A game no one wants to play [Nouvelle]

"Rest well"

Your lusus seems to give you a glance when you say this, and then seems to look at the tiny pile of clothing and clean aprons you built on the floor with apparent dissaproval. Your recuperacoon remains unfazed. You merely shrug at him, answering no questions that were never asked but very well implied, and go to the pile of clean laundry to find a comfortable enough pose for you to sleep in, because even if you hate daymares with a burning passion, you aren't just going to sit there and watch as your visions come true or anything.

Because you have a feeling these visions are indeed trying to tell you something.

(Un)Fortunately enough for you, these visions were not unfamiliar to you. You had been getting them all of your life, but never with this frequency! Now you are having practically one per troll you meet. Not only that: usually, you got them once every 40 to 50 nights or so, and it was ALWAYS burning people (there was one in particular that scared you shitless, you were looking out of your window to the people below and for a moment it looked like everyone was a walking burning corpse).

So, despite being eerie, you decided not to pay attention to them and disregard it as a malfunctioning psionic. Someone was maybe toying with your mind, like they always did. Because ¿what are the odds for all of trollkind to die burning? (Just in case, you kept a close eye on your phoenix).

But now people were bleeding.

This had never happened before.

Curtains tightly closed, you curl up on yourself. One time you slept out of your recuperacoon and it took you a week to fully recover from the dreadful dream. Dreams about fire and destrutions and meteors falling and. The world. Ending. Yes, it was only a dream! But aren't meteors oh so very common in space? Don't they have the potential to destroy the world as well?

You are pretty sure they can make everything and everyone burn, too.

Your lusus seems to perceive your distress because he approeaches and gently pecks at your hair, trying to lull you to sleep, something he didn't do since you were three or so. So you close your eyes and gently let yourself go, let yourself go...

-------------

The meteorites are falling and falling, and a very physical and real-looking clock is ticking down to the time of what you think is your imminent demise, judging by how they fall. Objects around your house are moving and you know your friend (friend?) is doing their best to get you out of peril, while their very own clock ticks down too.

There's more than enough time, but you're not going to waste any of it!

You have no idea how this is going to work but you know it'll work. Wait, how is that you have "no idea"? You pause and look around. No, this is not how things work. This is not how you do things. Your friend's constant clicking (clicking?) around your house can't distract you. "There's a meteor coming down, dumbass, what the hell do you think you are doing!" pops in a chatlog window.

A meteor? Right. The countdown marks the time you have left before a meteor impacts. Wair, what countdown? You look at the center of your hive and see a weird-looking pole on a platform. There's a shiny sphere floating on top of it talking in what you are very sure is the language of digital Satan, and on the platform there is, indeed, a countdown ticking by: 4:18 it reads. Those are hours. You are pretty sure those are hours. At least you hope.

No wait a second, let's better focus on three things. First: where the hell did this platform come from? Second: Why is that the language of digital Satan? Third: are those hours or minutes? (because not knowing is making you particularly nervous... why are you nervous? You assumed your death long ago. Is it because it's going to be violent?).

(No, it's because your friends are in danger!)

You focus on the first and second questions as everything around you spirals into fire, your friend bugging you with a shiny looking, red cylinder and a card. Well, duh! Of course these came from THE game! You know, the one that it's supposed to save everyone and get them the hell out of here!

...The game?

Yes, the game, dummy! The one the clock is ticking by to! The one you found after what you felt was eternity on caves and riddles and which you convinced your friends to code! The one that you are surely going to regret, but it's not like you had a choice in the first place! Don't you remember the cave? That cave with the paintings? And the engravings? And the eldritch abominations? Oh, but wait... of course you don't. Or at least, you shouldn't.

You are still asleep.

Your fenix rushes head first on the glowing orb to save your dumbass, but now you are way too lucid and aware of this being a dream to care, and then...

-----------------------

You woke up in a cold sweat. Your lusus is fast asleeo in his perch, head hidden between feathers. You look at the clock. Four hours and eighteen minutes passed since you went to bed, wow, creepy, does that answer the last question or what?

(...You hope. That was far too horrible to be made in four minutes. And something about that "you are still asleep" makes you feel uneasy, at first you thought you were becoming aware of being asleep and dreaming, but you have a feeling it was something else).

You have no idea what half of your dream meant, and frankly the idea of playing a game at the end of the world deems you as an absurd one. The image of a very particular troll covered in blood makes you think again, though, and you bite your thumb. "...Fuck it" You murmur to no one in particular. Because you should at least try, it's been going on for years now, and if there is really a timer, well, you having nothing to lose either way.

You couldn't go back to sleep.