Neverquest – Part 131

Characters: Queen Isabella, Gena, Roxanne, Cara, Lucilla, Michelle, Mack, Jeff, Roy, Siarra, Kim

Location: The bell tower

Time: Day 5 – Shortly after dawn

Roxanne finished lying Cara’s body over Lucilla, making sure their arms were entwined and their faces touching. Then she stepped back with a wicked smile and pointed to her artwork. “I call it…idiots in love.”

“It needs something…” Gena pondered. “Perhaps more idiots. Do we have any volunteers?” She looked at Siarra and Kim, who had been cut loose of their bindings to Cara and thrown against the wall.

Defenseless as she was, Kim balled her fist and stood firmly. “You won’t get away with this!”

“Oh, come now. I thought we agreed on no clichéd heroic dialogue.”

“Gena, this isn’t funny anymore,” Siarra said. “You’re letting this game take over your life.” She paused when she saw something glimmer in her old friend’s eyes. “…You do remember, don’t you? You can’t shake the memories of the other world. You can’t lie to yourself forever.”

“You wouldn’t understand—she who has everything. You don’t know what it’s like to spend your whole life searching for a home. You always had a place to go. How can you pretend to know what it’s like to be me?”

“I can’t, Gena… You’ve always shut me out.”

Gena charged forward and sent her elbow through Siarra’s windpipe. “No! You’ve shut me out, friend. You closed the door on me. You told me I wasn’t good enough to be a part of your world.”

Siarra sank to her knees.

“Am I good enough now, Siarra? Am I good enough to stand up to you—to your measurements?”

“I just didn’t want you watching my brother again…” she choked.

“Oh, you still think this is about Frankie. You think I purposely put a virus into this game just so I could take over your life? …Naïve little bitch, I want more than to own you. I want everything. I want to live the life the real world denied me. I want what I deserve.”

With one knee on the floor, Siarra looked up and narrowed her eyes into the dawning sun. “I can’t think of a punishment that quite sums up what you deserve, Gena.”

“That’s right. You won’t admit I’m the victim here.”

“Victim!? Look what you’ve done, Gena! Or if you can’t, then you—” She turned to Roxanne. “Look around you. You’re so obsessed with what you think you deserve that you’re denying everybody else their rights. Your life was never etched into stone, Gena. But you wrote you own tombstone anyway. You could’ve been somebody, you could’ve been something better than this…”

Gena bent down and put her stumped wrist across Siarra’s cheek. “I couldn’t have been a big sister. I could never have that power over a little sibling.”

“So, you’re just on a power trip then.”

“And what better place? Here, I am the queen.”

“Um, afraid not,” Isabella said. “I’m still queen. Even in a bathrobe and a noose around my neck, I’m still better than you.”

“…I’m going to love watching you hang,” Gena growled, slowly craning her neck around. “I can’t wait for your lips to go blue.”

Siarra again turned to Roxanne. “You must understand. Even if Gena doesn’t, you know what’s at stake here. This isn’t the game you’re making it out to be.”

“Perhaps not,” Roxanne said, without hesitation, “but I’ve chosen my path. This is what’s best for me.”

“…Then I had you both wrong.”

Kim looked from one to the other. She still had no clue what they were talking about.

“I suggest you start to enjoy this world,” Gena said, rising to her feet. “We won’t be going home again.”

“I suggest you think again.”

“What?”

Roxanne grabbed her axe. “Who said that?”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Or if you won’t,” came the voice again, “then perhaps I can change your mind.”

Gena and Roxanne spun around, eventually winding up back-to-back for protection.

“Who said that?”

“Who the hell are you!?”

The room was silent for a moment. Even Isabella had stopped muttering things and stood still, waiting, watching every slow shadow that crept across the wall of the bell tower.

Suddenly, with a loud clang, Roxanne’s metal leggings came unbuckled and crashed to the floor. She stood now in bare legs, still gripping her axe, and looked down when a cold draft blew through.

“Hey!” she cried out, covering her thighs. “Who did that?”

From behind, a figure began to materialize out of the camouflage of the wooden walls. She appeared slowly, like a cloud of gas that soon crystallized into the shape of a woman. And there she stood, eyeing down Gena and Roxanne.

“My name is Michelle,” the woman said. “I am here on behalf of the creators of Neverquest to stop this virus before it causes any more harm. Don’t bother introducing yourselves because I know who you are and you’re both in a lot of trouble.”

Gena rolled her eyes. “Oh, look…an adult, coming to spoil our fun. How typical. …Roxy, show her the proper way to mop a floor by doing it with her ass.”

“Just let me get my pants back on.”

“Now, Roxy.”

Isabella sighed and leaned back on her noose. “Fallon, would you hurry up and ring the bell so I can die already? I’m so sick of hearing these peasants talk.”

“Almost got them,” Roxanne said, fumbling for her armor buckles.

Gena shook her head. “…Enough.” Then she dove for Michelle, who quickly raised her arms in response. Their forearms crashed together. Sparks from Michelle’s spell struck the rafters over their heads. Gena pushed her back, swinging her stumped arms around, and parried another ball of lighting from Michelle’s fingertips.

The ball hit the wall and caused a cloud of dust to rain down.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Michelle said, jumping back.

“I think that should be the last of your worries.”

Mack and Roy, who were dangling from two nails in the wall, saw their chance to be heroes. They quickly squirmed out of their shirts and dropped to the floor, rushing to Michelle’s aid.

“Wait!” Mack panted. “Why are we running towards the bad guys?”

“They’re not bad,” Roy said. “They’re just misguided.”

“Yeah, well… They’re not guys either, and any fool can tell it would be suicide to tangle with them. But you’re not listening to me anymore, are you?”

With a sharp whistle, Roy summoned his frog and they climbed aboard, hopping towards Roxanne on the back of their semi-androgynous friend.

“Does that answer your question?” Roy laughed.

Roxanne looked up just in time to see a frog soar through the air, land on her fallen armor, and cause it to slide between her legs and across the floor. She cried out, making a desperate reach for it, but it soon tumbled down the great pit in the center of the room. The frog and its riders jumped away at the last moment, cheering at their small victory.

Roxanne scrambled over to the edge of her hands and knees, but the leggings had already vanished into the dark abyss. “Why, you little gnats. Now I’m going to have to rule the kingdom without pants. I oughta—”

There was one thing she hadn’t considered. By coming so close to the pit, she had crossed into the reach of Isabella’s makeshift leash. And Isabella was right there, slamming her heel into Roxanne’s face until her nose began to bleed.

“This is the royal treatment I should’ve given you from the beginning,” Isabella spat. “To think I trusted you. Even I’m ashamed of myself.”

Shielding her face with her hand, Roxanne recoiled and then seized Isabella’s ankle. “You should be. You’re such a filthy brat.”

“Please. You wish you were me. You wish you were rolling in money and had servants to use as red carpets. But you don’t have any of that.”

“I have everything I need right here,” Roxanne said, squeezing her fist so that Isabella’s anklebone began to crack, “…in the palm of my hand.”

“Jump the barrels, defeat the monkey, and save the princess!” Roy cried out. He made another pass on the back of his frog and leapt off, grabbing hold of a strand of Roxanne’s hair. There, he swung back and forth, flexing the veins in his biceps to keep hold of the greasy black fiber. It wasn’t until the strand stopped moving and he was dangling in front of her eye that he realized he had no clue what he was doing.

“…I think I wet myself,” he peeped. Then he reared back his foot and kicked Roxanne in the nose.

She screamed and tried to cover her bleeding nose. “Ow! What the hell are you wearing—spurs!?”

“I’m a cowboy, baby!”

She bared her teeth. “Then I guess beef is what’s for dinner.”

“Roy, hop on!” Mack called out, taking the reins of the frog. He steered back around passed under Roxanne, where Roy dropped down and landed in his lap.

Smiling up at his savior, Roy grinned and batted his eyes. “My hero. Give me a big ol’ kiss, you sexy thing, you.”

“…Get the hell off me, man.”

“Can I still have the kiss?”

Mack threw him off the frog.

Meanwhile, Gena and Michelle were still locked in a battle of magic. Gena couldn’t easily cast spells without her hands, but her arms were quick and were able to repel Michelle’s magic across the room. They did a few laps around the pit, each gaining an advantage and then losing it as the red eyes of the sun danced across their skin.

“I’m not going back!” Gena swore, pounding Michelle in the stomach. “This is my home now. This is my world. You don’t belong here!”

Michelle stumbled backwards. She wasn’t used to her body in this world. It was so different, so surreal, so much like a dream. It was nearly impossible to control. Closing her eyes for a moment, she shook herself clear of the confusion and blocked the next attack.

“Listen to me,” she said. “People are dying. You’re letting them die by being here. I know that’s not what you want.”

“Sacrifices have to be made.”

“These are real people, Gena!”

“They’re not real to me.”

“Then you’re sick and you need help.” She stopped talking to shoot another ball of lightning, which was rocketed out the window. “…Come back with us. Tell us the password to stop this virus and take my hand back to the real world.”

Gena’s eyes narrowed. “Do not mock me.”

“I’m not mocking you. I’m trying to help you.”

“You’re trying to kill me!”

“You’re not giving me a chance to speak!”

“Maybe I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”

“I think you do.”

“Is that so?”

For the first time, Michelle took over on offense. She reached out and grabbed the stumps of Gena’s wrists, pulling them apart, and slid between them so that her Gena was breathing against her face. “Yes… Yes, I think that’s all you want, is to be heard. I think you want people to understand what you’re going through.”

“…Nobody understands,” Gena whispered. “Nobody can feel this darkness upon them.”

“You’re not the only one who suffers.”

“I feel like I am…”

“No,” Michelle assured her. “There are so many more. You’re not alone in this world.”

“But I want this. I want it more than anything.”

“You don’t want power. You want to be loved.”

Gena’s eyes began to quiver. “No... No, they’re the same thing.”

“Is that really what you think?” Michelle paused. “…You can control people. You can rule over them, if you want, and you can demand respect and admiration—but you can’t force someone to love you. Nobody is that powerful.”

Siarra rose from the floor. “She’s right, Gena. Just look at Isabella. She has everything and nobody loves her.”

“Off with her head!” Isabella cried. “I want it on a silver platter and smothered in honey sauce.”

Gena cracked a little smile, looking up shyly. “Yes… I know that.”

“So why do you want people to die?” Michelle asked. “Surely there are other ways to be heard.”

“Nobody wants to love a freak.”

“You’re not a freak.”

Gena pushed her away. “How would you know? You don’t even know me. You’re just…like the rest. You only want to put me down.”

“Nobody’s putting you down, Gena. We only want this suffering to end. Don’t you?”

She was silent in repose. Then, a sort of dark cloud obscured her eyes.

“…You’re lying,” she whispered. “You want to take me back so you can lock me in a cell. You want to put out the fire of my dreams.”

“That’s not what I want, Gena.”

“Yes… It is. You’re one of them. The ones who hold me down… The hands of fate that suffocate me…” The cloud lifted and her eyes welled with burning tears. “You hate me. You disgust me. You deserve to die with the others! You deserve everything I was given. You deserve to share their fate, the graves they’ve dug for you and me.” She leaned back and held her arms close to her chest, glowing like a sea of unsuppressed flames. “Forgive me for killing you, but you have to die. You all do.”