POST GAME CHAPTER RHEAS
Right now, I write now as the night has overtaken day and my eyes adjust comfortably to the darkness of the room, with the brightness of this screen being my only light.
Where to begin?
We people have what we can only call a sense of longing; desire; want.
Yes, things we would rather have falling out of the sky than give an honest effort of looking for, which is just a dream for many, a dream of many, and a dream that stays a dream. People need to make an honest effort, after all, but it never does guarantee success.
The opposite happened to me, it seemed.
Firstly, I had lost someone to somewhere one can enter, but can never return from. Loathe as I may, in my heart, I've looked for someone to fill the gaps of my life he was meant to complete.
I missed my twin brother dearly. There will be no replacement for someone who shared the world with me from the day I was out of my mother's womb.
Which could explain why I needed someone so direly, or else my mental state will quickly shift to a state of calamity.
That's when he fell. From the sky, I mean.
Soon enough, we had adopted someone not of this world. Someone I desperately needed and someone who desperately needed us.
Enter Leo Angelo, AKA Grey, adopted into this world, and adopted into my family.
I had recognized him, of course; he braved the empty forest that was a game. He became like family to me as I wallowed in the creases the world had left me as remnants of my brother that the world had taken from me.
Sword Art Online, the death game.
I couldn't lie as just the mention of it sent shivers down my spine. I didn't hate the medium, but I truly hated with all my heart the one who had concocted the recipe that ended with the grisly demise of not just my brother, but numerous men and women throughout Japan.
Akihiko Kayaba, a name on a grave I'd more likely spit on and get arrested for than I'd bow my head to.
With ideas of a metal castle floating in the sky, the codes of binary that sent a ripple on a keyboard, the hearts of all expectant people in his grasp, he had created a death machine for many.
Once again, I didn't hate the medium, but I did hate that man.
Life, after all of it, was empty. I expect it was for a lot of people, actually. Like a drug addict enrolled in rehab and forced to quit, we were all made to adjust to the world we were born in. We were all made to fit in to a society that we could scarcely recall and barely recognize.
That happened to everyone who survived the game, that is, everyone but Leo.
He was not a survivor with us, but a prisoner to a world he wasn't meant to be in. He'd pretend he could understand and smile, but I've heard him sob in his room for the people he truly cared about.
I guess that made the two of us, just prisoners in a game that only ended when you've gone.
It gave us a reason to sob in each other's arms some nights. It gave us a common ground that let me see him the same way he could see me.
We were in the same reality, living the same dream; be it sweet or be it a nightmare, I honestly didn't know either.
Only difference was that I was already out of it, and he wasn't.
I'd like to recount that even with all these odds stacked against him he was able to meet new people, he was able to make friends whereas I only learned to approach another person only when he taught me to.
I don't know how he had done it, and all I know is that I want to know how.
Rheas, out.