Not Our Problem Anymore

“My name is Diago Watanabe, head of Watanabe tech.” A murmur ran through the beta testers. ‘A rich tech bro with economic and political ties across the world...of course.’ Selena thought bitterly. ‘But why would he be involved with a videogame? That seems like it would be below someone who's completely convinced of his own superior intelligence and importance to humanity.’ Selena had heard of Diago before but she didn't know much about him; his smug face and tone already told her all she needed to know about him.

“Not like any of you would be cultured enough to know this, this but I have an appreciation for the sciences and an obligation to ensure the betterment of future generations. I’ve founded and finically backed the Wata Research institute to ensure that this progress is being made. Unfortunately, while I’m overqualified, I sadly must narrow my focus, and I’m obligated to continue my family’s work in the technology sciences.”

“Ugh!” Selena recoiled in disgust. “He’s exactly what I expected...his head is too big for him to see what’s actually in front of him. Whatever happened here, I’m sure it was nothing good if he was involved. "I don’t trust him either” Aqua chimed in quietly. “I don’t know him but there’s something in his face that screams of untrustworthiness.”

The smug face in the sky continued his exposition. “I’ve always had an interest in the potential existence of other worlds and poured my resources into the search for them. A few months ago, it bore fruit. We were able to open a window into another world! It seemed to be a fluke, so we had nothing but our video data to analyze. However, that turned out to more than enough to learn about the new world we found. We had unknowingly hit the jackpot! Through our analysis, we discovered that the world was named Nyxphiria and were able to log many different attributes and inhabitants of the world, with most of the data retrieved focused on the town you’re currently standing in.”

‘How in the heck did researching another world lead to the creation of a video game? How are those things remotely connected?’ Madoka wondered dully. She was still in shut-down mode, but she was very much paying attention to Diago’s speech, though she didn’t pick up on the same implications that her mother did.

“Sadly, a bunch of lazy gamers wouldn’t understand the scientific process, so I’ll sum things up in a way you plebs can understand.” Despite the gravity of the situation and his culpability, the man had a relaxed smile plastered on his face; a complete mockery to everyone present in the town. “We wanted to make sustained contact with Nyxphiria and find a way to move between their world and ours. To that end, we created Project Night World. The game Night World Odyssey was the conduit between the worlds and, of course, we needed people playing it to power our efforts. The game raffle was created to get a random sample of the people of our world.” The crowd, obviously displeased at being used as guinea pigs, began booing and screaming at this revelation. Other than a twitch of annoyance, Diago remained unmoved.

“I won't bother explaining the particulars of how it works, but you can disregard whatever foolish ideas you have, because you didn’t end up in a game. This world is very real. But, for our experiment, the game world needed to be modeled off the one we wanted to contact. All the places and characters were based off our data from this world but, they. Are. Not. Equivalent.” Diago spoke slowly and deliberately; pausing to let his words sink in.

‘We’re in a world that’s just as real as ours.’ Selena thought. ‘That confirms my suspicions, but how do we get out of here? And what does that asshole plan to do about it? What sort of monster would put civilians in the middle of an experiment to bend reality and cross time and space?’

“Any similarities are merely external. The game was a conduit for our research, but you people weren’t interacting with Nyxphiria in any way. Even if we based characters for the game off them, the people in this world are unique individuals with no connection to Night World Odyssey. They have no memories of you or any or the “relationships” you thought you build with the in-game characters.”

“What the hell do you plan to do to help us, you monster! How do we get back home? Fix this!” Though the individual voices mashed together into a barely understandable cacophony, this was the collective scream that they formed. Seemingly impatient, Diago frowned and crossed his arms his unwitting pawns unleashed their rage. After a moment, he snapped.

“Shut up! This isn’t my fault, you freaks! Video games are below me and this was for just for science! You were never supposed to know about Project Night World or anything that my research institute was involved in! I don’t know what happened!” Diago let his veneer of politeness fall as he lashed out, stunning everyone present into silence.

Selena felt like she’d eaten a rock. ‘He doesn’t care at all...this isn’t going to end well...’ The fear gnawed at her. The realization that she was stuck in another world, with her special needs daughter, while they had no friends or family that would realize they were missing, had sunk in. While her heart thudded in fearful anticipation, Selena waited for the other shoe to drop.

Diago composed himself. “It worked too well...when a connection formed, it was sudden and overpowering. We tried to shut everything down, but it was useless. The game became a portal and sucked you all in, and it was all we could do to destroy all the hardware so that it didn’t start pulling in things from our world indiscriminately. We have just enough connection left to reach over one final time. It's how I'm able to speak to you and I’m going to send the people of this world the memories of the game characters that we based off them. That should help everyone get along for the time being.”

Diago paused and smiled once again, instantly putting Selena on edge. It didn’t fit him or the situation. “Unfortunately, it’ll be too much work to try and get you all back. Medeling in another world was a mistake that we promise to learn from in the future. Now that you understand what’s happened, I’ve fulfilled my responsibility. You aren’t our problem anymore. If there is a way back, it’s up to you to find it. Good luck.”

With that, the hologram disappeared. The crowd remained frozen, as if waiting for the rest of their instructions on what to do next, but the sky remained empty. An eerie silenced reigned until, suddenly, it sunk in that they had been abandoned. They’d never consented to this, but they were the ones who’d have to deal with the consequences. Everyone instantaneously lost their collective minds.

The screaming and crying wailed in-distinctively over the fray like a siren as the sea of bodies suddenly writhed violently and unpredictably. Selena didn’t know what was going on; were the others starting a riot in their panic? All she knew was that she had to get Madoka out of there before the crowd crushed her. She lifted her daughter up by her pink cloak and grasped her tightly. Though the crowd had separated the three, she caught a glimpse of Aqua trying to fight his way back. Making eye-contact with the wolf, he screamed something unintelligible and pointed towards a distant alley. Understanding his meaning immediately, Selena bounded over the crowd in the direction he had pointed.

People panicked and instinctively cleared a landing space for her powerful lupine body, allowing her to instantly wind up and launch into the air again. As they jumped above the crowd, Madoka squealed and flailed as she swung erratically in the open air. Confident that she had a good grip on her daughter, Selena ignored her reaction and focused on getting out of the town square.

Moments after she reached the edge of the crowd, Aqua pushed his way out to them and took off running into the alley. “Come on!” He yelled back over his shoulder. “Follow me! Let’s go to my house! It'll be safe there!”

Without hesitation, Selena followed his lead and took off running. “M-mama?” Madoka squeeked in shock. “W-what are we going to do?” Selena narrowed her eyes. “Survive. Together.” She mumbled out.

It was simplistic, but she meant every word. She was used to being alone and having to do everything herself. Ever since Madoka’s birth, it had been the two of them against the world. Whether it was a culture biased against foreigners and anyone “different” or some selfish bastard abandoning them in another world, it didn’t matter. They were used to having to fight everyone else for their right to merely exist. The fact that Selena now lacked a human body and her daughter could do magic didn’t change anything. No matter what world it was or who the hateful jerks were, she was going to protect Madoka, and they would get through this together.

‘I’ll make sure Ma-Chan gets back home to her safe, normal environment, even if it kills me’ The mother promised herself.