Chapter Eight

Zarathel's POV:

I stared at Kile in shock. "You're kidding, right? Please, tell me you're kidding." I got down on my knees. "Please!" I begged.

Kile looked away. "I wish I could, Zara. But I can't. As I said before, I'm not one hundred percent positive, but that seems to be what happened to me and Jaron." He glanced sideways at the young man standing next to him. "That's the conclusion we've both come to."

Jaron nodded seriously. "So now we have to see if we can find a way to get out of the game. I don't know if it's even possible, or if we really are stuck here for the rest of our lives. If we are, more people will be appearing soon."

We decided to go back to town yet again. We'd taken to doing this fairly often, seeing as our inventories were only so big. I was selling my unneeded equipment to Del Arnes when a female voice spoke up.

"Are you real or are you one of those characters that never says anything?" I turned. A girl was standing slightly behind me. She smiled. "Hi! You must be real, then, none of the other characters ever look at you when you talk to them or even react." She stuck out her hand, which I shook. "I'm Aileen the Unremarkable." It was like fate or something, the way what Jaron said seemed to come true.

Kile came over. "Another one? Poor thing. You can travel with us, if you want," He told Aileen, who shook hands with him and introduced herself.

"Thank you, I will. Though is your monster on level fifty-one? Mine is. Some Taurus with an impossible name."

I put my hand over my mouth at her wording, but nodded in agreement. "All the names are impossible to pronounce. Just ask Dantenar, she can't say hardly any of the names of the monsters we've fought so far."

Aileen looked puzzled. "Dantenar?" Dantenar came over.

"Yes? What did you want-wait. Who are you?" Aileen introduced herself yet again, and shook hands with my twin. "I'm Zarathel's twin," Dantenar added. Aileen nodded.

"Yeah, I noticed. Even though your characters features are completely different, somehow you manage to look alike." She started to talk to Dantenar about the different monsters in the game, what level our monster was on and things like that, and I stood by Kile. I didn't much care for the way she was looking at my brother, like he was some guy to catch or something.

Jaron joined us. "Another one? Kile, this can't keep going on, or we'll have to form two groups. We can't go walking around with twenty people."

Kile nodded. "We'll limit each group to six people that have to be quiet. We'll make sure they're compatible so that they don't fight and make a lot of noise. How's that?"

Aileen looked up at him through her lashes. "I think that's a great idea." I choked, feeling protective. That was weird. Isn't it usually the older brother who feels protective of the little sister?

Dantenar changed the conversation, picking up on Kile's nonverbal cues that he was uncomfortable and needed a subject change. "Okay! So when are we going back down to the Dungeon?"

Aileen held up a hand. "Wait a minute. How long have you been in the game?" We told her the approximate time, which we thought to be about two weeks. Funny how you didn't need sleep in this game. "Really? That's about how long I've been in. Funny how we've never run into each other."

Dantenar nodded her agreement. "It is odd. Now, are we ready to go back down to to the Dungeon? I really want to find out if we're really stuck in here forever."

Aileen looked shocked at this. "Stuck forever? Oh, no, that's terrible! How will I ever see my boyfriend again?" I rolled my eyes. She had a boyfriend, yet flirted with my older brother. Stereotypical teen girl.

Jaron broke in. He'd been silent for some time. "What level are you on?" Aileen told him she was pretty sure that it was level sixteen, which was only three less than Dantenar and I were on. Jaron nodded. "Okay, well, then you can come with us to level thirty-one. We're about to descend."

Aileen nodded eagerly. "Oh, that'd be great. I've been so lonely the entire time. Just let me find my pet, Griffith is always running off. It's like he owns the place!" She found her cat sitting next to Jin the Seer and we linked arms to go through the portal. I noticed that Aileen managed to be right next to Kile, but didn't say anything about it.

We descended to level thirty-one and found yet another group of Cursed Swords waiting for us. This time, we had a member of the group who carried a Crossbow that did damage to cursed things, so we held them back and let Aileen snipe them. She'd killed them all in a matter of minutes, and my health bar had only decreased a little.

Suddenly, the game made a weird noise. The lights fizzled and flickered, flashed once and became normal again. I looked around. That had never happened before. I gulped, wondering if some nasty thing had just appeared. I sure hoped not. I drank a health potion, my health bar being only three-quarters full.

Dantenar's POV:

I looked at Kile. "Has that ever happened before, Kile?"

Kile shook his head. "Never. I don't know what happened. Jaron?" Jaron shook his head as well, indicating that it had never happened to him, either. "Maybe a new person just joined or something."

Zarathel came over with Trouble trailing behind her. Fiddlestix jumped at Trouble, and they started wrestling. Juute sat with Griffith in the corner, probably conversing about the oddness of every creature in general except them. "Does anyone know why the game did that?"

Aileen shrugged. "I'm relatively new to this, compared to Kile and Jaron, but it's never done that before."

I was unwilling to give up. There had to be a reason, we just had to find it. I found my answer about ten minute later, when we entered a room filled with Widow Queens and Widowlings. There must've been a million of the baby spiders running around, trying to poison you.

I ended up side-by-side with Jaron, who was showing me the best way to keep the nasty little things at bay. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my leg and stabbed the Widowling that had bit my leg, poisoning me. I didn't drink an Antidote because I knew I'd probably just get poisoned again and I didn't have a whole lot of those.

Kile and Zara had teamed up, and Aileen was standing in the corner shooting at the Widow Queens with her Crossbow.

A few minutes later, all the monsters were killed. We had gotten pretty good at working as a team in the seventeen plus levels we'd been working together on. But I had other things to worry about. I had never felt pain in the game before this. Never. I drank and Antidote and rolled down the top of my boot, looking in shock at the two miniature puncture wounds on my ankle.

"Jaron," I whispered to him, as he was closest, "I think I know why the game did what it did. Has that ever happened before?" I indicated the spider bite on my leg.

Jaron looked at it in shock. "That isn't supposed to happen. You don't feel pain in this game. Your health just decreases and when it's gone, you die. The things aren't supposed to hurt you."

Kile came over, Zara and Aileen following behind. "Dantenar, what's wrong?" I pointed to my leg silently. "Oh my gosh. That's not good, Dantenar. The game's become real. That means that my assumption was correct, that we are stuck here forever."

I just about cried. "But are we actually in the game, or are our bodies just sitting at the desk, staring into space blankly? Are we in comas in the real world? What happens when they decide that we're braindead and take us off life-support if we are in comas? Have they already killed you, Kile?"

Jaron put a hand over my mouth. "Shhhh, it's all right. No more questions, let him answer at least one!"

Kile nodded to Jaron, thanking him silently. "I have no idea, perhaps, maybe, I don't know and no clue," he said, answering all my questions in order.

Now I did cry. "I miss Lynna!" I wailed, thinking of my favorite of the littlest girls. "I never even gave her a hug to thank her for getting me a drink of water when I had that flu bug two months ago!" Now that I was positive we were stuck here forever, I was remembering every ungrateful thing I'd ever done and regretting it. "And what about Tyler, I never said I was sorry for accidentally knocking him down!"

Kile hugged me. "It's all right, Dantenar, we'll find a way out of this eventually. There has to be a glitch somewhere, or maybe the game designers have a way to get us out, once they find out we're trapped. There has to be something!"

Aileen was still in shock. "I'm never going to see Seth again," she muttered. Zara put a comforting hand on her arm.

After I got over the initial over-reaction, I had a thought. "Hey, Jaron, is that your real name or one you picked for the game?"

Jaron looked up. "What kind of question is that? But yeah, it's my real name. Did you make yours up?"

I shook my head. "Hippie parents. Gotta love 'em. I always thought it was kinda pretty, but I got teased about it." Jaron helped me up, and all the blood rushed from my head. Now I had to get used to normal sensations again, so I leaned on Kile until the little dots went away from my vision.

Zara had successfully calmed Aileen down, and now we proceeded on to get to level forty-nine, fifty-one and fifty-three, in order. Though what the point of beating the monsters when there was no going home was I had no idea.

A/N: Okay, sorry for the weird lines, but my computer is doing weird things. Anyway, even though I lost all my inspiration, I managed to squeeze enough ideas out of my family to get another chapter written. So read and review, and pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top give a suggestion. I promise all suggestions will be used unless they're to wild.