The Predicament
When I logged on, I appeared in the guild's lobby and immediately opened my menu and navigated to the level page, and sure enough, I was level 125 and the button to increase my level was there again. It'd been so long since I'd seen the button, and it was a welcoming sight. Now that I could finally use my stored XP on something useful, I clicked the button to level up then clicked the confirm button that showed up soon after. I did this over and over and over again until I was at level 149. It turns out the XP needed to get to 150 is absolutely insane. Going from 149 to 150 required 500k XP, and to put that in perspective, the dragon I killed with Olivia only gave me around 5k! Luckily since I have XP remaining I only need around 180k, but that's still a very large amount. If I grind a lot before the second event starts I should be able to get the XP within the next few days.
Oh well, I can't get to 150 right now, what a bummer. I closed my menu and looked around the lobby; no one was there. I began walking around looking to see if anyone else was here. I found my way to Mike's guild master room, but it was empty as well. I thought for a second and realized that most of the people in our guild have better things to do than play Arcadia early in the morning on a weekday. I opened my menu again just to double-check if anyone else was online, and sure enough I was the only person in the guild who was online.
"Well… guess I'll start grinding some XP"
-Elsewhere-
*Yawn*
I just woke up and started making my way out of bed. I'm not much of a morning person, so I usually have a hard time getting up this early. Luckily, I don't have to show up earlier like I used to. I sat up and looked at the other half of the bed; it was empty. It'll take me a while to get used to that. I got out of bed, made a cup of coffee, had something small to eat, brushed my teeth, fixed my hair, and got dressed. I then grabbed everything I needed and locked the door behind me as I left for work. I lived in a duplex, and as I was leaving the neighbors were outside as well.
"Heya Neighbor!"
I waved and responded.
"Hey, how's I-"
*Cough Cough Cough*
"Are you okay?"
"Ye-" *Cough*
"Yeah. I'm in a rush, sorry."
I walked over and got into my car. As I was plugging my phone in, I noticed a notification; it was from her, Julia. I opened it and it only said three words. "Can we talk?" It says she sent it about twenty minutes ago, she should still be able to talk. I clicked the phone icon and tapped on her name before finally clicking call. I then plugged my phone in and put it on speaker as I drove to work. She answered on the second ring, and we started talking.
"Hello?"
"Hey, is now a bad time?"
"No, it's fine"
"Alright, so what did you want to talk about?"
"…"
"Julia?"
"I'm still here."
"Okay, so what did you want to talk about?"
"You know what I want to talk about."
"Hmmm… can't sa-" *cough cough*
"That. That's what I want to talk about."
"That's nothing, I just need to take a cough drop."
"Mike… Michael, you NEED treatment."
"I know, I- I- I will, I just need-"
"What? What do you need?"
"Some more time."
"…"
"…"
"I'll get treatment, but I just need some more time."
"…"
"…"
"How much time?"
"I don't know, a week? Maybe two."
"But the longer we wait, the worse it'll get."
"I know… I know. Th- there's just something I want to do first."
"…"
"Okay. I- I'll wait a week. Just make sure to call your doctor and set up an appointment for soon after then."
"Yeah, I will."
"Well… I guess that's it. Talk to you la-"
"Wait a second."
"Yeah?"
"Will you be back tonight? Back home?"
"I- I'll think about it."
"Alright great! I'll make dinner for us tonight."
"Wait! I didn-"
"See you when I get off work, bye."
[End Call]
*sigh* "what am I going to do."
I haven't told anyone else besides Julia, and I'm worried about telling anyone else. I don't want anyone to see me differently, but they're going to find out eventually; It's impossible to hide. Maybe I should just come out and tell them, after all, the next time they see me they'll know something is up. How am I going to tell sis?
I arrived at my destination. Luckily, I can now distract myself with work and not think about such sad and depressing things.