“She hides inside the darkness
Wants to keep her promise
Scatter, scatter
Because Dana’s come to play.”

After drying my tears, I told Daddy to lay back down in the bed. Until I was able to finish making him better, I didn’t want him walking around. It felt like it’d hurt too much, because he’s not really Daddy. Not yet.

Of course, I couldn’t have two of him laying there! That’d be silly. So, I opened up another hole to the black space, but this time I made it bigger. Then I picked his body up and threw it in! He was a lot lighter than I thought he’d be! Or maybe I was just stronger?

Either way, I went ahead and took the chance to eat up some of the smoke that was coming through, since it felt like I was starting to get hungry again. Once I felt my head starting to ache, I stopped. “It still tastes bad…” I muttered to myself, before shaking my head and closing the hole to the black space.

For a moment, I thought I heard something that sounded like distant rumbling as the hole closed, but I was sure that was just the body hitting the ground on the other side. Wait, was there ground on the other side? Now that I thought about it, I didn’t remember actually having my feet touch anything while I was in there… I’d have to check later!

“I’ll make you all better soon, Daddy. Just wait.” I told him as I looked at the bed, before heading downstairs to spend some more time in his lab. Now that he was sleeping, I couldn’t get in trouble for reading his books! I’m sure that one of them has to explain what went wrong.

As I was reading, I heard a faint noise from behind me, like someone stepping on the wooden floor. My eyes opened wide, and I turned around, hoping to find Daddy there. Maybe it just took a little bit for him to finish waking up!

Instead, there was a young elven woman I had never met. Her golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a white dress. I know I didn’t hear any of the doors open, and it almost seemed like she was part of the smoke. But there was no smoke around her… it just kind of felt the same?

“Who are you?” I asked her, closing the book I was reading and hiding it behind myself. I had seen the almost-smoke people before. They came and took dead people away. But nobody was dead here! There was just me, and Daddy sleeping upstairs!

“You can see me?” Her eyes widened in surprise, and she looked around to make sure I was looking at her.

“Of course I can see you! Now go away!” I huffed as I spoke, placing my hands on my hips. “There’s nobody here for you to take!”

“No, no, that can’t be right. I felt…” She muttered to herself, before her eyes focused on me. “Little girl, are you perhaps a summoner?”

“What’s that?” I blinked in confusion, thinking that the term sounded familiar. Thinking back, it had been mentioned in several of Daddy’s books. Summoners were people who made aeons. “Oh! Yeah, I do that.” I nodded quickly, drawing a sigh from the almost-smoke lady.

“I see… Sorry to bother you. I felt a surge of spiritual energy here, and thought someone might need help crossing over. Next time, please clean up the residual energy, okay?” She asked with a polite smile… though I didn’t know what that meant!

“I… uhm… okay?” I muttered, not sure what to say. She was using words like Daddy wrote in his books. Wait, maybe she was like him! Maybe… “Are you my mommy?” I asked with hopeful eyes, once again catching the woman by surprise.

After a moment, the almost-smoke lady started to look sad, and she shook her head. “No, I don’t think I am. I never had a daughter when I was alive. But I’m sure that your mother’s proud of you, wherever she is.” After she said that, she turned and took a step away from me, her body vanishing into a thin smoke that faded away in the air.

Wait, when she was alive? So she’s dead… maybe I can make her better, too? I thought to myself, nodding my head happily. She seemed like a nice lady, so I should do my best to help her! Who knows, I might even figure out why Daddy didn’t fully wake up!

I turned around and started studying the book again, a small smile on my face. I kept reading through his books, trying to figure out what those harder words meant until I noticed the room starting to brighten. I had spent all night reading, and lost track of the time.

Kicking off of the chair, I laughed and ran outside, ready to take a break and play with the kids that lived nearby. There was this one woman I knew back when Daddy first made me better, she was a little girl, but now she was big and had a little girl of her own! She was a mommy!

I ran up to their home, and knocked against their door, smiling wide. It took a little bit for the door to open, before I could see the familiar face of my friend. She had long black hair that was tied up in a ponytail back behind her cat ears, and her eyes were this really pretty shade of red.

“Well, hello there Dana.” She said with a nice smile. “Are you here to play with Jess again?”

“Yup!” I nodded quickly. “Can she come out and play?”

“Well, we’re just about to sit down for breakfast. So she’ll be a few minutes, but I’ll let her know that you’re here. Unless you’d like to join us?”

I had gotten used to people inviting me over to eat with them over the years, so I simply shook my head. “No thanks, I already ate. I can wait out here for her!” Looking up at the sky, it didn’t seem like it would storm any time soon, so there was no problem with me waiting for a little bit to play!

She nodded her head, gently closing the door as I turned around and began skipping back and forth in front of their house, humming a little tune to myself. It was sad that the other races all grew up so fast, and couldn’t enjoy being a kid longer, but at least that meant that they had more kids to play with!

I couldn’t be sure just how long it took for the door to open again, but eventually a smaller girl came running out of the house to play with me. Jess really looked just like her mother, with the same black hair and red eyes. Sometimes, I even got the two of them confused when I forgot that her mom was all grown up already!

“Come on, Jess! Let’s go play in the woods!” I smiled to her, knowing that the woods should be safe this time of day. The nice guards did regular patrols to make sure that there weren’t any scare monsters lurking nearby. So in the mornings, the woods made a great place to play! The only problem was getting past the checkpoint…

Thankfully, Daddy had taught me how to do that a long time ago! I kept getting bored because I couldn’t head out to play, so he taught me how to make the guards not use those crystals to check me!

Jess nodded her head with a bright smile, and we ran out towards the city gates. When we got to the guards, I sent out a little bit of smoke from my body towards them. Apparently, normal people couldn’t really see the smoke without really looking for it. So, when the smoke touched them, I told them to ignore myself and Jess!

Like that, the two of us were able to just run on past without the guards ever noticing us! We waved as we ran along the side of the road to all of the passing carts and travelers from the nearby cities. “So, what are we going to play today, Dana?” Jess asked excitedly, the large forest full of thick trees coming into view.

“Hmm… we could play Ninja’s Shadow!” I suggested, making her eyes open wide, her head nodding up and down in agreement. “I get to be the first ninja!” I loved being the ninja, I almost never got caught!

In Ninja’s Shadow, there was a single ninja. The ninja had to sneak up behind the other players and tag them before they were seen. Whichever player saw the ninja first before being tagged would become the new ninja! Of course, when it was just the two of us, we just took turns.

Jess huffed a bit that she couldn’t go first, but I grinned, kicking off the ground heavily. My body jumped waaay up to grab a branch, which I dangled from for a moment. “Remember, no peeking!”

Jess stared up at me for a moment, before nodding her head. She closed her eyes and began counting, her cute ears twitching now and again as I moved, moving around the tree and jumping over to a different branch. I only had twenty seconds to move out of her line of sight, before it was time for her to start looking for me.

Thankfully, I was really familiar with the trees here! I knew the best ones for hiding. By the time she called out that she was seeking, I had already climbed down another tree a little bit away from her.

Of course, Jess was pretty familiar with this area too, so she began walking towards me. I took a deep breath and held it, because her ears were really sensitive! Whenever she caught me, it was always because she had heard me!

I could hear the leaves and twigs snapping as she walked closer, and began to slowly make my way around the tree to come up behind her, making sure that I didn’t step on any of those dry leaves. By the time I had circled the tree, she was looking back and forth with a confused expression.

“I thought I heard her over here…” She muttered to herself. I knew it!

I smiled happily, tiptoeing my way behind her as she continued to walk. Eventually, it looked like she was about to turn around to check a different direction, so I jumped forward, lightly slapping my hand against her back. “Got your shadow!”

She let out a little scream of surprise before laughing, falling back on her butt. “Okay, okay. My turn, though!”

I nodded my head, closing and covering my eyes while she scrambled to her feet and took off running. “One, two, three…”

Slowly, I counted, making sure to give her plenty of time to hide. That is, until I heard a scared cry from the direction she ran. Afraid she had gotten hurt, I stopped counting and ran over. When I got there, I found Jess laying on the ground, her body limp. Her health bar above her head was slowly falling away.

Down by her leg, I saw this tiny little green spider crawling away, and realized that she had gotten bit. Oh no! There was no way we’d make it back to town in time for her to get medicine.

I began to cry, dropping to my knees next to Jess. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” If I had known that this would happen, I wouldn’t have suggested that we come to the woods to play. Those spiders almost never attack people!

But… wait. I could save her. Jess didn’t have to die. I choked back a breath, wiping away my tears. “It’s okay, Jess… I’ll fix it. I’m going to make you better.”