July 09, 2022

Word Count: 2,048

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After a moment of shocked silence, everyone lets out a relieved exclamation.

"Wei! Oh my god!"

"You're here too!"

"We missed you! How have you been?"

"Why are you also here? And why are you not a character?"

Wei's glare softens as the realization dawns on her. "Wait... there's so many of y'all. Who are you?"

There we go again, the introductions need to be repeated every time. "I'm Nia," I say with a raised hand before pointing around. "This is Gabby, Ayah, Kitty, Lorraine, and Benji. Oh, and this rat here is Seth."

"Hey, Wei!" squeals Seth.

Wei's face contorts into a disgusted scowl.

"Why are you all here?" she asks, shaking her head. "I thought you wanted to try the couple's version of the game with Kitty, Nia? How many people did you end up inviting to play?"

Kitty casts me a curious glance. "Couple's version?"

Not wanting to dwell on that, I quickly add, "Yeah, we didn't end up playing that. We did the multi-player version instead." Unfortunately.

"Yeah, I can see that," Wei grumbles. She lowers her head and pinches her nose bridge. "No wonder y'all are ruining the plan..."

I frown. "What plan?"

"Nothing, nothing." Wei lifts her head again to show a forced smile. "Well, good to know now, and I can adjust some stuff for y'all later on. How are y'all enjoying this game, by the way?"

"Uh, it's alright, I guess. But we have a huge problem. There's no log-out button. You might want to fix that."

"Ah," is the unexpected response from her. Actually, a lot of her responses are unexpected and... strangely sinister.

"Yeah, it might be a bug or something," Gabby chimes in. "But it should be an easy fix. For now, can you help us log out?"

"Oh yeah, I want to go back now," Ayah agrees. "I want to finish the pizza."

"You want pizza?" Lorraine asks. "You should have told me, girl, I can conjure some for you."

"Real ones. I want real pizza."

"And I want to get out of this stupid body!" Seth screams, brandishing his blackened tail that must have caught fire again during the battle.

"I also want my sexy body back," Benji says. "This body is sexy too but I miss my chocolatey abs goodness."

"Ew, Benji."

As my friends tease one another, my eyes fix on Wei. No matter what everyone is saying, the expression on her face remains the same—cold, detached, deep in thought. Dread knots in my gut. Something is seriously off with Wei.

The banters soon evolve into chatters and laughter, but Wei is still furrowing her brows and chewing the inside of her cheeks. Finally, she says, "I can't let you out."

An uncomfortable silence fills the empty room.

"What? Why?" Gabby asks.

"I just can't. Not yet, at least."

My frown deepens. "What do you mean by that, Wei?"

"I mean, I need y'all in here."

"What? Why?" I demand.

Wei lets out an exasperated sigh. She averts her head from us before admitting, "I have writer's block."

We all look at one another, but we are all equally clueless as to how that is relevant.

"I have writer's block," Wei continues, "but I need to write the sequel to The Lightning Mage. I signed a contract with the company, that they will do everything as long as I keep pumping out content. The game is made, a movie is in production, an anime is in the works, but they will break the contract and force me to pay for everything if I don't write a sequel by this year. I'll be in serious debt if I don't write."

Wei is still looking away from us, but I am staring at her in utter shock. I knew her book had blown up, but I did not know about this scummy-sounding contract.

She shifts her feet and folds her arms. "But the problem is that I wrote The Lightning Mage as a standalone. I don't have any ideas on how to continue it. A lot of things happen after the ending, but I don't know how to write it, or what to write about. I'm going crazy. I can't be in debt. I have to make this a success. And that's when I came up with this idea. I thought I could trap some people in the game and see what exciting things they decide to do. Then I'll write a story based on that."

My mouth drops. "Wei, what?"

"Yeah, Wei, what the fuck?" Benji exclaims as well.

"There's other ways to solve writer's block," Gabby says. "We can help in other ways."

"That's right!" Ayah and Kitty nod fervently.

Wei shakes her head, slowly backing away from us. "I've tried every single method under the sun, okay?" she snaps. "This is my last resort. I have to do this."

"But trapping us in the game?" I say. "Why would you do that to us? We are your friends."

"I'm sorry, okay? I didn't want to have to do this. I wanted to only do this to one person, at the max." She gestures at the tall, silver-haired witch. "So I picked Benji. I thought he would do interesting things, and that he would be enough for me to write a story on, but for weeks he didn't do shit, other than get himself killed over and over again. And by the same method every single time! And then... it occurred to me that I probably needed someone who has read the books. Someone who actually knows the world."

Every single sentence Wei said is like a slap of betrayal to my face. But the more she speaks, the more I understand. "It's me, isn't it?" I mutter, gulping the lump in my throat. "You just wanted me in the game."

"I..." Wei turns her head, her glimmering, dark eyes meeting mine. "Yes, Nia. I wanted you in the game. You know the story like the back of your hand. And I watched you. You're doing an awesome job figuring the game out and moving the storyline forward. You've already given me a ton of ideas." She lowers her head again. "I... I can't let you go now. I have five hundred thousand words to write by next year, and I have only just started."

I close my eyes. Wei was targeting me, but because of that, Kitty, and the rest of my friends, are all affected. "Since it's only me you want, can you let everyone else go?"

My friends, who were watching our exchange in silence, burst into hysterics.

"No!"

"We can't leave Nia behind!"

"Don't do this, Wei!"

"Nia, don't do this," Kitty says. Her character is small and petite, but her glare is still scarily powerful. "Don't stay here by yourself."

"I would if this means you all get to go home. You didn't ask to be here."

"Neither did you."

"I'll be fine. I'll survive."

"Nia, don't." Kitty's eyes are now shimmering with tears. "Please don't shoulder this all on yourself."

"It's honestly fine, Kitty."

"No, it's not!"

I know I cannot win an argument against Kitty, so I turn back to Wei. "Let them go back, Wei. I'll stay here for you."

Wei's expression hardens. "I'm sorry. I can't."

"What? Why? It's just me you want, isn't it? I can be the best player and help you generate story ideas!"

"If I let everyone else go, they'll go back home and report me and I will be jailed for this. My entire career—my entire life—will be over." She turns away, and I can see her fists clenching. "I can't let them go as well. I'm sorry."

Despair rains down on my heart. I cannot believe this. This is not the Wei I have known and befriended. Over the past year, I have watched how the fame from her book stressed her out, and how the reviews and critiques affected her, but I didn't realize how much it has changed her. She has been warped into someone I don't even recognize anymore

"Wei," I mutter with a strangled voice. "Why would you do this?"

Wei shuts her eyes as if not wanting to see our faces. "When I am done with the sequel, I'll let you all out."

I stagger on the spot as my head spins. This is it. We are trapped. At least for a long, long time. And there's nothing we can do about it...

Slash!

I blink and focus on the scene in front of me. Kitty is behind Wei, her blood-drenched sword jutting out of Wei's chest.

Blood drains from my face. "Kitty?"

Kitty yanks out the sword, not flinching even as blood splatters across her face. Wei's eyes remain wide open as she plops down onto the floor. A pool of red seeps out of her clothes.

"Bro, did you just... kill Wei?" Benji asks.

Kitty's face is as pale as everyone else's. "I- I didn't think that will actually work—"

Before anybody can say anything else, the alarms start to blare. "System, shutting down, system, shutting down..."

"What do we do?" Ayah shouts.

"I don't know!" I shout back.

"We need to get out of here!" Gabby raises her hands and summons a few strikes of lightning. Electricity sparks all over the walls as the lights in the room begin to flash.

Then, the world turns to darkness.

---

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is my ceiling fan. Oh, I am back in my living room.

Wait, am I back to my body?

My hand flies to my crotch, and I let out a loud cry of relief. I have never felt better touching myself and not feeling a bulge.

I turn my head and I see Kitty lying on the floor next to me. Instantly, I take my hand off my pants. I do not want Kitty to think I am masturbating next to her or something. At least, not right now.

I sit up and look around. It seems that everyone is back in their bodies. Seth, Ayah, Gabby, and Lorraine are sprawled all over my living room. As everyone starts to wake, they rub their heads and groan out loud.

"What happened?" Gabby asks.

"Oh, we're back now," Lorraine points out as she looks at the pale skin of her arms.

"Oh thank god!" Seth cries out, touching his face as though it is the best thing ever. (It's really not.)

"So... if I recall..." My head throbs but I try to dig into my memories. "Kitty stabbed Wei, and then we are back. But... it was inside the game, so I don't think... I don't think that was real, right?"

Gabby's phone buzzes and she picks it up to read. She gasps. "Check the news right now, people!"

I whip out my phone and begin to search. Indeed, there is a breaking news report.

'Wei, the author of The Lightning Mage, is found dead in the middle of her nap. She is in the middle of writing the sequel. Police are looking into this...'

"Oh, shit," I say.

Kitty sobs next to me. "Oh god, it's real. It's actually real." She looks at me with glistening eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't think it was actually going to be... I don't know... I was just mad that she won't let us go back home, and I thought..."

I pull her into a hug and let her cry into my shoulders. "Hey, hey, it's alright," I coo. "You did the right thing. We're back now."

"But I... don't want... to go to... jail..."

"You won't," I assure her. "No one will know. The evidence is inside a game that probably crashed. And Kitty, I promise you, even if they do end up suspecting you, I'll come forward and confess for you, okay?"

Kitty lifts her head. Her lips are out in a defiant pout. "Nia, stop that."

I blink. "Stop what?"

"Stop trying to protect everyone and endangering yourself, idiot."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you are."

"Okay, fine..."

Kitty wipes her eyes before squeezing a smile at me. "And I didn't know you wanted to play the couple's version with me. You should have told me, Nia. I would have come over alone."

I feel my cheeks warming up, and I try to mask my embarrassment with a chuckle. "That's fine. The more the merrier, right?"

"Next time just ask me out properly. You do know I like you, right?"

"Wait, you do?"

Kitty rolls her eyes, but the smile on her face grows. "Yes, silly."

"Uh, should we be leaving you two alone?" Seth says, jolting me out of my conversation.

"Argh. Yes, leave." I stand up and give my friends a big grin. "But after we finish our pizza, of course."

---

The End.

Thank you so much for reading this nonsensical parody!

This story stars some of the best people in the world:

Nia: NiaDninja

Kitty: Ookaishy

Seth: sethquine

Gabby: NgoziGardenia

Lorraine: MermaidAriel13

Ayah: ethereal_ayah

Benji: ALTaccounti

Wei: Me