Author's Notes: A three part story about Asuna's experiences during the starting days of SAO.
Part I: DESPAIR
"Despair precedes destruction."
"Guess we can only wait till the government bust us out," Asuna overheard someone.
"How long will that goddamn take?" a second replied.
"As long as it takes."
That could mean months or even years, Asuna thought. She buried her head into her arms, resting on top the table. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her and she was inclined to let it do so, but she knew that sleep would not come to her; she doubted it would for the rest of the week. Not while she was awake in a nightmare.
The tavern was filled to capacity, but it might as well have been occupied by only a handful. Barely anyone spoke; only a few words passed here and there in hushed voices like the ones she'd heard from the table next to hers. The sounds of sipping, slurping, gulping and downing of drinks were what that had replaced the clamor of conversations. One player had been drumming his fingers on the table earlier, but soon stopped after he saw he was drawing the ire of others.
"Hello." Asuna looked up. A bright brown-haired, young woman stood before her with a gracious smile—perhaps the only smile Asuna had seen in this room. She wore a washed-out tunic underneath a well-worn apron stained with dark patches of brown. The smooth, clear complexion of her face told Asuna that she could not be more than a few years her elder. "Here's your order. Beef pie and a cup of tea."
The NPC waitress placed the bowl of pie and steaming cup in front of Asuna, a crystal-blue cursor hovering above her head. Asuna muttered her thanks and then watched as the NPC walked away, her movements so natural and real. It took Asuna a will of effort to remind herself that she was merely a computer-generated avatar controlled by the game's AI.
Seated at a corner, she could see the rest of room without much effort. She glanced at the long bar which ran along one entire section of the tavern's walls, where another NPC—this one a thin and vibrant man—was busy at work cleaning the cupwares, while several players sat on the tall stools before the bar sipping their drinks in silence, only speaking up when a refill was needed.
Asuna drank some of her tea, the heat biting at her tongue. Just yesterday, she might have admired the game's commitment to realism, but now she was sick of everything SAO had to offer. She looked high up at the walls of the room where sunlight entered through the small windows. It must be only an hour after sunrise, she thought, having forgotten that she could simply check the time through her menu. The tavern was in the basement of the building; therefore she could not tell how high the sun was up.
Her knife cut into the beef pie, spilling clumps of gravy and meat onto her plate. The beef tasted bland and the bread was stale, but she realized that it was perhaps just her lack of appetite that lent no flavors to the food; she was too tired to remember what compelled her to order it in the first place. She pushed her bowl away, well over half of the food uneaten.
"Yo, what's up with that guy?" she overheard the table next to her again. "That's got to be his sixth drink in a row without break."
"His friend's missing."
Asuna felt her heart clenched. Three tables in front of her, she saw the man that they were talking about. The waitress had brought him his latest round and he raised the tankard to his mouth, his hand shaking as he downed the content, the sound of his gulping audible from where Asuna sat.
"Oh shit. How do you know that?"
"He was asking around an hour ago whether anyone has seen him. Said that he'd last seen him last night, but couldn't find him in his room when he checked in the morning."
"The guy could have just gone out. Did he check his friends list?"
"Name's greyed out."
"Fuck…that means dead, doesn't it?"
A pause. "Yes."
"How's that possible though? He just disappears in the night and dies? No one's dumb enough to go out the Safe Zone during the night."
"Might be that someone on the other side ignored the warning and pulled off the guy's NerveGear. And you know what Kayaba said."
"Fuck…that's messed up." Another pause. "Say…you don't think that the government might just one day decide it's not worth keeping all of us around and pull the plug as well?"
There was no answer. Asuna was not sure she even wanted to hear one.
She stood, pulled up her hood, and made her way towards the exit, curious eyes following her. A set of stone staircase led her up to building door and she closed the door in a hurry as she stepped out, the wind blasting against her cloak. The narrow street she'd come upon was lined on both sides with impassive Romanesque buildings—large and regular in shapes and size, built with stone bricks which gave the structures their lifeless grey facades. A society of crows flew above the tiled rooftops, nesting in among the crevices, their yellow eyes gazing down on the pedestrians below.
Only a handful of players walked the streets, none of them making eye-contact with Asuna. There were some others sitting down on the pavements, heads buried in their hands. She felt very much like joining them; what is there to do, but wait till they were rescued from this game, where death in game meant death in real life—the cruel nature of the world Kayaba Akihiko had created.
She did not belong here, she thought. She was no gamer. Videos games had been silly to her, a distraction from the stress of real life. She had no need for distractions, she could not afford distractions. But in a moment of weakness, when the pressure of her studies and from her mother had been too great, curiosity of a world conjured—made alive—from fantasy led her to put on the NerveGear. And now she was paying the price.
She began to tremble, her heart beat rising, but then she held herself still. No, she couldn't break down again. Not out here in the open, where everyone could see. Always maintain appearances, her mother had once told her. Strange how even when the world seemed to come crashing down around her, her mother's words still rang loud. She shook her head, unwilling for the feeling of regret to overcome her once again, and started walking. To where? She had no idea, just hoping to find a place where she could be by herself.
Her sandals clicked against the brick pavements of unfamiliar streets—the layout of the Starting City yet still stranger to her—as she passed players her age huddling themselves in dark alleyways with reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Passed middle-aged players sitting on benches with hollow eyes staring blankly at nowhere, without a doubt thinking about the careers and families they'd left behind on the other side. Passed children—probably no older than eight years—standing in middle of streets wailing and blubbering, with no one bothering to calm them. And passed NPCs who had not the faintest idea of the players' misery.
There was no lack of variety among the prisoners of SAO; male, female, young, elderly, all indiscriminately trapped in this game of death, with plenty of despair to go around.
She came across a small square, where a garden of fruit trees still far from reaching maturity grew. A stone footpath led her to the center; here, a statue of a knight stood proudly in the middle of a marble fountain with his sword drawn. Water jetted out of beneath the knight's feet, pouring into the basin pool in which coral fishes swam, darting in and out of the shadows of the armoured swordsman.
Asuna squatted beside the basin's edge and dipped her hand into the pool. The water felt clumpy, not smooth like in the real world. She guessed there were some things the game couldn't replicate accurately.
A noise to the side snapped her out of her reverie. Two players had entered the garden and she hurried to move out of their way, pulling her cloak tighter to herself. One of them muttered something inaudible to her—presumably a word of thanks—while the other hardly seemed to notice her, his steps drunken, face blank. They were outfitted in leather breastplates, vambraces, and greaves; all of which were covered with dirt, cuts, and scores—telltale signs of stepping outside the Safe Zone. The blood encrusted of the hilts of their weapons all but confirmed it.
"Hey…do you want to talk about it?" she overheard one of them—the one who had muttered to her earlier—speak.
"No," the second player responded.
"Don't do that to me man. We're both in this together."
"Don't do what? I almost died out there—forgive me if I don't feel like talking."
The first player nodded, his face apologetic. "Sorry. You're right."
"I'm not going out again. Sorry, I can't do it. I can't. Don't make me do it again," the other said, his voice bothering hysteria.
"No, I won't make you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have insisted on going outside in the first place. I almost lost you man. I can't forgive myself if that happened."
At that the short confrontation ended. Both players nodded at each other, not saying another word, and then after a long moment of silence, continued on their way. Asuna watched their backs until they disappeared around a corner before moving on herself.
The exchange between the two players kept playing in her head as she walked through the streets. How many more were there who had close encounters with death? How many more who weren't so lucky? She felt a pinching in her heart as she remembered the man in the tavern who lost his friend. No one wanted this; everyone had logged in expecting only to have a fun time. With the stakes raised to the highest level, however, there was—of course—little fun to be enjoyed.
She almost bumped into other players in her absentmindedness—and they in theirs. It was mid-morning now and the town's NPCs were all out in force as shops opened, terrace dusted, and errand boys ran their errands. Asuna still did not know where she was going, merely just following wherever the road took her, the buildings rolling by her sides, half-hoping if she walked far enough she would find a way home. How many people could live in this place? Thousands? Tens of Thousands? It did not seem unrealistic that the Starting City could house the entirety of the game's population. Kayaba Akihiko must have thought of the possibility that no one would be willing to set foot outside of the Safe Zone after the announcement and thus created enough room to accommodate everyone. How strangely merciful of the madman.
Eventually the road led her to a place where she had least expected to be. She saw in front of her a row of massive doorways stretching thirty meters in height, lionhead keystones locking the apex of the arches. Beyond the doorways, the skies.
The Edge of Aincrad.
She slowly made her way towards the outer circumference of the floating castle. The air was cold and she pulled her cloak tighter to her body. As she stepped out from the interior into open space, the vastness of it all overwhelmed her. Clouds—large and puffy—so close that she could just reach out and touch them. Air so thin that her nose shriveled up drawing it in. The endless roam of whiteness like fields of floating cotton.
She gripped the ledge which bordered the balcony and, with an effort, looked down. She didn't exactly have a fear of heights, but being this far high off the ground was enough to put some nervousness into even the most fearless of mountaineers' hearts. Through a gap in the clouds, she saw the green canopy of a vast forest, small outlines of birds flying just above. The beauty of it all was dwarfed by the creeping realization that a fall from this height would without a doubt kill her. Would she even feel it or would the impact instantly kill her? She took several steps back abruptly, feeling her breath escape her lungs.
As if a switch had been flipped, the view before her suddenly was not one of magnificence but of a statement that there was no escape from this floating prison. An impossibility. It was either clear the game or die trying. Whether that was what Kayaba had intended or pure coincidence, Asuna could not help but feel a strong sense of vulnerability. The thought that the government was working overtime to free everyone was no comfort for they could just as easily decide it was hopeless and pull the plug. Was this where her life would end, she wondered, in a world not of where she was born?
At that moment, she wanted someone—anyone—to hold her. But there was no one. Her mother, her father, her brother—they were all on the other side, with no way of reaching her. Perhaps never again.
Her body began to tremble again. This time she had not the will to restrain herself anymore and the tears began to fall. Forget appearances. She wanted to go home. Her knees buckled as she sunk down slowly to the floor, leaning against the side of the ledge. Sobs broke out in great volumes, punctuated each time with overwrought intakes of breaths. The coldness of the air only seemed to amplify under the duress of her emotions. Her nails bit into her arms as she hugged herself tightly, unable to let go.
"Hey you okay there?"
She looked up at the unknown voice. It belonged to man with an unkept mop of dark brown hair, his maroon eyes wearied as he stared at her from his standing position. She'd seen him somewhere before.
"You okay?" he asked again.
"I…I don't know. I really don't," those words escaped Asuna, the tiredness of her voice surprising her. She wiped the tears off her face, sniffling.
The man nodded, but did not say anything. He held a wineskin in his right hand which he shakingly brought to his lips, downing the remaining meager contents it contained, not bothering to wipe away the droplets which fell onto his tunic. It was then Asuna recognized who he was. She'd seen him in the tavern earlier in the morning. The one who'd lost his friend during the night. She wondered if she should say something.
He threw the wineskin over the edge of Aincrad. "Alcohol here isn't like in the real world," he said, looking out at the open skies. "Doesn't do what it's supposed to do."
"What is it supposed to do?" Despite herself, she asked the question genuinely.
The man closed his eyes, placed his hands on the ledge, and leaned forward, feeling the wind blow against his face. For a long moment he did not speak, almost as if exhaustion had caught with him and he had fallen asleep on the spot.
"Make you forget," he said, his voice close to a whisper. "Even if just for a short while."
Then without warning, he climbed onto the ledge and, before Asuna could realize what he was doing, stepped off to his death.