Malkav felt the strange sensation of being materialized in the fantasy world again and fell to his knees in the familiar sand. But this time he wasn’t alone. Cain was with him, along with Adam, Vic, Mundo, Eric, the ever useless Quentin, and even Isaac—all wearing newbie rags like him. He was sure Kim was around here too. All he would have to do was look up.

“Ah, Neverquest,” Eric said, rising to his feet. “I hath missed thee! Your skies so blue, your sand so sandy, your girls so big and hot like jumbo chicken wings! This is where I belong.”

“It does feel good to be back,” Quentin admitted. “I forgot how good it feels to be…normal. No pimples, no four eyes… Here, we’re all the same.”

He was right. Malkav hadn’t realized it his first time playing Neverquest, but he no longer needed his glasses. They were removed from his face and yet he had perfect vision all the way to the horizon—something that even the best eyes in the world didn’t possess.

Suddenly, Kim materialized, apparently slowing than the guys. She no longer had glasses either, and though light freckles still sprinkled her face like stars at night, her once frizzled red hair flowed wonderfully down her shoulders in a long ponytail in a fiery tail, somewhat like a lassoed comet. She wore a tan leather tunic and frayed shorts with a quiver over her shoulder and furry rawhide boots. The top of her boots, though, which ended about a quarter of the way up her calves, were still taller than all of the guys, who were each only about six or seven inches tall.

Isaac stared up at her. “…What the hell!? I was promised food if I played this stupid game, not a giant replica of my girlfriend!”

“We had to get you to play somehow,” Vic shrugged. “Welcome to the land where girls rule. First rule of thumb: watch where the girls step.”

Isaac’s eyes fell to Vic. “You say this is virtual reality?”

“Yeah.”

“And you feel whatever happens to you?”

“Simulated, but yeah, everything connects back to the neurons in the—”

Isaac punched him in the face. Vic collapsed.

“Tell me if you felt that,” Isaac said.

Cain came between them. “Okay, that’ll be enough from the idiot. Kim, you okay?”

Kim shook her head, still a bit dazed from the materialization. “Yeah… I’m fine. Feels weird having your atoms transported through cyberspace.”

“Hey, look what I found!” Quentin exclaimed, picking up a series of daggers in the sand. “Quentin has knives! Quentin has knives! Everybody, everywhere, Quentin has knives!” He laughed insanely.

“Why did we bring the psycho?” Mundo asked. Quentin stabbed Mundo with one of the rusty daggers, wearing his already torn shirt. “Stop that!”

Malkav snatched one of the daggers away from Quentin. “That’s mine. Now come on, people, let’s get to that Abbey before Siarra shows up.”

But as if on cue, Siarra began to materialize in front of them along with a little boy and an old man with a beard and a cane. Both of the males were about as small as the rest of the guys (the little boy, of course, being quite a deal smaller, and the old man being a little bit taller due to his elder age). Siarra was even bigger than Kim, even if it was only by a couple of inches. In truth, all the girls were the same size they were in real life and the guys, though significantly smaller, were still the same proportionally when compared to their own gender.

“Aw, shit,” Malkav snapped his fingers.

The old man blinked. “W-what happened!? Are we back in Cambodia!? Men, to your stations!”

“You brought your grandpa to play Neverquest!?” Malkav gawked up at Siarra.

She beamed down at him. “Malkav! And all of Malkav’s little buddies! How are you all?” Then, remembering her manners, she pointed down at the little boy and the old man, who was running behind a sand dune and throwing imaginary grenades into the air. “Everybody, this is my little brother, Frankie, and my grandpa, Grandpa.”

“Damn it, girl!” Cain said. “We’re not running a daycare here! We’re on our way to the Abbey to level and get our classes.”

“Well, they wanted to come too!” Siarra pouted. “And if you don’t like it, I’ll squash you like a fruitcake!”

“Ha! Stupid girl. We have Kim here to protect us.”

It was the first time Siarra noticed Kim. They hadn’t really talked a lot before, even at school, but they could at least tolerate each other. They both did love video games, after all.

“Actually,” Kim said, “I’m all up for the whole squishing-the-big-mouth idea.”

“Methinks you talk too much and say nothing at all,” Eric whispered into Cain’s ear. Cain shoved him away.

Grandpa poked his head out from the sand dune. “Eh? No enemy fire?”

Clearing her throat, Siarra bent down on one knee next to her grandfather. “Grandfather, um…”

He nearly had a heart attack. “M-my God, munchkin! Look what those confounded vegetables have done to you! I told your good-for-nothing father that you needed more meat in your diet.”

“It’s part of the game,” she tried to explain. “I’m not big… You’re just really small. But…look how freely you move!”

His weary eyes widened. She was right. His skin was still wrinkled, his beard still long and woven into his face, but his bones no longer ached the way they used to. “I…I feel seventy years younger… This is amazing!” He laughed and then jumped around like a hardy youth, shadow-boxing with little Frankie, who just laughed and played along. “I’m a new man, munchkin! What’s this game called again?”

“Neverquest.”

“Lord above, we need pills like this.”

“I’m glad Gramps is happy,” Isaac grumbled, “but I’m starving. Let’s hurry up and get to this ‘Abbey’ so we can eat.”

Malkav watched the old man and little boy dance around and then looked up at Siarra, who was smiling. Her eyes weren’t on him, but he smiled as well, knowing what she was thinking. Maybe this virtual reality thing wasn’t so bad. Just looking at the fun those two were having, Malkav knew deep down that Neverquest was the best thing to ever come to this crazy town. He wondered why Siarra told him that it was only a local game.

“Quentin give everybody a knife!” Quentin cheered, jumping around and throwing daggers out behind him as if he were a flower maiden of death. There was a lot of screaming, followed by a number of colorful cuss words before he was finally tackled by Isaac and Mundo. They stripped him of all weaponry.

“I’m just glad this game isn’t reality,” Vic said, pulling one of Quentin’s stray daggers out of his bloody arm. “We could really get hurt.”

“Yeah,” Kim laughed. “Well, I guess since we’re all here, we might as well group up and visit the Abbey together.”

“Good idea!” Siarra agreed. “Okay, you guys can all walk in front of us.”

The guys didn’t seem to like that idea too much.

Siarra sighed through a smirk. “You’re all such babies… So afraid of getting stepped on.”

“…I’m sticking near your girlfriend,” Mundo said to Isaac as they picked up Quentin.

“You know,” Siarra said, spreading her arms, “I’m maxed out in Hearing.”

“Damn it.”

Eric nodded to himself as he watched his fellow companions. “If ever there were a team of misfits, this would be it. We will need to work together if we hope to come out of this adventure alive.”

“Dude,” Cain said. “Stop talking to yourself. It’s just a game.”

“Is it, Cain? Is it? How can you perceive what is fantasy and what is reality? Look around you and tell me how convinced you are that this isn’t our new reality, that these aren’t our real hands. Do our own eyes deceive us? Or do our minds? Perchance someday you, too, will understand.”

Malkav distanced himself from the rest of them as they began their trek towards the Abbey, the two giant girls leading the way. He needed time to think. Shoving his hands into his pockets (holes in his ragged clothing), he trailed behind, dragging his feet through the sand. He looked up at Siarra once or twice, trying to read her face, but it wasn’t easy with her back to him. So instead he sighed and kicked along a stone that was probably a pebble to the girls.

Something wasn’t right. Cain and Isaac seemed to realize Neverquest was only a game, but the rest of them seemed to forget that. What would happen if they all forgot it was a game? Who would pull them out of this fantasy? Would they all be destined to stay here, trapped in their own imaginations, in a world that only existed in their minds?

Malkav looked to the horizon. He could see it clearly, and without his glasses. That couldn’t be a good sign. If a game could be so perfect, so wonderful, what was to stop somebody—or everybody—from becoming lost within?