Very little else was talked about, that day. I took everyone on a grand tour of the house, which took about five minutes, and then the garden, which took another five. The chickens were admired. One pecked Lee Wai Meng’s foot.

  Then we all slept.

  It wasn’t for any physical need to sleep. But the comfort of lying down on a bed, closing the eyes, and waking up to find a new day dawning…

  I hadn’t slept in so long.

  I woke with a start to find everyone sprawled across the floor on the rugs and furs. My arm felt numb. I twisted my head to find Peach’s sleeping head resting on it, as she snored loudly. Lee Wai Meng was curled up on his stomach. Calvin grunted quietly in the armchair.

  Jesse had taken a stool over to one of the windows, and was gazing outside.

  I carefully shifted Peach off my arm and joined Jesse. “You’re not sleeping?”

  “Someone should keep watch,” she replied with a little smile. “I slept the day before, anyway. How long has it been since you slept?”

  “Would you like some tea?” I asked.

  “Sure.” She graciously pretended not to notice I had ignored her question, but I could feel her eyes on me as I filled the beaten old kettle and stoked the embers of the fire in the stove.

  “Here.” Jesse had found some short cuts of wood and began feeding them into the stove. “Is there any more wood around?”

  “There’s some by the door…”

  “Did you gather these?”

  I chewed my tongue. “Yeah… Are they not…?”

  She smiled. “Come here, let me show you.”

  I approached, feeling oddly nervous.

  “This wood is pretty damp, you see? Even the lichen growing here is soft and flexible.” Her voice was gentle, soothing. I felt like I was being tenderly patted on the head. “Of course, the weather outside makes it more likely that the wood you pick up will be damp. Usually, you would gather wood before snowfall, but we don’t have that option.

  “So, the best place to get wood now is either dead wood still attached to standing trees, not on the ground, as that would absorb the melting snow, or wood that has been kept dry because it was under rocks or something.”

  “You… really know everything,” I said. I felt stupid. Once she had explained, it seemed so obvious.

  “I wouldn’t say I know everything.” Her voice was limned with laughter. “But I do know a few things. That’s the advantage of trying out lots of different hobbies and jobs. I’ll go get some more wood once I have some tea.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone.”

  “I’ll be fine. My Dexterity, Strength, and Endurance are all at 8.” She joking flexed a bicep, but the muscles stood out sharply and I had a sudden mental image of her lifting me and slamming me down with ease.

  “R… Right. That’s… At least take Calvin with you.”

  “There should be at least one person with high physical attributes here. I’ll take Peach. No offence but your friend, Wai Meng? Noisy little ratbag.”

  I had to laugh. “That’s true, but… Well…”

  “Would you like to come with me?”

  It took me a moment to realise what she was asking. I floundered. “Uh… I… Yes? Yes! I’ve been stuck inside for so long now. I… I’d love to wander for a little while…”

  “Then let’s do it!” Juggling a small log in her hand, Jesse bounced upright. “Sounds like the water’s boiling.”

  As I began pouring out tea, the others began to wake, one by one.

  “Ooh, what tea is that?” Lee Wai Meng trotted over and sniffed at his cup. “Ugh, smells low-grade. It’s probably a blend of random stuff.”

  “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to,” I replied, taking the cup away. “Stop bitching.”

  “Fine, I’ll drink it, I’ll drink it!”

  “Maria and I are going to find some firewood,” Jesse said, sipping her own tea. “We can talk about what we’re going to do when we come back.”

  “Okay, sounds good!” Peach agreed cheerfully, handing a cup over to Calvin with a big smile. He almost missed and had to fumble the mug with both hands.

  Jesse and I caught each other’s eye briefly.

  “What? I don’t want to stay in this place! It’s dirty and full of spiders!”

  Peach smacked him over the back of the head. “Ignore him. Go on, you two!”

  “He’ll drive you insane,” I found myself saying. “We’ll take him with us.”

  “Am I a –”

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  “Yes,” I said, before Lee Wai Meng had even finished his complaint.

  “Why are you being so mean to me?”

  “Why are you always so annoying?”

  An arm hooked around Lee Wai Meng’s neck. Jesse grinned at him, and her expression was, surprisingly, a little cold. “You’re carrying the wood.”

  “No! I don’t want to! Mik Tsaam! Calvin! Help meeeeee…”

  Dispassionately, we watched Jesse drag him out into the cold, sludgy day.

  “Mik Tsaam, we can handle him,” Peach said. Calvin silently sipped his tea.

  “He’s annoying, but he’s still my friend,” I replied with a sigh. “You’ve spent the past few days with him. I haven’t had a good talk with him since the game started. Or you, honestly,” I added to Calvin, who nodded with his usual stoicism.

  Finishing my tea, I followed Wai Meng and Jesse into the cold morning. In the bright light, I watched Jesse scrubbing his head until his hair stood on end as he screamed and struggled and felt a sense of peace, despite the mud creeping into my shoes.

  We set off into the woods. Every few seconds, Lee Wai Meng would open his mouth to say something and Jesse would lightly tap the back of his knees with her now-strung bow, making him stumble.

  “Hey! Stop-”

  “Come on, mate, shut it, would you?” Jesse muttered. “You know what’s in these woods.”

  “What is in these woods?” I asked. “Other than approximately one thousand men who want me dead.”

  “Wolves. Wild boar.”

  “Oh, oh, and the three horsemen!”

  “The who?”

  “This scenario has three guys on horses that bring morning, day and night.”

  “And… what else?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what else’?”

  Wai Meng and I stared at each other.

  “I mean… what does that have to do with the scenario?” I asked, exasperated.

  “Oh. Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think they have anything to do with the story really,” Wai Meng said, shrugging. “No-one’s tasks relate to them, and they don’t attack or anything.”

  “So they’re just there?”

  “I guess.”

  “LEE WAI MENG! You’re supposed to be an Administrator!”

  “I honestly don’t know! Really, if I can’t tell anything about them, they’ve got nothing to do with the main scenario, okay?”

  There was a whistle and a thud that made me flinch, far too late if it had been me who was attacked, but it was Jesse lowering her bow as something scampered deeper into the woods. “We really have to stay quiet. Come on.”

  We tiptoed through the woods, snapping off dead branches we could reach. Jesse found a small rock overhang with some wood underneath, and she piled it all on Lee Wai Meng, cheerfully leaving him struggling with a pile of branches.

  “How long have you known him?” she asked me, as she snapped off a branch that was too high for me to reach.

  “Since we were twelve years old.”

  “Hey, are you two flirting over there? I didn’t know you were a lesbian, Mik Tsaam.”

  “That’s a long time,” Jesse said casually. “Have you ever seen someone punch him?”

  “No, although not from any lack of effort on his part.”

  She sniggered. “I can do it, if you like?”

  “Tempting.”

  “Come on, you lesbians, I’m struggling here.”

  “I’ll punch him.”

  “Wait!” I grabbed Jesse as she began to march over to Wai Meng with a grim smile on her face. “He’s still an Administrator. Let’s find out if he can be useful first before you hit him.”

  “I heard that!”

  “You were meant to, you pain in the neck!”

  “I’ve been nothing but helpful!”

  “Yeah, while making way too much noise. Haven’t you gotten over the fact you’re a middle child yet?”

  Wai Meng opened his mouth to retort when Jesse’s foot slammed into his stomach, doubling him over and bowling him backwards. She had grabbed me around the waist at the same time, and we all tumbled through the icy mud to rest behind a copse of trees.

  I lay across Jesse’s lap, trying to catch my breath, while Wai Meng sprawled on his face nearby. I looked up, barely breathing, to find Jesse staring intently back in the direction we had come. Her hand was still tight on my waist, and I could feel her heart beating steadily. She caught sight of me looking and tapped a finger to her lips. Shh…

  For three minutes, I couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of my own raised heartbeat in my ears. Then the faintest sound…

  Almost imperceptible footsteps, weight pressing on the damp and rotting leaves and twigs on the forest floor. Every fibre in my body tensed.

  Jesse squeezed me closer, and held up four fingers.

  Then she gently let me roll off her lap, patted my back firmly as if to encourage me to stay low, and crept forward, stealthy as a cat, drawing an arrow from the quiver strapped to her thigh. Half-crouched, she pressed herself against the tree, nocked an arrow, and squinted down the shaft, the flights barely brushing her cheek.

  She held this position, motionless, but frowned suddenly and slackened the string.

  “Is it safe?” Lee Wai Meng asked, popped his head up.

  I grabbed the back of his head and shoved it down again, but it was too late; there was a ring of metal as swords were drawn. I looked up in time to see Jesse nock a second arrow and fire both simultaneously, then draw another two and fire those simultaneously as well.

  “Stay here,” she ordered, readying another arrow. She advanced cautiously towards the motionless forms. I jumped up and ran after her.

  “Maria!”

  “That one there! He’s still alive!”

  Without hesitation, she fired. The man seized, and collapsed.

  “How did you know?”

  “I… Um…” Was it safe to tell her? I wanted to trust Jesse…

  “Character profile…”

  “Why aren’t you at full health?” I demanded.

  “That’s… How do you know?”

  “I have a skill… I can see some information about other players and NPCs. If they’re dead, I can’t see anything.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “Um… Username… Real name, or character name… Health points and… a sort of summary of their emotions?”

  Jesse tapped her foot, then efficiently bent down and began examining the dead men for useful items. I stepped back, staring at the bodies. I hadn’t wanted to look at any corpses closely, and it was horribly fascinating to see the clinical way in which she looted the bodies.

  “Let’s grab the wood and get back,” she said at last, tucking things into the pouches on her belt. “We’ll talk there.”

  We all scooped up wood and made our way quickly back to the house, where a sweet voice was singing softly. And then another, low and not unpleasant, joined in.

  “When will I be able to hold you again…?”

  “Is that Calvin?” Wai Meng demanded, marching for the door. Jesse and I grabbed him by the back of his jacket.

  “Do you just have no sense of delicacy?”

  “What?”

  “When will the fog dissipate…?”

  “Just shut up and sit out here for a second,” Jesse growled.

  “Why?”

  I grabbed Lee Wai Meng’s face and glared into his eyes like I was trying to explode his brain with my mind. “That song is Calvin’s favourite. He sounds happy. How long has it been since he sounded happy, hm?”

  “A youth like flowers… A spirit like the moon.”

  “Fine, fine.” Wai Meng dropped all the wood and sat on the largest log, pouting. “It’s cold out here. Why does Calvin have to like such old-fashioned songs? My feet hurt.”

  “You’ll live. You’ve survived worse.”

  Jesse and I followed suit, sitting down on the logs we had been carrying, listening to Peach and Calvin singing.

  “My beloved home… When will I be able… to hold you again… to see the mist dissipate… your light, your years like flowers, your moonlight spirit?”