[SWAMP 3 – PART A]

Masaru awakens, to the serenade of nearby amphibians, in his little spot in the mud.

He leans up as he feels something peculiar on his legs, only to see a small army of frogs crawling along his pants.

They look over and stare at him.

He blinks at the frogs.

They blink back at him.

Then, all at once, they leap off in different directions, leaving him to his secluded spot with his briefcase.

He takes it up into his arms and takes a deep breath as he squeezes it with all his might.

No matter how brave he felt when the first bullet hit him, the image of The Stranger hovers over his mind like the waiting scythe of a grinning reaper.

Masaru tries to calm down enough to check his [RES], but he’s struggling. It’s like pulling a heavy rock deep out of marsh water: vague uncertainty until he finds it, then an effortful balance for as long as he can hold onto its slick surface.

After nearly a minute he gives it up. Holding his briefcase with one hand, he begins tromping out from the mud and up onto the dry path.

We died faster than ever that time… but we did learn something new… but they killed me so easily… but we figured out something new with The Knight’s place… but now we’re here…

It’s uneven thoughts, the kind of thoughts that doubt, and make way for bigger doubts.

Having only walked a few meters, he takes a seat against a tree, the squadron of dragonflies providing him a barrier of protection from the blood sucking menace of the mosquitos.

“I can’t do really do this, can I?” Masaru asks himself.

Sato was right. That bastard. This is just a stupid “leading on”. A joke. Whatever god placed us here cursed us to struggle to our last and just die, fresh and screaming every time…

He closes his eyes as a barrier of animal sounds envelops him. His breathing picks up as he struggles to keep air in his lungs.

Everything is so complicated, getting it wrong just one time kills me… kills her… it’s just not worth it…

…

…Maybe just moving on would be better after all… maybe if I just wasn’t here anymo-

Masaru cuts his thought halfway as another idea comes to mind.

…That’s what I was thinking when all of this happened, wasn’t it? That it “wasn’t worth it,” and that I just wanted to leave… go somewhere else forever…

Slowly, his breathing calms, and he opens his eyes, peering out into the endless golden mist of The Swamp.

“How am I supposed to do this?” Masaru asks himself out loud. “How do I plan ahead… concentrate… keep fighting, when just one mistake could get you shot and killed, or…”

He pushes away the thought of The Stranger: the shock, the horror, the immediate, brutal completion of its arrivals.

“How will I figure it out?” he asks. “It’s not a test of will… no… it’s not just a test of will… it’s a puzzle.”

His breathing picks up again, but this time it’s not from defeat or panic.

“It is a joke… and I just need to find the punchline,” he mutters to himself as he gets up to his feet, his gaze set on the dragonflies with a newfound source of appreciation.

As he starts off again down the path he thinks back to the words of his favorite NPC, Lunaire the Wanderer from the hit action RPG Shaded Spirits.

“Oh! Blasted one, look upon that Moon there. Isn’t it so lovely this night, even when plagued with such dreadful ilk as what lies within this keep?”

Masaru’s gaze sharpens down the path as his trot becomes a brave march forward, swinging his briefcase to and fro as his movements surge.

“Don’t you think that, on a light like this, some jolly cooperation would be most forthcoming? These foes must defeat us every time, but us, with our mark of the unresting, simply need to achieve victory but once!”

“Just once,” Masaru says, his pace picking up. He hurdles over tree roots like blades of grass. All of a sudden the world feels so small to him, like a diorama waiting to be folded up and put away into his briefcase.

“Just one time!” he shouts, practically bounding through the swamp as even the dragonflies peel away in surprise. His aching feet no longer bother him: there’s an energy deeper than his pain that’s giving him his power.

“JUST HAVE TO WIN JUST ONE DAMN TIME!”

He bursts through the trees out to see the lake.

Even that house, immortal and immaculate in its wickedness, dares not stare him back in his face.

With his arms outstretched in proclamation, he stands there gasping for breath and laughing all at once. He’s doing something incredible. He’s figuring something out, and it’s something that he’s sure his coworkers would have laughed at him for.

Genuine, raw, human emotion courses through him. It’s not something that can be fully shown on TV, or explained in a book, or imparted in a song, but it’s like a part of him that was asleep has woken up— a hidden piece of him has been found— a source of energy has been created once he realized that, despite everything: the commute to work, the long hours, the loud-mouth floor manager, his father’s constant belittlements… He’s capable of loving challenges, and loving the people he finds within those challenges.

This time, there’s no snideness, no wry and jaded naivete about how “screwed up” the world is supposed to be in his underdeveloped mind.

He’s not responsible for the world, arguably he’s not even responsible for the situation he’s found himself in, but Masaru realizes he’s responsible for the chance he’s been given to change it. Doing nothing is still a choice, he’s decided, and he’s not going to do nothing until he’s out of this mess with everyone seen safely on the other end.

That’s the core of it, Masaru realizes: he’s here for them now, even Sato.

“It’s okay, Valerie,” Masaru says with a grin as he peers out to the house on the lake. “You won’t have to grieve that way about anyone ever again,” he adds, imagining her leaping into his arms once he tells her.

“Uh… what?” Valerie asks.