Thick black fog filled the air, stinging my eyeballs. Two armies, armed to the teeth prepared for battle as the fires from the previous battle raged on.

My team and I stood by the side and watched as the disaster we started was snowballing into a cataclysm threatening to end the world. No, it is not right for me to drag my team into this. I was the one who was the cause of this.

“What are you thinking?” my love asked.

I tried to maintain an expressionless face, as my eyes were fixed on the burning arena before us. “What have I done?”

“This is not your fault. This is not any of our fault. It was inevitable,” she said.

It was true. Tensions between the factions were at an all-time high and all it took was one man to break the dam and give the gods a reason to battle.

“No. I can’t use that as an excuse and just stand by and watch,” I said.

“If you are going in. We are coming with you,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know the answer to that.

“We are in this together,” she said.

I couldn’t help but shed a tear which I wiped away instantly. “Then let’s go.”

This was going to be the end of the journey for us. A journey that began decades ago, in another world, a very different world.

***

There is no feeling quite like reaching the final boss of a game that you spent the last hundred hours immersed in.

My character stepped through the portal, leading him down into the final room of the dungeon. Before him stood the shadow of a legendary warrior, Nitral, who had lost it all when he succumbed to the corruption.

Nitral pulled out his sword and his health bar appeared onscreen. 107k. Geez! This thing is a monster.

I paused the game and quickly navigated through the menu looking for his stats.

Well, he is the final boss after all. I unpaused the game as I wiggled in my place, preparing myself for the fight.

The floor of the room was coated black, probably of dried blood from the innumerable corpses littered throughout the room. All of them must have fallen to him and his gargantuan blade.

He walked towards me, intimidatingly. Before lifting his sword high up. There was a pause in his action, purposefully done, which gave me time to hit the dodge button. I stepped sideways, away from the arc of the blade, but Nitral continued the swing by spinning around. Like in a dance, the blade began to strike me relentlessly. I was forced to switch to parrying it, something I was uncomfortable with.

To escape from this, I was rolled away, trying to gain some distance. In that time, Nitral lunged forward and charged towards me like a knight on a horseback. By the time I recovered from the roll, he struck me and took a good chunk of my health with him.

Fuck! This is going to take a while!

Dodge, parry, swing, swing, swing, dodge, and dodge. Soon, I found myself the rhythm of the battle. But just as I was getting comfortable, the time gap of each opening began to reduce.

Soon, I found myself frantically trying to get back into the rhythm but Nitral merciless beatdown continued.

There was still half his health left when he dropped his armor, revealing his fucked-up face underneath the helmet. I knew right away that his speed was only going to increase, but I began to wonder if his defense was lowered.

As he charged towards me, I cast a shockwave spell. It did little to hinder his attack but gave me a split-second window to dodge the attack just as it hit me. I was now behind him, I immediately swung my sword at him, creating a sizable dent in his health bar.

Alright. New rhythm. I needed to time my stun attacks and for the most part, I managed to do so, however, every time I failed, I found myself inching towards a retry.

Slowly but surely, I chipped away at his health bar until I locked into the finishing animation and bringing an end to the battle.

Victory!

***

My arms were stiff as cardboard and my back ached. I was hunched over, engrossed in the game so much that I had lost track of time completely.

The game was finally over. A hundred and twenty-two hours of playtime finally concluded. It left me with great joy on seeing the bastard burn, but also sadness that I was back in reality as well.

Speaking of which, what was I doing before this? I was sitting up straight on the mattress I called bed with nothing but a blanket over me. I looked to my left and saw Urvashi, huddled up and deep in sleep.

Oh yeah. It was Friday night and Urvashi and I had drowned several bottles of beer before getting it on.

Who is Urvashi you ask?

Hmm... how do I explain this? She is my... mate? No. Friend? I guess... It is complicated. When she and I first met it was to put it in less vulgar terms, transactional. A forty-three-year-old desperate for money and I had a lot to burn. That was two years ago. A lot has changed since then.

And now, it was going to change even more. In a way neither of us expected nor wanted, but something both would welcome with open arms.