Machines within the small room of the hospital chimed and beeped, indicating that the patient was still alive. He had been laying, in the same state, for over a year now. His hair, auburn in color, and wavy, had grown long over the time. Seeing this made his mother feel hope for her child. Even if he wasn't there, alive, talking to her, at least she knew that his body was still hanging on.

Each and every day she'd show up. She'd sit by his hospital bed and hold one of his hands. Even if he couldn't ever feel it, her motherly instincts took over and compelled her to comfort her comatose child. Between her full time job, which had hours that were anything but consistent, she spent every moment she could by her son's side.

Some days she just cried softly and caressed the top of his motionless hand with her thumb. Other days she spoke to him, telling him about her day, and about how excited she was for him to wake up and get back to his old life. Some days, the worst days, she sat in silence as anger steamed from her soul. She knew that "nerve-gear" stuff was nothing but trouble. She'd have gotten him anything else, but for his eighteenth birthday, it's all he'd wanted. A brand new vehicle? No. Nerve Gear. A weeklong vacation to explore the mountains of Japan? Surely not. Nerve Gear's amazing graphical displays were all that was worth exploring. Eventually, she caved in, and purchased the new device, as well as the brand new game that came as a bundle pack. Sword Art Online. The game that would render her son nearly dead.

Today wasn't an anger day, though. Today was a sit and cry, kind of day. The boy's mother looked over, onto the opposing wall that had a muted television on it. It was playing the morning news. The clock read 6:37 a.m. It was early, but so very late for her. She'd completed a twelve hour shift, at an overnight retail consortium. The "damn teens" had called out again, and were named so appropriate by the senior staff. Damn teens…They don't care about life, or future. Upon completion of her half day overhaul, she rushed over to the hospital to spend some time with her still sleeping child.

Bags rested under the desperate mother's eyes. Sleep? What was that, again? This is all she could think of whenever she even considered the possibility of resting for "just a while longer…" It never panned out. Any sleep she got was from passing out. Passing out after a long period of crying and letting her body weaken to the point of exhaustion. She never slept peacefully. The worries of her child, possibly never waking up, haunted her every waking moment.

Something caught her eye. They were doing a piece on the Nerve Gear on the news! She desperately reached over to the table next to her son's bed. It was dark in the room. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the blinds were shut, keeping out most of the sun's warm rays. As she sprung her hand to grab the remote, it slammed into the bedside table. Pain surged, relentlessly though her wrist. She threw her other hand over her mouth and screamed obscenities into it. The tears came, again.

She ignored the pain long enough to hit the mute button, filling the room with the voice of a young woman. The headline at the bottom of the screen read: "TEN NEW VICTIMS DIE, MYSTERIOUSLY, IN THEIR SLEEP." This caused her heart to sink. She listened in terror.

"-Now to another sad story this morning. The popular gaming franchise, Sword Art Online, has claimed another ten players. The players, scattered throughout many different parts of the country, were all found, dead, this morning when doctors, and nurses came along to do morning rounds.

Autopsies have been scheduled for the victims, but the medical teams feel they already know the cause of death: Brain Trauma. It's unclear why these victims, who have been sustained on life support for over a year now, are suddenly, and even worse, randomly dying in their sleep. Experts agree that it is most likely due to hardware malfunction, or internal battery failure. Our hearts, prayers, and condolences go out to ALL of the families of victims…

In other news…"

The mother's heart sank. She ignored the TV as the lady on the screen completely abandoned the topic, and exchanged it for something else that was equally as depressing. Her hand was throbbing with pain, and her body trembled from fatigue. She cried, harder and harder, silently.

Was her son next? Was she the next mother, or sister, or father, or husband…to mysteriously watch her loved one cease to live? The thought terrified her, and she threw herself on top of her motionless child. She sobbed and sobbed, quietly begging for him to wake up. But she knew it was in vain. He may never wake up. She regained (some of) her composure, and stood up beside her child. She looked at the clock again. It was fast approaching 7 a.m. almost time for her second shift back at the store. She knew it was time to go. She leaned over the bed, and moved a stray lock of hair out of her sons face, and then kissed him on the forehead. His body seemed a little cold, perhaps from the hibernation state he was in. When she stood back up, she took his hand once more, and whispered to him, through sobs.

"Mommy loves you, baby. So, so, so much. I don't know what's going on in there, but I hope you're having fun. Fight on, my brave warrior. I can't wait until the day I see you again, and hear all of the stories of that crazy land you're in…Bye bye for now. I'll be back tonight. I promise"

She wiped her eyes, turned off the television, and turned to leave the room. When she reached the door, she turned, once more to say one last thing.

"Play safely…"

Then, she was gone.

The boy laid there, alone (although he never knew it) for about two more hours, before a doctor came in and retrieved his chart from the end of his bed. He looked up at the boy, and shrugged. No change. The doctor felt anger welling up inside him. He was a good doctor, a thorough doctor, and he hated not being able to figure out the ailments of his patients. For a year this young boy had laid here…dying? Living? No…somewhere in-between, surely. He still, after all these sleepless nights, couldn't figure out how to help him.

The doctor snapped from his thoughts when a nurse entered the room.

"Oh, doctor, I didn't expect you to be in here. I'm just coming around to check his vitals."

The young woman sounded kind, even chipper, but the doctor wasn't soothed by her calming presence. He continued to look at the charts and nodded.

"Very well, then. I was just coming to see if anything had changed. I don't know why I do it. I know that there's nothing I can do for this poor young man."

The nurse frowned and just listened, intently, giving the doctor someone to grieve to.

"The death toll rose again, this morning. Did you see?"

"On the news? Yes, it's so sad, about those people…ten more? Was it?

"Yes. Ten people. Poof. Just gone from life without any answers. What is happening? How could something like this, on a scale so huge, happen to these poor people? It doesn't make any sense!"

The doctor slammed the chart on the table beside the bed and leaned over it, as if his strength had left him. This caused the young nurse to recoil from the sound, and slam her eyes shut as she flinched. This happened often, and she witnessed the doctor's outbursts as they occurred…almost daily, now. She never knew what to say.

The doctor stood back up, walked over to a wooden chair in the corner of the room, facing the closed blinds, and sat down in it. He place his head in his hands and began to cry to himself. He cared so deeply for his patients, and seeing the family members of them suffer, truly affected him negatively.

The nurse lowered her head and shook it slowly, from side to side. She raised her chart, and walked over to the heart monitor, to begin recording the morning's vital readings. Before she began, she heard the doctor begin speaking again.

"This is a pandemic. This isn't anything I've ever seen before. So many months have passed with no medical progress on the matter. Are we, as doctors, no…as human beings, failing as a species? Has technology finally come so far that we can no longer predict, nor control it? My God…two thousand, five hundred, and two people…DEAD!"

The doctor stopped speaking. He listened as he heard an unfamiliar sound. The nurse was crying. He quickly whisked around to see her standing, frozen beside the young man in the bed, crying into her hands. He had a hunch at what was wrong, but he didn't move. He, in a shaky voice, began to speak.

"N-nurse? What's the matter?"

The nurse turned around and looked the doctor dead in the eyes. She burst into tears and barely made out a new number.

"Two thousand, five hundred…and three!"

The doctor, nor the nurse, nor the busy mother, who would grieve endlessly, would never know it. But Keita, the last remaining member, and leader of the Moonlit Black Cats, had just jumped into eternity, ending his life, and joined his friends, as another victim of Sword Art Online.

-dedicated to every family who has awaited someone's return, and never got an answer on why they didn't.