Simone’s eyes were pressed closed, the smell of stale weed smoke and something rotten filling her nose, and the familiar and simultaneously unfamiliar feeling of the fuzzy carpet under her feet. A familiar set of hands rested on her shoulders.
“Simone,” Raven’s words were gentle. “You’re safe. You’re you.”
A breath released from her lungs and she opened her eyes to see an unchanged Raven smiling down at her. She took a step back, breaking the hold and looked around the room. She was in Mark and Sara’s living room. She cast her eyes at the love seat at the end of the living room table and her hand shot to her mouth to cover a gasp.
That was the spot she sat every Saturday night and most Friday nights for nearly a quarter of her life. The decorative cat side table was as tacky as ever, even with the stain. The night they almost found out.
She crossed the table and rubbed her fingers across the pasta sauce stained tabletop. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she plopped down into the chair and immediately jumped back up again. A shiver ran down her spine. She stepped away from the table and looked up at Raven, her demeanor completely supportive.
“Let’s go.” She said, butterflies and moths dancing in her tummy. “There’s nothing left for me, here.”
“Is…is this Sara?”
Simone turned to see Raven gobsmacked, staring at the mantle. She approached and picked up a picture.
Simone looked down at Sara and Mark’s prom picture. Sara looked so young and uncomfortable in the formal dress, but still had that familiar fierceness to her. Her heart raced realizing this was Raven seeing her partner as a human for the first time.
“Yeah. And Mark.”
Raven held the picture for a moment before looking at a much more recent one on the mantle. “I…”
She placed the prom picture facedown and looked around, almost in a panic. “Can we go?”
Simone didn't waste time with platitudes, Raven needed fresh air and she was on it. “Door is over here.”
Raven nodded and followed.
Simone turned the handle and paused. “Wait.”
She turned and opened the coat closet and pulled out one of Sara’s oversized pink hoodies and handed it to Raven. “You’ll want to keep this on. People here can be…rough.”
Raven looked at it for a long moment before reaching past her and pulling out Sara’s black Lita lovefurypassionenergy hoodie. “This one sticks out less. I’ll wear it.”
“Good call,” Simone pulled a black Crypta hoodie on. Fernanda Lira was a monster on bass and an inspiration for Simone's goth phase. Going to this concert with Sara was a core memory.
She pushed the door open. “Remember, keep—”
The world was on fire.
Literally. Consuming heat flooded the space and flames licked out.
Before the wall of fire swallowed her, Raven yanked her back and slammed the door. The heat dissipated in seconds.
“It’s another portal.” Raven put her hand flat against the door. “Cold.”
Simone scratched her head and looked around. “How? We’re out of the game.”
Raven crossed the living room and looked out the window to the street below. She raised it and immediately slammed it shut when flames poured through and caught the carpet. Simone and Raven made quick work of stomping them out.
“Another portal. What about the closet we came out of?” Raven used an incredibly poor choice of words to ask a completely fair question.
Simone turned around and braced herself grabbing the handle and slowly pulling it open. A lick of orange pushed through as she snapped it back shut. “We’re surrounded.”
Raven looked around. “We are surrounded by a wall of fire. Makes perfect sense.”
Simone thought about her words and something clicked. “It’s not a wall of fire…it’s a firewall.”
Raven scratched her head and raised her eyebrow. “You’re going to have to enlighten me.”
“We didn’t leave the game.” Simone thought it out as she paced around the apartment. “Rather…we’re stuck between the game and Earth.”
Raven failed her hide check as she quietly lowered the picture on the mantle in a pace pass. “And, what is the purpose of the wallfire?”
“Firewall,” Simone corrected, not taking her mind off the task. “Well…I’m not a software engineer or a coder, but I would venture to guess that the game sees us as a virus and that we need to abort this trip and warn Sara right the fuck now.”
Raven’s demeanor changed. She started looking around in panic. “What will it do to us?”
“What does fire do to organic matter?” Simone racked her brain.
Silence hung in the air as they explored their surroundings until the sound of the eighty inch TV clicked on. The hum assaulted Simone’s highly tuned elf senses. TVs always had a…scream to them that pierced her brain. A picture appeared. A video.
Craig.
“Craig!” Simone’s temper flared. “What have you done?”
“Thank you for the portal home…” Craig paused for a long moment as a group of owlbears dragged an unconscious Mark across the screen behind him. “Simone.”
It hung for a moment. Did Craig just use her chosen name? Before she could respond, he continued, almost like…it was a recording.
“I’m not above recognizing your pain,” He began. “But you still work with this megalomaniac, so you’re a threat. Have fun inside the firewall. I’ve sent some friends to keep you busy.”
The TV shut off and a portal ripped open in the kitchen behind them. Simone’s instincts made her jump toward the kitchen island for cover, but a heavy boot flew through the portal, catching her in the chest and knocking her backward over the couch.
Out of the portal flew the rest of a wiry, goofy, halfling dressed in blue shorts, shirt and hat with brown combat boots, landing hard on the floor. Simone immediately saw his nose was absolutely covered in snot and dripping everywhere. Another body came through, dressed in the red version of the same outback style outfit. A long, thick, calloused tongue hung from his mouth and his eyes were wild. A third came through in green. This one’s hat was a fedora and six tentacles sprouted from his back. None of them held weapons, but they advanced immediately.
Raven wasted no time and charged the blue one, spearing him as soon as his feet hit the ground.
“Sicky!” The one in green shouted. “I’ll show you your place!”
Tentacles whipped toward Raven, but she was ready. She brought her arms in front of her face, let them latch on, then she yanked two of the tentacles off with ease. He screamed in agony as the other tentacles battered her to the ground.
“Get the bitch, Icky!” The one with the longue tongue faced Simone and he whipped it toward her.
“Let me guess,” Simone easily dodged the tongue and drew her bow. “You’re Licky?”
The massive, swollen tongue sailed right over her duck and smashed into the wall. Simone loosed an arrow, pinning it.
“Gaaraarrararrararaghghghghglll.”
“You could have just said yes,” Simone drove the end of an arrow into his back just as a massive glob of snot covered her face. It didn’t burn. But it was a mixture of yellow and green and her lunch immediately ejected forcefully into the tongue pried open mouth of Licky.
Before she could think, Licky vomited back out her vomit while ripping his tongue from the wall as a muscle reflex to vomiting. The previously rapidly approaching Sicky slipped in the vomit and came down hard, the back of his head smashing against the unforgiving cat table and cricking his neck at an unnatural angle. He stopped moving.
Before she could lift her bow, the thick tongue wrapped around her and squeezed. Her hands and limbs were frozen as Licky’s bloody tongue dripped blood over her hair deliberately. Over his shoulder Raven was down to one tentacle left, but he had the upper hand. They all attacked like wild Irish brawlers, scrappy and mean, but devastatingly effective.
Just as she got close enough to Licky, she saw Raven in a confident striking position, but a tentacle lived on the ground behind her and was pulling itself toward her with a knife. Simone opened her mouth but nothing came out. Not even air, which panicked her as her eyes started bulging. Her lungs burned and she couldn’t help but watch as the tentacle raised itself just as Raven thought she had the killing blow, and embedded a dagger in her back.
As Simone’s vision started to fade, Raven’s knees hit the ground. Then her face. This was something she’d seen before.
But something was off until it wasn’t. Something she just couldn’t shake. How did Craig open the portal inside the firewall? Then she remembered something. She dug up all of her energy and shouted one thing at Raven, who hopefully could hear and comply.
“Stab…” Her lungs burned. “Floor…”
The darkness overtook her just as she saw Raven reach for her back. It was consuming. The world was closing in because of a meaty unmoist tongue.
PFBLTTTTTT!
The air came rushing back to her lungs and her vision was a bright blur. She fell back and gasped for breath with burning lungs as the pocket dimension began to deflate and the replicas of three of Tawagoto’s most wanted flickered away.
Raven closed the distance quickly and grabbed Simone just as the dimension faded and left them standing in between the portal runes under the store. Commotion filled the room as Shardi ran down to them.
“What happened?” Her eyes were wide.
Simone shook her head, not knowing what to respond as Sara came running down the slope behind Shardi. She thought about the video.
“Craig hijacked our portal, and he’s coming. Now.”