Not Really Afterlife Undreamt

„Jumping now!“, Yuki yells. Yuki Tsurimiya is a man of his word, two words in this case, so he jumps. There's over a 1500 meters separating his newly forged axe and its target down below.

„30 seconds to maul!“, Nanami signals to their third team member, Houta, without taking her eyes off Yuki. Her falling boyfriend looks mesmerizing with the motion blur of his blue attire contrasting the molten red of the cave.

Houta scoffs.

„He keeps getting bigger–“

Nanami awkwardly fiddles with her staff and continues the countdown.

„20.“

Houta starts spinning his fists like he's making air scrambled eggs, forming nearby clouds.

„10.“

A group of scrambled clouds now fuse into a bigger one. Falling Yuki squeezes his axe and erects it over his head.

„Now!“

Houta blows the cloud away, above the dragon's head, then he releases both his fists and it starts raining. Yuki lands his axe in the middle of the dragon's tail, holding it to keep the dragon pinned down. Nanami points her staff at the dragon and a green light flashes from underneath it. Fluorescent vines envelop the dragon.

„Come on, I am getting wet!“, Nanami says to Houta.

„Shouto, why are you making my girlfriend wet?“, Yuki joins in.

Houta gets visibly annoyed, which helps him to summon a powerful lightning. It does nothing to hurt the dragon, but instead turns the soft vines rock hard. Yuki pulls his axe out, exposing himself to the dragon's free tail. He's not quick enough to dodge and gets hit, losing over two thirds of his health points. Nanami makes her staff soft and uses it as a whip to twist its end around Yuki's axe sticking out the ground beside him, then propels herself in the air, and lands next to Yuki. She presses her palms on Yuki's chest. Yuki gently grabs her hand then says:

„Keep your mana for shields.“

Nanami nods.

Yuki gets up, picks up his axe and signals to Houta:

„Beam me up, Shouto!“

„I told you not to call me that!“, Shouto shouts the final syllable into a spiral of air. Yuki runs towards it then jumps as it gets big enough to ride on. Houta blows it away and sends Yuki up, even higher up than he started off. Houta stops the tornado and there is once again falling Yuki.

„ETA?“, Yuki inquires.

„It's gonna be tight since you let the dragon hit you.“, Houta insults rather than answers.

„E.T. freaking A?“

„Now... 20!“

Yuki does the math with his fingers and realises that it's indeed going to be tight.

„Nanami...“, Houta warns her, then gestures and shoots a laser beam at Yuki's axe. The axe is now glowing cyan. Nanami casts protection spells on Houta and herself only a moment before Yuki strikes a thick vine on the back of the dragon's neck. The still wet scales freeze, tiny shards of icicles falling about. Rock hard vines freeze as well, breaking apart and destroying the majority of the dragon's scales. What remains of the dragon's naked body crumbles into a pile of green goo, then, with a puff of greenish smoke, turns into a wooden bounty chest.

* * *

Yuki adds the final ingredient onto a pile of ingredients lying on a rock boulder. He smiles proudly, like a three year old after just finishing his first 30 piece puzzle. Yuki places an ember gem the size of his thumb on the edge of the alchemic symbol underneath the food, and it explodes ember, revealing two plates of delicious looking meals. Yuki climbs a nearby tree and hands over one plate to Nanami before sitting on a branch beside her.

„I still think this is a waste of precious gems.“

„Rude! You're telling me you don't like it when I make you food?“

Nanami sighs.

„I just wish there weren't this many strange limitations in the game.“

„I like it just the way it is. Wouldn't change a thing.“

Yuki turns to Nanami, hoping that made her feel better. He was never good at this.

„And uhm... I like you just the way you are.“

Nanami blushes at his cheesiness. Yuki motions his palms, his plate in his lap, and it's 5PM no more – it's 7:45, mid sunset. If there was someone behind them holding a camera, this would make a perfect photo.

Yuki presses „S“, the keyboard shortcut for taking a photo. He switches back to the game chat interface titled „Nanami <3“, with all their previous dialogue now displayed as shorter texts, last one being Nanami's avatar as a blushing emoji.

„u up 4 it again tmrw“, Yuki types and sends.

Nanami is typing for a while.

Yuki taps his fingers in front of his keyboard, then types:

„need a couple more red ones to max out Firestorm“

Nanami stops typing.

„you actually named your axe?“

„ofc“

„they're shutting down the game in 2 weeks“

Yuki was ready to talk about Firestorm, but definitely not about the game shutdown.

„i got an invite

you know

since i beat the game

and uhm

i wanted to tell you sooner

sorry“

Yuki just stares at his 28 inch screen, unable to form a reply.

„i can invite one more player, though

i'll send you the link

we would finally meet“

Nanami goes offline.

Yuki takes off his gamer headphones, screen light making his hair appear blue. He walks up to the fridge, its white light revealing his average features: short brown hair, green eyes, tall enough to have to lean over to get his ready-to-eat box, but not tall enough to impress anyone.

With his microwaved food and a plain looking can of energy drink in his hands, Yuki returns to his gaming station and glares at his chat with Nanami. As he finishes his meal, he pushes the keyboard to make space for the box, revealing a torn envelope underneath it. He grabs it, staring at the Afterlife Undreamt symbol on it. He knows its contents by heart, and as his thoughts wander off, pieces of text dance around his room.

„first 100 players

logged in every day

more than 5000 hrs playtime

more than 80% of the map explored

referred more than 10 new players“

Yuki opens his game photos folder and scrolls through all the sunset photos he took with Nanami. He opens back their chat and types:

„send ur invite 2 someone else

wish u luck

<3“

Yuki remains seated at his desk and puts on the game soundtrack, allowing himself to daydream about Nanami. Fair-haired Nanami laughing at his jokes. Holding Nanami's hand. Fiery red sunset with Nanami.

Yuki's smile fades as the soundtrack's piano notes go off-key.

Sunset photos with Nanami roll around Yuki's room like on a film reel. Nanami slowly disappears. It's only Yuki at sunset. Yuki at nighttime. Yuki by himself on every photo.

Yuki jerks back towards his computer, his headphones falling down on the floor. He clicks on his chat with Nanami. Under his last text it says:

„Seen 2 weeks ago.“

Yuki types:

„I miss u“, and hesitates, then adds:

„I will f–“ and the screen turns black, then returns to the login interface. Yuki enters his login information, but the message keeps returning:

"LOGIN UNAVAILABLE."

„It's over.“, Yuki mutters to himself.

His breathing fastens. He grabs his shirt where his heart is, thinking maybe that slows it down. He squeezes his stress ball with his other hand. Images of Nanami on the tree by herself, Yuki alone in the dark, words from the envelope all circling around him.

„your favourite fantasy open world action role-playing game: AFTERLIFE UNDREAMT“

Their final sunset photo freezes and Yuki inside it speaks:

„I will find you.“

Nanami smiles in response, believing him. The Yuki in his room opens the envelope and takes out a smaller piece of paper. Its backside reads:

"press anywhere on bare skin
warning: permanent"

On it is what seems to be a non-permanent sticker tattoo.

„This is so silly.“, Yuki deducts.

But what else is he to do?

He removes the safety layer, then firmly presses the tatoo on the side of his little finger. Yuki is not a tattoo person, even though he briefly admires his handywork as he's done.

Soon after, Yuki's head starts falling down as if he's falling asleep. His room gets blurry. Sunset photo on his computer screen gets blurry. Then he hits his head on his desk and falls on the floor, and as soon as he hits the floor, he wakes up. He rubs his hazel eyes and fixes his blue hair and his blue attire, then realizes where he is.

„No way! I got in!“

Yuki checks his little finger. No tattoo. He looks around. It seems he's at the last place he'd been to when he was online: near Nanami's and his tree. But it wasn't quite right.

The tree is at the same location, but a different, thicker and darker wood and differently shaped leaves. Grass is a different shade of green. That boulder which he did alchemy on is gone. In its place there is a huge, beautiful waterfall surrounded by yellow flowers he had never seen in the game.

„This is not Afterlife Undreamt!

Where am I?“