Symbol

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Despite my exhaustion, sleep remained a challenge. My aching, stinging body begged for rest, but my mind denied it. I managed to get little, broken sleep which only left me more exhausted than before. All night, my brain conjured ridiculous scenarios of people I cared about trying to kill me, then played them before my eyes like a mental movie theatre. Most of them were easy to ignore. But the image of my own mother snarling while she tore me apart had me tossing and turning for hours.

Also, my body ached like a motherfucker. Shallow cuts and bruises coated my stomach, stinging each time I took a breath, and I'm pretty sure my knees were missing a layer of skin. I sterilised the cuts with some antibacterial wipes, which burned like the devil, but at least they wouldn't get infected. Then, I dressed those battered parts of my body. But having a bandage wrapped around your abdomen while trying to find a comfortable position to lie in was just inconvenient.

I didn't want to check my phone. Between being a nonconsensual player in a fucked up game, hunted relentlessly by my friend, and a morally corrupt arsehole sleeping on my couch, I couldn't decide which I hated more. If not for the game, Vicky would be fine. And Sam? Well, he'd probably still be Sam, but at least he'd exist far away from me. With that in mind, I despised this game for being the first domino to fall and dreaded the ones yet to follow.

According to my bedside clock, it was 4:47 a.m, which meant I had about three hours before I should start getting ready for work. Because, I could try to tell Ethan that the reason my phone was going crazy in that meeting was because of the game taking over my life, but he'd just think it was an excuse to get out of work. Honestly, I wouldn't blame him. I'm still unsure if I believed Symbol was real.

Avoiding Vicky might be a problem. Although, Sam said that scanning my fingerprint is what activates the Hunter inside her. Otherwise, she was the usual, smiley, cupcake-baking Vicky. As long as I didn't need to scan my fingerprint for anything, she wouldn't need to hunt me.

What could possibly go wrong?

With sleep out of the question, I suppose I had time to do the thing Sam insisted I do. Read the game manual. The only annoying thing being Smith had to be active for me to access my inventory. But it would help avoid any more unpleasant surprises, at least. I winced as I pushed myself up to a sitting position, rubbing my tired eyes with the palms of my hands. Hopefully, it would rub away those images that haunted me so I could focus. I tapped my symbol and waited for her to announce herself.

I glanced around the room, expecting it to show some indication that I was inside a game world. Pixels, or loot, or something. But everything looked exactly the same. I reached for my bedside clock. As soon as my fingers made contact, it exploded into pixels and a familiar chime rang in my head as they travelled up my arm. Even though I slammed my eyes shut, I still saw the disarray of shapes and colours as it got added to my inventory.

Typical. When I actually want to speak with her, she isn't here.

"I am here."

"Jesus Christ," I gasped, my heart skipping a beat. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"It is 4:58 a.m. I assumed you were sleeping and activated me on accident."

"That's... actually very considerate of you." I couldn't argue with that. Afraid that touching my sheets would add my bed to my inventory, I kept my hands balled into fists at my chest. "Now. If you could give me my clock back, that would be great."

"You wish to access your inventory?"

"No. I mean, yes. But I want to take the clock out of my inventory, and put it back on the table," I explained, pretending to grab the clock and move it aside.