Loop of life

Rowan returned into his room at Jonas' place and got ready for bed but not before trying to log out again from the game. By now even if his IQ was below 80 he would have realized that something went really wrong. He tried to console himself that maybe time in the game flowed differently from real life.

Rowan once again managed to fall asleep and once again startled the medical staff but in a lesser manner than the first time.

After they confirmed Rowan was sleeping in-game again the staff relaxed and continued with their usual operations meaning doing basically nothing.

***

As Rowan was sleeping Maria and Luke's plane had landed back in Rochester, Minnesota and they took a taxi to their hotel. The moving company will be delivering their possessions in three days and Maria only had that small amount of time to find a place for them to live. Luke had to go to school. So she needed a place near a school and also that it should not be too far from Rowan's hospital.

With the amount of money, she got from NovaTech she figured it would be easy to do. If there were no suitable free vacancies she thought she might just go around and buy out the current owners at three times the value. Almost no sane person would not be willing to move if they got that much money falling in their lap so she was not worried.

Luke was still answering every question in monosyllables and Maria was really worried about his so she was also planning to get him into therapy. It was late when they arrived at their hotel room, so she called the hospital and asked how Rowan was doing and after confirmation things had not changed for better or worse she just sighed.

"At least it's not worse.", she thought to herself.

They were both physically and mentally tired so they were soon in bed sleeping.

***

Morning at the Rickman's household was as usual. The lady of the house made the breakfast for their daughter and husband while the husband was still trying to find his socks. After the breakfst, they said their goodbyes and left for school and work.

Rickman as most wealthy people had his daughter ride a limousine to school with a bodyguard while his wife had her office in their home. He himself was waiting for his chauffeur who was running late as a guy with a camera took his photo.

"John Powers. Business Daily. What is caused the recall of the headsets for Realms of Creation?", the reporter yelled.

Rickman was raising his hand since he didn't want to be photographed especially so in the morning.

"No comment.", he replied with his standard answer.

"Is it true that users of the headset have experienced mental issues?", the reporter continued.

Rickman frowned. He was undecided if he should respond or not.

"Is it true that a number of users had been hospitalized ?", the reporter continued without relenting.

"There has been just a single isolated case in 100.000 users caused by unforeseeable circumstances and we recalled the headset for redesign so such a thing can't happen again. Where are you getting your information from?", Rickman said as he could no longer hold himself back.

"So you are saying the headset was not used properly ?", the reporter asked.

"I am saying we need to add additional safeguards on the headset to prevent such usage and subsequent incidents to occur in the future.", Rickman angrily retorted.

"Why weren't those features implemented before?", the reporter continued asking.

Rickman wanted to say more but at this time his limo was parking at his home and he just waved off the reported with an excuse. He knew he probably already said too much already and he will be chewed up by the public relations department again but he didn't really care.

As he came to his station he asked what the status was and he was told Rowan status was unchanged. He was playing the game and he managed to repeat sleeping inside which was a piece of good news but that was all that changed.

***

Rowan woke up in-game and put on his clothes. Even with everything going around him he felt good albeit he missed his mom and his little brother. The Logout command still did not do anything so the only choice he had was to continue playing the game.

It was different from what he imagined. He did not necessarily like it was much more like reality than the games he used to play. Even the NPCs dialogues were life like although in a different setting.

As he greeted Old Jonas in the shop he expected to get oatmeal and held out his hand.

"I have been thinking about what happened yesterday?", Old Jonas said.

"What do you mean?", Rowan asked while in thought.

"I mean the chicken. Did you chicken out when it came to killing the chicken?", Jonas asked.

Rowan could not believe how smart these NPCs were. He nodded.

"Is a mouse's life any different from a chicken's or yours for that matter?", Old Jonas asked.

Rowan thought about it and shook his head.

"You should not judge the value of life by it's shape. Chicken's value for us is as food while the mice are a pest. I have burried children, women, priests and knights. They all feed the worms and plants now. The worms and plants feed the chicken and they feed back the new generation of people. It's a loop of life.", Old Jonas preached

"You mean a circle of life?", Rowan asked as he nodded.

"No. I mean a loop.", Jonas frowned.

"Now go get us a chicken?", Jonas said as he gave money to Rowan.

As Rowan left the shop he had a suspicion the whole talk about the circle of life was not about him being squeamish of killing chicken but about Old Jonas avoiding future work.