Chapter 4 - Into The Light

Junior opened his eyes and saw:

He's in a vast chamber lit by a diffuse white light, stretching further than his eyes can see. Countless crystals of various shapes and sizes freely float about, as if suspended by invisible threads. A gentle harmony, from the subdued tinkle of hundreds of chimes, filters through the air like the chords of some heavenly harps.

By all rights, the scene should inspire feelings of tranquillity, warmth and beauty. But Junior shivers and rubs his arms, nearly overwhelmed by a cloying sense of dread.

"You ruined everything."

The voice comes from behind him and Junior's heart rate spikes. Although he hasn't heard it since childhood, he knows the voice far too well. 

And yet . . . the voice is different. Cold. Suffused with a macabre lifelessness, like the last, sepulchral echo of a freshly sealed tomb.

"You should never have been born."

Junior's shivering limbs begin to tremble outright. His heart pounds in his chest and phantom needles prick his skin.

But he can't turn around.

"It hurts. It hurts." 

The memory of Junior's childish voice echoes through his thoughts. But then he realizes it's not in his head; he can actually hear it. The scared little voice spreads from crystal to floating crystal, growing in volume until it threatens to drown out the soft chords of the chimes.

"It hurts. It hurts!"

Slow, dragging footsteps approach from behind, splashing wetly as they draw closer. The floating crystals change colour, slowly oozing to red as if dipped in vats of scarlet dye. The sourceless light shifts to match, starting from below and creeping upwards. 

. . . as if Junior is being swept under a crimson tide of blood.

"You're a freak."

The phantom needles pricking his skin begin to freeze with hellish cold. His breath comes in quick, short gasps, forming little puffs of white as it frosts in the now icy air.

But he can't turn around!

The footsteps splash to a stop right behind him. A hand with unnatural, crooked fingers lands heavily on his shoulder, drenched with viscous, red liquid. A whisper comes from blackened, decaying lips so close he can feel the fetid breath against his ear.

"You aren't my real son."

The crimson Light shines brightly now, the angelic chimes replaced by a discordant shriek.

"It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!"

Junior draws breath and opens his mouth -

But the bloody Light flows up into his mouth and down his throat, his stillborn scream drowned within his lungs before it can even start.

\ - / - \ - /

Millicent Avery - Millie to her friends and follower(s) - is bored.

"Status," she says as she walks. She tries different ways to somehow . . . think loudly, or something? "Character Sheet. Menu. UI. Display."

She reaches out to prod a promising-looking crystals as she passes. Yet despite floating in midair with no visible means of support, it reacts the same as if she'd tried to push a concrete wall.

Which was to say, not at all.

When she'd first been transported to this massive chamber filled with glowing white, singing crystals she'd let loose an excited whoop of victory. But as the minutes dragged on, the thrill had quickly worn thin.

Because nothing happened.

So, she'd picked a direction and started walking.

"Where's my cute and helpful little guide?" Millie mutters to herself. "Where's my class selection obelisk?"

She knows that to most people LITRPG is either a total unknown or just another type of fiction; and a niche one at that. But she has good reason to believe in it as strongly as she does.

After all, she knows for a fact that magic is real.

"I guess I really am a fanatic," she chuckled softly, remembering Junior's teasing.

Millie wonders again what had happened to Junior. They'd been together in the same room but now she's alone, surrounded by nothing but glowing crystals as far as she can see.

"I didn't even keep my stupid pack," she grumbles, looking down at herself. At least she's still dressed in her combat fatigues, but none of her gear has been transported with her. Not even the snack she'd been eating when the Integration finished.

"This blows," she mutters. "I better not be trapped here for a thousand years. I really, really hate story arcs that start like that."

With no warning, between one stride and the next, Millie found herself sprawled on the floor of Junior's condo with her oversized backpack again. She also noticed that the System's blue screen had returned to hover in her vision, but at first glance it seemed different than before.

Before she could fully get her bearings and read the prompt she heard a menacing, animalistic growl reverberating through the air, so deep she could feel the vibrations in her chest.

Instinct kicked in. Millie ditched her backpack and scrambled to her feet before she'd even consciously realized it. Then her eyes widened with shock as she fully took in the scene before her. 

Junior was sprawled on his couch, unmoving. He was bleeding from his arm with what looked like bite marks through the ragged cloth of his shirt. But alarming as that was, what really drew her attention was Junior's dog . . . and the creature it was currently fighting. 

"What the shit!" Millie exclaimed eloquently. She almost tripped over her backpack as she backed away. "What the hell is that?"

The creature resembled a small, wrinkled little child with wizened grey skin and scrawny, too-thin limbs. Its long, stringy hair grew from its knobby little head in unhealthy-looking clumps that seemed wet and dripping with some unknown liquid. The ugly little creature was less than half the Golden Retriever's size, but it fought tooth and nail with a wild ferocity and strength that kept the growling dog at bay. Any worry that Junior's bite marks could have been caused by his dog was quickly dispelled when she caught a glimpse of the thing's sharp, bloody teeth as the pair rolled across the floor in a chaotic tangle of limbs.

After she had a moment to assess the situation Millie gathered her courage and sprang into action.

"Aiiiiiiiieieieieieieeeee!" she screamed in her best impression of the lilting, yodel-like battle cry of one of her favourite female action characters.

Millie leapt towards the two combatants and, perhaps with more enthusiasm than skill, tried to grab the scrawny creature's arms in an amateurish grapple. It turned out to be as unnaturally strong as she suspected, and she grunted with effort as it wildly tried to pull itself free of her grasp.

But she'd at least succeeded in giving Junior's dog an opening. With surprising viciousness for such a majestic, cuddly-looking animal, the dog immediately lunged at the creature's throat and clamped his jaws around its neck with a snarl. The creature's struggles became even wilder, but Millie refused to let go. With a few shakes of its canine head, the dog managed to rip the creature's throat out in a spray of blackish-green blood.

"Aiiiieeieieieeee!" Millie cried victoriously and laid a swift stomp into the creature's side for good measure.

With the adrenaline pumping in Millie's veins it felt like forever before the creature's struggles weakened, but in reality couldn't have been more than a minute. It's arms began to go limp and Millie finally let them go, backing away as Junior's dog growled and continued to savage the dying beast.

Panting, Millie looked down at herself, hands shaking and covered in disgusting, blackish-green splatters. Then she clenched both fists and raised them in a double fist-pump.

"Yes! First kill!"

It was only when she said the word 'kill' that she remembered a critical detail.

"Junior!" she shouted, crossing the short distance to the couch in a heartbeat.

Millie quickly placed a pair of fingers to the limp man's neck, checking for a pulse. But her eyes widened and her face paled as she felt none.

"No!" she gasped in horror. She leaned forward, ear pressed against his mouth and nose as she searched fruitlessly for any sign of breath. "No, no, no!"

A plaintive whine came from beside Millie's leg but she hardly spared a glance for Junior's gore-soaked dog. Instead, she tilted Junior's head back, clasped her hands together and started compressions on his chest.

"What the shit!" Millie shouted and paused after the first compression, mouth agape.

Whatever she'd expected to happen, it wasn't to see some kind of freaky red LIGHT ooze out of the man's nostrils like some sort of syrupy fluid. The globs of liquid light oozed up into the air and spread out against the ceiling as MIilie watched, then disappeared from sight.

"Focus, Millie!" she said as she shook her head, and leaned back into her task.

More of the sinister light oozed out of Junior's nose as she pressed down hard and fast in the center of his chest. At one point she paused long enough to stick a tentative finger into a globule of light as it streamed upwards. It felt . . . not much like anything, except maybe a hint of unexpected cold. By the third compression the amount of light escaping Junior's lungs reduced a bit, and by the fifth, she couldn't see any at all. But she diligently continued to perform rapid compressions for another fifteen seconds.

It was at that point that she took a deep breath, pinched Junior's nose and sealed her lips to his. She breathed out strongly, directly into his mouth. Then she repeated the action, making sure she could see his chest rise and fall. She then went back to chest compressions for another few seconds before she returned to the forced breathing.

It was in the middle of the third round of compressions that Junior started to jerk around weakly, gasping and coughing.

"Yes!" Millie shouted in triumph, arms raised above her head while the Golden Retriever barked happily beside her.