Chapter 23

"Have we secured the target?"

"Our team is a little preoccupied at the moment, nothing that a cheat code couldn't break in a matter of minutes"

"Minutes?"

"The coding is very intricate and at times chaotic, ma'am. We will need to have our system work non-stop and keep evolving in order to manage to overwrite even one of its basic points"

"Are we at least aware of where the target rests and is our team remotely close to them?" The silence was deafening. "Well? Are we?"

"There is a complication"

"I'm listening"

"They were right next to it, they hadn't identified it yet but with the mere energy going through it and influencing everything around it, it was apparent we had what we were looking for. But then, it suddenly vanished. We have no way of knowing where it is located at the moment. Our censors seem to pick it up somewhere inside the log but we can no longer tell its precise whereabouts"

"I see" The temperature of the room seemed to drop significantly. "....and the golden apple?"

"As poisonous as ever and ready to go at any moment"

"Excellent. Let it shimmer some more. And then when it's practically boiling with maliciousness, pluck it"

                               ***

There were no seconds, minutes, days. I couldn't tell how much time had passed since I had been transported and trapped into the Glitching Fields. I kept hearing voices talking nonsense about code, system and logs but I couldn't withhold any of the info. They always made me taste metal and want to vomit and my brain kept blanking out from the pain so I tried to steer away from them as much as I could. They couldn't have spelled out trouble more clearly and the least I wanted was to find any more. I just wanted to get out of there. Was I missed? Where did the others end up? Were they looking for me? Had I grown any facial hair and did I look all ragged and handsomely unravelled after all this time struggling in exile?

I had started having conversations with the glitching NPCs. They were excellent listeners and only tried to interrupt me when it was their cue to try speaking their broken nonsense. They weren't very helpful and didn't offer much advice but it helped stave off the loneliness for a little while and I had humoured the arrogant need to be heard non-stop and have the undivided attention of someone. But then, it started feeling creepy. My throat started getting scratchy. Even though thirst and hunger seemed to have frozen in there, I still felt the phantom need to follow the routine and satisfy them. I got tired of hearing my own voice. At first I got mad at them, then I got mad at myself. Then, I just wanted it all to be over. Something to just break this unfamiliar and hostile darkness and endless chatter of nonsensical noise.

And then, there it was. My hero. I was enveloped by a relieving soundlessness. It was like everything froze for a few blissful moments and then a trail of light blue broke the lightlessness in there. Something ran upon that trail. Something that still looked like a ghost with how brilliantly it shone but at the same time it felt different than the spectres that had been haunting this place and me. It crashed onto me and I couldn't have been happier than right at that moment, at least until I was turned into a glorified chewing toy. Ecstatic one second and in pain the other, I howled as Nax bit into my shoulder and started growling before shaking me this way and that as if he wanted to tear me apart. It hurt enough to wake me up from my pathetic stupor but not nearly enough to make actual damage. Also, just like my hunger and thirst, my health points didn't seem to go up or down from where it was when we were trying to solve the portal puzzles. So technically he wasn't doing me harm but it hurt like a bitch and it was the principal of the whole thing! So I started fighting back and growling at the same time, not as inhumanly as him. In mere moments, we were rolling around upon the trail he blazed and before I knew it, we were back into the Mirror Shard. Or at least, I think it was that. Because when we came at a stop after hitting the wall, the beach was nowhere to be found.

I didn't have the time to think over how Nax had found me, what the Glitching Fields were and how I had ended up there. The scene before me when I looked up was too disturbing to put into words.

"What-?" I turned to look at my wolf and he huffed, looking at me pointedly as if trying to say Took you long enough and then looked away. His fur was dirtied and unruly and he looked bone tired. How long had he been looking for me? What did he have to do to let me out? My limbs were still aching though so I was no closer to thanking him or apologising for something that wasn't even in my control. So I huffed as well but instead of looking away, I looked at him even more pointedly challenging him to turn around towards me only so that I could be the one to turn away this time. Then, my attention was captured by the patterns on his skin. I couldn't tell what they were but they were beautiful, covered all of his fur and especially his tail and they were a muted light blue. So the light must have been coming from there. 

He barked right into my face and I flinched right out of my body by the suddenness and loudness of the sound. His icy blue eyes stared into me with frustration and impatience. Right. The zombified people in the room were more important at the moment. I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to know more about-

"YOU'RE RIGHT, I'M SORRY!" He had opened his jaws and looked ready to bite down once again so I lifted my arms in surrender and hurried to appease him. He moved his head towards the others in the room and he nudged me there with his snout. He looked ready to sprout arms and just pick me up and take me there. Not that I could really do something about whatever was going on but I could still try to figure it out. 

All of the rest of the people from our group were in this room. They were all either looking at the ceiling, the ground or off to the distance. They were perfectly still, locked into varied expressions of horror or discomfort as if they were living in nightmares. The room itself was very dark once again. What was it with the dark theme in this part of the game? Was the whole Shard always shrouded in darkness? The only source of light was Nax. Just like with the runes, they were all scattered in different points but at least now they weren't standing on any pressure points or booby traps.

I couldn't tell what had them trapped and I had no idea what they were seeing or experiencing and if I could do anything to help them find the way out just like Nax did for me. 

Fett sobbed and I was instantly in front of him. Nothing else mattered at that moment. Helping wasn't a choice. It was the only possible road ahead. 

"My parents..." He cried. My heart crumbled at my feet. I touched his shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay! I miss my parents right now too! They were...they were...my parents...." The point on his shoulder that was supposed to comfort him, suddenly became a handle for me to cling on and support my knee shattering weight. Tears started blurring my eyes and I felt Fett's emotions bleed into me and become untraceable from mine. Images flashed behind my eyelids. My parents went off in a mission to find the portal and never returned. The next moment, my parents were the parents I actually recognized with their kind smiles and overprotectiveness over any technological device and evolution as if the machines would grow teeth and bite us. Their faces mingled. Their words became the same but different occasions. I tried to recall my parents nore clearly to clear my mind but I kept going back to that one image of them carved into my mind and found nothing else. "My parents..." I wailed just like Fett, feeling like an abandoned child as everything else faded away.