Gaming in Another World

The light was blinding, and it burnt the world away. I was caught in that light, but it didn’t feel like I was on fire. Instead, it felt like a soft fall, as if I were a stray feather slowly making my way downwards.

Strange, I thought. Am I dreaming?

If I was, it was even more strange that I was thinking about it. I never had a dream like this, but there’s a first time for everything, right? At least it wasn’t like my usual nightmares. The feeling it gave me was almost… nice.

With a soft thump, my body landed on the floor again, and the light vanished. I could feel the hard floor underneath my– wait. This wasn’t the wooden floor of my room. This was… soft and fluffy?

I opened my eyes, and looked around. My confusion only grew. The air tasted different—fresh, like spring air, with a hint of greenery and flowers. And the room, too, was quite different from mine. Not only were there different, pastel-colored rugs covering the floor, but there were decorations everywhere. The room was dominated by a giant canopy bed, occupied by a mountain of fluffy pillows. Sunlight poured in from the high windows. Stuff was strewn all about the room, except for the circle I was currently in, as if someone had hastily tried to clean their room before their visitors came over.

“Dor büst du ja!”

The voice startled me, and I swung my head in its direction. It was only then that I realized the room was occupied. Of course.

The tall girl in front of me grinned, as if she was expecting me. We were roughly the same age, I guessed, but it was hard to tell. Her hair was a soft green color, wholly unnatural, but its shimmer made me think it wasn’t dyed. Her ears were elongated, and their tips poked out from her hair. She wore a light, green dress, decorated with pink petals. And she looked like she could barely hold in her excitement.

“Dat hett klappt! Ik kann dat kuum glöven, dat dat klappt hett!”

But her words didn’t make sense.

“Huh? What’s going on? Where am I?”

These, and a hundred more questions raced through my head.

“Am I still dreaming?”

I had to be. This was just a weird dream, nothing more.

“Wat snackst du denn?” She looked disappointed, but that emotion quickly vanished from her face, replaced by an excited determination. “Kannst du mi verstahn?”

I shook my head, instinctively. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s going on? Do you speak English?”

I looked around the room some more. Were there hidden cameras? When I was dreaming, I usually didn’t think this much, which certainly was a perk of being asleep. But this felt oddly clear, as if I was… still awake.

“Hmmm. Dat mutt en anner Weg geven.” She paced around the room, tipping one finger against her chin.

I couldn’t look away. Even if she was taller than me, she was extremely cute—so was this my subconscious telling me what I liked? Heat crept to my face. No. Even if this was a dream, I shouldn’t…

“Ah! Ik heff dat!”

She looked at me in excitement, as if her thought process somehow made it so I could understand her. I could only show my confusion.

“I don’t know,” I said, once more. “English?”

But she didn’t answer.

Instead, she spun, with her arms outstretched. Once. Twice. And then, she ended the whole thing with her hands on her head, making a heart with them.

No way. I couldn’t help but stare at her, still holding the pose with a bright grin on her face.

“Y-you’re…” I shook my head. “Are you really un9vr?”

I still didn’t know what those keysmahes meant, and it seemed she didn’t recognize that name, either. But I got up, and spun, as well. Even if it felt embarrassing, the heart pose was worse. But it made her smile more, and suddenly, she embraced me.

“Ik bün so froh, dat dat klappt hett! Wi hebbt al so lang tohoop speelt, un ik weet, dat dat nu ganz schöön spontan, aver ik bruuk dringend een to de Tied to verbringen. Un dat deit mi leed, dat ik di ut dien Welt smett heff—aver schöön, dat du dar büst! Anners, ik bün Nela.” She grinned at me.

Those were words. Yup. Surely. Maybe. It was hard to focus on them, when this was the first hug I had experienced in–I didn’t want to think about how long ago my last touch with another human was. So I tried to focus on her words instead, but even that was difficult. Sure, there were words, and sentences, and they probably meant different things. But I didn’t know what those things could be. I tilted my head to her face, and was met with an intense stare from her eyes. Once more, she smiled at me.

But since I didn’t reply, she took a step back. Then, she pointed at herself. “Nela.”

Then, she pointed at me, imitating the “question” sound of Light Journey. “?”

Was she asking me my name? “Leo,” I said, pointing at myself. Then, I pointed at her. “Nela?”

The name sounded strange on my tongue, but not in a bad way. Finally, I had a face—and a real name!—to the person I spent my favorite hours of the day with. If this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up.

“Leo!” She sounded so excited when she said my name.

I smiled back, even if it felt strange. I was enjoying myself, and while it still felt like danger was lurking somewhere—as if this was a trap, a dream, a hallucination, perhaps—I wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to escape my life, if only for a few moments.

Nela took my hand, and I froze. Not because I didn’t want her to take my hand, but because it was so sudden. I wasn’t used to this much human touch. Well, if you could call her human. She was different, magical, like an elf. I blushed.

“Oh, ik kann kuum verwachten, endlich Sied an Sied to trecken.” She blushed, the tips of her ears turning a bright pink color. But she quickly caught herself, and instead, tugged on my hand. “Kaam, ik heff al allens praatmaakt!”

She led me to one side of the room that looked suspiciously like a gaming setup. Two crystal clear rectangles hung on the wall, but I couldn’t see any cables. The controller she used looked different, too. But she patted one of the very comfortable looking pillows on the floor, and I sat down. I was still half in awe, and half wondering if I was dreaming. I stared at her as she booted the console (or was it a computer? or something else, entirely?) up, and logged in. I, on the other hand, could only stare at the controller in my hand, and wonder how exactly I was supposed to log into my account if none of the symbols matched with the keys I knew. Maybe that’s why her name looked like pure gibberish, I thought to myself.

We quickly got around that fact by making me a completely new character. While I was missing my hard-earned cosmetics, Nela’s character still looked the way I remembered it, millipede-belt and all. It didn’t take long for us to find each other in-game, and it was even easier to fall back into our routine of exploring together.

Only this time, she was right next to me. I could hear her reactions, watch as she leaned forward in anticipation, her giggles and bursts of laughter. I, too, managed to laugh, finally not forced to be quiet. I didn’t know how much time passed, but it felt both like an eternity and an instant. But I knew the bright blue sky had turned darker, as golden sunlight reflected off the walls.

As we climbed the highest tower of the ruin, Nela made a little jump, full of excitement. She turned around to me, and once more, hugged me.

“Wi hebbt dat schafft!”

I grinned back at her. “We did it!”

If this was a dream, I really didn’t want it to end.