Chapter XXVIII

"Sara! What do you do here? How…" I started my list of a thousand questions.

"Your brother called me, said you needed to be saved," she said. "Again."

I always contacted Sara within the OASIS, where we would meet daily. I never had her other contact information. Never needed to. Why did Finn, though.

"She forced me to send her pictures of you," Finn hastily explained. "After the Mario Kart race. Said she would kill me if I didn't!"

"I didn't force you to only send stupid ones," Sara commented.

"Ehrm, no, I improvised that part," Finn agreed.

"Well… Thanks…." I said to Sara. "For saving me. Again."

There was an awkward silence. Dad broke it by questioning the microkini.

"I thought I was wearing plot armor," he chuckled. "What's that? Invisible mithril?"

Sara flipped us a tab that showed the item's stats. They were impressive.

"Told you it was overpowered," she said to me.

The information showed the "armor" was custom made by a player named Art3mis. She must've been the female gunter Sara mentioned on Tamriel.

Finn proposed he and dad would return to their rides. In this cluster even the space between planets was dangerous and they would scout ahead.

After all those weeks, I was alone again with my crush. We'd better get to safety too, but before doing so I had burning questions.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Good," Sara said, avoiding my eyes. "Took a break from the OASIS. But now everywhere outside is your stupid song, so maybe I'm better off here."

"You're back?"

"Maybe."

"I'd like to talk to you some more, somewhere safer. Would that be OK?"

"Yes," she answered, no longer avoiding my eyes. "Of course."

We decided to meet up on GAOP, which wasn't far. Back on Anne Bonny's Revenge we couldn't escape the subject of what happened close to two months ago. The battle with Ghostface and the last time Sara had been online until now.

"I understand you left," I said. "But why didn't you return?"

"I was scared, idiota. Don't you understand? When the ghost thing was going to kill you, I was scared I would lose you."

That wasn't the answer I expected.

"Lose me? I would have had to start over, but I wouldn't be gone…"

"Yes, so the fear, it was strange for me. I didn't know I cared so much. I wanted that to stop. Break the spell. No more fake OASIS, no more fake feelings."

"Oh…"

"But after shaking off everything I grew attached to in the OASIS, there was one habit I couldn't get rid of. I still wanted to talk to you."

"I had… I guess I had something similar happen to me. It became clear to me too, that I didn't want the games, the fantasies. I only needed one person."

"And then you made the angry song?"

"It's rock 'n roll."

"No. You scream you will hunt me down and eat me. I could sue you."

"Please do, I'd love to see you in court."

"Just write me a better song."