The black cat is crouched down. He plays with a stuffed mouse in a cardboard box. The cat looks like Colonel, although this one has longer fur. Maybe it's his winter coat?

I'm an idiot. Why can't I just shut up?

I open my eyes in the waiting room. Like the other times, I am sitting in the chair, alone in the middle of the white-walled room.

I remember the sensations when I faced the paladin. It was incredible to be able to foresee each of his blows. It was as if I could anticipate his every move. I think about how I could avoid running out of energy in a prolonged fight, and I'm surprised to have that thought. I am an NPC, the blacksmith of Windfiled. Not an adventurer.

I hear noise again on the other side of the door with the faulty mandala. I get up and slowly approach. I put my ear close and concentrate. I hear two painting voices. From the timbre I would say that one of them is Gabriel's. His companion's is undoubtedly a female voice. Gabriel's panting intensifies at times until he stops abruptly. After a few seconds I hear someone get up and I separate myself from the door. When it opens, I see Gabriel in the other room with his torso exposed. Behind him is a dark-skinned woman. She is naked, her back to me, lying on her side on a bed. Two braids of white hair hang to one side of the mattress, and the tips of her two ears stick out from between her hair.

She is a dark elf.

Gabriel walks through the door and slams it shut. He has his coat and shirt in his hand. His look tells me he doesn't like that I have seen him with his partner.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me nervously as he puts on his shirt.

“I've been killed again,” I reply.

He looks at me and frowns. He puts on his coat and takes the tablet out of his pocket. He fiddles with the screen. I peek out a little on tiptoe and see how we reviews the footage recorded in the Game again. The video shows me stepping between the two players, and the paladin chopping my head off with his greatsword.

“Why did you intervene in the fight between the players?”

“They were going to kill the boy again. I felt sorry for him.”

“Your mission in the Game is not to sympathize with the players.”

“I didn't think it was fair. He's just a kid, and the paladin was going to crush him. He's a bully, and I can't stand bullies.”

“Isaac, you've got to control yourself more. You can't lose your role like that. Remember to follow your contract,” he says as he writes something on his tablet.

“What contract? I don't remember signing any contracts. I just remember waking up here, disoriented.”

“Calm down, Isaac,” he says. “It's all right. Little by little everything will become clear in your mind. You just have to be patient.

As if it's that easy. I'm starting to get tired. Tired of the Game, tired of the players. I just want to be able to be at home with my cats and be left alone.

I hit the piece of metal, again and again. I attend to the players. I buy the weapons and armor they offer me, the trophies from their missions. I give a gold coin to each player who brings me ten logs. I don't think. I just do my job. I just want time to pass, to end this repetitive nightmare that never ends. I'm dying to get out of that damn Game, to be free. To be at home petting my cats.

“Hi,” I'm startled by a player's booming voice. I didn't see him coming, focused as I was on hitting the metal. I raise my head. It's Marcel.

I pretend I haven't heard him and keep hammering.

“I just wanted to thank you for intervening yesterday. You didn't have to.”

One blow. And another. And another one.

“It was awesome to watch you fight that idiot Lance. You know he's a tournament pro? He came first in the Citadel Championship last year. And there you were, dodging his blows like it was nothing, at breakneck speed.”

I've had nine thousand two hundred forty-eight hammer blows since this morning.

I feel like Marcel is still standing there. He looks at me with his green eyes as I pound the hunk of metal.

“Do you need more logs?” he asks me.

I stow the hammer in my leather apron and turn around.

“Boy, this isn't real. The forge fire doesn't need wood. It's just a mission, so you can earn a gold coin, and entertain yourself with something absurd.”

He stands still and looks at me with his mouth open.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“It's nothing. If you want, you can keep bringing the logs.”

The temple bell rings, marking the end of my day. I take off my apron and go for my daily walk. Marcel follows me.

I walk down the main street. The other NPCs greet me as I pass, as if they know me. The girl with the herbs, the boy who always goes fishing. I don't answer them. I'm sick of pretending.

God, how I hate that Game.

Marcel follows me and trots around me like a fly.

“Boy, do you mind stopping circling? You're making me dizzy.”

The dwarf stands still.

“Isaac, I can call you Isaac, right?” he says in a high-pitched voice. “Can I ask you a question, why do you call me ‘boy’?”

“From the voice you have, I'd say that, in the real world, outside of the Game, you are not much of an adult,” I reply.

“This is so weird,” he says, frowning. “NPCs aren't supposed to know this is a game.”

“Really?” Just what I was missing, now a boy lecturing me in the body of a dwarf with a red mustache.

“Yes,” he says. “It says so in the instructions. I've checked several times. It doesn't say anything in internet forums either. You shouldn't be able to know those things. It has to be a programming error or something.”

“Wow,” I say. “Then it will be that I am broken, right? I am a bug. Thank you very much.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. It's just weird.”

“Well, welcome to my world of weird.”

He stands in place, saying nothing.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I've had a bad day, that's all. Look, I'm going to take a walk to the square. If you want, you can come with me. By my side, without circling around me.”

We walk in silence. Marcel walks beside me and no longer circles around me, which is an improvement. We reach the square. I sit on one of the end stone benches, facing the well in front of the temple. Marcel sits next to me. His red boots are suspended in the air, not touching the ground.

“Don't you have anything better to do than come sit with an NPC on a bench in the square?” I say to him. “Missions, adventures, you know, those things that you players do.”

“Not really,” he says. “My dad won't let me do missions in dungeons. He says violence isn't good. He's a preacher, you know, so I can only do side quests: washing the dishes at the inn, picking flowers from the garden for the florist, or looking for worms for the boy who wants to go fishing. The logs thing is almost the most fun. At least then I can get out of town.”

“Well, what a bummer, isn't it?” I say, “Why are you spending all day in the Game if it's so boring?”

He ducks his head. It seems I have touched on a personal issue.

“I'm sorry,” I say, “I didn't mean to pry into your life.”

“No, it's okay,” he says, lowering his head. “It's nothing. I was in a car accident three years ago. My mother was driving, and there was a lot of snow falling. She lost control on a curve, and we went down a ravine. The car was upside down, with the doors stuck, and it was still snowing.

“Gee, I'm sorry,” I say.

“When the search party found us several hours later, I hadn't heard my mother breathing for a long time. She froze to death. I was lucky and only lost both legs, at thigh level. Since then, I hardly leave the house, only on Sundays, when my father takes me to church. In the Game I am free to walk and run as much as I want. And even though my father doesn't allow me to do many things, it is better than nothing.”

We are silent. The herb girl has come to fetch a bucket of water from the stone well. It is very narrow, the bucket the girl lowers to fill it barely fits. She drops it and lifts it up, full to the brim. She has to hold it with both hands to carry it. Before leaving, she turns, picks up a stone from the ground and drops it into the well. After a moment I hear the stone hitting the water.

“If you could make one wish, whatever it was, what would you wish for?” asks Marcel.

“To be free,” I don't hesitate for a moment.

“Don't you feel free, here in the Game?”

“It's easy for you players,” I tell him. “But I can't go anywhere. Every day the same thing, with the hammer, the missions, … No offense but dealing with players isn't exactly the most pleasant thing in the world. I feel like I'm part of a set that exists only for the players to do what they want. My life isn't worth anything. Not for them or anyone else.”

“Wow, I hadn't thought about that.” Marcel bends down and picks up a stone. He shows it to me, smiles, and tosses it through the air toward the well. It bounces off the edge and falls to the ground.

“Hey,” I say to change the subject, “and haven't you thought about getting prosthetics legs?”

“Like it's that easy. It takes a lot of money for that. Dad's been trying to save from parishioner donations for years, but we still don't have a tenth of it.”

“Well, who knows,” I say. “With patience, I'm sure in a few more years you'll be able to raise the money.”

“You know?” he says. “There is a mission that involves of defeating an ice dragon that lives on top of a mountain. The mission is almost impossible, no one has managed to beat it yet, not even the best players. They say that if you beat that mission, you can upgrade a feature of your avatar, and if you select money as a feature, some say they give you a million coins. A million! Sometimes I dream that I get that money here, in the Game, that I face the ice dragon and defeat it. I imagine my father when I tell him I got the money for the prosthetics.”

I pick up a stone and throw it. In my head I trace the trajectory and in some way that I don't understand I calculate the angle and the exact force with which I should throw a stone of that size so that it falls into the hole. The stone falls without touching the walls and the sound of water is heard.

“Wow, great aim,” Marcel says. “That wasn't an easy shot.”

“Yeah? I don't know. I guess it was luck.”

We chat until it starts to get dark, and it is time for me to go back. I tell him about my cats, he tells me that in real life he has a cat. She's gray tabby, her name is Fluff, and someday he'll show me a photo.

Marcel says goodbye when we arrive at the forge, he tells me that he is going to take the opportunity to go to the forest for more firewood. There are traditions that don't change. I cross the fence, pick up my apron from the ground, and enter the house.

The conversation with Marcel has relieved some of my stress, so I end the day a little more cheerful. Deep down, despite his quickness to set everyone on fire with fireballs, he seems like a nice guy. If all players were the same, the Game would be a somewhat better place. Adding some cats, things could be better too.

I can't help but remember the dark elf I saw in the waiting room. Is she another NPC, will she be like the rest of the NPCs in Windfield, lifeless, or will she be like me? I wonder if maybe, if I talked to her, I could share experiences, or if she could help me understand what's going on in my head.

I hear a knock at the door. I look out and see Lance, the paladin.

“Welcome, adventurer. How can I help you?” I say.

The paladin asks me for the mission to retrieve the medallion from the bandits during the night, and I assign it to him. He doesn’t stop any longer, he turns and walks away. After two steps he stops, and without turning around I hear him say:

“I'm sorry for my attitude yesterday. I got carried away. I had no right to attack you. It won't happen again.”

I am speechless. I see him take a deep breath and walk away.