My sleep was rudely interrupted by the trilling of the ingame phone application. In the process of wriggling around trying to find the damn button to accept the call, my arm happened to brush soft hair and softer skin, and suddenly I was very awake. Just my luck that my arm also found the accept call button, and my bleary eyes picked out my sister’s cheerful face appearing on screen.

She started to speak normally, then quickly switched to a whisper for some reason, “Hey Tami! How are— Oh… is now not a good time?”

“What do you mean?” I grumbled softly, trying to figure out why my chest felt really heavy all of a sudden.

“Because there’s a cute girl lying on top of you, that’s why,” she whispered, pointing down.

Right… the soft skin. I looked down and found Aurora laying haphazardly across me, her limbs flung in all directions and her bedroll only covering one leg. Jeez girl, you can stop fighting when you sleep. No need to thrash around in your dreams too! My heart began to ache in a way I really didn’t want to address as I watched the sleeping girl drool on my chest. She was so cute. I took a deep breath to try to calm my heartbeat and fluttery stomach, then looked back up to Taylor.

“Ah, no I think we’re fine. She’s still asleep,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Are you sure…?” Taylor asked dubiously, “You didn’t like… you know?”

Her awkwardness caused a giggle to spring unbidden from my mouth and I struggled to keep it quiet as I replied, “Is every conversation between us going to be about sex now? No I think she just traveled in her sleep. She’s one of the other damage dealers in my party.”

“She’s cute. Do you know if she likes girls?” Taylor asked, smiling knowingly at me.

Taking a deep breath and feeling that indescribable feeling in my chest swell along with it, I could only nod mutely.

“Oh no! You’re not…? Already?” she asked, a grin spreading across her face.

“Next question,” I grumbled, perhaps a little too loudly.

Aurora stirred slightly when I raised my voice and her sleepy breathing quieted a bit, but it didn’t look like she’d woken up. Looking down at her I was struggling with the urge to gently brush my fingers through her hair. She was so beautiful.

“Alright, well Mum and Dad are asking you to call again… should I tell them you’re busy?” she asked cautiously.

“Nah I’ll call them on the walk into the Bleaklands,” I sighed, looking down again at the sleeping girl on my chest. She really had just flailed wildly in her sleep. One arm was thrown over me, while the other was trapped awkwardly underneath her.

“Okay cool… that’s all I had to say. Uh, you going good otherwise? How’s your leveling going?” she asked.

“Oh! I haven’t even checked!” I exclaimed, forgetting to stay quiet for a second and causing Aurora to stir again.

“Wow. That’s just typical to be honest. I shouldn’t have expected Tami the Hot Mess to remember anything,” she laughed.

“Hold on, let me look at it now,” I said, bringing up the menu and checking, “Alright, I’m level three and halfway to level four already. Wow I didn’t expect that. I guess Aurora and I did kill some dudes last night. They probably counted for a lot.”

“You killed some players? What happened?” my sister asked, frowning angrily, “Who attacked you. Do you know their names?”

I grinned at my sister’s protective nature and waved her off, “Nah, it's fine. Just some random shady dudes who tried to jump us. We handled them.”

“Alright, if you say so,” she said, not sounding very convinced but forcing herself to calm, “Alright so before you forget, do your damn level up please.”

“Right right,” I sighed, going through and assigning some points to things. I think I went for Endurance and Speed.

As for spending my points in the ability trees, I was about to slap some more points down into the Unarmed tree when I noticed a node in the contact magic tree. It was labelled, Explosions. I stared at it for a moment as my mind ran ahead of me. 

I needed it.

As soon as it was mine, I went into my abilities and got to work on a new one. I copied the stun strike ability and renamed it to Explosive Punch. I placed the newly purchased node in the slot, replacing the stun one and hit confirm. The ability was deemed valid by the overlord AI or whatever, and I now had another ability. One that would keep me clean of gross undead bits, while splattering my teammates with it!

“Alright I did it. I made a new ability too. It makes the things I punch explode!” I said, unable to stop a giggle from bubbling forth again.

“Oh my god, you’re… wow. Cute, alright you have fun, I’m going to jump out, I have a raid to do,” Taylor said, smiling and cutting the call as voices approached on her end.

That was a bit abrupt sister, but alright. She was being very attentive at the moment, it was nice compared to how things had been recently. I loved my twin dearly but we had neglected each other the last few years as she became a high profile streamer and I spent a lot of time with Kristina. I was willing to bet she had been very happy when I was dumped, at least below the surface. Kristina and her hadn’t hated each other, but things had always been cold between them.

“So who was that?” Aurora asked quietly from my chest.

Her eyes were open now, looking sleepily up at me. That adorable just woken up look caused my heart to swell with unwanted feelings again.

“Uh, my sister,” I mumbled, laying back so I wasn’t looking into her entrancing eyes.

Shifting off my chest and returning to where she had started the night, she rolled onto her side and faced me, “Oh, nice that she calls… So Um… sorry about that by the way, the sleeping on you. I knew it would happen too. I’m a bit of a mess when I’m sleeping.”

I could see her trying to hide her embarrassment, but I was better at reading her than she was at hiding it. I wanted so badly to tease her about it, maybe get a blush or two out of her, but in the end I thought better of it. Best to let things chill out between us for a bit.

“It’s no problem. I’m just glad you ended up on me instead of outside the wards or something,” I smiled reassuringly.

“Thanks,” she laughed, “It’s been a problem my whole life.”

Absently I found my eyes following the curve of her jaw as I asked, “How come? Nightmares?”

Her smile fell a little as she shrugged noncommittally.

“Hey no problem if you don’t want to talk about it,” I smiled, “I’ve had a problem for a while now that’s been bugging me, but I’m not really keen to face it so I get you about not wanting to go into details.”

She gave me a little nod, then huddled back into her bedroll so that only her eyes were peeking above the fur. Cute. I lay back into my own and tried to fight the warring emotions that were rising inside me. Aurora was great. I enjoyed the hell out of both her tongue and her company, and I could feel my heart responding to that. Problem was… It had been less than a week since my ex broke up with me, and I was simultaneously feeling a lot of hurt that was only barely being kept at bay by the excitement of the game.

To make matters worse, everyone knew that pursuing feelings that developed in VR had a high chance of failing. The main problem was that people got used to seeing and hearing one voice in VR for the person they had developed feelings for, only to meet them in real life and find that they were entirely different on the outside. They called it failing at the Translation to Reality.

By the time the others woke up, I was feeling particularly glum about everything and in no mood to talk. Getting ready to leave after a quick breakfast of the last of my jerky was easy. We all simply returned out bedrolls to our inventories and that was it. Well, except for Xethu, who carefully pulled all the pins out of the ground.

So it was that we left the Bleaklands Camp. Everyone else seemed excited to be getting to the meat of the journey, while I was battling my own inner turmoil over my feelings for both Kristina and Aurora. I was honestly a little mad at myself right now. It had been fun to flirt and make out with and get fucked by her, but now that we were getting to know one another, my heart was discovering that our chemistry went beyond sexual. Damn.

About ten minutes into our trek towards the Bleaklands proper, Aurora sidled up to me and nudged me with a shoulder.

“You alright?” she asked with concern.

It took me a moment to pull myself out of my thoughts, and so I turned to her with a bit of a startled expression, “What?”

“You look down. It almost feels like bad luck for us to go into combat while the happy-go-lucky Tami is feeling down,” she said, smiling with slight uncertainly.

Her concern for me made my current blooming feelings for her just that much worse, but how can you be upset with someone when the feelings they instilled within you were just so damn pleasant? It was like getting upset with someone for giving you too much chocolate.

"Um. That's kind of flattering," I said managing a smile for her.

"That's good, cos I mean it! You're pretty damn cool, so it's almost a failing of the universe if you get upset," she winked cheekily.

Oh, she was not helping my problems at all! I struggled with my heart for a moment, trying to hold the damn thing down so it wouldn't do a jig in my ribcage, but it was no use. I felt a rare blush tickle my cheeks, but I did my best to pretend it wasn't happening.

“Thanks,” I sighed and tried to downplay the importance of what I was feeling, “Sadly the universe is failing me I guess. Just real life problems looming though, nothing like, world ending or anything.”

“Well… still. You seem sad, so like, I’m here I guess?” she said, then winced, “Sorry, I’m bad at this. I’m the type of chick who sat in the back of the classroom and glared at people so… yeah I’m probably fucking this up.”

Despite my inner turmoil I found myself smiling at her genuine attempt to cheer me up. It did feel good to know she at least cared enough to see me happy. That was pretty cool.

“It’s working,” I said, smiling gratefully at her.

“That’s good!” she laughed with relief, “Don’t want to make things awkward or anything.”

Not kissing me made things awkward.

No that wasn’t fair. I’m not sure how to feel about kissing her now. Even if I really want to… Aw shit no not again.

Seeing my smile waver as my mind tried to dive back into the spiral, her eyes widened a little with worry. “Oh crap! Sorry! I didn’t mean like…”

“Shush, Rora, you’re good,” I said, placating her again.

Chuckling with just a hint of nervousness she said, “Oh cool because like, social interaction sucks. Sign me the fuck up for being a hermit in the woods with like thirty cats or something because— wait, Rora?”

Giving an amused snort I nodded, “Yeah, Rora. Short for Aurora because saying the whole thing is a bit mouthy. Is that okay?”

“Oh uh, yeah it’s fine. Cool. Rora…” she giggled, “I um, have a name that you can’t really turn into a nickname in real life so that’s a bit new for me…”

Gosh, she was being very strange right now. She was normally so calm and cocky and maybe a little bit of a bitch, but she was being downright bubbly right now.

“Thanks for cheering me up Rora,” I said, genuinely grateful at her goofy intervention, “I should hang back now and make a call… but I’ll be right back okay?”

“Oh. Yes, that’s fine. Good luck with the call!” she said awkwardly again. Gosh Rora, calm down!

I slipped back about twenty meters and began to brace myself. What was I even going to tell them? I mean, they played games like this too so they would somewhat understand… but still.

Taking a deep breath, I navigated through the menus until I found the outside calls feature, and then selected my Mother from my contacts. Thankfully I would at least be calling from my account, so she would know it was me.

The call rang for a few beats before it was picked up, and I was greeted with a video window showing my parent’s kitchen, where my Mother was preparing a meal.

“Hello?” she asked, staring out over the counter at me with confusion, “Terry?”

“Uh yeah,” I said sheepishly, “It’s me. I’m playing Cora right now so… you’re looking at my avatar.”

She seemed to search my features like she was a machine analysing me down to the molecular level. I found myself staring at her in turn, noticing the subtle similarities between my character and my mother. It was uncanny, I definitely looked like her daughter.

“I see,” she murmured, “You’re still using that old pod we bought you then?”

“Oh nah, Taylor bought me one of the really new ones! It’s so great! It feels completely real! I’m loving it so far, as well as the game!” I said, unable to stop my excitement from shining through.

Before Mum could reply, Dad came into view and asked, “Who’s this?”

“It’s Terry. He’s been playing that new game that Taylor was talking about. The call is coming from inside the game,” she explained.

“I see, still using the old pod then? Can’t imagine wandering around in a woman’s body in a new one. Nothing against women’s bodies of course,” he laughed, brushing a hand through Mum’s hair. “But I’d rather admire from outside, rather than inside.”

“Uh… no,” I said awkwardly, and repeated what I’d told Mum, “Taylor bought me one of the new high end pods…”

“Oh,” Dad said, trailing off and turning to make some sort of significant eye contact with my mum.

They stared into each other’s faces for a moment, looking a little worried before they turned back.

“Dear, I’m so glad you’re enjoying yourself. Please call us if you need help with anything, anything at all and we’ll help out okay?” she told me earnestly. Wow what was with my parents right now?

“Yes, you’re our child and we care very deeply about you. Please let us know if you need anything at all,” Dad said in agreement.

They were both looking at me like I was about to tell them I had signed up for the army or something, which was notorious for having an extremely high casualty rate these days.

“Riiight,” I said cautiously, “Well yeah. I’m enjoying the game. I’ve made some cool friends ingame. Class was going well last week too.”

Mum nodded, seeming to ease a bit, although she still had a hand on Dad’s arm like she needed the support, “And how are you after… the break up?”

With this question I couldn’t stop a flush from warming my cheeks as I thought of how Aurora had been with her face between my legs, “Good. Pretty good. Just… distracting myself in the game.”

Mum nodded approvingly, seeming to miss my embarrassment at dodging the actual truth of what I had been up to, but Dad definitely picked up on it. I saw his mouth thin out and tilt up at the corners, while his gaze flicked awkwardly to the side. It was his tell tale ‘I’m trying to suppress a laugh’ look that we in the family all knew so well.

“What? What’s funny?” Mum asked him when she noticed.

“Nothing dear, I’ll explain later. Anyway, Terry, I hope you have a… good time playing. Stay safe please. Definitely don’t do anything I would do,” he said hurriedly.

I was grinning now as I watched my Dad somehow looking both amused and uncomfortable, “Sure thing, Dad! Love you both!”

“Call us again soon!” Mum exclaimed as I cut the call.

That was a laugh, wow. Dad certainly knew what I was up to, but then again from what I had heard, he’d been around a bit back in his day too. Mum on the other had took a little time to catch up sometimes with the more raunchy conversation topics we had. She was cute, and had always been a little innocent. The way they had gotten together was incredibly cute too.

Back in the day, my Dad had been at a club in town, ready to mingle and impress the girls, when he’d seen my Mum. She’d been dragged there by her more outgoing friends, and was obviously uncomfortable with the whole idea. Dad had sidled up to her and started to talk to her. Not chat her up or anything, just hang out. They ended up exchanging numbers and a few dates later they were happily in a relationship.

Smiling at my parents, I trotted back up next to Rora and gave her a happy smile to let her know I was all good. Her eyes sparkled with a return smile, and we carried on in companionable silence. 

The Bleaklands began to loom ahead of us now, the craggy peaks of the low mountains looking dark and foreboding. Low gnarled trees dotted the slopes, enough of them that creatures could potentially hide behind, but too few to really call it a forest. The scene reminded me of a farm my parents once took us to in New Zealand where our relatives lived. It was less than an hour before we crossed what was considered the border of the Bleaklands, and it was pretty apparent why it was considered that.

There was an aura of tension in the air that began to rise and catch at us like thorns on a bramble as we moved forward. For a moment, I thought I heard the beat of wings in the sky above us, but when I looked up I saw nothing. This place was creepy as fuck.

“Tami, Aurora, can you move to the sides a little and keep your eyes out? I’d like to use you as scouts if that’s alright?” Grerum asked, turning back to us.

We both nodded and did as he’d asked, ranging out about thirty meters forward and to either side. I was alert and excited now, I was so keen to explode some zombie sheep or whatever. We almost immediately ran into a problem however when the mists seemed to rise up out of the ground to block our visibility.

“I’m moving closer to the group!” Rora called as I began to lose sight of her.

“Me too! We need to stay in visual range,” I replied, following her advice.

I was turning to head back inwards when I heard a muffled cry from Rora’s location, and I felt my heart hit my throat. Taking a running leap, I launched myself into the air trying for as much height as possible. It was the first time I’d tried to fully fly, and my heart was beating wildly as my wings unfurled to their full length. When I felt the air catch under them, and suddenly I was gliding through the air, I couldn’t help a little whoop of excitement.

Not far below me, Rora came into view, and I dove hard to reach her. She was being swarmed by what looked like wolves, except their flesh was decaying and hanging free in many places. They smelled awful as well, and I had to fight my gag reflex as I crashed down on top of one. Moments before I hit with my foot extended, I activated my new ability, causing a small but forceful detonation to blow chunks off the creature.

“Rora, you okay?” I asked urgently, already driving another explosive fist into my prey.

“Yeah fine,” she growled, pointing her blade at another charging wolf and unleashing a burst of crackling orange energy.

The wolf found itself wrapped in vines made of pure flame, and it struggled as it was pulled against the ground until it was a wreck of crushed and burning flesh. I watched in awe as another wolf leapt out of the mist and all at once Rora erupted in flame. Her hair, which had just looked like flame previously, was now actual fire, roaring out of her head spitting and crackling angrily, while her eyes turned to glowing orange coals.

She whipped a hand in the direction of the new attacker and a torrent of fire engulfed it, tearing through flesh and sinew like it was tissue paper. Our work wasn’t done with her sudden display of power though, and soon we were both standing back to back as hordes of decaying forest creatures threw themselves at us.

“Watch out for my hair!” she called at one point as her flaming locks came close to hitting me.

“Energy affinity! I’ll be fine!” I grinned back, taking out a charging deer with an exploding uppercut that sent everything that had once been its head splattering into the sky.

“Oh, okay. Demon, right… I guess that makes sense,” she laughed, punting an undead rabbit into the air and torching it with a burst of flame.

“We should get back to the others, I don’t think they will be able to hold out for long without two of their damage dealers,” I grunted, pushing the gnashing teeth of another wolf away from my face.

“Right!” she agreed, “We clear a path? Do you remember where they were?”

I winced, making apprehensive eye contact with her, “No? This mist already has me turned around.”

“Shit, me neither,” she swore, returning my worried look, “Can you fly us both out of here?”

“I can jump us over the ones nearby I think, but I still don’t actually know how to fly,” I responded.

“Alright, let’s do that,” she nodded, turning her back so I could lift her.

Putting my arms around her stomach, I pulled her tightly to my chest and leapt into the air with as much strength as I could muster. My wings strained for purchase as our combined weight made them work hard.

Thankfully they had enough strength to get us away from the immediate danger of the attacking undead, and out towards where I vaguely thought our party was according to the location tracking feature. Something seemed off about the direction it was giving me though. Every now and then it would fluctuate and point in a random direction, or simply point right next to us.

When we hit the ground, it wasn’t pretty, both of us tumbling across the uneven terrain like ragdolls. I wanted to lay there on the ground and rest for a moment, but I didn’t think we’d gone far and we needed to be ready to fight again soon. Pulling myself off the ground, I got into a ready stance and turned this way and that, trying to spot any targets, and Rora followed suit.

“Where are they?” she whispered, echoing my own thoughts as we stared into the listlessly drifting haze.

There was nothing around us, just the rugged grass and gravel under our feet and the sighing of and ineffectual breeze. Distantly, above us, I once more heard the rasp of wind over feathers.