Afterlife Dream

I did not know much about SakuraChan. I knew her because she was HinoKun's wife and always tagged along next to him most of the time.

I always thought that she looked like a Japanese doll with her long black hair and neatly trimmed bangs. A beauty from the faraway and exotic eastern part of the world. The beauty lingered even after her death.

We stayed with her body for as long as we could. We only left when the ground beneath our feet literally crumbled and the mountain fell apart.

Everything disappeared within an instant. The mountain, the hell hole, SakuraChan. Tears streamed down my face while I dragged HellWitch with me toward the sky. Cecilia was sobbing hard behind us.

"I can't believe it," she lamented. "I can't... Sakura... SakuraChan..."

I also could not believe it. The trip that we took for the sake of investigation ended in SakuraChan's death.

We flew high up into the sky and crossed the layer of grey clouds. Once we did, we found ourselves above the dark green spread of rainforest again. It was as if the tragedy had not happened yet. It was almost as if we went back in time. Then again when we looked down on ourselves and found grime and blood all over our bodies, we realized that the nightmare really happened.

"What should we do now?" Cecilia asked, hiccuping. "How can we go home?"

"We wait," I said. "The Giant Macaw should come soon. Then we will go home."

Cecilia said nothing in response. I knew that she was rather skeptical about it. Honestly, I was not less skeptical, but when everything else went wrong, what was left but hope?

It was this tiny speck of hope that later on took us home.

"Look," HellWitch said weakly while leaning against my shoulder. She raised her finger and pointed at a single black dot in the sky that was slowly approaching. "The Giant Macaw."

"Oh my God," Cecilia broke into tears. "Oh my God!!!"

We were safe.

We flew toward the Giant Macaw that was making its confused rounds over Summer Rainforest again because it no longer had any landing patch. We climbed into its basket and grabbed the edges just in case it decided to dump us back into the loop again.

It didn't.

It brought us back to Paradise Island.

As soon as we climbed off the basket, all three of us collapsed right there at the port. There was no one else around, so we took the time to unleash all of our suppressed emotions.

We cried.

We screamed.

We hugged each other and did our best to console each other.

Convincing each other that we were still alive and we should make the best out of it.

And also remembering SakuraChan.

We lay on the port ground, sprawled on all fours as we chatted with each other.

"Did she really die?" Cecilia asked.

We saw her corpse, and she did not respawn like usual. By definition, she must be dead.

Cecilia opened her user interface screen and checked. She typed a message to SakuraChan who was no longer able to receive it. Her mouth fell open when she read the familiar error message on her screen.

"Look, guys. Look!"

Cecilia sat up and shook at our arms and shoulders, forcing us to sit and take a look at her screen.

"The player is currently inaccessible."

Both HellWitch and I were stumped.

How could that be?

What did it mean?

"Does that mean that everyone is dead...?" HellWitch asked.

"No! That means that SakuraChan is somehow still alive!"

"Ummm..."

Cecilia shook at my shoulder.

"Come on Antares. Didn't you have that weird vision with Suzuran and the others floating inside the lake of lava? And what about DragonTalon? He exploded into dust!"

"If you say that, then they all really have died," I said.

"No!" Cecilia shouted. She shook her head repeatedly.

"This is Afterlife Dream. The only exit is through the raids. Every other death, however unusual, was not the real death. Guys, there is still hope."

HellWitch and I remained unconvinced, but it did not stop Cecilia from believing what she wanted to believe.

After the adventure at Summer Rainforest was over, we did not want to do anything anymore. The recent experience was too traumatizing. I did not even want to step a foot into the universe anymore. With or without company.

I couldn't believe just a few days ago I had insisted on investigating it. Now that I escaped death by a hairbreadth, I realized that I was being too impulsive. HellWitch was thankfully the sound of reason. I owed her.

No, in fact, I owed her a lot.

I owed her for helping me and Kitty at Dai City Party Quest.

I owed her my entry into Twelve and meeting all the amazing guildmates.

I owed her for her continuous friendship throughout various stages in the Afterlife Dream.

I owed her for stopping me from throwing myself at death.

And I owed her for saving my life back in the Summer Rainforest.

I was also very ashamed of my attitude toward her. She should slap and punch me more often. That way, I would feel a lot better about myself.

Lacking the motivation to do anything, I spent the next few days fishing in a daze. My fishing level shot high and I even caught the rarest fish ever, the Rainbow Arowana. It was so huge and so resistant that I almost lost it at first. Thankfully my fellow fishermen and fisherwomen were more than eager to help.

"Oh, Lord. Look at that beautiful specimen," one of them said in awe after the Rainbow Arowana broke through the surface.

Every time a rare fish was caught, the catcher got a celebratory banner from the game. I was famous for exactly 10 minutes. During that period, I received a lot of messages from fish merchants who wanted to take it off my hands.

These merchants did not like to waste time. They came up with a price almost immediately, followed by a "Do you agree?".

Only my friend Kitty bothered to start with, "Antares, are you okay?"

I rudely ignored every other merchant and started to chat with Kitty.

"Mm. Yeah. Why?"

"I heard about SakuraChan's death. Do you want to talk about it or..."

I perked up. We told everyone else a milder version of the story to prevent anyone from getting too sad. I was pretty sure that we did not mention about SakuraChan's actual death.

"How did you know?" I queried.

Kitty must have realized that she misspoke because she took a while to reply back to me. An hour, to be exact.

"Antares, don't be mad. HellWitch and I met a few days ago and we got to talk about the recent events. She needed someone to talk to. It must be tough on you as well."

"Mmm..."

"If you want to talk, I am here, alright?"

"Okay."

"By the way, I am interested to buy the Rainbow Arowana for 10,000,000 gold coins..."

"..."

After I sold the Rainbow Arowana, I tracked HellWitch. She was at Frozen Tundra Land. The Cave of Horror, in fact. She was waiting for the Fiery Carriage to arrive.

Fiery Carriage was the ride players took when they wanted to reach Black Chimera Hideout, the level 120 raid area.

I knew that HellWitch helped with the 120 raids to get players out of Afterlife Dream. She herself still wanted to stay within the game. Or at least she did up until we went to Summer Rainforest and came back in battered condition, both physically and mentally.

HellWitch would not leave the game without saying anything to me, right?

Would she?

We were friends. She would at least say goodbye, right? Or was our experience at Summer Rainforest too horrifying that she just wanted to get out as soon as possible?

I suddenly felt afraid.

I did not want to lose more friends.

I did not want to stay alone.

My feet took me out of the Fishing Haven to Paradise Island. I boarded the Ghost Ship like an undead, feeling empty all around.

'Please don't go,' I repeated in my head again and again. 'HellWitch, you can not just go. I still have so many things to say to you...'

As expected, although I rushed over as soon as possible, I was still unable to catch HellWitch in time. She already boarded the Fiery Carriage. I checked the clock. 15.30. Still 30 minutes before the raid.

I decided to wait at Cave of Horror for the next ride.

The Fiery Carriage was literally a fiery carriage. It was a gigantic carriage that was pulled by four gigantic horses with flaming manes and tails. Even their hooves were fiery.

The road to hell was bumpy. It might just be a little taste of what was to come. The carriage stopped in front of a huge cave. A tunnel, even. Players were expected to walk all the way to the end of the tunnel.

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