of meticulous planning, that she was the only one who wanted freedom. The other players were frozen in place with looks of slack-jawed terror etched on their avatar’s faces.

  The cage door slammed closed again and Kitty’s health bar shot down almost a third of the way. She yelped, writhing on the cold metal floor of the cage as her avatar experienced some ephemeral pain that was echoed by stabbing hot and cold in her own body.

  “What’s this?” the witch asked, voice bemused. “Trying to get away, my pretty?” The witch chuckled. “That’s not what happens. This is the part where I kill you, not the part where you slip away like a slippery little fish.”

  The cage door banged open again.

  “Oh no,” the witch continued, voice bubbling with mirth. “You can forget about it, you pretty little thing. In fact…”

  A hand closed around the scruff of Kitty’s neck.

  “In fact,” the witch mused, twisting Kitty so that she was staring the witch in the face at the eye-level. “I believe you’ll be next.”

  The witch ran a hand down Kitty’s spine, tweaking the tip of her tail.

  “Yes… You’ll be next.”

  Kitty hung, her body immobile, as a sickening weight settled in her stomach. Where were William and Lucy? Was this just another cut scene? Were they on the other end of the cellar door, waiting to bust her out? Why the heck weren’t they doing it yet?

  The witch turned, one hand fumbling for the cage door. There was a growl. The sound of tooth on metal.

  “Blast!” The witch spun around, dragging Kitty around with her, and stared in shock at the cage of lions.

  They’d gone into a frenzy.

  Kitty stared in horror as the lions began tearing into each other, yowling and snarling and hissing.

  “No!” Kitty shouted. “What are you doing?”

  The witch shook her, and Kitty’s jaw snapped shut. The NPC kicked the cage with a bare foot, stamping it when the baby lions inside refused to yield.

  “Enough!” she bellowed. The witch surged forward, effortlessly holding Kitty aside with one hand while she beat at the lions inside the cage with the other. “You’re ruining your beautiful, beautiful fur! You stop fighting, or… or… or it’s the cook pot for all of you.”

  The lions became still.

  “Yes, you don’t want that, do you?” The witch shook her hand, wincing. “Stupid little cry-babies,” she said, pressing the back of her hand against her stomach. One of the lions had obviously gotten their teeth around her hand.

  “Please,” Kitty whispered. “You can’t—”

  “Can’t?” The witch snapped her hand so Kitty faced her again. “There’s no can’t,” the witch hissed. “Only can. And I can do whatever I want.”

  Behind the woman, the cage began to rock. Kitty’s eyes fled away from the witch’s face before she could stop herself. The witch frowned, and turned to glance over her shoulder. The lions were throwing themselves against the inside the cage, first left then right, attempting to tip it. The witch let out a furious, mangled scream.

  Kitty dropped silently to the flagstones. The witch spun around and grabbed hold of the cage, stilling it before it could spill its cargo. But she hadn’t closed the lid properly: one of the lions leapt up and through, bumping into the witch as it flew past.

  The witch grabbed it by the tail, but it jerked free and ran for the stairs. Kitty scrambled around the witch, standing with her front paws on the edge of the cage and resting her full weight on it, trying to topple it.

  After a brief struggle, the cage fell over and spilled a handful of lions over the flagstones. They mewled and clawed their way free of each other, dashing into every direction.

  “What?” The witch’s voice was shrill with disbelief. “No! This is not what happens.”

  Her voice became deep and booming. “Not what happens!”

  Something slammed over the top of Kitty’s head, her health bar sliding down even further. A hand grabbed Kitty by the scruff of the neck. She twisted, trying to bite it, freezing when she saw nothing. The invisible grip tightened and she went limp, body again rendered immobile.

  Around her came seven yelps, golden lions emerging from the corners of the cellar, all being held by nothing. A few of the players burst into tears as they were thrown back in the cage. Kitty landed between two lions, yowling as a third player stamped all over her tail. Even that slight impact had taken more of her health: Kitty opened her inventory and grabbed Lucy’s health potion. If she had any chance of escaping, she would need more than the sliver of health that remained. Around her, a few of the animals were jostling their cages, perhaps spurred by the near-escape they’d just witnessed.

  Kitty quaffed the potion.

  Tried to quaff the potion.

  Instead of her health bar shooting up, the bottle just fell to the floor. Kitty made a grab for it, but it rolled through the bars of the cage before her paw could close over it.

  “Darn it all to heck!” she screamed. The PG rating in Fantasia did nothing for her frustration. “I hate this fluffing game!”

  The witch — oblivious to Kitty’s genteel cursing — slapped her hands together and grinned into the cage. Her eyes slid past Kitty, fixing on something behind her.

  “There. Nice and tidy.” She flicked her fingers, and a lioness was in her grasp, fighting only briefly before going limp.

  “Now, where were we?” The witch gave the lioness a brief glance, and then ran her hand down the back of the player’s spine. “Oh yes.”

  The NPC cleared her throat.

  “Mommy’s going to make such a pretty dress out of you, isn’t she?”

  The witch turned to the stairs. “Yes she is,” she crooned, ignoring the sobs coming from the lioness in her hands.

  “Yes, she is.”

  35

  “William,” Lucy said for the fifth time. “Listen to me.”

  But William was sobbing into his paws, his ears flat against his scalp. The witch had risen to return to her macabre task, seeming satisfied that she’d soothed the baby wolf.

  “Are you sure she was on her last life?” Lucy asked. “Please, Will, this is important. Answer me!”

  William rolled his head from s
ide to side, his sobs tapering off.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” William sniffed, eyes opening to fix on Lucy. “What’ll happen to her? Where did she go?”

  Lucy opened his mouth to reply, but what could he say? He had no idea where players went if they weren’t disconnected and ran out of lives. Billy the Kid’s words came back to him then, loud and completely unnecessary.

  He closed his eyes.

  What if everyone in the game was already dead? Would you even know? Or would you just carry on playing, oblivious?

  “I… don’t know what happens.” Lucy shook his head, his whiskers twitching as his eyes fluttered open. “She didn’t tell me. When I asked her about your lives she kept—” Lucy broke off. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “She’s a sore loser,” William said. He shook himself, pawing at the rope around his neck. “But I was keeping count. I had to. I always have to. Else she ends up dying on me when I need her most.”

  “If I’d known that then I wouldn’t…” Lucy turned away, staring at the witch. “I wouldn’t have—”

  “You knew this would happen?” William said.

  Lucy turned to him, flinching as William threw himself at his avatar. The rope snapped taut, and William yelped as he was tugged back, paws clawing ineffectually at his neck.

  The wolf visibly calmed himself: pressing his front paws to the emerald stones beneath him, sitting on his haunches, pricking up his ears. He panted, the stubby edges of his teeth gleaming.

  “You knew,” William said. It wasn’t a question this time.

  “It’s random.” Lucy wanted to look away, but the wolf’s interrogatory blue eyes transfixed him. “But she always kills a member of the group that crosses her threshold. I’d hoped it wasn’t me—”

  “You despicable piece of—” William cut in.

  “—because I’m on my last life, too.” Lucy's quiet voice ended William’s accusation with ease. “But I was willing to take the risk.”

  William’s eyes narrowed, his tail slashing over the stones behind him — left, right, left — as if he was considering whether to launch himself at Lucy again. After a few seconds, he dropped his chin and his stare intensified.

  The wolf’s eyes narrowed. “I wish it had been you.”

  “So do I, mate,” Lucy said.

  William’s eyes widened, but he shook himself, paws shuffling until both front legs were pressed together again, his spine straightening.

  “So how are we getting to the Arena now, tiger?” He tugged at the rope for emphasis. “You have some more tricks up those stripy sleeves of yours?”

  Lucy tore his gaze away, settling it instead on the witch. She was happily hacking away at Kitty, her back still turned.

  “There’s a way out of this.” When he glanced at the wolf, the frown he’d suspected would be there was indeed present. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”

  “Really? How many times?” William snapped.

  “Enough.”

  “You’re a lucky one then.” William sneered, rising to his paws. “Or did you have more players the other times you came through that door, increasing your odds kind of thing?”

  “I’m on my last life for a reason.” Lucy rose, stretching, his tail curling over his spine in a round arc. “Follow my lead.”

  Lucy walked straight toward the witch until his rope went taut, more than two yards of dazzling tiles between them. He mewled, grimacing around the pathetic sound. The witch stopped working and spun around to face him, hand still clutching her bloody knife.

  “What is it, my baby?”

  He mewled again, straining against the rope. The witch put the knife down behind her without looking, crouching as she stepped toward Lucy.

  “My baby, what’s the matt—”

  Her words cut off as Lucy strained forward and rubbed the top of his head against her knee. The witch scratched him behind an ear with an amused giggle. Lucy widened his eyes at William. The wolf shuffled back a step with a shake of his head.

  Lucy twisted, rubbing his cheek and shoulder against the witch, mewling again. He even tried a purr, just for the heck of it. The witch’s fingertips delved into his fur, leaving runnels along his spine as she stroked him.

  “Who’s a beautiful baby boy?” the witch crooned. “My precious baby, mommy’s missed you so much. I thought you didn’t love mommy anymore, running away like you done.”

  Lucy twisted to rub the other side of his body against the witch, using the movement to throw another meaningful stare toward William. The wolf watched him impassively, anger still glittering deep in its blue eyes. Then it rose, taking a few hesitant steps toward the witch. She looked up — as if feeling him approach — and held out a hand. Lucy winced; it was stained with blood.

  William’s eyes moved to the hand, fixed on it, and slowly returned to the witch. Lucy stiffened. He shook his head, the movement slight so as not to draw the witch’s attention. William ignored him, stalking closer.

  “No!” Lucy yelled as William dove for the witch.

  The wolf’s fangs clamped around the witch’s throat. Lucy threw himself at William, trying to dislodge the wolf, but William bashed him with a paw, twisting. Blood spouted from the witch’s throat, the woman only able to emit a gurgling moan as she tried to grab hold of William’s rope.

  “We need her!” Lucy bit into William’s flank, but the wolf shook him off with a twitch of his hip.

  William let out a long growl, shaking the witch by the throat. Her white skin rent open, spilling more blood over Lucy and William. She gasped wetly and collapsed on the floor, her struggles weakening.

  “Please! William! I need her—” Lucy’s pleas were cut short as William gave the witch a last, vicious shake. There was a muffled crack as her neck snapped.

  The witch lay still, William’s jaws still clamped around her throat. The wolf’s furious breath escaped in a hiss, his lips puffing out with every exhalation. Lucy forced air back into his lungs, but he couldn’t ignore the icy weight that had settled in his stomach. He padded over to the witch, glancing down at her wrecked throat.

  “You’ve gone and screwed me up the bum,” Lucy said.

  “Says you,” William panted, releasing the witch. “I say I just saved your fluffing life.”

  Lucy laid a paw on the witch’s face, pushing at her head until it lolled across the tiles. William climbed over the dead NPC, tongue rasping across his lips to lick the blood from them.

  “I could have killed her before she… before Kitty—” The wolf cut off. “You could have said something, you fluffing—”

  “It was a cut scene, you moron!” Lucy yelled. “There was nothing I could do. Don’t you get it? There are presets in the game that no one can break. One of us had to die.” Lucy lowered his voice. “I didn’t want it to be her any more than you did.”

  William snarled at him. “You don’t seem very broken up about it. If I’d known any better, I’d have said that’s exactly what you wanted. Maybe you even struck a deal with the witch, seeing as you’re her precious baby—”

  Lucy surged forward, teeth bared. He hit the wolf with his entire weight behind him and they tumbled over the emerald floor tiles and slammed into the witch’s workbench. William tried getting his teeth around Lucy’s throat, but the tiger clubbed him with a paw. William slid away, returning seconds later to throw Lucy into the workbench.

  The table rocked.

  A loop of an intestine slid over the edge and draped between them.

  William froze, paws against Lucy’s shoulder as he pressed the tiger back into the table leg. Lucy’s snarl dissipated. The wolf released him, retreating as his eyes swivelled up. He sat back on his haunches and cocked his head.

  “Look, mate. I’m sorry—” Lucy began.

  The wolf lifted a paw to silence him. Lucy rose, shaking himself, and came to stand beside William, glancing up at the table. Kitty’s head was close to the edge. Daylight had arrived: her blood-matted fur glittered where a beam
of dawn’s light struck it through a nearby window.

  “It’s not her.” William stared at Lucy with wide eyes. “That’s not Kitty.”

  36

  Lucy despised Fantasia. It had a way of burrowing deeper into your mind than any of the other rifts; strangely so, for a kid’s game. Maybe the singular plot — forcing you to focus all your mental acuity on a single story thread — gave you cognitive tunnel vision; effectively making Life: Online that much more realistic… despite the fact that you were inhabiting the pre-adolescent body of a furry mammal.

  He frowned at William. Was that it, or had the guy plain and simple lost his fluffing mind?

  But when Lucy glanced back at the dismembered lioness, realisation arrived instantaneously. In the game, glancing at a team member’s avatar brought their name up on your HUD. Even here, in Fantasia, the HUD existed, filled as it was by clunky, oversized icons that featured easy-to-understand symbols for ages five and above. And yes, it had a space reserved for team members’s handles.

  He glanced at William. The name ‘DASHING_WILLIAM_19’ appeared in a scrawled font in the top left of Lucy’s HUD. Lucy moved his eyes back to the lioness.

  There was no name.

  Even dead team members still displayed their handles when you looked at their avatar’s corpses.

  “It’s not her,” Lucy whispered, shaking his head. “I didn’t even think to check. But…” He trailed off, glancing around the cottage. “If Kitty’s not here—”

  Behind them, something clanged into the cellar door. Lucy and William both jerked at the sound and turned wide-eyed stares on each other.

  “Search her,” Lucy said.

  He ran to the cellar door, his paws scrabbling against the metal ring without gaining purchase.

  “Found it!” William was at his side an instant later.

  The cellar door opened as if by magic. Which it no doubt was. Kitty’s head emerged, green eyes wild, fur ruffled. She stared at them, her forehead creasing into a frown.

  “You two’ve been out here this whole time?” she demanded. “You could have said something, you know. I’m in there, freaked out as all heck, thinking this witch is going to—”