I’m exactly sure how long I floated in the void of darkness after Naomi had died – time worked differently for me than it did for her – but by the time I was consciously aware of it, I was also completely confident that she had died and that I’d messed up in saving her.

  “Man,” I sighed dramatically. “This sucks.” I muttered to myself.

  I looked around at the vast nothingness before me to see if there was anything to help me figure out where I was. Upon Naomi’s death, I should have been returned to the Adminispheral plane that was connected to ;Algion. At least that’s what I thought should have happened. Instead I just floated here in the void; there were no stars, no planets, no life. It was just me and my thoughts.

  Without realizing it, I’d started reviewing all the clichés I’d heard in life about the afterlife and found myself sighing once more. I was about to see if I could explore the area I was in, only to pause as I got assaulted by an abundance of System notifications – none of which made any sense at first. I narrowed my eyes as I tried to make heads or tails of the various Terminal windows, but found myself getting distracted by the sound of something in the distance.

  I closed my eyes and focused, allowing me to better listen to what I was hearing. It sounded like voices way off in the distance that were also in another room with the door closed by how muffled they were, but I was able to make out a single sentence.

  “Nothing personal, kid.”

  There was a loud bang that caused me to flinch. I looked down at my chest, half expecting to see a hole in it, only to be surprised that my body was simply a mass of glowing light. Everything was in one piece, that one piece just happened to be a whitewashed glowing mass that looked as if someone had taken the Microsoft Paint bucket and filled my whole body with the color white. I’d have thought it was cool, except for some reason the realization that I was just a mass of glowing light caused gravity to kick back in.

  “Oof,” I grunted as my ass hit the ground. “Guess I was floating after all.” I stood up and performed the action of dusting myself off, though there was nothing on my body that I could tell. As I did, I looked around and called out, “Hello?” My echo was my only reply.

  I waited, hoping that someone would call out to me as my echo traveled, but after 20 cycles of nothing I decided that – wherever I was – I was alone. With limited options to aid in explaining my predicament, I turned my attention back to the multitude of System Terminals that had appeared. I noted that there were about a dozen or so, and that most of them were the standard transparent blue that indicated they were purely informational; however, there were two yellow ones that indicated a warning of some sort. My eyes settled on a singular red Terminal window, as those only showed up when there was an error of some kind that needed to be addressed. They were also often time sensitive, so it doubly made sense to start with that one.

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  [ERROR]: Character thorne_elaran-algion.mc has terminated, but User naomi_reyes_richard_marideth_1051538570264-earth.usr has prevented User naomi_reyes_richard_marideth_1051538570264-earth.usr from vacating terminated Character.

  I narrowed my eyes before turning my attention to the trace data included with the error.

  [TRACE]: Action: Poisoned

  Target: Thorne Elaran; Target Level: 17; Target Class: Martial Artist (Modified)

  Source: Giant Spider; Source Level: 10; Source Class: Monster; Source Weapon: Spider Fang

  Damage: 10 x 20

  Message: You have been poisoned by: Level 10 Giant Spider. You will take 10 damage every cycle for the next 20 cycles.

  Read by User?: Yes.

  [17 Audit Entries Attached]

  [TRACE]: Action: Death

  Target: Thorne Elaran; Target Level: 17; Target Class: Martial Artist (Modified)

  Source: Giant Spider; Source Level: 10; Source Class: Monster; Source Weapon: Poison

  Damage: 0

  Message: Oh dear, you're dead!

  Read by User?: No.

  [0 Audit Entries Attached]

  I was about to open the attached audit entries for the first piece of trace data, only for all the Terminal windows to suddenly close; a singular orange window that represented a System Alert replacing them.

  “What the…” I muttered to myself as my eyes ran over the notification.

  [ALERT::INFO]: Administrator override accepted. Beginning reinitialization of User naomi_reyes_richard_marideth_1051538570264-earth.usr and Character thorne_elaran-algion.mc.

  Please note, as curator of UP-00143, Administrator YREN has been alerted of the violations to this User design protocol. Your presence is requested upon their arrival.

  “Oh great,” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I’m sure that’ll be fun to deal with once I’m back on ;Algion.”

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