No Turning Back

The feeling that came next was almost inexplicable.

Describing it in the simplest terms, the whole thing felt wildly overwhelming.

I was traveling through what I could only presume was the bridge between our reality and the world that we were being sent to.

An endless sea of flashing colours barraged my retinas, but for some reason I couldn’t blink.

Something wasn’t allowing me to look away. My only thought was that we had been tricked.

So it was really true – your life quite literally flashes before your eyes as it fades away in an instant.

What a pitiful way to die. We were just another set of humans who had fallen to an unfathomably strong desire.

All of a sudden, a tear began to trickle down my cheek. It lightly tickled me. Then a flood of tears gushed from my increasingly sore eyes. This time it hurt. Not just my eyes; my head; my arms; even my ears. My whole body tensed agonisingly.

Time didn’t seem linear in this place. I didn’t have the slightest idea why I was crying. But almost immediately it felt as though I did.

The whipping lights that had so mercilessly beaten my eyes vanished, and miraculously were replaced by memories. Memories of mine. Memories of my little brother, Junpei.

Was he really right in front of my eyes? Were the hands caressing his cheeks mine in that moment, or was it something simply replaying in front of me? I couldn’t tell.

Yet it felt like my wishes had been answered. By whom? I didn’t know. That didn’t matter right now.

A calm I had lost since that day momentarily returned.

However, it didn’t last long. Junpei was taken away from me once again. Although I should’ve understood what was happening in that moment, my mind had wandered too far into the ideal.

Everything then instantaneously went black.

My eyes began to move, but my body wouldn't follow. I wasn’t quite sure why as I could see that I was no longer trapped in that outlandish place.

As I remained glued to the luscious grass that seemed to choke under my weight, my body arose with ease. Not because I had overcome the excessive test of strength I was horribly failing at, but because a hand clasped my short hair and thrust me upwards.

“Could you not get up?” Ren politely asked me.

Before I answered Ren, I frantically looked down at myself, instantly realising that I was no longer wearing my smart suit. Somehow, it had been replaced with something worse – an entire black suit of heavy armour.

It pressed down on my body so tightly that I could barely respond to Ren without squealing and closing one eye in an attempt to suppress the pain.

“No. How are you standing like nothing is–. Ren…are you okay?”

Ren clearly wasn’t listening to me anymore. Even though he had asked me a question, he appeared lost. Lost in something I wasn’t sure of.

He stared far into the distance. His eyes oddly still, and his mouth barely open. I couldn't tell if he was confused, in awe, or something else entirely.

Whichever it were, I let him have his moment.

“I recognise this place, Taro,” Ren uttered quietly.

“What do you mean, Ren?” I quickly responded as I was desperate to understand the cause of Ren’s short pause.

“Yes. I’m sure of it. This place…it’s the same world as ‘For You’.”

“‘For You’? What does that mean?”

“It’s–It’s–.” I could see Ren trying his best to keep it together. Not only did his stuttering tell me everything, but so did the cracking in his voice. Again, I patiently waited for him to gather himself.

“It was Junpei's and my favourite game to play together. We used to play it all the time.”

Now I understood why Ren acted as he did. I know, if I were him, there would have at the very least been tears.

But the sight of Ren struggling wasn’t the only thing that hurt me. Despite this being the place of Ren and Junpei’s favourite game, I didn’t even know anything about it. That made me feel even worse when Ren began to explain everything about it to me.

“Judging by the armour we are wearing, I must be Khrom the Destroyer. Luckily, he’s my favourite character to play.”

“And what about me?” I exclaimed out of desperation.

“You’re Sabar the Sly.”

I noticed as Ren said this his face twitched slightly, and his eyes dropped to the floor in sadness.

“He was Junpei’s favourite character.”

My eyes diverted from Ren’s face for a brief second. But I knew that, if I wanted Ren to believe in us, I had to begin showing him that I was prepared for anything.

“Ren. I’ll do whatever it takes to do what he could. I promise.”

Ren eventually looked back at me and nodded gently. I continued trying to avert the emotional awkwardness that filled us both by asking more questions.

“So, do we have any powers?”

“Of course. Well, yours is simple. You can shoot fire from your hands. Once you level up and defeat more enemies, you can do even greater things with it.”

“And yourself?”

“Khrom’s power is mainly brute strength. But along the journey he can find special weapons imbued with magical energy. If he atones to them, he can use them to their full potential.”

This all seemed too far-fetched for me. To be honest, I almost laughed as Ren explained so thoroughly. It just sounded quite childish. But given the context, this was no laughing matter.

“What is the point in the game anyway?”

“To save a girl.”

“A random girl?”

“No, it’s someone’s sister. She’s being held captive in an evil lair somewhere far away from here. The story goes that she is one of the prettiest girls in the world, and therefore the evil overlord that exists in this world wishes to marry her.”

Apparently that was it.

I tried to mask my confusion, but my face unconsciously scrunched itself into a position of partial bewilderment. Fortunately I managed to not agitate Ren as I restrained myself from questioning the lack of depth in the story.

“Whose sister, exactly?”

“I hope you are ready, team. We must begin moving forwards at once!” A high, but firm, yet cute voice sounded behind me.

Panicked by its arrival, I frenziedly turned around. That was a mistake. Amidst my conversation with Ren, I had forgotten about the crushing weight of the armour. It hurled me straight back to the ground, stripping my face of my glasses.

Another hand grabbed the top of my hair. But this time the hand felt soft and kind. It took care of me as it lifted me up. A fleeting blur transformed into something I had only dreamed about before as my glasses found their place back on my face.

“Sabar! It’s nice to see you again.”

For a transient moment, I forgot all of my troubles as I laid eyes on her. Her shining eyes, smooth skin, cute face and tantalising smile defeated all of my sorrow in an instant.

She had glistening dark-blue hair that looked too perfect to be real — and partially exposed clear, need I say, that was quite revealing. Though covered entirely, her thighs bulged outwards, making her look like the type you endlessly see on social media and can’t quite click off at times.

Though I forced myself to snap out of whatever I was experiencing, it was without saying that I had realised why Ren and Junpei were so invested in this game.

“I hope you are ready, team. We must begin moving forwards at once,” she determinedly ordered again.

I see. I almost forgot she was merely a character in this game. It didn’t take me long to realise that her speech was limited by the game's mechanics.

It was strange, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t cute. At least she talked to me.

“This is Izumi. She’s the third playable character in this game. It’s her sister that needs saving,” Ren exclaimed as he intruded.

“Then who’s playing her?”

“No one. If there isn’t a third player, then the AI takes control of her. That’s probably why her speech is limited.”

I was once again reminded of my lack of presence in Ren and Junpei’s life.

“Let’s waste no time, then. Oh, and one more thing. I may have played this game a million times and know what to expect, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy – especially since I’ve only played it sitting in my chair.”

“Right. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Ren. We’ll bring Junpei back…together”.

And so we left on our journey.

But as we began to walk, a crisp, thin piece of paper swayed to the floor in front of me.

To our dismay, it carried a frightful message, and served as a stark reminder of the risk we had taken.

“You only have one life. If you die here, you will not return to this world, or your own”.