Lea Bleeds

by ButtercatRho

Summary:

It's a while after the events of Crosscode and its DLC, and all is going well. Sure, there've been bumps along the way, but overall everything's great. Everyone is as they should be.

Lea falls down and hurts herself (sort of).

Chapter 1: Trip and Tumble

It's a bright sunny day in Homestedt, as it always is, and Lea is teetering along the edge of a cliff around the village center. Some of her friends are close by, chatting amongst themselves as they laze under the village's central statue. Every so often Lea puts a word in with her Lea-board, though usually the conversation has moved past whatever she planned on replying to by the time she finds the correct one. The quiet ambience of the village surrounds them, a pleasant breeze, chirping with no source, various background noises from pets. At this moment, everything's as perfect as it possibly could be.

 

Lea isn't exactly sure what she had expected to happen in future, post Sidwell operation elimination. She wasn't even certain she'd come back alive at all, almost sure she'd be abandoned in digital space, never to wake again. But she had. She woke up in Homestedt finally safely and firmly alive, and things had started going. Fast . 

 

A lot had happened along the way, ups and downs, adaptations and realizations. Sometimes she wondered if some greater power had it out for her. They sure found flipping her through different emotions and events entertaining, at least. But at last, things seemed to have stabilized.

 

And throughout, evotars and their integration had been moving quickly. A lot of added immersion to make them feel more alive, the reworking of the planned Evotar work system, a whole lot of little updates and additions in a short span of time, and now this.

 

A couple days ago the evotars' existence had been publicly announced to the world. Badges were added to evotars’ profiles to signify their status as one and the campaign for them to be recognized as fully fledged humans had been pushed off.

 

Lea isn't one hundred percent sure what that entails, or what it will bring, but jesus does it feel like a huge step in some sort of direction.

 

So, as a casual sort of celebration, Lea, C'tron, Luke and Emilie had decided to spend the day relaxing in the consistency pleasant until the devs finally push that weather and day night cycle area patch they teased a while ago midday sun of Homestedt.

 

There were still things to worry about of course, things that promised a lot of headaches later on. But that's future her's problem. Right now, things seem to be looking up. And she's high above anyone who could even think to shove some random paperwork in her face, just how she likes it.

 

“No, you see, if the water was real then the land around it would corrode, eventually making big issues in gameplay that the development team would have to worry about! But they don't have to worry about it because the water isn't real .” Tronny moves his arms up and down, accentuating the beat of his words with every chop of the air. Talk of what species of penguin the one floating nearby was (inconclusive) had somehow shifted into a discussion surrounding Crossworld's water, which Tronny was still suspicious of.

 

“Maybe they replace the land?” Emilie shrugs, not looking particularly convinced. “The planet workers are here for maintenance, oui?” 

 

“But why would they bother if they can just fake the water?”

 

“Why build a game in a physical environment when you can make a digital one?” Luke points out. 

 

‘ Weird if wasn't. ’ Lea chimes in. ‘ Feels real ’. 

 

“...Well, all the actions we take feel real, even the fully simulated ones.” Tronny replies, apparently deciding to skip past Luke's question. “The ‘food’ we eat feels just as solid and real as the ground you're standing on.” He blinks, looking up at Lea. “Actually, don't you want to come sit down? You've been wandering around up there for around half an hour.”

 

Lea shakes her head. It's not like she's up here by accident. Emilie hums, a proud smirk on her face.

 

“Of course ma cherie won't sit on the floor when there's higher ground! Our very own parkour master, non?” 

 

“What?” Lea tilts her head. Does wandering around on the same platform for a while really get her that title? Sure, hearing that made her feel a funny sort of happy, but she feels like jumping over forbidden barriers would be a better way to earn it.

 

“Ja! Truly the queen of the cliffs.” Luke laughs. ”No wonder she has a statue!” 

 

Lea let's a proud smirk curl up on her face at that. Sure, the praise feels sort of unearned, but praise is praise and praise means she's cool as hell. Plus, she does have a statue.

 

Puffing out her chest, Lea struts proudly along the cliff's edge, hopping across the water past the higher ground through a foxes trick. Or, well, ‘hopping across’. That sort of implies she makes it, which she does! Kind of. She falls just short, gap slightly bigger than she expected, but through some mild flailing Lea catches the cliff's edge before she plummets into the water below. Her fingers tingle in a way she doesn't remember feeling before, though she's a bit too preoccupied to care. Pulling as hard as she can, kicking herself up the side of the cliff with her legs, Lea manages to overcome her purposely lackluster arm strength and scramble back up onto solid ground.

 

Enthusiastic, probably ill-fitting, applause rings through the air before she can feel too embarrassed. Emilie calls loudly as Tronny claps politely as Luke laughs. Lea let's out a huff of pride. She continues her strut along the cliff, starting a spin as she comes closer to the end. Just to show off a teeny bit. 

 

As the spin brings her to face her friends, a cocky grin on her face, her foot slips out from under her. With no ground to stumble back on, Lea lets out a surprised squeak as she falls backwards off the cliff.

 

She lands on her side on the concrete bridge crossing the river, her head slamming hard on the material. A harsh crack with an electric undertone echoes her proverbial skull. 

 

After lying there for a moment, dazed, Lea lets out a frustrated “Whyyyy…” 

Damn that was stupid. Right after she missed that jump too. Her friends seem to have been shocked by her sudden fall, quiet other than a loud merde she thinks she heard when she hit the ground. That probably wouldn't last long, she wasn't going to be hearing the end of this for a while. 

 

Welp, the sooner she gets up the sooner she can get back on high ground and not suck at parkour. Harder to tease someone for slipping off a cliff when they can jump around supposedly unreachable areas. Or maybe that makes it funnier. She'll worry about it later.

 

Lea pushes herself up into a W-sit. The ends of her fingers tingle.

 

A sort of… unfamiliar dread washes over her. Something spiking out from her mid and gumming up her would be bones. It's… disconcerting. Heavily so. And she'd very much like it to stop. 

 

She shakes her head, but that only makes the feeling worse, spreading like needle-thin roots through her body. 

 

She feels like she should be hearing something, like her friends should have started the good natured teasing by now. But she can't hear them. She can't hear much of anything, really, everything sounds like mush compared to an ever growing thumping in her chest.

 

Something trickles down her forehead. It drips past her eye and onto the ground. Then it does again. And again. And another. And another. Down in a steady rhythm. A strange sensation spreads from the same spot, seemingly in harmony with the growing dread coating her inside.

 

She reaches her hand up to touch the sensation, feeling something wet. That disconcerting feeling deepens.

 

Lea takes a shaky breath she doesn't really need.

 

And looks at her hand.

 

“Lea?”

 

A deep red substance covers her palm, dripping thickly into the ever growing puddle on the ground. Fresh wells of it poke up from wounds on her fingertips. A sharp metallic tang fills her nose and mouth. Her gut lurches and the thumping quickens.

 

She's never seen it in person before, and never ever should have. There is no situation she should have been forced to endure that would involve seeing it. 

 

But here it is anyway.

 

“Cherie, can you hear me?”

 

Lea looks over.

 

Emilie, Luke and Tronny are standing at the start of the bridge. Lea didn't hear them come over. They look concerned.

 

Lea fully turns her head. 

 

“Lea?!” Emilie bolts forward, quickly falling to her knees in front of Lea. Behind her Tronny backs slightly away as Luke flinches back, before shaking his head and coming closer. “Are you alright?” Emilie continues. She covers the injury with her hand, quickly pulling away when Lea jolts at her touch. She cups her now bloodied hand over it instead, muttering a quiet panic about her own stupidity. “Does it hurt? Qu'est-ce- How are you- mon dieu, what's going on?!”

 

Lea moves her hand closer to Emilie, who quickly yanks it towards her upon seeing the smaller pricks of blood seeping out of it. Shaking, Lea points to her head, then her hand. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

 

“Why?” she manages, voice trembling.

 

Emilie looks up, mouth open, searching for something to say. All she really communicates is an expression of terror and despair. 

 

“Oh Junge,” Luke creeps closer and leans over slightly, looking at Lea's head. Straightening, he looks back towards Tronny. “That shouldn't happen, should it?” A slight shake can be heard in his voice.

 

Tronny shakes his head rapidly. His face is spread wide with a nervous smile.

“No, no it really shouldn't, we're not-,” He breathes deeply, rubbing his hands on his sides as he coaxes his expression into a more acceptable position. “I'll call Sergey. We'll figure out what's going on.” He turns to ready a call, before stopping and looking over his shoulder.“If, uh… if this is the same as a regular injury it should be alright. Head wounds just bleed a lot.”

 

Luke nods, relaxing slightly. Emilie looks just as distraught as before, as does Lea. She might be more so, even, the confirmation of injury finally letting loose the tears pooling in her eyes. Emilie clears them best she can, before pulling Lea into a quick, but strong, hug.

 

Luke moves to Lea's left and crouches down just as Emilie releases her from the hug.

 

“It's alright, you're okay” he places a hand on her back, motioning for Emilie to move to Lea's other side, which she quickly does. “Here, we'll help you up.”

 

Lea nods, Luke giving an unsteady smile in response. Looping each of their arms under Lea's, Emilie and Luke carefully bring Lea up to a standing position. They stay there, propping Lea up on unsteady feet, holding her loosely so she doesn't fall over. Keeping her head down, Lea breathes deeply. She tries desperately to ignore the puddle of red and just stare at her shoes instead. Hers and her friends on either side of her, supporting her gently as one out of sight calls for help.

 

Feeling herself calm slightly, Lea starts to lift her head.

 

Her reflection stares back at her from the water, left horn missing, face half coated in deep crimson as large swathes of blood flow heavily down from a jagged crack in her skull.

 

Lea yelps, stepping hurriedly back, wrenching herself out of Emilie and Luke's loose hold. The feeling twists tighter at her sudden movement. She steps back again in some sort of attempt to escape.

 

She takes another step back and there is no longer ground beneath her. She falls backwards and is taken back to moments before, off a cliff onto a concrete bridge. A loud cry is strangled out by a broken voice box.

 

Lea hears a loud splash as she hits the water, then the dissipation of instant matter as her vision quickly fades away.

 

It fades back in a disorientating instant, leaving her shaken form standing back on the concrete bridge. With the triple whammy of the shock, dread and fear, the thumping in her chest is the fastest she's ever felt. She finds she's back crying again, with no hope of getting herself to stop. 

 

Drawn by the loud noise, Tronny runs back to the group as Emilie and Luke quickly move to help Lea. They stop short in apparent confusion. 

 

“Ah, your head…” Making sure to use her left hand, Emilie reaches to touch the side of Lea’s face. She pushes her hair out of the way and runs her hand over the crack in her skull. No strange sensation comes.

 

Luke scratches the back of his head, unsure. “It looks…better?” 

 

Confused and uncertain, Lea slowly reaches up to touch her injury. She can't feel any dip in the surface. She drags her hand down the side of her face and, for one terrifying moment, feels something wet. But when she brings her hand down to look at the only thing that stains it is a streak of tears. Even her fingertips are clean, with no sign they had ever been hurt at all.

 

Lea squeezes her eyes shut as she grits her teeth. Her chest thumps, tears stream fast down her face, and something settles unsteady inside her but she ignores all of it. She forces herself to look back into the water. A round single-scarred face framed with blue hair stares back with red eyes, horns jutting out the side of her head like the annoying eyesores they are. There's no sign of impossible blood or injury. Other than looking much more distressed than usual, everything looks fine.

 

Lea lets out a shaky breath, not looking away from the water. She should feel relieved, but she really doesn't.  Even with the wound gone, that heavy dread stays wrapped around her inside, not loosening for even a moment. Her absent heart keeps thumping, fueling a sickness that makes her body shake instead of pumping her full of energy to win a fight. Even though she's standing there, uninjured and fine, no matter how she tries to ignore it, a scratching thought at the back of her brain tells her this could happen again. It will .

 

At least the dripping has stopped. Funny, since she fell into the water. She wishes she felt less scared so she could find that funnier.

 

Lea looks back to her friends. She's not sure what she's looking for, hope, reassurance, something to calm her down. They're still standing there, looking concerned and uncertain. Emilie shakes her head and scrunches her face up into a snarl. It doesn't fit well with the fear in her eyes.

 

“Mon dieu, mais qu’est-ce qui se passe putain.”

 

“Lea!” A familiar voice yells, almost certainly Lea’s if not for the slight rasp and it coming from the absolute wrong direction.

 

Shizuka runs across the village towards them, Satoshi following close behind. A distance away, Sergey's avatar materializes and quickly moves to join the group. Lea turns as Shizuka skids to a stop in front of her. She looks her quickly up and down.

 

“Are you alright?” She breathes, heaving in air despite her infinite stamina.

 

Unsure how to respond, Lea looks down at the concrete. Other than a small sniffle, she stays silent.

 

Shizuka hesitates for a moment, hands hovering in front of her, unsure of what to do. She forces herself to shove through it, shaking her head and wiping Lea’s face free of tears. They're quickly replaced and she doesn't feel much better, but Lea appreciates it anyway.

 

Satoshi looks between the two, a somber concern on his face. Sergey slows to a stop beside him, looking with clear worry at Lea

 

“Lea, are you alright?” Lea keeps her eyes trained downwards, Shizuka looking back with a tired expression. “Right, of course not.”

 

Satoshi shifts his attention from his siblings to the surrounding area. “Sergey called and said Lea was injured and bleeding heavily. We came as quickly as we could.” He looks back to Lea, then to her friends. “Has it stopped?”

 

Tronny nods slowly. “Yes, but-”

 

“Sacrebleu, Will you tell us what's happening already?!” Emilie yells, stomping a foot. “You made evotars, you have to know what's going on.”

 

Satoshi shakes his head. “Unfortunately, I do not. Evotars bodies are made of pure instant matter, it should not be possible for them to bleed.”

 

Shizuka pats Lea on the shoulder, moving slightly away while staying in arms reach. She lets out a rough sigh. “Really, I'd say I didn’t believe you if not for Lea and… Well.”

She gestures to the puddle of blood on the floor, to the water, then to Emilie, who has a notable amount of it on her.

 

Glowering in response, Emilie forces her glare away from Shizuka and lets out a sigh of her own. “Well merci for that, very reassuring.” 

 

“We might not know what's happening, but maybe we could figure it out.” Sergey says, with as reassuring a smile as he can give. “What happened, exactly?” 

 

Tronny points to the short cliff nearby. “Lea was walking on that ledge there, but fell down onto the bridge. She hurt her head, started bleeding and ended up falling into the water." He scratches the side of his head. “I was calling for help at that point, so I don't know how or why.”

 

“She was…startled in.” Luke says.

 

“By her reflection.” Emilie mutters.

 

“Her body must have reformed without the injury.” Satoshi rubs his chin. “It's good that falling into the water remanifested Lea's body, given the situation, it might have been possible that instead of reforming she-” Shizuka jabs Satoshi hard in the side, but not before the implication worms its way into Lea's head. She finds herself stuck with the image of her body dissolved into nothing but a diluted pool of blood. This doesn’t help with the crying.

 

Apparently noticing the increase in tears (or maybe just the way her body stiffens with a weighty shudder and a quiet choke), Emilie quickly moves to Lea's side and holds her hand in her own. She squeezes it gently, smiling as she pushes down her emotions best she can. They don't matter right now.

 

Crossing her arms, Shizuka looks at her co-worker. ”Well, does knowing that help with anything?”

 

Sergey closes his eyes, thinking for a moment, before reluctantly shaking his head. “Unfortunately not. It doesn't give many hints on why this would be happening… it could be an issue with the instant matter forming or an error in a firmware update, but neither of those would cause blood...” 

 

Satoshi seems to consider it for a moment, staring into space. He refocuses. “Standing out here isn't doing much for progress. Let's move this to my house. I'll look Lea over and try to figure out the cause.” He looks at Lea. “Would you be alright with that, sister?” 

 

Drying her face, Lea steels herself as best she can. The fear and dread doesn't let up in the slightest, but she's pushed through similar before. She gives a determined nod, which Satoshi returns.

 

“Right then, let's go.”

 

The group starts moving along the cobbled path of the quiet village. Satoshi and Sergey walk ahead, talking about something in serious mutters. Emilie stays at Lea's side, not letting go of her hand. Lea leans on her slightly, not feeling at all confident on her feet. Tronny, Luke and Shizuka all walk close by her, like a sort of protective barrier. There's a palpable air of worry. It almost feels like a death march.

 

Lea finds herself unable to appreciate the peaceful sights and sounds of the village, something that usually brings her such comfort. It's like her mind is prying itself open, scouring over everything around her for something that could possibly hurt her. And when it finds nothing, it finds everything, proof of something in wait or a hidden intention. Can something that means so much really be dampened that easily?

 

The same could be said for Satoshi's house. A large yet homely building, surrounded by carefully cultivated flowers and warm yellowed grass. It had turned into a regular meeting place for her, Shizuka and Satoshi, even if a good amount of those meetings were them trying to coax Satoshi away from his work and either into bed or outside. Time spent watching TV, or eating food, or listening to work talk. Relearning what families do and actually experiencing them herself for the first time. It's the place where her family lives, a second home for both her and Shizuka. 

 

But right now all Lea can focus on is its shadow, towering over them as they go inside its gut. She almost wants to apologize to it. It isn't its fault this is happening.

 

Pushing into the house's opening hallway, the group wanders down into the living room. Taking a couple solid steps, Satoshi comes to a halt.

 

“Right.” He says. “I can look things over and ask you some questions in lets say… my office, that makes sense, then everyone can sit out here on the couch while they wait. We'll see what's happening and then decide what to do.”

 

Emilie seems to deflate. “We aren't staying with Lea?” she asks.

 

“Ah, well you could I suppose.” Satoshi replies. “It's fine either way, whatever makes her feel more comfortable. Lea?”

 

Satoshi looks to Lea for approval, as does Emilie. Slowly, Lea shakes her head. For a reason she can't pinpoint, she doesn't want to be watched during this. She doesn't really want to be alone either, but Satoshi will be there and with any luck she'll be waited for. Though, she doesn't seem to have any of that today.

 

Clearly disappointed and worried, Emilie nods glumly. “Alright, cherie…” She leans into her side and gives a small smile. “We'll be right here waiting for you, oui?”

 

With a last squeeze of her hand, Emilie lets go of Lea. The absence of it makes Lea feel somehow more vulnerable immediately. Emilie walks with the others, who chatter quiet reassurances and worries, and sits with them on the room's corner seat.

 

Sergey stays standing near the hallways opening. He clears his throat slightly.

 

“I'm going to log out. I'd like to go look at Lea's code and see if anything stands out there, or maybe in the general collision systems.” 

 

Ah, right. Of course. It only makes sense that her bleeding means someone should look into her guts.

 

She must have made a face, something somber or sad, because Sergey leans down and places a hand on her head. It seems like the sort of thing that would piss Shizuka off. But of course, she's not Shizuka.

 

“Your brother and sister are here. Not to mention your friends! You'll be safe.” He says with a soft smile.

 

Lea nods. She tries to take his words to heart as his avatar tints blue and disintegrates.

 

Deciding not to put it off any longer, Lea wanders up to Satoshi who turns to his office door. She looks back over her shoulder for a moment. Shizuka waves as Luke does a thumbs up as Tronny mouths ‘good luck’ as Emilie yells “see you soon” with an ill-hidden waver. That heavy sort of dread and all the accompanying bullshit she's saddled with keeps on pushing her down, down, but she smiles. It's strange to smile and mean it when none of your feelings seem to reflect it, like some sort of prank of the universe. But she'll come out of this, they'll find out what's wrong and fix it. Then they can get back to playing like before.

 

Satoshi walks into his office, closing the door behind Lea as she trails in close behind. Feeling around in the dark, he turns on the light switch, bathing the room in light for probably the first time ever. 

 

“Okay… how do we do this?” He sits down in front of the computer, which seemed to already be on. Saving and closing multiple coding windows, he opens a notes document and turns his chair back to Lea.

 

“Should we start with some physical tests? To make sure everything's working alright.” 

 

That's agreeable enough. Lea nods.

 

“Okay, let's try a jump.”

 

Lea jumps. A small, nonsensical panic squirms in her when her feet leave the ground, it staying a bit after she lands. Satoshi notes something down before nodding.

 

“Okay, now a dash.”

 

Lea dashes forwards, not paying much attention to where she's going. She finds her head very close to ramming into the room's wall, which she flinches and stumbles away from. 

 

“Everything alright?” Satoshi asks. Breathing in deep, Lea gives a nod. Satoshi notes something down again, a bit longer than last time.

 

Satoshi gives a few more actions: crouch, attack, throw a ball, shield, use an art, all of which Lea does with little issue. 

 

“You seem to be working fine physically, from what I can see…” The wall reaction was worrying, but not a physical issue. Satoshi clicks his mouse a couple times, before pressing enter, enter, enter. “Do you mind me asking some questions?”

 

Lea shakes her head. Looking around for somewhere to sit, she finds nothing. She decides to sit on the edge of Satoshi's desk instead. 

 

“You fell off the cliff and hit your head on concrete, correct?” Satoshi asks, apparently not caring too much about the seating choice.

 

Lea nods.

 

“Right, and the injury went away when you reformed after hitting water?”

 

Lea nods.

 

“Did it hurt at all?” Satoshi asks, before quickly clarifying. “The injury.”

 

Lea shakes her head, before bringing out her Lea board. It takes her a while longer to find one word compared to the others, but it's the best description she can think of. ‘ Felt bad. ’‘ Disconcerting. ’ it drones. 

 

“But it didn't hurt?” 

 

She shakes her head again.

 

“How bad did it feel, do you think?” Satoshi scratches his chin, tapping a couple times on the keyboard. “Perhaps on a ranking from one to ten?”

 

Lea hesitates. She wonders if that answer is her being overdramatic. Probably , she thinks, and answers anyway. 

 

Lea puts both her hands up.

 

“A ten?” Lea nods. “So very bad then.” And again. “Did that feeling go away when you reformed?”

 

Lea hesitates, thinking for a moment, before slowly shaking her head.

 

“Has it lessened at all?”

 

Thinking about it, Lea does a so-so motion with her hand. It might be slightly faded compared to on the bridge? She can't tell fully. ‘ Maybe? ’ ’ Still very bad. ’

 

“Did the injury affect you in any other way? Memory issues, coordination issues, trouble thinking, anything like that?”

 

Rubbing the side of her face, Lea shrugs. ‘ Panicked ’ ‘ Queasy .’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Couldn't hear at first .’ ‘Chest too loud. ’

 

“Because of the injury itself?”

 

Lea shakes her head. She hovers over a word on the Lea board a bit longer, before pressing it. ‘ Fear.’ Hesitates. ‘and seeing blood. ’

 

Nodding slowly, Satoshi finishes typing. He idly clicks his mouse. “...Well, I can't think of any other questions…” This is a lie, he can think of a couple but he decides not to touch them. Scratching his head, Satoshi glances at the side of Lea's face. 

 

“...I think that's all I can do for now. You go out and sit with the others, I'll look through some things in here.”

 

Lea nods, carefully placing her feet on the floor and pushing herself off the desk. Standing still for a couple moments, Lea walks away from Satoshi as he gets to work. She curls in on herself as she heads towards the exit, finding herself disappointed that she's leaving feeling just as bad as before.

 

She pushes the door ajar, and a quiet conversation is immediately interrupted.

 

“Cherie!” Emilie calls, waving with a bright smile. All focus is turned to Lea.

 

“Hi…” Lea gives a small smile as she creeps out fully from behind the door.

 

Tronny mirrors the smile, shuffling away from Emilie to make room on the already somewhat cramped seat. “Did you manage to figure things out?”

 

Leas smile falters and falls. She nestles in between them with a tired sigh. 

 

“I guess not then.”

 

“He didn't try to bash your head into a wall in there, did he.” Shizuka leans forwards in order to see past Emilie, a deadpan expression on her face. Her expression quickly morphs to guilt as Lea stiffens and shrinks down into herself. “Sorry, I wasn't being serious. We both know he wouldn't.”

 

Scratching the side of her neck, Lea nods a small lie. Thinking about it, she's kind of surprised the blood itself wasn't brought up more. Not that she's opposed. She never wants to see it again.

 

“Junge, what a freaky bug huh?” Luke says, leaning forwards himself. “You think they'll be able to fix it?”

 

Before her brain can even think to start worrying about that, Emilie answers. “They better.” She huffs, glowering at no one in particular. Luke gives a loud laugh at the suddenness of it. Reaching behind Tronny, he gives Lea a friendly nudge.

 

“That'll help, eh Lea? No one wants Emilie charging them down.” 

 

“You can say that again.” Shizuka mutters with a tired look, though a slight smirk is present on her face. Lea finds herself snickering lightly.

 

Emilie crosses her arms and puffs out her chest, her face flushed in slight embarrassment. “Oui, oui, laugh it up. 

 

Snickering pewtering out, Lea pushes lightly into Emilie’s side. “Thanks.” She says, with an amused puff of breath.

 

Relaxing down into her previous position, Emilie bumps Lea with a cheeky grin. “Trying to appease me now, oui?” She laughs, Lea giggling as she shoves her lightly back. Shizuka gives a light “Hey!” As Emilie is pushed into her, who gives a “pardon!” in response, Lea adding on a “sorry!”. Righting herself, Emilie reaches to grab Lea's hand. 

 

She flinches at the sight of her own. It's still covered in blood, now dried into a rusted red-brown. The smell of it stings Lea's nose.

 

After a beat of quiet, Emilie gives a humorless laugh. “Ah, guess I can't…” She places her hand in her lap, looking at it with an unnerved expression. “Should have sat on the right side, non?”

 

Staring at Emilie's hand, Tronny slowly shakes his head. “I wonder what that even is. It doesn't make any sense…” 

 

“Like the cave water, ja?” Luke says with a slight smile.

 

Tronny nods in brisk response. “Yes, just like the cave water, there isn't any way that-”

 

“Attends une seconde, Shizuka's on the dev team!” Emilie forces her focus on Shizuka.“Is the water real?” 

 

“The water?” Shizuka raises an eyebrow. “Of course-”

 

The sound of forming instant matter interrupts the conversation, the towering form of Sergey's avatar fully reforming in the living room. Emilie's attention is quickly averted.

 

“What's happening?” She asks, leaning forwards as if she wants to jump up off of the couch. 

 

The group waits in silence, Sergey walking forwards to the middle of the room. Lea stares up at him, a hope creeping into her eyes. Sergey averts his gaze. The hope falls away.

 

“I couldn't find anything strange in Lea's code,” He sighs.“The instant matter spawning, The collision systems, everything seems to be functioning as normal.” 

 

Emilie seems to grit her teeth, the room feeling infected with horror unknown. A notable panic pulses in Lea's chest, curling through the thick dread pooling about inside her. 

 

Looking around at unsure expressions, Tronny puts on a hopeful smile. “Well, maybe-”

 

“I've looked through some things, and couldn't find a cause or solution-” The door to the office opens, Satoshi stopping his spiel as he looks up at the room's faces. “...I assume it was the same for you.”

 

The panic worsens into a surge, sweat dripping down Lea's face as her breathing labors. Something solid touches her leg, her eyes flicking to the side. Luke smiles, patting her leg twice before retracting his hand. She squeezes her eyes shut, gathering herself, before looking defeated at the floor.

 

Smile morphed into uncertainty, Tronny's eyes flick about, searching for an answer. “There isn't anything else you can look through?” 

 

Sergey looks to Satoshi, who shakes his head. “The only other thing is the blood itself. And while we do have access to some...” Lea's gut drops, before Satoshi gestures at Emilie's hand. “There is currently no way we can analyze it.”

 

Lea lets out a heavy sigh, one of few noises in a now rather quiet room. The air is thick.

 

Restlessly tapping her foot, Emilie searches for something to blame, something to yell, some action to take. Face falling back from anger into uncertainty, worry, fear, she finds nothing. “What do we do then?” she mutters.

 

Sergey hums in response, looking towards a corner of the room. There's nothing of interest there, but it keeps his attention as he idly scratches his face, mulling something over. Apparently coming to a decision, he looks back with a steeled expression.

 

“I'll arrange for a doctor to head to the Raritan, someone more knowledgeable than the ship nurse, and have them look at Lea. If it's real blood, it has to have a source and function. I'll have to ship in some medical equipment as well.”

 

Shifting a bit in her seat, Lea thinks about objecting with a “why” or a “what” or maybe a ‘ don't want bleed ’ “thanks”. But, with her face dropping into mourning acceptance, she decides against it. If she wants a solution, this is probably the best way to find it.

 

Shizuka, however, raises an eyebrow, “And how are you going to make that happen.”

 

“I have my ways…” Sergey smirks slightly, glasses glinting as he tips down his face. This does not seem to instill Shizuka with much confidence. 

 

“Sneaking around behind Instatainment back digitally is pretty different than shipping a bunch of heavy equipment and a whole ass human in secret, you know.”

 

Pushing his glasses back up his face, Sergey reverts to a more serious expression. “No, really, I know my way around, I promise I can make it happen. And I won't be ‘sneaking around’, thank you very much.” He shifts his attention to the group as a whole. “It would take around a month for everything to arrive, so all there is to do is wait.”

 

What starts as a quiet acceptance steadily turns into hesitant glances, a slow realization blanketing them.

 

“And Lea…?” Luke asks.

 

Opening his mouth to give a response, Sergey finds he doesn't have one. He looks to Satoshi, who seems to be thinking things over. He clears his throat. “Since the issue doesn't cause physical harm and is avoidable it should be alright to leave it, at least in the short term. She should possibly be more cautious around parkour, but otherwise can just continue as normal.”

 

“How.” Lea asks, voice coming out sharp. That can't be all. She can't just be expected to continue as if one wrong move didn't mean a possible gut spill. 

 

Turning to face her fully, Satoshi looks at her with a sympathetic expression. It makes her aware she's shaking by making her shake more.

 

“I know this isn't the solution you wanted. I'm sorry, sister.”

 

Wringing his hands, Sergey sighs. “There isn't really much else to do.”

 

Lea opens her mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. So she curls her shaking body inwards instead, averting her gaze.

 

Segey puts out a hand, trying to think of any sort of comfort he can give. He falters, turns away. “I better get started. Getting everything together, I mean.” He says. Pulling up his game menu, he moves to push the logout button, before stopping. He looks back at Lea. “See you soon.” 

Then he leaves in a wave of disintegrating blue.

 

Watching him go, Satoshi turns back to his office. Opening the door, He dips his head slightly, before quietly returning to work.

 

The group is left in the quiet of the living room, silence broken up by various states of breathing.

 

“Well…” Shizuka mutters, narrowing her eyes and looking away. 

 

“Oh junge…” Luke sighs, rubbing his temple. 

 

Lea crosses her arms over herself. The dread continues to sit heavy inside her, even if possibly dampened from before.

 

Tronny places an arm on her shoulder. He doesn't bother with a reassuring smile, just a sympathetic frown. Emilie nudged her lightly, before leaning close. Her hand still sits in her lap, away from Lea and covered by her other.

 

Lea curls further into Emilie.

 

She's not supposed to be like this.

Notes:

Was gonna pre write the chapters and post them on a schedule but this one took ages and I'm impatient, so leaving the schedule up to the gods.

Chapter 2: Some Harmless Tests

Notes:

Merry almost christler

The plastic covered bed with paper sheets Lea is sitting on isn't especially comfortable. She's in the corner of a room with metal crates stacked high against the walls, which sways gently back and forth as the cargo boat is rocked with the lull of the sea. In the corner of the room sits a couple machines and various equipment, a massive table with a circular dome that made funny noises when she laid inside it, a smaller box with a bunch of wires, blood pressure tester, ear looker, needles, other things. Lea finds herself looking at them out of the corner of her eye. There was an x-ray machine in the other room, along with other machines that she didn't have to interact with. Or not directly. She shifts slightly, the paper crinkling beneath her.

 

The roughly month-long wait for this day had felt like an eternity. Served up a head shattering revelation that no one understood with nothing to do but wait, of course it had to feel that long. Even after that sickly dread had lessened into nothing, her chest hammered along at the memory alone.

 

She had spent the first couple days cooped up inside her home, not doing much of anything. Read books, watch videos, walk as little as possible, wander in small circles when restless, get herself to sit back down, anything not to trip up again.

 

But she had gotten bored quickly. Fear and self preservation was a hell of a drug, but so was impulsively. So with that physical feeling of dread gone and the terror of the situation reduced to an admittedly strong memory, she had decided to go outside and attack something.

 

It had gone a lot better than her worst fears told her it would. She got up, went out, wandered a short while, beat the shit out of some cows, then went back home. Simple and easy.

 

The path to her goal was flat and jump-less, nothing went weirdly awry, there really weren't any problems. But the whole time something deep in her head buzzed with scratching worry. Staked out surroundings that should have been completely safe. Muttered quiet warnings. Don't go up high, keep your distance when fighting, don't run too fast, be careful. You could be hurt at any time. Kept her pulse fast and her tactics either overly cautious or completely sloppy, which only fueled the buzzing further.

 

When she got home she found a small scrape on her knee, a hole torn in the instant matter fabric. She couldn't think exactly when she got it, maybe a bad dodge where she hit the ground. It definitely didn't help the situation, only served to back up her thoughts. 

 

She kept going outside every so often anyway, keeping to the main paths of mostly lower level areas and being cautious when fighting enemies. But she ended up spending most of her time indoors. Sometimes her friends would come and keep her company, but Emilie and Shizuka couldn't be online twenty-four seven and them, Tronny and Luke had other things to do as well.

 

With her stuck thinking about her fall and being left without a solution for about a week straight, she'd almost forgotten about the evotar movement. Well that changed pretty damn fast.

 

It figured she was going to be involved in it somehow. She wasn't just an evotar, which put her in the middle of this whole thing automatically, she was the first evotar created. And different from her sister in a lot of ways, which proved that they were their own individual people, if that wasn't already obvious.

 

And, putting any possible recent events that weighed down her brain like two million-trillion anvils aside, she was happy to help! She fought for evotars once before, even if that was more, uh, literal, and she'd do it again and again. But learning that someone had agreed to a live broadcast interview for her that was going to take place the next day was not the most calming information. 

 

Sergey seemed very guilty about it at least. He was the way she found out, a friendly check in where he ended up asking if she was ready for the interview tomorrow. That lead to a conversation filled with a lot of what's and how's. Which spread to a bigger conversation of more how's and what's going into the company. She didn't end up getting much, if any, answers, just a headache like a crown atop her worries.

 

She was assured by Sergey she didn't have to do it. That he could mole about behind the scenes and get her out of it, maybe find a replacement. But she found herself unable to refuse. Something that important, how could she?

 

So she did the interview. What did her evotar badge look like, if Instatement was meeting their needs, how would she like her living conditions improved, how this might affect the game and other players as a whole, what made her human. And then she ended up booked for a different one. And a couple more. Suddenly something new was added to her now limited routine.

 

And while she wouldn't call interviews relaxing, she was asked rapid fire questions, looked through in a way she couldn't describe, and her speech problem got pointed out basically every time, they worked as a distraction. It's not like anyone had been outright mean either. So far, other than the odd weird question and some unnerving expressions, people had been rather nice. She’d take that over sitting with her blood alone any day.

 

But no matter what, she could never get the imagery of that blood out of her head. Not fully. It creeped in at the ends of her consciousness, dripped down in front of her eye when she spaced out, hit the floor with a wet splat whenever her back was turned. The smell stayed lodged in her nose for hours at a time and whenever she ate she swore she could feel a metallic tinge somewhere in the back of her throat. 

 

The best she could do was look away from it. Ignore it. Focus on something, anything else.  She could usually get through problems fine if she didn't think too much about them until they were solvable. But that was a lot easier said than done, and it was not easy to say.

 

It was really fucking with her life either way. Fighting and parkour being a risk now meant her main pastimes were gone, which also meant skipping out on most guild events with the First Scholars. Puzzles were an option, but she had finished all of them a while ago so she had to wait for more content updates. That's not even thinking about how a lot of the puzzles involved jumping and fighting. There were some parkour sections that dropped into void or water which could be safer, but even then a lot of their platforms were solid material so they were still a risk. It had kept her away from higher level areas too, including sapphire ridge with its bittersweet air she'd sometimes sit in to think. Her already pretty small world felt smaller and smaller the more she thought about it, made her feel isolated. Like a rug had been pulled out from under her.

 

It reminded her of a similar feeling in the past, something she didn't appreciate being reminded of. But there at least a solution had come up, so now she has to wait and hope for the same.

 

And finally she had waited the eternity of a month's (a month, a week, and a couple days if she was being annoying) time where that solution would finally come. She would finally get this over and done with.

 

It was a bit earlier than midday when she was called to the boat. The doctor had been there to meet her as soon as she teleported to the elevator room, which had been transformed into a makeshift doctors office. They were a tall, somewhat lanky, person with brown hair up in a hairnet. They greeted her with a small smile and half-lidded eyes. Lea didn’t end up catching their name, them gesturing for her to sit down and explaining all there was to do in a gentle yet somewhat distant manner. 

 

Lea was the first evotar the doctor had ever met. Not the best thing to be told before a check up, even if she knew it was probably the case. But apparently she passed well as human, a ‘real one’, “very convincing” they had said, so maybe it wouldn't even matter. Well a convincing visage doesn’t mean you're good at fooling yourself apparently. She had already started feeling a weight in her chest before a drop of blood was drawn.

 

She brushes her hand over the inside of her forearm In absent memory. Her skin takes needles like anyone else's, but with small snaking cracks around the edges. Like unfilled kintsugi, maybe? If she was remembering a conversation with Shizuka right. Instant matter wouldn't take gold well.

 

She'd found the scan and the equipment and the needles curious at first - even this bastard of a situation wouldn't stop her admiring a new experience - but it just kept getting more and more tedious. And worse, as it went on, it just served to remind her why she was having this experience in the first place. Why she was put into multiple machines to check her insides, why she had pressure gauges and sticky things stuck to her, why she had been poked and prodded for a good chunk of the day. 

 

It was the blood that lay under the surface of her form, sat in wait til it could all rush out at once and sink that damned feeling of sickness and dread back into her bones. It was because there was something wrong with her. And the longer she sat there the longer she had to ignore the weight staring at the back of her neck waiting to bite down and crack it open. 

 

The dread certainly didn't help, the more medical way of extracting blood did not reduce it at all. Nor did some of the doctor's more dumbstruck reactions to whatever information they were seeing.

 

At least this time she could say “wait!” to stop the bleeding, but really she'd have to get back to it again eventually. 

 

Eventually, a couple re-done tests and a lot of blood later, the doctor had excused themself to the other room to look through some things. Lea was left to sit on the bed, waiting out the anxiety, dread and the doctors return.

 

And she's still sitting here. She doesn't know how long it's been exactly, but a while. Her dread has reduced partially, and the anxiety has curled up in wait. 

 

She shifts the bed's covers in her hand. The dry paper texture isn't very pleasant. She pulls at it with all her strength and manages to tear a piece off. That was neat, but a lot of effort.

 

Just as she's considering possibly bringing a pet out, the door to the next room slides open. The doctor re-enters the room, holding a thin tablet in their hands. They had been using it to write things down when Lea was being tested. Lea doesn't know if she's imagining it, but they look more disheveled than she remembers. They smile at Lea.

 

Lea’s anxiety bolts upright and sits around her in wait. She straightens her back and puts her hands on her lap, keeping the tapping of her foot as discreet as possible. She stares as if she could force her eye to see the explanation inside the doctor's head. But she can't, she has to wait for them to talk.

 

“I'm sorry about the wait…” Lea shakes her head to signal it's alright, putting a small smile on her face. She doesn't know if it is, really, but it's over now. 

 

The doctor taps on their tablet. “I did a couple things in that other room, mainly testing your blood and compiling the collected data to come up with a conclusion.”

 

“What?” Lea asks, pushing herself further forwards on the bed. She's unable to keep the impatience out of her tone, as well as the desperation that clings onto it like a tick.

 

Looking up at Lea, the doctor gives a sympathetic smile. “Right, no more waiting. I'll try to make everything as understandable as possible.” 

 

Finally, they start. 

 

“The blood is physical, and exactly matches the DNA and makeup of your sour- or, um… sister? You bleed more where more notable or gathered blood vessels would be. It appears to be regular human blood in all ways.” 

 

That probably means she could poof because of it. Wow she really wishes she didn't have that thought.

 

“However…” The doctor turns their tablet around, a somewhat grainy completely black image is shown on the screen. “You don't appear to have organs. Or any type of interior structure, such as bones or blood vessels or a nervous system. Nothing showed up on either the MRI scan or the x-ray, and, while I could hear a heartbeat with the stethoscope, the ECG machine didn't pick up any pulse. I couldn't find any sort of blood flow either, even your ears and mouth don't lead to anything. Your interior is perfectly normal for an evotar, other than the bleeding of course.”

 

Lea tilts her head slightly. That's sort of confusing but…good? Yeah it has to be. She didn't know about the ear or mouth thing though. Lea brings a hand up to her face, contemplating.

 

“Oh, don't bother trying to double check your mouth, you won't be able to reach far enough to touch the bottom. The same goes for your ears.”

 

Lea slowly retracts her hand.

 

“Continuing on, all evidence points to the blood not supporting you physically in any way. It's not certain what losing too much of it would do, other than the heightened anxiety and fear you mentioned, but I doubt it would cause anything physical such as fainting or death, but we, ah, can't exactly test that one ethically.” 

 

Lea shakes her head, unable to stop a nervous look creeping onto her face. She bundles herself slightly closer. The thought of that being a possible path at all skeeves her out.

 

The other thing they said doesn't make her feel great either. If it doesn't support her physically, why is it even there in the first place? There should be a reason, shouldn't there? 

 

At least she couldn't die or faint because of it. Probably. She wouldn't test it.

 

The doctor looks at Lea's expression, smile almost seeming to falter a moment. They open their mouth, before closing it again, hesitating as they look down at the tablet. They stare at it for a bit, eyes flicking back and forth looking at whatever's on the screen. Lea stares, nervousness building as nothing is said. The doctor lets out a calm breath, bringing their head up and meeting Lea’s gaze.

 

“The cause is unknown. There doesn't seem to be any…physical reason for it? As I said, you don't have blood vessels, and the MRI scanner would have shown something if there was some sign of blood. As, uh, as far as I can tell, the blood just comes from… nothing. It just seems to appear whenever your skin is broken. I'll have to check in with your sister after this to see if it's somehow sourced from her, but seeing as she didn't mention feeling anything strange when you fell, it's not likely.” They bow their head. “There really is no solid explanation I can give you at current time. I'm sorry.”

 

Lea breathes in a shaky breath. She could feel the thumping in her chest quickening slightly as the doctor talked. All that and they don't even have a solid guess? She doesn't like the direction this seems to be going. Lea's sure her uncertainty possibly bordering on distress shows very clearly on her face.

 

The doctor quickly confirms this, looking over Lea's expression with clear concern, before giving a reassuring smile. “Who knows, maybe you're developing your own human soul.” 

 

Lea doubts it. Neither Tronny nor Luke nor any other evotar she knows of are dealing with this, and they'd have as much soul as she does. It's something wrong with just her.

 

The doctor waits for her to relax a bit. This doesn’t happen, so with a small sigh that probably wasn't supposed to be audible, they decide to get this over with.

 

“With all of this, I'm sorry to say I don't have a solid means for a solution, nor a path to move forward. Further testing and research might yield more results, but as things are now…”

 

No solution.

 

The thumping in Lea's chest upgrades to hammering. She opens her mouth to say something, “what” or “why” or “how”, but nothing ends up coming out, a lump having formed at the base of her throat. Bringing herself inwards, she swallows and breathes in deep.

 

She can feel herself shaking as a creeping wave of fear washes over her, slowly soaking her through, mixed and wed with a heavy despair. 

 

With nothing else to do, she slumps her head down and squeezes her eyes shut.

 

She sits there, shuddering, feeling sweat trickle down her brow and neck. The light buzz of electrical lights and the groaning sounds of the swaying boat protect her from silence, only to attack her themself. The corners of her eyes sting. 

 

“Here, I'll tell you something.” Lea feels the mattress shift as the doctor sits down beside her. She flinches as the weight of a hand is put on her shoulder. It's light, deliberately so, but Lea can't stop the thought of it being pushed just a bit harder and ripping right through her shoulder to the other side. Peeking through her hair as she looks to her side, Lea sees the doctor's face. They've turned to her with a sort of firm, but friendly, expression.

 

“I understand this situation feels stressful and has been taking a toll, but I promise it's not a big deal. Humans bleed, it's just part of being one, so it's not the strangest thing that you do too. And for you it's less of a problem, since you don't have to worry about pain or death. So it's nothing you need to worry about, really. Just an interesting section that makes up ‘you’.”

 

Lea blinks, staring dumbfounded at the doctor. The advice feels like it should be nice, comforting, but it doesn't seem to click. Something about it swims about in her head and spikes out her skin, leaving her feeling betrayed and unsafe. 

She feels sick.

 

Lea repeats the words in her head. Then again, slower. Her brow furrows as she thinks it over.

 

…They're right, aren't they?

 

Not counting evotars, everyone has blood pumping through their system, around and around. It's not an uncommon thing to bleed either, paper cuts, skinned knees, periods if those counted. They live life everyday, going out, eating, talking, having fun not even thinking about the blood sloshing about inside them, the possibility of it spilling out at any moment. So why does she? Even if it does happen, it doesn't cause any harm, nothing long lasting, nothing physical. It doesn't even sting. Bleeding doesn't feel good, but what's left after? A memory she can't even truly experience again?

 

Skipping out on meetings, refusing to leave the ground, staying in her house, even her reaction to advice, why was she making such a fuss about this? 

Shame rises up from her chest into her head. She can only hope she's not flushed with it.

 

All that time, waiting for a solution so she could stop being scared, when she was the cause of it in the first place. She could have been going about living like she's supposed to and enjoying herself, but she chose to make herself miserable instead. Not only that, but she put that burden on the people around her too, making them go out of their way to meet her where she is.

 

Others live fine as they are, so she should too.

 

Keeping her eyes trained on her lap, Lea slowly straightens her back.

 

“See? You're alright. Nothing to worry about.” The doctor smiles, lifting their hand off Lea's shoulder. Lea finds herself unable to meet their eyes.

 

“Well, that should be us for today. I'll look into if there's anything more I could possibly do. Perhaps avoid areas made out of solid matter, but otherwise keep living as you are.”

 

That was pretty much impossible since almost everything in Crossworld's was made of something solid. Lea doesn't bring this up, standing up from the bed and walking towards the elevator. She turns back to the room as she reaches it, the doctor giving a small wave.

 

“Goodbye Lea. And I'm sorry again.”

 

“Thanks…Bye…” Lea says with a polite smile, before clicking the elevator panel and leaving the room.

 

Reaching the small room crowded with boxes, Lea slouches against the wall with a sigh. 

 

It feels like she should feel better about this. The doctor was correct, and she had accepted that. Out of all the things that could happen, this really wasn't the biggest deal. But she doesn't feel better, not at all. Accepted or not, those words sit heavy in her head. And she really doesn't understand why.

 

She clutches her chest, an inkling of dread still mingling.

 

She'll just have to push through it.

Pushing herself up with a small grunt, Lea walks out the door onto the boat's deck. The wind rushes past her as soon as she steps out into open air, feeling almost strong enough to topple her over. The sun that was climbing its way into the sky was now on its journey down, still lightning it up a bright sky blue. 

 

Leaning against the ship wall to the right of the doorway is Satoshi. He stands with a distant expression, but quickly comes to attention as soon as Lea steps out.

 

“Ah, you're done?” Satoshi asks, pushing himself up off the wall. Had he been waiting here all that time? Guilt stabs out from Lea's gut. “Well, that's good. I’ll ask the doctor about it later and figure out what to do next.“

 

Lea tries not to let the gloom show on her face too much. With what the doctor had told her, she’s not very hopeful that there will be any next steps. 

 

Not receiving a response or a way to move the conversation forward, Satoshi looks up at the sky with a distant mutter. “I should really get back to work…” he stops himself, looking at Lea through the corner of his eye. “...But would you rather I stay for a bit? Do, ah, something? Together?” 

 

Lea blinks, slightly stunned. Thinking it over, she weighs her options. Consensual Satoshi hangout time. Without being dragged away from a glowing menace. A rare opportunity. There really should only be one answer. 

 

But Lea finds herself hesitant. She's already wasted most of his day, and most of the reason why he’s asking is probably to make her feel better. He said he has work, after all, which is something he enjoys doing, sometimes too much. She doesn’t want to keep someone from something they want to do because of something that’s her problem. She’s done enough of that.

 

So, reluctantly, Lea shakes her head. 

 

Satoshi seems somewhat surprised at her response, though his expression only just shows it.

 

“That's alright.” He says, turning to look at Lea fully. “Would you like me to bring you back home?”

 

Thinking a bit, Lea shakes her head again. Home isn't really where she wants to, or really should, be right now. She can make her way back herself. 

 

“Alright,” Satoshi's eyes unfocus and flick between nothing as he brings up his mini map. He hovers his hand forwards. “Well, see you soon Lea.” 

 

“Bye!” Lea waves as Satoshi disintegrates into blue, leaving Lea alone with the sound of the ocean breeze and lapping water surrounding her. She keeps her hand up for a few moments after he leaves, smile falling off into a somber expression as she retracts it.

 

Isolated on an industrial vessel, Lea finds herself regretting her decision as soon as it's made. Even if it would’ve been a selfish decision, she really did want to spend some time with Satoshi. More than she thought, apparently. She finds herself getting exceptionally lonely, despite being with people only moments before.

 

“Why…” She mutters to herself, lightly scuffing the deck with her shoe. “What where who why how how how…” She continues, rambling on frustrations to nobody as she absentmindedly lifts her leg to kick the deck hard. She flinches just as she's about to swing. Carefully, she lowers and places it gently down. “Why…”

 

Not even an echo answers her. Lea sighs. Maybe she should just go-

 

A loud ringing causes her to jolt up in minor panic, a pop up reading ‘direct link request’ flashing in front of her eyes. It rings on for a moment, Lea stunlocked into staring at the flashing message. She manages to shake herself back to attention just as the pop-up is about to leave, and answers.

 

A hologram of a friendly face fizzles into existence in front of her.

 

“Lea! bonjour!” Emilie's voice rings loud though the hologram, and Lea thinks that the worries burrowed into her cower away at the sound of it, at least slightly. At the very least it makes her feel a lot less lonely. “Finally done with that appointment?”

 

Lea smiles bright as she brings out her Lea board, expression gaining a smug aura as she finds the word she wants. ‘ Bonjour ’ it says, with dubious pronunciation. She nods in response to the question, her smile lessening slightly.

 

“Finally! Mon dieu, you were stuck in there for ages! Way longer than Tronny.” Emilie slumps forwards. “He wanted to wait until you called us first so we wouldn't interrupt, but I couldn't wait any longer, it's been hours !”

 

Lea nods, a smirk brought on by Emilie's complaining mixed with a now downcast expression.

 

Emilie shakes her head, as if rattling about her brain to regain focus.

 

“But right! You're out! Alors, since all of us are free, want to join a party with me and Tronny? It's been ages since we've been in one, non?”

 

Oh, it really has been. While the two had come to hang out together at her house, they hadn't formed a proper party since Lea's fall. Lea feels a brick of guilt weighing down her chest, but she's a bit too distracted by the request to think much about that.

 

This was great! She could make someone else happy by meeting them where they wanted, and she wouldn't have to be alone! It was a win from every angle, except where it wasn't, but she could ignore that.

 

“Of course you don't have to, you could spend the rest of the day relaxing! Doctors appointments are rather tiring, oui?”

 

Lea shakes her head vigorously.

 

Emilie narrows her eyes “...Non, you don't want to play or non, you don't want to relax…” Her eyes narrow further. “Or non, doctors appointments aren't tiring…”

 

With a slightly exasperated expression, Lea brings out her lea board with a small muttered “wait, wait, wait”. ‘Play. ’ she inputs, before quickly adding ‘want to.’

 

Emilies expression quickly shifts to a smile as she bounces from foot to foot. “Très bien! Let's meet at the rookie harbor fountain, d'accord? We'll see you soon!”

 

Lea nods “Meet! Bye!” she says, smiling as she ends the link. A loud, energetic cry of “She said-!” leaks through the disappearing hologram just before it cuts off.

 

Lea is left alone with the sounds of the sea once again, though they're a bit less imposing this time around. Still, she wastes no more time listening to them, opening her mini map and selecting the Rookie Harbor fountain. Her vision breaks apart into darkness, leaving the out-of-bounds cargo ship behind, before it reforms, giving her a view of Rookie Harbor's central square.

 

The square is well populated by players milling about the area; leaning against walls, sitting on benches, lounging beneath trees. Most seem to be in groups or pairs, talking amongst themselves. Some of them slow to watch as Lea paces restlessly back and forth, looking around the area for her friends. But no red-headed ahoge nor purple dotted mountain of spiky black hair are present, and certainly no excited yell pierces the air with a polite greeting following close behind.

 

Guess they're not here yet. 

 

With a light sigh, Lea sits down on the edge of the fountain to wait. Leaning back onto her hands, Lea sways her legs back and forth as she hums a barely noticeable tune. What should they do? What is there to do? Maybe they could do a round in the arena? Or see who can get highest fastest? Or even rerun a dungeon…

 

As Lea thinks over the options, an ever-present worry starts to press harder into her side. Her humming pewters out into nothing, expression corrupting into an anxious frown. 

 

Of course if any of those options came up…

 

She's thinking of something she shouldn't be. 

 

But now she can't stop thinking about it. Her leg bounces up and down as her frown deepens. She shakes her head. 

 

Some conversations around her almost seem to have quieted down after she settled on the side of the water fountain, the dull thump of unnecessary worry in her ears possibly muting the noise around her. The water seems to flow loud as ever though, which she's grateful for.

 

Breathing slow, controlled breaths, Lea stares out at the scenery surrounding her.

 

The autumn breeze of Autumn's Rise and Fall perpetuates the town, giving it a sort of mellow but crunchy air that's hard to describe. The sky is as bright and clear as always, the light of a false sun illuminating the scattered gazebos across the town, their faded colours warm in the light.

 

A pentafist in a bird-like mask is sitting on the top of one, curled up with their knees to their chin. They seem to be scribbling something down, looking up every so often towards a nearby lamppost.

 

Someone has managed to climb onto the top of the thing, balancing on one foot while someone at the bottom yells up at them in apparent worry. Lea cocks her head. She wonders for a moment if she could get up there too, before being thrown back to previous thoughts. She looks away.

 

She ends up looking towards a small group, maybe a guild? Leaning against the wall of a nearby building. One of them seems to point to her head and snickers, saying something to the person next to him. Lea sticks her tongue out to herself and (making it as physically obvious as possible) turns her attention elsewhere. 

 

A lot of people seem to be sitting under trees, even if they don't really need their shade. There's something nice about that.

 

Two players quietly converse against one nearby. Lea can't fully make the conversation out, she gets something about more recent updates and realism and definitely coding from scattered words. They look out toward the fountain every so often, quickly turning back to each other after just a moment of staring towards the water behind Lea.

 

What looks like a spheromancer, the only other one she can see currently other than herself, has climbed up into one. Their small stature is contorted into the branches' grasp, only an arm dangling down into open air. They breathe slow, steady breaths, but don't seem to be sleeping.

 

A girl sits under a tree teeming with fruit. One of the fruits fall, punching a hole through the player's head, straight through her body. The avatar disintegrates and reappears on the tile next to the fruit, laughing hard. Lea feels suddenly sick. OK, do NOT sit under the fruit trees.

 

Lea's attention is drawn back to a couple steps before, the two players who were talking now pushing themselves up off the tree. One is seemingly leading the other towards the landmark, saying something Lea can't hear. A familiar voice yells out, distracting Lea from her distraction.

 

“Lea! Ca va?”

 

If her name, or the voice itself, isn't Lea's queue to turn, the french certainly is. Lea quickly looks to see Emilie trotting, or maybe galloping slowly, towards her as Tronny trails a short distance behind.

 

“Hi! Hi!” Lea chirps, quickly getting up to greet them. Emilie hugs her as soon as she reaches her, Lea holding tight until she's let go.

 

“Lea, Hell-oh!” Lea latches onto Tronny before he can fully finish his greeting, hugging tight before letting go. He lets out an awkward chuckle.“Sorry you had to wait a while, we were just looking around the market.”

 

Lea shakes her head with a wide smile. Pulling up her menu, she issues two party requests, which are immediately accepted.

 

As she dismisses her menu, she half notices the two players from before having changed their course around towards the Falling exit behind them. Any curiosity about that is quickly waved as Emilie starts laughing to herself.

 

“Oui, Exciting, exciting, what should we do? Where do we start?” she eagerly rubs her hands together, looking between Lea and Tronny with no glee held back at all.

 

“I'm fine with anywhere, really.” Tronny turns to Lea. “Any preferences, Lea?”

 

Humming lightly, Lea puts a hand up to her cheek, thinking deeply. What would be fun… Well maybe-

Lea stiffens. She's been tricked into thinking about the thing she was trying not to think about. Not on purpose, but that doesn't really stop the ideas being turned over and rejected in her head like a really, really, really faulty assembly line.

 

Lea shrugs, trying to not look too unsure of herself.

 

Tronny’s expression doesn't change much, staying rather subdued as he looks at Lea with his head tilted slightly down. After a bit, he gives an awkward smile. “Well, maybe we could walk around Autumn's Rise? That's always nice.”

 

Lea hums. She could do that at least, it's the most she really did before.

 

Emilie says, “I'd be happy with that, lots of things that die to one punch! And we can look at some cows too!” to which Lea immediately smirks.

 

So, ignoring a strange sort of damp feeling she has, Lea nods.

 

As Lea exits the towns gates into the more sparsely populated route of Autumn Rise, she feels herself relax slightly. She doesn't know exactly why, the town’s nice and nobody is going to hurt her. But as she wanders ahead, leading her small group over a bridge and out of sight of the town, she finds a tension she didn't know she was holding release from her body.

 

She's happy, if confused, about this for a good couple minutes, which she spends  listening, enjoying and intercepting the chattering of her two friends.

 

Then Emilie jumps up the path towards Off Road One, and Lea freezes still. She wills herself to follow, that there's nothing to really worry about, but thinking about her head being cracked open like an egg is currently a bit more grounding than any rational.

 

When Emilie reaches the route’s intersection, she turns to see no one behind her. Tronny watches with concern as Lea stares up at her, standing uselessly in front of that first step. Emilie laughs awkwardly, a guilty expression momentarily marking her face as she jumps back down to ground level. 

 

“So… we're doing the main path this time?”

 

Glancing back towards the simple off path, Lea slowly nods.

 

“Oui, of course, good idea.”

 

Emilie and Tronny continue forwards, Lea lagging behind slightly, not looking away from the route's offshoot. Her feet drag as she slows to almost a complete halt.

 

“Cherie?”

 

Hesitating for a moment, Lea shakes her head and jogs to catch up.

No matter how long or how many new locations she'll go to, Lea doesn't think Autumn's Rise will ever lose its warmth.

 

The scattered forest of trees with yellow, orange and faded green leaves filtering light down onto the yellowed grass. The fruit that grows in some sway peacefully in the breeze, which Lea finds enchanting, even as she gives them a wide berth. Deep water reflects the sun in a glowing scatter, slight ripples breaking the calm surface and breaking up on the banks. Leaves cover the ground and fall down from trees, swirling and crunching beneath her in such a way that a deep desire to see a real autumn sits at the forefront of her mind.

 

The scenery merges perfectly with the welcome company of her friends, who she talks and laughs with as she attacks enemies from a range and wanders flatter ground at a steady pace, just like the other times she walked on this route. They race to see who can kill x amount of enemies fastest, discuss if real bugs are possibly on the croissant (argument ‘if the trees are real there's an ecosystem’ vs ‘I do not want bugs to be here’) and slow to point out little details she never would have noticed alone as other players run by and jump up to higher planes. 

 

The crisp air, the slight rippling water, the fruits glinting in the sun, the friendly bustle of company, the warmth and comfort of the area. It's beautiful.

 

She can't seem to shake the ever growing feeling that she should be doing something different. 

 

Nor the gaping hole of something missing.

Through the walking and talking and from-a-safe-distance cow murder, eventually the conversation ends up turning to something Lea had expected a while ago. Actually, she's surprised it took so long.

 

“It was rather impressive what Sergey brought in, wasn't it?” Tronny says. “I didn't expect there to be an MRI machine.”

 

Oh right that's what that thing was called. 

 

Looking away from the laser bridge beneath them, Emilie looks behind her and tilts her head. “Quoi? What's that?”

 

“You know, that table with a round structure near its head. It's used to see your organs and tissues.”

 

As Tronny explains, Emilie's expression changes from confusion to recognition. “Oh, une IRM?” not noticing the slight confusion on Tronny's face, she continues. “My tata had one of those before, apparently they're very loud.”

 

Lea nods in agreement. It was very loud, in a sort of entertaining way. It did get a bit boring after hearing it for so long though.

 

Emilie slows to a halt, sacrificing her slight lead in the group to look at the fork in the road. Up towards Bergen Trail or down to the observatory. Looking between the paths, Lea chooses down.

 

“Did they give you the pictures to keep?” Emilie starts moving, quickly going five or so steps ahead, but stops, forcing herself to slow to keep side by side with Lea and Tronny. “They're pretty gross looking, oui?”

 

Lea shrugs. ‘Nothing there’

 

Emilie furrows her brow in clear confusion. She looks at Tronny for some type of answer, who waves his hands back and forth in front of himself.

 

“Oh, Nothing showed up on mine either. Evotars aren't made of anything that machine can see, so…”

 

“Oui…” Emilie nods slowly, though her expression only seems to deepen. “Why bring it in at all, then?”

 

Scratching the back of his neck, Tronny looks up at the sky. “They probably assumed Lea's would show something different.”

 

“Meet.” Lea helpfully supplies.

 

Emilie's expression loosens out of its momentary great confusion into a relatively negligible amount. “Ah, d'accord.” She punts a hedgehag, killing it instantly. “But it didn't?”

 

Finding her vision drifting down towards the admittedly pretty grass, Lea shakes her head. The cement that had been slowly filling her chest flows just that bit faster as she looks for the proper words.

 

‘All normal.’

 

Hmm.

 

Emilie glances away from Lea and down towards the ground, slight irritation marking her expression as she wrinkles her nose.

 

“What was the point of keeping you so long then?” she huffs.

 

Hugging her arms close to her chest, Lea shrugs.

 

As they walk down the winding dirt path, the old observatory comes into view. It peeks out from on top of the short cliff on which it is situated, casting down a light shadow. They settle by the side of the water amongst the water reeds, the building visible from where they sit.

 

“I suppose they wanted to be thorough?” Tronny suggests, turning over the leaf of a water reed in his hand. “My check in was rather quick comparatively, but I was brought in to be a control group and they didn't find anything strange, so there wasn't really a need for me to stay too long.”

 

Something strange…

 

Bringing her knees up to her chin, Lea looks down into the water. Her reflection stares back. It's as whole as usual, but Lea brings her hand up to feel her left horn and the side of her face anyway.

 

Emile lets out a very loud sigh. It might be more fitting to call it a loud groan or the start of a yell really. Lea is distracted from the water, looking up at Emilie with a perplexed expression.

 

“Oui, oui, enough talk about that.” Emilie waves a hand back and forth in front of her, before leaning back onto both. She looks up at the sky and stares, watching the clouds in some sort of contemplation. Glancing up, Lea notices one sort of looks like a cat. Or maybe a rat. Pursing her lips, Emilie lets a decisive puff of air out through her nose and looks back down at Lea and Tronny. She smiles warmly as she begins to talk. “You know, it's been a while since we've done that archipelago parkour course, the really long one?” She tilts her head. “Why don't we go do it again?”

 

Lea blinks. That one? She's sure she should be feeling her stomach drop currently, but she's a bit too stunned at the suggestion.

 

Tronny leans forwards, uncertain. “Is that a good idea? With the…”

 

“It'll be fine! Lea's smart, oui?” Emilie's voice is brimming with confidence. “She knows how to handle herself, basically always landed on her feet, tout va bien! Plus it's been ages since we've jumped around anywhere, I'm getting antsy.”

 

Lea curls her knees slightly closer as she feels a pang of guilt pulse inside her chest. It curls up and harmonizes with a feeling of heavy sympathy.

 

She can feel that stomach drop she was expecting creeping in, but there's something else running through her that she's more focused on.

 

This whole time she's been stifling herself, sticking to the ground, staying inside, being as safe as possible. Isolating herself from doing the things she loves over something that isn't even dangerous, not really. 

 

And it's just so… frustrating .

She's frustrated that she worried so much. That she's still worrying. Is that all she can do now?

 

Other people can do these things fine, hell, she used to do them all the time. There's nothing to worry about.

 

Lea feels the side on her head. It's all there just like before, unlike what she expected.

 

She's going to do what she wants.

 

Puffing air out her nose, Lea nods. ‘Let's.’ 

 

Emilie's expression brightens, highlighting a sort of strain it held a moment before, a weight seeming to lift from her shoulders. “Trop génial! And you, Tronny?”

 

Lea turns her head to look at Tronny alongside Emilie. He rubs the side of his face as he thinks it over.

 

“Well, I suppose it is mostly water…” Tronny murmurs. He smiles. “Sure, I'd be happy with that!” His gaze flicks away into the distance, looking partially confused. “Though, we've finished it already. It's not like there's a reward. Most of the ‘puzzle’ part of it is already completed, even.”

 

“Not like that's stopped Lea from dragging us there before.” Emile shoots up onto her feet, nearly falling into the water in the process. “Cmon, allons-y!”

 

Nodding enthusiastically with a “Hi Lea Hi!” Lea Opens her minimap and teleports to Azure Archipelago.

 

She arrives on the metal platform of the area's entrance, blinking at the brightness of the sand surrounding it. The forms of Emilie and Tronny materialize behind her, automatically being dragged along with the party leader. Lea stands alert, looking at her surroundings. Short cliffs of packed sandstone tower up beside patches of lush bush. If she looks far enough Lea can see a couple starfish floating about. She hasn't been here since her fall. There are a lot more people than there were in Autumn's Rise, lounging on the sand, hanging about in groups and running to the area ahead. Maybe it still being one of the newest areas attracts more players.

 

She can see the ends of the jumping puzzle from where she stands now, a cliff curling around hiding a small island of sand from view.

 

A sickness so heavy that for a second Lea thinks someone has come behind her and stabbed her sinks in her chest. Her nerves feel like a bunch of frayed wire, crackling and sending out short, sharp bursts at random intervals.

 

She huffs, rubbing her head. For something she shouldn't be making a fuss about she sure is thinking about it a lot.

 

After a short daze from the unexpected teleport, Emilie wastes no time jumping off the platform down onto the sand. Tronny walks after her, choosing to use the regular path down instead.

 

Attempting to shake off hesitation that clings to her like a tick, Lea follows them. The ghost of a trail not really there drips down her head as she makes her way down the stairs. 

 

“The starting room's just over there, oui?” Emilie asks, pointing over to her left to an area flooded with water.

 

“Right, at Dover's cliffs.” Tronny replies.

 

Lea feels her inside shrivel up and her body cower. Definitely not a stupid thing to happen when you see a pathway.

 

“Wait, but that's where I’m pointing, to the left.”

 

“Oh, I know, that's not what I meant. Though…” Looking between Lea, Emilie, and the cliffs in the distance, Tronny clears his throat, a polite smile on his face as he points in the opposite direction. “Since we're here, maybe we should take the scenic route? It's a nice area after all.”

 

Hesitantly, Emilie looks back towards Dover's cliffs, frowning slightly. She taps a foot rhythmically up and down. “We could…” She glances at Lea, staring uncertain for a moment before she lets out a breath, expression relaxing into a loose smile. “Ah, mon dieu, why not? We'll get to the jumping eventually, non?”

 

Lea nods, her anxiety fizzling down slightly as her inevitable and wanted fate is postponed. She isn't really sure whether to consider this a lucky break or not, but it's something her friends want to do so she shouldn't psych herself out of it. Also she really really wants to run, or at least jog, around the beach.

 

Tronny opens his mouth to respond, but Emilie has already started rocketing ahead. 

 

“Hurry up then, c'mon! I'm ready to punch some starfish!”

 

Watching her bolt off, Tronny looks after her, amused. “Should we go then? If we wait much longer she might loop around to meet us.”

 

“Lea!” Lea agrees, heading after Emilie as Tronny joins her.

 

Though even jogging feels far off for her, worry of tripping with the sand turning out to not be soft enough to cushion her fall keeping her at a steady trot.

 

Despite her sprinting full speed out ahead, Emilie soon slows down to keep pace with the group. She starts to chatter about how different the trees here are compared to where she lives, which Tronny quickly chimes in on.

 

It isn't long until they run into their first couple enemies, some of the many many starfish that swarm the area. Emilie immediately goes through with her greatest desire in this current moment as stated before, punching them. A starfish slams straight into her stomach for it, knocking her onto her back, but she seems to think it was worth it. Especially when she beats the thing, narrowly dodging an icy charge and shattering the star into a rain of blue particles with a strong hit from her flaming fist.

 

Tronny starts his attack after Emilie gets her ass knocked over, drawing an approaching starfish away from her with a rain of hexs. It pulses green, Rapidly approaching his location. But as it does, a mark appears on the floor and the sky above it crackles. A great bolt of lightning rips the starfish into a burst of blue particles, getting Tronny the second kill of this area.

 

Lea had started her attack a bit before Tronny, throwing a ball at a star immediately after Emilie punched the first one. She keeps her distance, circling around as far from enemy range as she can manage as she peppers it with attacks. The star charges forwards, Lea moving safely out of the way. However, she didn't expect it attacking again in such quick succession, changing its path back towards Lea. She stumbles sideways, holding in a breath as it rushes past her, before bringing around her arm and slicing it in half. Breathing hard as the star disintegrates into blue particles, Lea wastes no time going for the next one.

 

The party goes from enemy to enemy, leading them down the path. As Lea gets into more fights she varies her hits more and more, closing in before distancing herself, getting closer and closer each time. 

 

A melee art slices down a row of starfish, scattering them into nothing, and Lea is made suddenly aware that she had been less than a step in front of them.

 

Part of her is worried about being so close, she's sure, but with her body surging with adrenaline and energy it doesn't wrap around her and paralyze her, doesn't have the chance to.

 

Fighting something that would die in one hit was entertaining of course, but fighting with something that took a bit longer to whittle down, thrashed and charged and fought back, was just so so fun.

 

Soon all the enemies in the section are defeated and Lea moves forwards as quickly as she can make herself in search of more, determined to make use of the pulsing energy to keep her streak. 

 

As her kill count rises she starts to hurry, looking to find the next enemy before the timer stops ticking in her ears. Moving faster and faster until she's running at the head of her party.

 

She does end up stopping the streak after one or a couple requests for break, but she continues to run, both Emilie and Tronny sprinting to keep on her heels.

 

As they run towards their intended goal, energy still pulsing through her form, the feeling of her footfalls on the ground, Lea finds her excitement growing.

 

She looks up at the course as she passes it. A lot of players are on it, hopping quickly from jump to jump, often falling into the water. Only one person seems to be standing still, looking down at the path, seemingly people watching. Though an “Odie, c'mon you're not even trying!” probably meant he would have to stop soon.

 

Lea looks back ahead of her as her shoes scuff the sand below her, showing a small patch of the ground beneath. She should look where she's going. But still still still, she does a little hop against better-or-not judgement. She hasn't felt like this for so long. She can't wait. 

 

And that feeling only seems to grow and grow as she passes through room to room, fighting a couple enemies along the way. Maybe more than a couple. She ends up getting another S rank streak by the time they arrive in the starting room, to the mixed feelings of her party mates. With one final kill, she ends it, panting out tired, but satisfied, breaths as Emilie and Tronny do the same.

 

Shaking herself out with a proud puff of breath, Lea makes her way up the dirt ramp and stands on the cliffs edge beside its top. The start of the course.

 

Her energy seems to drop as she stands in front of the first step. Her stomach fizzes as a pulse of worry scratches at the back of her head. She shakes it and puffs out her chest. She stopped herself going higher earlier today, but she wouldn't this time. She came all the way here after all. There's nothing to worry about, everyone else can do this without worry, so she can too.

 

She's not going to let something as stupid as nerves she doesn't really have get the better of her!

 

With that thought echoing between her ears, she makes the first jump.

 

Her insides drop fast, so fast she thinks for a moment that she managed to jump short of the area she was meant to land on, even with the surface solid and clear beneath her. She taps a foot to double check it is in fact there, legs shaking underneath her. 

 

She hops to the rock next in line, insides lurching again. It takes a probably embarrassing amount of effort to not squeeze her eyes shut. Hearing a step behind her, Lea looks back to see Emilie hop up onto the land she was just on, Tronny following after her. Even though there's enough room for one, maybe both of them on the platform Lea is half paralyzed on, they don't jump for it. Emilie gives Lea an encouraging smile.

 

So Lea jumps again, Emilie and Tronny once again jumping to fill the platform she was just on. It feels less nerve wracking now, her legs are shaking a lot less which makes her feel steadier on her feet. That excitement from before is wriggling is way back up through the blanket of ‘oh fuck, oh shit’, releasing a wave of energy that she just has to do something with.

 

So, after a pause, she jumps again. The wait between hops stays long at first, with the many wave points that break up the flow of jumping and instead open the possibility of teleporting to a new platform and immediately stumbling off, not helping. But  as different wave points pass by without any incident, Lea has to gather herself less and less. As the group moves forwards, not slipping on water, the ground staying solid, they gradually speed up into a regular pattern. 

 

With the the group's pace starting to average out, Emilie wonders aloud the chances of rocks forming like this, which Tronny replies to, mentioning aesthetically similar locations that do exist, however they tend to be more crowded and do not feature some of the unnatural, at best unlikely, shapes about that do mess with the immersion. For him anyway, which Emilie points out rather bluntly. As the two start up their friendly little routine, Lea finds herself happy as she's reminded more and more of before.

 

With her confidence growing, and the jumps getting more gathered, Lea's hops start growing into a steady chain. She moves faster and faster and faster, her feet hitting the rocks in a rhythmic beat until she's hopping ahead at the head of the group, circling back to jump on and around the platforms her friends are on like a funny shared dance. She and Emilie end up ‘chasing’ each other around in circles, Tronny quietly watching them go about and jumping out of the way every so often. Eventually, after… some? Amount of time, Emilie trips over her own feet and goes headfirst into the water. After a bit of laughing, Tronny suggests continuing on ahead, which Lea agrees with enthusiastically.

 

As she gets moving again, Lea looks down at the pathway she was on a while before. Players using it pass by meters below her, some looking up at her party as they do, and she can only be thrilled. Why hadn't she done this in so long? There's almost no better feeling in the world.

 

The rocky structures they had been playing on are given a short break as the next platform is a grass-covered cliff. All three jump for it at once and, with a bit of bustle, all land solidly on it. Puffing out a short breath, Lea steps forwards to make the next jump, but stops.

 

The person she saw earlier is still standing right where he was before on the course, now in front of her. He's still looking at the path, watching some of the people on it, but his eyes do flick up to meet them.

 

Tilting her head, Lea looks down at the grassy patch he's on. The platform is wide enough for a person to squeeze past without falling off, so it's not a big deal.

 

Emilie moves carefully past Lea as she's distracted, staring and thinking. She jumps forwards onto the platform the person is on, shuffling out in front of him with a somewhat exasperated ‘pardon’, the person moving back as far as he can manage with a passing ‘sorry’.

 

As Emilie moves past onto the greater length of the platform, Tronny also moves past Lea to get to it. He smiles awkwardly as he makes his way past, the person giving a small smile and a nod. As Tronny joins Emilie, he gives a small wave to Lea. Looking back at her, Emilie, despite being less than a stone's throw away, yells rather loudly, “You coming, Cherie?”

 

Lea nods, hopping across the gap onto the platform. She says a friendly “Hi!” to the person, who looks at her with a curious expression, before replying with a quiet “Hello.”

 

Moving to the right side of the cliff, Lea hurriedly moves to meet back up with her friends, balancing near the edge as she shuffles past.

 

A hand is placed on her shoulder. She isn't given the time to be confused about this before she's shoved, hard.

 

Her brain starts to race, but not fast enough for her to curl into a ball. The side of her face slams hard onto the ground, the rest of her body following with a barely audible ‘thud’.

 

Lea lies there, confused and completely dazed. She hears a loud shriek above her.

 

“Bâtard, what was that for!”

 

“...What? They've been marketing it so much, I wanted to know how it'd react.”

 

The sharp tinge of metal spreads through her mouth. It's like a knife is being stabbed into her tongue. Something dribbles down her chin.

 

“Oh come on don't tell me you didn't know, look, I know it seems real, but it's been all over the news! You can even double check its profile, there's a badge that proves it.” 

 

Emilie has started yelling something Lea doesn't understand, but she can't fully place if it's french, english, or just noise.

 

“Lea?”

 

Lea hears Tronny's voice, dripping with concern, just audible over the growing distressed murmurs.

 

But she doesn’t need that to tell her something is wrong.

 

One side of her head seems to lop closer to the ground. Her jaw feels both slack and strained, her mouth, which she can't close properly, is hanging ajar. 

 

Dread radiates from it, soaking her completely through.

 

So it really should be no surprise what's there when she touches her face, but her chest thrashes itself inside out and she heaves as cold sweat slicks down her body.

 

The left side of her face juts out wrong.

It feels wet. 

 

Would a broken jaw affect a regular person's breathing, she wonders? It really shouldn't affect hers, breath all fake and in no danger of stopping. But even still she feels her throat close up and her breath quicken in shallow rasps. 

 

She pulls her hand away and rakes it through the sand, which sticks to the blood it's covered in. The feeling of her unneeded heartbeat taunts her. She has to make it stop, but the only thing that feels like it would is a stake through it, which wouldn't even work.

 

She needs to think clearer, maybe go somewhere to wait out the dread, but it won't leave her with her jaw ripped apart. Maybe she should drag herself to water, but she can't think to move. Plus, she's surrounded on all sides.

Oh.

People are looking at her.

 

Some are yelling, she thinks, all the noise around her has mixed into a static that's both oddly quiet and horrifyingly loud. And boy is that only making the suffocating dread worse and worse. 

 

But some look vaguely confused.

Some look strangely calm.

Some look intrigued .

 

Lea's never been bothered by people looking at her before. She thrived on it most of the time.

 

Did they always stare that hard?

 

Lea curls in closer to herself and grips her arms. It doesn't hurt so maybe she should calm down, but she can barely feel a whisper of that thought over everything else. 

 

The blood is still flowing down out of her mouth, soaking into the sand and pooling on the rock. She can feel some dripping down the right side too, where her face hit the ground. And the feelings that come along with that, the rapid jittery beating of her chest, the feeling of her insides all spiked up like millions of needles pressing on the inside of her skin, inescapable sinking dread worse than ever before, she's ravaged by them. 

 

Paralyzed by it all, all she can manage to do is let out a low whine.

 

It sounds choked out by her closed throat and broken jaw.

 

And she's sure that person is still there, looking down at her. And if not, there are plenty more.

 

They question and point and talk and plot, all to be ignored and pushed away until they inevitably act.

 

Her shoulder burns with discomfort, like being touched had infected her skin with maggots. Maybe it had, maybe her shoulder was going to start bleeding too.

 

Why did she have to do this? Why did she have to be so stupid? High above the ground with an incorrect body in all accounts, of course this would happen, she should have known, she did know.

 

She thought of it and dismissed it, but the murmurs of people she tries and fails to ignore and the actions followed through with and the blood pooling in her mouth and seeping down her jaw prove those anxieties right. She can get hurt, she will again, she just was. And will be, again and again with no way to fix it no possible solution. Stuck with it forever and ever.

Is anything safe at all?

How is that fair?

Over everything and nothing, Lea hears something. The crunching of shifting sand as someone takes a step towards her, and finally her eyes start to water as all her panic spikes up and doubles at once and her chest, head, arms, legs, everything is clawed open by terror. That beating from before sounds like a bass drum, circling through her ears over and over and over. Her breath hitches and her limbs twitch, everything firing at once, telling her to do something, anything , because if she does not get out right now they are going to hurt her.

 

Her body forces itself into frantic functionality, arm jerking up and summoning the mini map in front of her. More than half blind, she clicks the first place she can think of.

 

And vanishes somewhere, anywhere but here.

Notes:

mfers get large shipments sent across the galaxy faster than I do packages sent to nz

Chapter 3: I Bleed Because I Am Real

As soon as she feels stone underneath her, Lea scrambles forwards and bolts. Any sight she gained from forming without tears is immediately lost, her surroundings blurred into familiar yet incomprehensible tones of deep blue, green and crimson. 

 

She rushes past two blinding lights, nearly falling over a step as the ground changes material before returning to stone. Every movement is a trip or stumble yet still she runs the fastest she has in over a month, dead set on a panicked goal.

 

An open path stretches around her with no room for cover, boxed in by cliffs with no path for escape. Is she being pursued? She must be, she must be, she is.

 

Lea stumbles forwards as the ground rises and changes again. Yellow lights glow above her like some sort of false hope, but she runs out and under them and back onto stone, forgetting them back behind her.

 

The surroundings grow narrower, closing in around her as the path starts to wind. Turning a corner, her foot catches on a pavestone and she falls onto her hands, scrambling to get back up. The sudden stop sends her off faster, the chance of someone catching up driving her legs down into the ground. They threaten to give out at the force of it. 

 

Even being unable to feel physical exhaustion, every part of Lea that isn't pumping a million miles a minute or ripping her inside to shreds seems to want to force her to a stop. She squeezes shut her eyes as the air pushes back against her, wanting to drag her flesh apart. It only makes her push harder, body pulsing with panic as she dips her head down and forces herself forwards.

 

Lea pries her eyes open again just as the path is about to end, managing to skid to a halt before she slams her skull full speed into the dark thing towering over her. But she has no time to slow down, heaving in breath as she rushes away from the shadow and towards a gathering of warm lights.

 

The stone turns to grass turns to nothing and she jumps, the edge of the land threatening to crumble away with her presence. She trips and stumbles forwards, feeling the edge of the soil beneath her, the blinding feeling ripping her apart heightens and stabs out.

 

She reaches solid ground, reaching out her hand as she stumbles forwards. It touches something dark and firm, the rough and uneven surface shifting across her palm and trickling a strange feeling into her, one she can't take any more of.

 

Lea collapses onto the familiar gnarled trunk, gasping in desperate breaths through wavering sobs.

 

She doesn't know how long she sits there, time even more of a soup than usual. But eventually her sobs turn into wheezing as her body slows down into a tremble.

 

Her limp body shudders against the rough bark beneath her. Laying back her head, Lea looks up.

 

Lanterns tied up in the tree’s branches sway gently, a warm yellow glow illuminating the thick green leaves above, tinted blue through shadow and moonlight. Gatherings of pink flowers surround her, covering an island isolated in a dark shadow of a lake. The roof of the Sukiya-zukuri style house pokes up in the near distance, dwarfed by the cliffs, trees and bamboo surrounding the area.

 

A familiar space nestled into the scenery of Sapphire Ridge, clear, or mostly fuzzy, around her. A hidden place few others had access to, not yet.

 

The realization makes her feel less safe than she'd hoped. It kind of just makes her feel stupid for running so hard.

 

Lea sniffs as she gains back some of her senses, pushing herself into a more upright position with a small shake of her head.

 

The dread flowing through her prickles and her gut drops as her focus fully shoots back to her injury.

 

Or, injury? Her tongue doesn't feel lopsided in her mouth anymore, and her head no longer feels weighed down to one side. Nothing is dropping down from her face to the floor and no metal taste stains her tongue, even when she shifts it along her teeth to find her mouth feels weirdly straight.

 

Bringing up an unsteady hand, Lea shifts it across the side of her jaw. It feels damp with tears, but flush with itself with no noticeable bump or dip. She can't feel any crack or tear in the surface either.

 

Unsure, she runs her hand over it a couple more times, as if some sort of trick was going to be sprung on her on the double or triple check. Her face remains intact. 

 

Lea sits there, hand still held against her jaw in case it decides to stop fucking around and fall off, slowly thinking it over. 

 

When she warped in she wasn't crying.

 

That was probably it.

 

Letting out a rather ragged breath, she slowly lifts her hand off her jaw and brings it down in front of her.

 

It comes back bloody. 

 

Lea flinches, pushing herself back into the trunk as if she could run away from the stuff stuck to her hand. Before she can think about it, she brings her hand back up to double check her jaw. It still feels fully intact. Against her better judgement, she pushes it firmly to the side, but it remains connected with her face.

 

Taking a deep breath that sounds more like a shaky gasp, Lea leans forwards to look down into the water. 

 

Her jaw is smeared with blood, but isn't cracked asunder.

 

Confused, she carefully leans back against the trunk of the tree. Her chest beats heavily, which she isn't a big fan of. Looking down again, Lea looks closer at the palms of her hands. 

 

Hundreds of jagged cuts snake along their surfaces, deep wells of blood springing up from their depths. 

 

They must have been scraped open when she fell onto the stone path.

 

Lea continues to stare at her hands. They shake horribly. 

 

Her gaze turns to the ground as she brings them towards herself.

 

Gripping her writhing chest, Lea grits her teeth.

 

Why is this happening to her, why does she have to deal with it? 

 

What did she do?

 

Something bubbles up to join the panic and dread nestled inside her, sparking in her gut and prickling at the corner of her eyes.

 

She shouldn't be feeling this way because of some scuffed hands. Her body shouldn't surge with panic and dread like she were back in that damn tower whenever she falls too hard off a rock. So she hurt herself a bit, so what? It's something that happens to everyone. It doesn't even affect her negatively, she could bleed the equivalent of the Raritan ocean and she'd be fine. No reason to panic.

 

She should be out playing. She should be better than this.

 

What is she doing? 

 

Why won't she stand up?

 

The bark of the tree pokes into Lea's back. Her breath rattles out her open mouth.

Why did she have to bleed.

 

There was no rhyme or reason to it, sister’s blood out of a false body. So why. 

 

If only she hadn't. She wouldn't have to be cautious about her every move. Her friends wouldn't have to worry. She wouldn't have stayed inside for basically weeks. She wouldn't have to be scared to look at her own reflection.

 

If she hadn't been like this maybe then she wouldn't have been targeted in the first place! Wouldn't have acted off, wouldn't have stood out, wouldn't be doomed to fall by…

 

She's shaking, still shaking, why won't she stop shaking . Of all the things to break over this has to be the stupidest.

 

She doesn't want to be here anymore, just lying there like something's wrong, she should be doing something, she wants to be doing something!

 

She wants to do a raid with her friends! She wants to beta test with Shizuka again! So why can't she just stop being dramatic, calm down and do it!

 

She stamps her foot repeatedly into the ground, the quiet sound of disturbed dirt and grass only just noticeable. She screams as loud as she can, which pewters out into a squeak as it always does. She yells “why why why,” until the fear of her throat rupturing forces her to stop.

 

And as quickly as it came, that enraged burst simmers down down down into a heavy despair. 

 

At the end of it all, there's nothing she can do.

 

Curling up into a ball, Lea puts her face in her knees.

 

The hideout's quiet air mocks her. The distant cry of crickets could barely be counted as background noise and the still water makes no sound, leaving the loudest as her broken breath and quiet sniffles.

 

Her eyes sting and her throat feels raw.

 

But still it doesn't hurt.

“...Hey.”

 

Lea’s breath hitches as she jumps, swiveling her head towards and leaning back away from the noise above her.

 

Shizuka looks down at her. She stands a couple steps from the edge of the island, leaving a clear distance between them. The corner of her mouth twitches as her brows 

furrow up in concern, possibly the most Lea has seen her show.

 

Lea stops trying to press herself inside the tree trunk. The added panic and tension settles down and releases from her shoulders, leaving her with the stuff she already had. 

 

She thinks about greeting Shizuka, a ‘hi’, or a nod, or a small smile, but finds she can't muster anything. She shuffles, the current situation seeming to loom heavier by the second.

 

Shizuka's expression deepens, tilting her head down as she looks at Lea's current condition. Hunched over and breathing heavily, face stained with tears and blood, staring up at her sister, Lea becomes increasingly aware of herself.

 

Her face flushes with embarrassment as she feels somehow smaller than before.

 

Lea averts her gaze, returning her face to her knees. 

 

Even with her face pressed down into darkness, a small sliver of her surroundings is still visible. If she closed her eyes she could rid herself of it, but she doesn't. The edge of the water in front of her shimmers where the lamp light hits it, and if she looks to the side she can see the lush grass and some pink flowers.  It doesn't seem to lessen her dread tightening with the space she's boxed herself in, or the way her noises seem to echo.

 

Even when trying not to cry, Lea is still the loudest thing in the area. Shizuka lets out a drawn out and steady breath, relieving her of that title for a second. It's passed back to her pretty quickly though, the surrounding noise turning back to what it was before, almost as if Shizuka was never here in the first place.

 

The light shifting of grass being disturbed comes from Lea's right, making that very obviously not true. The gap of quiet that comes after almost serves to convince her otherwise, but eventually Lea hears Shizuka take another barely audible step. Then another. Then another.

 

A pair of shoes appear in Lea's sliver of vision, stopping a short distance beside her. Even if she hadn't seen her, Lea is certain she would have been able to feel her presence either way. It feels like there should be a long shadow cast over her, even with the lanterns above shrinking those to faded puddles underneath them.

 

Lea pushes her face a bit farther down.

 

With one last shift of grass, Shizuka slides down into the corner of Lea’s vision, leaning her back against the tree and sitting down next to her. Her long, steady breaths are barely audible, especially compared to Lea's, inconsistent and still rattling.

 

Nothing is said as the two sit in silence. Lea stares down into her self-inflicted prison, and can only guess what Shizuka's doing. The dark shape in the corner of her eye only just registers as her, and doesn't describe much of any detail in the slightest. Which is fine, Lea plans to stay in her dark cocoon made up of her own limbs until the game sunsets or her chest calms down, whichever comes first, so what Shizuka is doing doesn't affect her at all. 

 

Even if it's dark. And nothing is happening. And the back of her brain is itching. She doesn't need to look.

 

Loosening her arms slightly, Lea peeks out at Shizuka. 

 

She's facing forwards, staring out at the dark water in front of them. Her legs are drawn in and crossed in front of her, her arms resting on the ground. She isn't shifting in the grass, or making noises under her breath, the only sound she's making is her breathing. 

 

She doesn't seem to plan on leaving, Lea feeling a trickle of guilt.

 

Lea looks over her again, trailing her eyes up and down to see if she's missed something. Shizuka is looking down at her, her eye now locked in on hers. 

 

Lea pulls herself away from the eye contact, muttering out a nonsense sound. She was never looking across the lake.

 

Shizuka leans forward. Lea turns her head further away, so Shizuka leans back against the tree, still looking at Lea in search of something. Her gaze flickers down. Turning her head, Shizuka stares at Lea's hands, clenched tight around her legs. They're still clearly leaking blood, which seeps and blends into the surface of Lea’s stockings.

 

Shizuka is quiet for a moment, before letting out a light sigh. “Here.” 

 

Pushing forwards onto her knees, Shizuka reaches over and takes hold of Lea’s arms,  unraveling her from her ball. She is met with no struggle as she gently pulls Lea closer to the island's edge.

 

She carefully guides down Lea's hands and dips them underneath the surface of the water. The water's presence sort of trickles into Lea's skin and flows inside and she shivers. The blood drifts away from her palms and mixes with the water, swirling red just visible illuminated by lamplight.

 

The red spreads out further, branching like a net across the water's surface until diluting into the dark. Shizuka loosens her grip. 

 

Small trickles of tinted water drain out and fall back into the lake as Lea draws her hands back up towards herself.

 

Hundreds of miniscule cracks are spread out across her palms, a slight bounce light of red on their edges showing what lies just a bit deeper in.

 

Lea's expression tightens.

 

Curling back inwards, she brings them to her chest. Nothing beats in there, hammering heavy still.

 

Shuffling away from Lea, Shizuka sits up, running her hands along her dress to rub out the water. She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “I heard something about an avatar bleeding.”

 

Shifting her jaw, Lea looks away.

 

“Are you-” Shizuka stops, shaking her head. “Sorry. What happened?”

 

Lea hesitates, glancing further away. She absentmindedly runs her fingers over the ravines in her palms, stopping with a harsh flinch when the dread seems to rise in response.

 

She expects them to have started trailing down red, but the whitish blue cracks still dance deep across her hands. She sits in anxious anticipation, staring deep into them, but other than that eerie red light, the blood stays confined underneath.

 

Lea lifts her head up slightly, away from her hands. She nods slowly. No longer a ball, but still hunched over herself, Lea pulls out her Lea-board.

 

She skims over its surface, moving her hand up to scroll around for words. With her brain preoccupied, it's taking longer than the usual longer than normal to find them, but she does, pulling together the first sentence. 

 

‘Playing, Emilie, Tronny’ The board drones out as Lea lines up the next words. ‘Having fun.’ ‘Forgot about it.’ 

 

“It?” Shizuka asks. 

 

Lea turns her hands, holding them loosely up in front of her.

 

“Ah, it.”

 

Returning to her board, she finds the next word easy to find, nestled away in the star tab. Her chest aches. ‘Parkour’

 

Exiting the tab and sorting for actions, Lea stiffens as she's about to input the last word. She scrolls elsewhere. 

 

Lea touches the side of her jaw.

 

‘Fell.’

 

Mirroring her action, Shizuka nods slowly, trailing her hand down her face as she furrows her brow.

 

Unsure exactly what to say next, Lea pulls away from the Lea-board. She doesn't retract  it yet, watching it float in front of her. It tilts down towards the ground as her gaze falls.

 

Lea swallows hard. “S-’” she starts, but chokes as she's interrupted by a heavy sob. She uses her Lea-board instead.

 

‘Sorry.’

 

Shizuka gives Lea a funny look. “What?” She asks, bringing her arm down to her lap. The question is loaded with confusion, a somewhat exasperated undertone poking out from under it. “It's not like you did anything wrong.” 

 

Lea curls up a bit tighter. 

 

Shizuka tenses as she does so. It's obvious enough that it feels strange her hair isn't raised up and bristling, spiked out in all directions. She seems to be trying not to glare and, you know, half managing it. 

 

“You didn't.” 

 

She says it like a statement, but Lea shrugs.

 

Narrowing her eyes, Shizuka breathes sharp out her nose, bringing her hand back up to rub her face. She heaves out a sigh, her body following it down into a slouch. “Of all the people you could blame-” She mutters. Shaking her head, she looks back at Lea. “Don't apologize for crying, or for me finding you crying or whatever else. And if it's not that you're sorry about, what could even be your fault and you can't blame yourself for falling or getting hurt or I'll fucking get you.”

 

Lea looks to the side, pondering. It wasn't getting hurt itself she felt sorry about, so she was safe, probably. She reaches for her board again but stops short, her arm stiffening as she's about to start searching. She doesn't want to find that word and use it. It won't make a difference, but she still won't.

 

But she can't just sit there.

 

Well right now, she is. Her hand hovers out in front of her, the cracks snaking across its palm reflecting the Lea-board's glow. Blood still reflects out from the inside. She can imagine it clearly, flowing through nothing. Turning it, Lea sees a small patch on the end of her finger, dried out and dark. It couldn't have avoided being washed away by the water.

 

Bringing her hand back, Lea touches her face again. The blood she rubbed onto it earlier is still there, having gained a rough and cracked texture as it's mostly dried.  Not fully though, Lea's fingers running through a wet patch. Pulling them back, she looks at the blood. A drop that hasn't yet coagulated drips down. She turns her hand to Shizuka.

 

Shizuka's eyes flick back and forth for a moment before she guesses what Lea is trying to communicate. She doesn't look very impressed.

 

“I'm pretty sure that red head of yours would throttle whoever or whatever caused that , so that kind of pulls you out of the equation.” She huffs. 

 

Drawing back her hand, Lea looks down at the stain. Something like a rock dropped into deep water manifests and trails down her back, spiking up nerves as it goes. 

 

Lea lets it sink her down, resting her chin on her knees and squeezing shut her eyes as her chest beats and burns, threatening to take all composure with it.

 

As Lea fails to calm the worry added to her arsenal of everything, Shizuka's guarded expression falters. Raspy rattling and the hideout's ambient sound make a quiet backdrop as it falls down into guilt. Not confident of the right thing to do, Shizuka hesitates for a moment. But she's already shuffled closer. 

 

Lea blinks, surprised by comforting pressure nudging her dread as Shizuka places a hand on Lea’s back. It rises along with Lea’s breathing, moving up and down in uneven jitters. A sigh blows through Lea's headgear as Shizuka pushes onto her side. She opens her mouth, before closing it without a sound.

 

With her right next to Lea, the sound of Shizuka's breathing is a lot easier to hear and follow, rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Through a jerky, stilted breath, Lea tries to mirror it.

 

They sit together, isolated under a safe haven of light blanketed by the cool dark around them. Lea's breath evens out with time, its shake reduced to an undercurrent. She lifts her head up from her knees. Her surroundings are still blurry and she's still the loudest thing around, but she can see further across the lake than she could before.

“Speaking of that red head…” Shizuka's mutter breaks the silence. “You were in a party with her and Toby, right? Should I call them?”

 

Lea stiffens. She hadn't even thought about them. She just left them behind when she ran away. This area doesn't show up on maps either so they probably have no idea where she went. 

 

She nods in agreement.

 

Shizuka gives Lea an unsure look, but doesn't act on it. “They'll probably want to come see you, you alright if I give them access to the warp point?”

 

Lea doesn't let herself hesitate, nodding again. They deserve that at least. 

 

With a nod in response, Shizuka pushes herself up off of Lea's side and stands, brushing herself off. She takes a step to leave, but pauses. 

 

“If you think you did something wrong, maybe you should hear their say on it.” Leaning back down, she pats Lea firmly on the shoulder. “I'll be right back.” 

 

Shaking out her hand, Shizuka hops off the island and out of view, leaving Lea alone.

 

Sitting in the still pushed suddenly back upon her, Lea picks herself up and hobbles back to the tree, catching herself before she flops mindlessly against it, and sits carefully back down. She closes her eyes, focusing on the distant cry of crickets and the slight sound of wind blowing through leaves and thickets of bamboo, one she didn't notice before. Even if her breathing has evened out, she's still the loudest thing here. 

That somehow makes the area seem even quieter, which was probably the point.

 

Either way, that and the sudden absence of someone pressed into her leaves Lea with a heightened feeling of isolation. That's probably what causes that feeling to creep back into the edges of her brain, the one she felt when she was running, that pushes in like a pressure on every exposed surface.

 

Lea peers down at her hand. There's still blood on it. With an upturned brow, Lea goes back to looking at the lake.

 

After what feels like an eternity (probably around 3 minutes)  Lea hears a huff of breath, looking quick to the side to see Shizuka landing back on the island. Some of that pressure recedes as she sits back down next to Lea.

 

“They'll be here soon” Shizuka gives a small smile, which twists slightly as she lets out a bemused laugh. “ Hung up almost immediately after I gave them access to-”

 

“ Lea! ” Emilie rushes into view a bit early to queue, jumping across to the island with reckless abandon. She digs in her heels to stop, swiveling her head and looking Lea up and down. “Are you alright??” She all but yells, shifting her position to charge directly into Lea's chest, but stiffens. Her steps stumble forward into a stop, before she stumbles a couple back. 

 

Lea isn't sure exactly how to respond to either the action or the question, so she just says “Hi.”

 

Tronny becomes visible, hurrying over with clear effort. Apparently even being unable to compete with Emilie's full sprint, he was still close behind. And with some quick but careful jumps, he joins the group on the island, Emilie moving a pace behind him. 

 

“Lea…” He trails off as quick as he starts, searching for something to say. “Your, um, jaw’s not broken anymore, that's good.”

 

Lea nods, trying to hide her guilt-ridden confusion as she glances where Emilie has moved to. She cringes, dipping down her head.

 

“Sorry…”

 

“Quoi?”  Emilie frowns. ”For breaking your jaw?”

 

Lea starts to shrug, before thinking better of it and shaking her head. She brings out her Lea-board.

 

‘Ran.’

 

Tronny tilts his head, before smiling awkwardly. “Well, there were a lot of people, and considering-”

 

‘Nothing wrong.’ The Lea-board interrupts before he can continue, Lea looking for the next words to fill the space. ‘Not hurt.’ ‘Was fine.’ 

 

“But you were hurt!” Emilie yells, pushing out her voice as if she were trying to preemptively overwhelm the Lea-board's limited volume. “And now you're acting like this !”

 

She gestures her arm wildly out towards Lea, every part of her. Slinking down, Lea feels her face flush.

 

Emilie flinches, guilt immediately overtaking her expression as she seems to stumble fowards, before taking another step back and digging a foot into the grass. She knits her hand in front of her, keeping close track of them. With nothing to overwhelm it, Lea returns to the Lea-board.

 

‘People have blood.’ ‘No issues. ’ It drones.

 

“I don't think non-avatars would be allowed to do any of the puzzles here.” Shizuka mutters, mostly to herself. It's still easy enough to hear.

 

“Right… plus the things that make up a human body are a lot more resistant than instant matter,” Tronny adds, rubbing his fingers together as if he could differentiate them from flesh. “So the situation is a bit different.”

 

Mimicking his action, Lea feels the evidence of that run across her hand and spiking out. She can feel her face return to an expression of melancholy, one that she's found herself falling into so much in the past month she wouldn't be surprised if it decided to stick there.

 

A sudden yell forces her to jump right out if it, Lea's brain reeling at the volume as she looks towards the noise.

 

Emilie has bursts out of her short window of quiet, face scrunched and teeth bared in in snarl, her fists clenched tight at her sides.

 

“That putain de connard avec son sourire de mangeur de merde là, que les flammes de l'enfer s'ouvrent sur lui et l'avalent en entier, que même l'empathie de la mort ne puisse pas le sauver cette petite merde fucker who the hell just pushes someone like that who does he think he is, I wish I knew where he was outside the game so I could actually punch him and not just-”

 

“Fucker?” Shizuka interrupts Emilie’s tirade, just in time for Lea's brain to come back from reeling and go down into dismay. “Didn't Lea just fall?”

 

Turning to Shizuka, unable to wrangle her anger, Emilie lets out an incredulous “No??? Some connard bâtard shoved her off! That enfoiré I'll show him fake-”

 

Emilie continues her rambling, though she switches from yelling to incompressible grumbled mutterings under her breath. Lea feels her dread building up and weighing on her shoulders. She can feel that thing from before sitting at the edges, staring.

 

Shizuka switches her focus to Tronny, who seems somehow stuck between concern for Lea and Emilie, and extreme annoyance and exasperation for someone else. She gives a quizzical look, but a sort of dead air about her expression makes it clear she's already guessed.

 

Tronny chuckles nervously, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “Well…”

 

‘Wouldn't have mattered normal.’ The Lea-board's drone interrupts Tronny before he can begin. Everyone's attention turns back to Lea, who is staring dead straight through the board at nothing. ‘Only mattered because blood.’ ‘My fault.’

 

Flicking his eyes back and forth, Tronny turns to Lea. His question comes out slow. “How is being pushed your fault?”

 

A shivering wave drags itself through Lea, flaring up everything in its wake.

 

 ‘Only mattered because blood.’ she repeats.

‘Blood.’ ‘My fault.’ ‘No one else blood.’ ‘Has to be.’ ‘My fault.’

 

Shizuka shoots near instantly. “Lea that doesn't make-”

 

“Why? Why?” Lea cuts her off with what should be a snap, but instead it comes out as a raw and desperate cry. ‘Has to be a reason.’ “Lea,” ‘No one else,’ “Why?”

 

Her friends stare down at her. Tronny's usually gathered expression seems to have opened up as he thinks of something to say, Emilie clasps and unclasps her hands as she shifts on her feet, Shizuka's face is tense as if preparing to yell words she doesn't have. All of them look concerned. No one has an answer. 

 

Tapping at her board, Lea's face wrinkles up in a snarl. She snorts air out her nose, glowering bitterly down at the words she couldn't think to spell.

 

‘Can't speak, can't write, can't sign, now this.’

 

As Lea looks for the words to string together her next sentence, her expression falters, anger breaking away into a desperate pleading sadness.

 

‘Why am I wrong?’

It's quiet again. 

Not for the first time, but it feels like she's been spiritually abandoned, left out to dry. 

Dismissing her board, Lea sniffs.

 

And then Emilie is upon her. 

 

An orange blur charges into Lea and it feels as if all the steps taken away were built up and doubled for the purpose of slamming into her. The thud of Emilie's head hitting the tree snaps Lea's attention to worry about a moment after Emilie gathers her arms around her and squeezes so tight Lea thinks for a second she might be trying to crush her to bits. Any part of her that wants to panic about that is wholly distracted by shock and the comforting pressure enveloping her. The grip is somehow tightened. Emilie breathes in a rattling breath.

 

“You're not.” Emilie curls closer to Lea, pushing her head into the crook of her neck. Her voice wavers. “I promise you're not.”

 

Lea isn’t very aware of her first response to this as her mind buzzes with a sort of distance. Every part of her seems to go slack as she stares down at metal gear and a white tank. The slight cold of headgear against her neck is overcast by her warmth around her, bundling her up in a bundle of arms, and something formed from that sits down besides the dread that propels the beating in her chest, echoing Emilie's own. It sends waves through her, as does her breathing, as did her ramming her full force against a tree. As do her words, still rotating in Lea's head which she looks at curious, confused, tired. Had she ever heard them before, Lea thinks as she slowly brings her arms around Emilie, returning some of the pressure as she pushes her face down against her shoulder blade. She tries to hold them in her hands, in her head, they seem to slip like spaghetti against a wall. Nothing seems to stand beside them, that's the thing Lea notices, tears spill over soaking into Emilie’s back, she's almost not sure she even heard it right with everything against it. So much those small words have to push against. It can't ever just be that easy. If it was she just wouldn't have worried in the first place.

 

But she's warm and present and Emilie is crushing her to dust against her like some sort of sentient weighted blanket latched onto her as if she's the only thing keeping her alive on this moon, tucking her face tighter still again her neck, breathes through a mouth not really hers but one she spoke through, not an ounce of deceit in her words and Lea finds herself grasping tight at the part that believes her.

 

Lea brings back her board. Her blurry vision and limited movement make it hard to use.

‘Don't want to bleed.’

 

“I know.”

Lea finds herself disappointed when, after an eternity in each other's arms, Emilie eventually moves off her. By the end of it Emilie's back is stained with tears. Emilie quickly moves to rub her face and it's clear they stained that as well.

 

Being tackle-hugged had sort of forced all Lea’s attention into a narrow view as the cogs turned in her brain, so she finds things a bit different when her vision is opened again. Shizuka had apparently shuffled away when Emilie had rushed Lea, probably not wanting to get caught up in all that. But she didn't move that far and is still thankfully close. Tronny has just come to a standstill next to where Emilie is now kneeling, crouching down with his knees to his chin to join a new triangle of close proximity around Lea.

 

When Emilie brings down her arms, her expression is crumpled in.

 

“I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have suggested the jumping puzzle,” She says. “You just seemed… je pens- I just thought…”

 

Lea shakes her head, a small reassuring smile breaking onto her face as she searches the Lea-board for a reply. ‘Wanted to.’ it says, and that smile droops and falls away as the thought solidifies and sinks down in her brain like a boulder of solid lead. She really did want to.

 

Emilie doesn't look very reassured, staring with a face that seems to reflect all Lea’s grief and loss, Shizuka watching with a somber expression. Tronny's eyes drift down, thinking in silence. Looking back to Lea, he gives a small smile. “Have you heard about what the IM developers are working on?”

 

Tilting her head, Lea frowns as she tries to recall. Other than a few stray things here and there, there's nothing specific she can remember being told. She shakes her head.

 

“You don't know about it? You're usually on top of this stuff.” Shizuka says. Lea looks away. She was a bit too distracted to keep up. “Sergey won't shut up about it, he mentions it in place of small talk. Something about concentrating mass or something, it's at a throwing-concept-at-wall stage.”

 

That does sound a bit familiar. Lea half remembers some conversations with Sergey during a couple of his lunch breaks. She wasn't all that focused to begin with and ended up processing and understanding next to nothing when Sergey devolved (evolved?) into tech speak she couldn't really comprehend.

 

At least someone seems to have comprehended it, going by the nods from Tronny. “They seem to have open communication with the game developers. I heard a bit from Satoshi.” He says, looking up as if trying to dig as much information out of his memory as possible. “I think they're aiming for higher water resistance right now? But, as I understand it, they're trying to make instant matter sturdier.” 

 

Lea stares. 

 

“I can't say I know exactly how it's going, but Satoshi says it's looking promising!” Tronny half smiles. A cautious type of hope enters his tone. “Sometimes it doesn't feel like it because of the time it takes for improvements to roll out, but the technology's always getting better, so…” 

 

“You could probably get stuff like that too, lucky bastard,” Shizuka says, despite both Lea and herself. “You've got at least three people inside Instatainment after all, and at least one has pretty good leverage. Eventually you won't have to worry about scuffs at all.”

 

It's a strange thought. For most of her life Lea hasn't needed to worry about getting physically injured, and any memory of that was floaty and ghost-like and not hers, but it's felt so ever-present this past month that it's almost dumbfounding that one day she might not have to worry about it. But, for some reason, it doesn't feel exactly ‘uplifting’. 

 

A month spent in her house or carefully wandering low level areas plays in the back of her head. Furrowing her brow, Lea flexes a hand. She can feel the cracks still run across it as spike stabs along her back. Eventually, huh.

 

“Does she have to wait for that to happen to do jumping again? She could still go on courses now, oui?” 

 

It feels strange to hear Emilie hesitate, even if all of that is shaken off by the time she's two words in. Which is probably why the three end up looking at her somewhat bug-eyed. Which she probably wouldn't like.

 

It's what ends up happening anyway, Lea feeling sort of dumbfounded at the simple suggestion, as Emilie's face twists into a soft frown.

 

“I mean I know it might be risky and it's only if she wants to of course but…” She trails off for a moment. ”She looked so lost before but on the rocks, ‘ten, even on the way to them, she just… lit up.”

 

Lea's first instinctual thought is that it couldn't have been that obvious, but that's immediately waved. Of course it was, it was everything. That energy she felt resonated through her as she pushed forward through the nerves, spiked up from her inside out running through her spine, like a reversed dread that somehow sounded exactly the same but felt so so different. And she drank it up like water, laughing and fighting and jumping with all foresight confiscated. The happiest she felt all month.

 

But at the same time, every part of her, right now, her current position and feelings and spiking from the inside out running through her spine, that's what that lead to. 

 

But even so…

 

“I'm sure instant matter will become stronger with time, but…” Tronny interrupts Lea's thoughts, speaking in a thoughtful yet cautious way that fits him more than Emilie. He seems unsure about finishing his sentence, but does.“It would likely be a long time to wait.”

 

Lea frowns, fiddling with her hands. Waiting would be safer. But would it be worth it to sit in safety without pushing for just a second of that? Even if- when she did get a stronger form, would she be able to take a starting jump at that point? 

 

A phantom runs over her skin as if in response. Warm liquid flowing from her forehead, over her eye, off a broken jaw, prickling out her hands. And the dread isn't a phantom, not more than it always is, it's here ripping around her insides digging down through everything. Sitting in that inescapable shit, it's something she should do anything, everything to avoid.

But it's not something that ever really leaves, is it.

 

Shizuka looks across the lake with a concentrated humm, seeming to mirror Lea's frown as she does. Leaning onto arms folded on top of knees, she exhales a breath out of her nose. “So what about it, Lea? What do you want?”

 

Lea stares down at her board. She presses down a finger and inputs one word.

 

‘Want.’

 

A sort of dull, buzzing pressure festers inside her as soon as the audio registers. She wets her lip, her mouth feeling suddenly dry.

 

‘Scary.’

 

“You don't have to, cherie.” 

 

Lea squeezes her eyes shut with a frown. This isn't a good idea. Look what happened the last time she did this. It's only a matter of time before she gets ripped apart both inside and out. This isn't a good idea.

 

But how long would she have to wait?

 

Lea pries back open her eyes. The pressure both seems to mount and ease at the same time.

 

‘Want.’ Lea breathes. ‘Really want.’

 

Her eyes prickle and she can feel herself shaking, but she refuses to cave, to take it back. She doesn't care how scared she is of being ripped to pieces and left to bleed out as the dread does its worst, she isn't going to coop herself up anymore, safer but with a constant dull ache.

 

But still, it risks her missing a jump, feeling like this again and again. No matter how hard she sticks to her decision she can't stop being scared of that, and her resolve constantly threatens to falter.

 

But her people are still here, Shizuka nods at Lea's answer as Emilie's back straightens, her eyes seem to shine as she holds back a full smile that threatens to overtake her face. She looks so proud it's like she almost forgot to feel worried. Almost. Shizuka seems to be caught up thinking, seeming to try to gauge something. 

 

Tronny seems to be too, though it looks to be about something slightly different, looking up in thought, tapping a finger on his knee. “Jumping areas that fall into water or pits or ones mainly made of instant matter aren't the hardest to come by.”

 

Shizuka smiles slightly. “Those monastery challenges probably fit the bill. They're thinking of adding more of them too.” Her smile shifts as she narrows her eyes. “Man those ice physics fucking sucked-”

 

“You could do easier physical ones too of course, maybe build up to higher difficulties to ease back into it. Assuming you don't want to jump right into the harder ones.” Tronny says.

 

Considering this for a second, Lea shakes head.

 

She types ‘Easy first.’ into her board, but can't help feeling a bit annoyed when it says it. 

 

Shizuka pushes on Lea's leg, looking at her with a slight smirk. “Hey, if you do the easing thing you could impress your mates with the improvement. Show them how good you are all over again, huh?”

 

Lea nods slowly, a slight smirk growing on her face as she thinks about it.

 

Emilie laughs at this, shifting in small seated jumps as she yells. “Très bien! No matter who's there, you'll show everyone what you can do!” 

 

Lea can feel herself stiffen at that, her skin running cold. 

 

“Non, bad idea.” Emilie says softly. “Keep it to the guild and family, maybe monsieur grasshead and his fiancé too. Then we'll get to have them all to ourselves.” 

 

Lea smiles, which upturns back into a smirk as she imagines showing everyone up.

 

Shizuka smiles wider at this, before letting out a sigh with no weight to it. “You really chose to go to the infamous ‘big fuck jumping puzzle’ first, huh.” She asks, tilting her head to Emilie.

 

Emilie speaks a sigh, rough and over dramatic, her body slumping with the sound. “Oui, I know I know, not the best choice but-”

 

Tronny raises a hand. “I mean, there were worse choices, the ground was mostly water. It was just rather long, and the rocks were slippery-”

 

“And some connard was on it.” Emilie huffs.

 

Lea's insides spike up, a flinch drawing Tronny's attention. “Of course if you want to do that puzzle again you can, I'm just-”

 

Lea quickly shakes her head.

 

Tronny nods. “Right, best to avoid it for a good while.”

 

It isn't long after breathing a soft sigh of relief that Lea notices Shizuka has started looking at her funny. She looks away for a moment, scratching the back of head before she brings the arm limply down and looks back at Lea with a sigh. 

 

“So you got pushed, huh.” 

 

The question’s blunt. It's clear that she's not going to be able to avoid this topic anymore.

 

Shrinking down around herself, Lea nods.

 

Shizuka stiffens, wrinkling her nose. She apparently hadn't thought of what to say when she was given an answer. “Jesus…”

 

Dipping his head, Tronny speaks with a sort of passive annoyance, though there's something despondent nestled in his tone. “I suppose something was bound to happen, I just didn't think it would be like this.”

 

“You're not surprised by that bâtard?” Emilie asks, sounding more bewildered than angry. “He basically called her fake didn't he?”

 

“Well, yes, but…” Tronny trails off. “People talk. Not everyone's first instinct is to check someone's profile."

 

Emilies expression slowly morphs into a deep frown. “Why is there a badge for that anyway. What's it for.”

 

Shizuka humms. “A team member mentioned it was an easier way to tell if someone's an evotar without looking up their username on the server. It's not like that's very hard though.” She frowns. “Or needed, really.”

 

“They can't be hidden at all?”

 

“Not normally, but hey, people hack profiles all the time. Something small like that is easy to miss.”

 

“But they’ll still exist.”

 

“Yeah. I'll try push removing the badges all together, but…”

 

“Well, it'd certainly be something. One step at a time.”

 

‘People will hurt me.’ 

 

The monotone voice of the Lea-board cuts through the conversation like a knife, Lea's expression reflecting the intonation perfectly. A somber expression buried under a half dead stare of acceptance.

 

“I won't let them.” Emilie replies in an instant, puffing herself up in preemptive anger for anyone who would dare to try. Lea can't help but crack a smile at that, even though the horror stays unchanged.

 

Turning Lea's statement in his brain, it takes a moment for Tronny to respond. “Most won't but… some might want to.”

 

Lea dips her head. She can feel it in that pressure boring into the back of her skull. ‘Will people care?’

 

Tronny hesitates, a flicker of uncertainty licking its way out into the open, but it's gone as soon as it appears as he quickly smiles.

 

“The guild did.” He says. “They knew you, after all. And that's why you're doing that campaign, right?”

 

Lea stares for a moment, tilting down her head in thought. The campaign feels like something she ought to feel bitter about doing. It's something she really shouldn't have to do at all, it started really picking up when she was in a pretty bad place, people were often clumsy and less than polite, taking part was what put a target on her back. But she can't bring herself to regret it at all.

 

Lea nods.

 

“It might not start out great, but if we keep pushing it'll improve.” Tronny gives a nervous smile. “It couldn't hurt at least.”

 

He seems to regret that phrasing, cringing slightly. Lea stares into his eyes. She sees a vague reflection of herself in his glasses, scuffed and shaken and present, and nods.

 

Tronny's smile drops some nerves as it curls up further, before it falls a bit as he narrows his eyes in concentration. He shifts his legs down into a kneel, twisting himself partially away. “Gosh, hold on a second you've still…”

 

Pushing himself up, Tronny wanders to the edge of the island and dips his hand in water. Returning to Lea and kneeling back down in front of her, Tronny rubs the side of her face. Lea isn't sure she'd call it pleasant, the feeling of the water and its lukewarm temperature kind of sucks, but she curls her face into it and her dread is pushed a small ways away. His hand is covered in crimson tinted water when he draws it back, Lea wiping her now damp face dry. When she looks down at her hand, there is no red visible. 

 

She thinks this should make her feel better than it does. It still feels good and she thinks she's calmed down, she isn't shuddering anymore and thinks she could talk without her voice wavering. But a thought still stays etched into her skull. The cracks still run clear across her hand.

 

She inputs something into her Lea-board and is waited for patiently.  

 

‘What if this lasts forever.’ It asks.

 

“We'll be here twice as long.” Shizuka mutters.

 

Lea's chest tightens as she feels herself suddenly warm. She isn't exactly sure what expression she makes, but it looks like Shizuka is actively forcing herself to not stick out her tongue.

 

“It's just as madame licorice says!” Emilie says, resondly ignoring Shizuka's sharp ‘don't fucking call me that’ as she grasps onto Lea's hand. “Tronny and Luke are always online too! No matter what you can always come to us, hmm?” 

 

Lea's hand feels warm. She nods, a smile cracking out over her face. It's not as bright as it could be, but it sparks up Emilie's own all the same.

 

Tronny smiles. “What now then?” He asks softly, resting his arms on his legs. “Would you like to stay here a bit longer?” 

 

Lea shakes her head.

‘Home.’

It takes both longer than normal and barely any time at all for Lea to stand up. She starts to stand by prop herself up using the tree, but after slipping down a bit Emilie pulls her up the rest to the way, Tronny steadying her as she threatens to fall forwards with the pull.

 

Lea stands unsteady for a moment on two feet, before settling into standing after what feels like years collapsed onto the ground. Feeling her free hand, she types into her Lea-board.

 

‘Hope no trouble.’ Her board says.

 

Shizuka cocks her head. “Trouble?”

 

‘Moderators.’ ‘Blood.’

 

Shizuka huffs at that, wrinkling up her nose at the thought. “If they blame you for getting injured, whatever stupid outcry about the blood will be the least of their worries.”

 

Being led off the island feels so strangely peaceful, smoothly jumping along to the other side as Tronny and Shizuka wait for her and Emilie to join them. After a small burst of quiet chatter, they start to walk towards the teleporter, ignoring fast travel's existence for a simple walk. Lea humms. She's almost as quiet as the ridge now, breathing only just detectable over the area's ever-present silence. But she can't help but feel an uncomfortable weighty itch in the back of her head.

 

For her to be seeked out and found, comforted and held by the ones she loved, she could be nothing but grateful for, she would trade it for nothing. But she's still scared. Even after the holding and the comforting and the reasoning, she's still scared. 

 

She can feel a trail of blood drip down her chin and over her eye and from her palms and for a moment that creeping comes up her shoulders and threatens to swallow her whole.

 

But she can hear Tronny talking clearly beside her. Shizuka leads barely a pace ahead and Emilie's hand feels solid and warm in hers.

 

A light song cuts through the quiet area. Attention drawn but not expecting to see anything, Lea looks towards the noise. Up in the tree is a starling, chirping its chattering tune. Lea stares as it hops about with a puffed out chest, pouring a drop of music into the ocean of quiet.

 

Lea looks down at her free hand. Squeezing onto Emilie's, feeling the people around her, she breathes.

 

“Wait.” Lea wriggles her hand out of Emilie's. Emilie seems confused, but offers no resistance other than the somewhat firm grip her hand was held in. 

 

Taking several solid paces forward, Lea stands at the edge of the lake. She stares down. Her reflection is unbroken by ripples, staring still up at her.

 

She still doesn't know how to fix this.

 

Doesn't have an explanation for this thing that's wrong with her.

 

There's no guarantee of everything turning out alright.

 

It's terrifying.

 

She'll just have to push through it.

She breathes in,

And jumps down into the water.

Notes:

Fucking its DONE thanks for reading this was me soaking character through with mental illness and blood before proceeding to beat it out of them (my favorite pastime)

This chapter was p nerve wracking to write, mostly because I'm not good at all at consoling people irl. I'm definitely not a therapist, but neither are any of these bastards so plausible deniability. Also nerve wracking thinking about if an ending is good or not but hell this is the one I planned I'm not changing shit /lh

Thanks for reading this little multichapter thing that took me longer than it probably should, I put this Lea though a hell of a lot but with a bit of hope she'll be ok. Now time for me to put her through hell AGAIN HAHAHHA- (the couple fic ideas I have in storage mostly involve Emilie suffering actually but shhhh)

and thanks smmm again again for TiredWriter46 beta reading this shite

Notes:

thank you TiredWriter46 for beta reading my bullshit