A Gamer's Guide 365

I try to grab him but my hands slip into his chest and out his back but he’s okay, he wasn’t hurt at all. Except now he’s lying behind me on the ground, panting and fearful. I reach out to grab his shoulder but my hand slips through. When I look at it, my hand shimmers and the moonlight is passing straight through it. Beyond the translucent palm of my hand, the face of Rice contorts in confused horror. 

“Huh?” I say, but there’s something wrong with my voice. It feels the opposite of hoarse. Soft, gentle. Unnaturally so. “What is—”

I try to touch my throat but my hand slips through my neck as though it isn’t there. Strange, I can’t even touch my own chest. And, now that I’m looking down, I can even see that my clothes have fallen on, now lying in a raptured pile below me. But I’m not naked. A loincloth of torn leopard hide is covering my nethers. I can’t touch it so I can’t tell if it’s soft or not. It’s just nothing.

As I’m looking at it, at myself, I notice that color is draining from me. My hands, which are usually a weirdly dark purple from all the rotten blood in them, are turning white. The loincloth, too. White and translucent, like…

I fly to my feet and turn to the still-sitting goddess with shock and horror battling inside my chest. “What is happening to me?” I ask her, and even though I had meant to shout it at her in terror, the voice that comes out of me is melodic and gentle. “Why am I—” She looks confused. Not good. Not good. Why does she look confused? She should know these things! Isn’t she a goddess? I look down at my balled fists. They’re disappearing even more. Shade by shade, paler and paler. Going away. “Tell me, please.”

Her head begins to shake. “Th—this is…” Pity flashes across her face and her eyes widen in understanding and fear. “Hope, do You not want to exist?”

“What?” I say, very genuinely. “What are you talking about? Of course I—” Well, I mean… I can feel my own face scrunching up in uncertainty. “Okay, wait, do you mean generally speaking, or now specifically?” Because right now, about a hundred strangers are looking at me like I’m a g—g—spectre, and it is, frankly, not very pleasant! Indeed, if I could, I would prefer to be pretty much anywhere else. That would be true, yes. But…

To my side, Rice sputters indignantly. “Now what the hell kinda response is that, Prince?!” 

“I’m sorry!” I say, happy to find that the sing-song scrambler in my throat will at least let me shout. “It’s an important distinction! But, like…” I gesture wildly. “We all feel this way now and again, right? Like we want to crawl into a little hole and disappear forever?” I chuckle, remembering something. “As a matter of fact, I once owned a hole, which I crawled into when I wanted to be alone. It was very pleasant. I could really recommend it!”

Oh, I am not liking the look on their faces. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume this meant they had never felt the urge to go crawl in a hole! They’re missing out, for sure. But Rice will surely know the feeling. We’re very similar, after all. So, I’m certain that—

Ah. No, she’s looking at me the same way. Bad. At the edge of my vision, my hand becomes so translucent I can only barely see its pale outline. 

She takes a step closer to me. “I remember that hole,” she says gently, approaching me slowly, as though I’m an easily spooked horse. “Your friend asked me to bring him there when you felt bad. Were you in there that time?”

I hesitate to answer her. “That was a long time ago.”

“You were, weren’t you?” she guesses, accurately. “Did you feel upset that he came to visit? Ashamed that he should find you in such a place? You must have told him to leave. Kicked him out of there on his ass, all to be alone in that dark hole?”

My hand flickers in and out of existence like a bad LED lamp. The memory is overwhelming. Pure darkness, cold and damp. Alone in that little hole until I wasn’t. My clenched fist slowly unfurls, the flickering stabilizing into a mild, dim light. “No,” I admit. “I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It was nice,” I say, recalling the warmth of his embrace. The tenderness of his words. The way he held me, and promised to always stay. Not even the broken promise can tarnish the beauty of the memory. I chuckle a little. “That was the thing about him. He was always there for me when I needed him. Even when I didn’t want to be anymore. Even when…”

I recall the things I’d said back then. Sobbing into his arms, I had begged, over and over again, to live. 

I raise my gaze from my pale, gently glowing hand. Rice is standing across from me, worried, but trusting. Now, it isn’t hope that shines through her clear, blue eyes. It’s faith. Faith, that I will not give in. That I will keep wanting to exist. To persist in myself, despite everything.

Though the action brings me no physical relief, I allow myself to take a deep breath. In, and out. I smile at her. “Thank you.” 

She smiles back, nods, and sighs. How lucky am I to have her?

But I’m still not quite here. My hands are still about as translucent as frosted glass, though since they’re entirely white and faintly glowing…

I look like a ghost. There’s no other way to put it. At least I’m not floating, and I don’t have any chains on me. Looking back, I unhappily notice that my hair has also turned white, and did not get the memo about not floating. Sure, it’s not as bad as Gon or whatever, but it’s got some mermaid thing going on that I strictly despise.

Turning back to the goddess, I shoot her a quizzical look, hoping she’ll give me a solid answer on how to solve this.

She gives me a difficult face. “Sorry, Hope. This is… I’m very young, so I can’t explain exactly what has happened here, but it seems like You’re stuck between Your physical body and Your immaterial soul… It might stabilize in time, though.”

In time? How much time is that? A few weeks, or, like, a year? This is—

From below, down at my feet, a little voice pipes up, saying, “Kitty? I—I can’t…”

Lett is on the ground. His legs are useless again. Guilt flashes through me and I kneel down next to him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll get you.” Bet when I reach out to take him into my arms, my hands pass through him. I stare at them. My own hands have betrayed me. I can’t touch him. I can’t even hold him and comfort him. He’s beginning to cry and I can’t wipe off his tears. I’m nothing.

A pair of arms reach into my vision, taking a hold of Lett and pulling him up. I watch, uncertain whether to be thankful or despairing, as Glyph holds him in her arms. “Are you comfortable?” she asks. 

He nods, weakly. Then, he turns to me, eyes shining, and asks, without looking, “What about the dragon?”

“The…?” Oh, yeah. The dragon. It’s still over there, chin pressed into the earth, half-kneeling. “I’m not sure,” I admit. A sudden thought strikes me. “Do you think the god of kings might return and go on a rampage with it?”

Lett’s expression falls, but not enough to suggest that we’re all about to be turned into a mangled heap. “Maybe. Desput can’t really do much on his own, so he needs heralds to do it for him… So if the dragon is still around, he could probably keep using it.”

“Let’s kill it then!” Holly suggests. “What are we waiting for? We’ve still got a hundred good men, and combined with a goddess and,” she gestures at me, frowning, “whatever you’re supposed to be, there’s no way it’ll be any issue. I mean… Rett, how long time do you think it will take until that Desput guy shows up again?”

“There’s a pretty big time dilation, so he usually slows down what happens here to watch it in replay. So, um, I would guess we have at least an hour?”

“An hour,” Holly repeats. “That’s doable, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” I admit. But it doesn’t feel right. Something is wrong about it. There’s something off about the dragon. Those five horns… I catch Lett’s gaze and jerk a thumb at it. “Lett, isn’t that the dragon you were reading about? Gar-something?”

He averts his gaze. Apparently, the forest over yonder is way more interesting to look at than a man who looks like a damn ghost. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to look at the thing. Sensible, considering how much gore it’s covered in. “Yeah,” he says, in a small voice. “That’s him. Garath the Pesticide. Desput brought him over for me because he knew I liked him.”

Choosing not to comment on how sweet of a gesture that is, I nod at him resolutely. “Right. I had a feeling that was the case.”

Over by the side, only barely far enough to not be part of the conversation, I catch Sythe’s expression paling a few shades. Before I can figure out whether I should invite him into the conversation or not, he simplified the whole thing for me by stepping over to us, bowing down, and then reconsidering to instead kowtow. “My Gods,” he says, voice full of veneration, nose pressed against the ground. “Pray, will Your most divine selves permit a mere mortal such as this foolish myself to speak?”

Ugh. Uh. What…? I look over at the goddess, who nods at me to speak. To say what, exactly? Why the hell is he bowing to me? “Um… Dude, raise your head. What are you even doing? Talk like a normal person.”

Several seconds pass while Sythe, nose still half-buried in dirt, racks his brains in order to figure out what to do. In the end, he raises his head just enough to glance at the goddess, who shrugs at him. Reluctantly, like a dog off its leash, he stands up, still keeping his head half-lowered because apparently he doesn’t know how else to talk to people. “My God…”

“Fennrick,” I correct him. “I told you before—call me by my name.”

His eyes flash wide and he reflexively bows down again, his whole body trembling with exertion. “I could not possibly call a God by Their name!” His voice is somehow both strong enough to echo through the burnt garden, but also weak enough to shake. I wonder how high he could shout if he went all-out? He is technically a general of some sort… “It is tantamount to blasphemy, my God.”

Oh, that is irritating. “I’m not a—” But I am, technically. I know that now. For some damn reason, the god of kings had inserted enough divinity into Lett to make him a god. And since I took that divinity, assembling it into myself, that means that I am now a full god. Which is probably the worst thing to happen to me since sporks. Sighing, I look him dead in the eye, which makes him bow even deeper because he obviously wasn’t grovelling hard enough. “Fine. Okay. I am a god, technically speaking.” He’s obviously not going to want to call me by my name or nickname. So, since I’ve already got a bunch of gods calling me it, I guess it doesn’t hurt to give him a more proper name. “The god of hope. So, if you’re going to call me something, call me hope, okay? No need to add the ‘god of’ part. There’s only an hour until we all get smushed, so keep it snippy, alright?”

“Yes, my…” He catches himself. “...Hope.” I can hear the way he’s tasting the word, trying to figure out whether or not it’s blasphemy to call me only by my domain. “I shall keep myself brief. You speak of Garath the Pesticide. I have had a hunch to this for some time now, considering the five horns. However, I had rejected it, on account of the turmoil that would befall on the world should this creature be allowed to go unkilled.”

“What are you trying to say?”

He moves to buy deeper, but instead, perhaps finally recognizing the nature of the one he’s speaking to, he raises his head to meet my gaze fully. His eyes are as solid as granite. “I beg of You, Hope. We must kill it. Command Me, and it shall be done. We must separate it into a thousand… No, ten thousand equal pieces, burning each as we go. Otherwise, it will not die. Please trust my expertise, I have fought four-winged dragons before. Any less than ashes and it will return.”

“I see,” I say. That makes sense. “Killing certainly seems to be the best option.”

“I concur,” Rice says. “Unless we destroy it here and now, this tragedy will repeat across the globe. Putting aside that this is the most powerful four-winged dragon I’ve ever seen, there is no doubt that the god of kings will use it as a weapon of indiscriminate mass destruction.”