## 2018:05:24:23:15 - The World Neuvo: Θ Dun Loireag

A gentle wind could be heard sweeping around the mountainous peaks as Noro301 stared out at the cloudy abyss before him.

"This looks like a town," he said, turning to Xil-Sta who was standing to his left. "Is there a dungeon entrance here?"

"No," confessed Xil-Sta. "But there is the greatest monster you'll ever see."

"How exciting! Is it the kind that learns how you attack and responds intelligently to your speech?"

q5corbo, standing behind Noro301, giggled.

"Even better," said Xil-Sta. He checked around to ensure no one else but the three of them were there. Then he opened his hacky admin panel and the frightful festivities began.

The clouds over the edge became thick and the sky was tinged in red. There arose from the depths a gigantic black coffin with an inscription in gold: CONDEMNATION. Noro301 began taking steps backward as the coffin opened up.

"What are you afraid of?" teased Xil-Sta. "It's only a little one?"

"You have trespassed!" declared Mobashem as it rose out of its sarcophagus. "You are the guilty party! All of you!"

There appeared behind the gamers the captive Mikmik, accompanied by the old avatars of Doslad and Jyos, all grey and in chains as Mikmik was. Walking in hobbled fashion, they moved towards Noro301 and scared him nearer to Mobashem.

"How do you fight these monsters?" he asked, looking at the zombies.

"You don't," said Xil-Sta in a nonchalant manner.

Noro301 turned to look at him and was shocked to see Xil-Sta turning grey.

"WHAT?! Can't you fight it?!"

The two hackers just laughed.

"You wanted to see the best," said Xil-Sta.

q5corbo added, "And THIS is IT!"

Noro301 looked at himself at saw his skin turn grey. What could he do? He looked up at the monster, and fear filled his eyes. Second by second, tick by tick, the monster was yanking him into its grasp.

## 2018:05:24:23:25 - Real Life: 23rd Division Headquarters, Moscow, Russia

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Evgeni screamed at the top of his lungs until his wind was gone. Sucking in another bellyful of air, he shrieked, "HAAAAAAAAAAAHAHH!"

Every part of his head was in agonizing pain. His ear drums rattled off the Richter scale. His brains were mush, moldy potatoes being crushed by an anvil and squeezed by a thousand rubber bands. His eyes bulged from his sockets that would have been roadkill frog proud. With swaths of hair held fast in between his fingers, he teetered back and forth in his seat like an palm in a hurricane.

*thump thump thump!* The rapid knocking of his comrades on his office door showed their concern and simultaneously their respect for his command not to be disturbed. On such an occasion, they could at least honor the latter partially by not intruding upon him. As their knocking yielded no welcome, it gradually diminished, as did the screams.

When all was silent, all were gone. What remained on the desk in the darkness of the room was a keyboard, a game controller, and a glowing monitor, its light blanketing a black-suited body wearing a headset and lying motionless over the keyboard.