Page 4 of Fated
She was my soft, fluffy, non-judgmental friend who had been there for me since my angsty teen years. Even at twenty-five, I still needed her unconditional love and acceptance.
Though I doubted even she would accept me choosing to die rather than giving up my love for a fictional character.
It wouldn’t matter if I could make sure that it wouldn’t ruin my life and my friends’ lives. I still couldn’t go through with getting the surgery. I’d never felt emotions strongly before meeting Areth. Even when I was with my friends, everything felt muted and distant. In the rest of the world? I flat-out felt like an alien who would never belong.
But with Areth, I came alive. He brought vibrancy and color into my life and made it worth living. Late at night, when I was alone with the game, I could have sworn he was looking back at me, encouraging me to keep going with my life no matter what. So I did.
I don’t know how I’d become convinced that he would understand me better than anyone else. I only knew that I’d recognized him the moment I’d laid my eyes on the trailer for Hellwing.
Something in me had clicked and claimed him as mine. I just hadn’t been able to fully admit it until tonight.
I was in love with Areth, and he could never, ever love me back.
Tears pricked my eyes, and the ever-present tickle in my throat became a horrible coughing fit. It was easily twice as long as the last one, and by the time it let up, I was on the ground, gasping for air.
Fucking hell. I wouldn’t last the night at this rate.
I wasn’t in love with the idea of checking out of life early, but maybe it wasn’t the worst idea for me to shed my mortal coil before my friends showed up tomorrow. No more discussion. Problem solved. Game over for Max.
I wandered aimlessly in my backyard for a while, lost in my thoughts, before realizing Mitzy was nowhere to be seen.
Right before I’d begun to work myself up to an epic freak-out, a beam of moonlight caught my eye, and it was highlighting a small hole under the fence. Mitzy must have worked on it for days, and somehow I hadn’t noticed.
Dammit. I had to find her. There was nothing behind my house but acres of forest, and Mitzy’s tiny doggy self had no business being out there alone at night.
I vaulted the fence on the first try. It was probably due to one of those parental bursts of adrenaline you hear about in stories because I wasn’t the tallest or most agile of men. I’d heard the word shrimp applied as a description to my person too often to have any illusions about my size. The number of times Lauren had held me down and tickled me to tears would have sealed the deal if I had any left.
So there I was, crashing through the woods with all the subtlety of an epileptic hippo when I saw it.
Or rather, I saw him.
“This disease is no joke,” I whispered to myself. “If I’m hallucinating from it, the end must be pretty fucking near.”
I’d stumbled into a clearing brimming with moonlight, right into a scene that couldn’t possibly exist.
There stood Areth, wings flared out and highlighted perfectly by an enormous, full moon. It was exactly like the frame in the game; the one still frozen on my TV screen back home.
He barely acknowledged my abrupt entrance and instead was gazing at the ground by his feet. I followed suit and found Mitzy cozying up to one of his massive hooves.
“I…” I had no clue what I’d been planning to say, but whatever it was fucked right the hell off as I watched Areth crouch down and stroke a giant fingertip down Mitzy’s back.
“We do not have this kind of animal in my world,” Areth said softly. His voice was a deep, sexy rumble, and it sounded nothing like it did in the game. Less brutish and deadly and more raw sex. And exactly like I imagined it to be in my head, thus furthering my hallucination theory. He raised his head and asked, “What is it called?” His eyes met mine and the turquoise fire in them seemed to burn straight into my soul.
I gave a surprised cough, and a flower flew out of my mouth and plopped down on the ground at his hooves.
Yes, I do make excellent first impressions. Thank you for noticing.
A look of surprise crossed Areth’s face, and he reached out to pick up the bloom. It seemed like a big, sturdy flower when I’d held one, but in his hands, it was a fragile, delicate thing.
“This is my favorite flower.” There was a look of wonder on his face that turned his predatory features into something soft and approachable. “But in my world, they grow on bushes instead of inside people. What a fascinating place. I cannot wait to learn more.”
Areth’s words were more cultured than they were in the game, too. If he’d sounded like this in the game, I would have suffocated to death months ago.
“She’s a dog,” I blurted out before I realized I was responding somewhat belatedly. But I soldiered through and said, “Her name is Mitzy.”
I mean, if I was dying and this was a hallucination caused by my brain right before my permanent Big Goodbye, I might as well interact with it, right?
Areth nodded, following along easily with my lagging brain. “And the flower? How did you make it?”
