"...nice to meet you, Elenora." I said with a low voice as we walked towards the west direction like before.
"Mhm, of course." She seems to have gotten more smug for some reasons...
Then we walked for a while in silence before she spoke again.
"... it's nice to meet you aswell, Rion. Even though this place isn't pleasant at all." She said.
I agree... I'd rather have not met you than meet you at a place like this.
"Was this game always this dark?" I asked curiously. I'm a newbie after all.
"Every worlds has their own dark sides, the same goes for humans." She said.
...when you say dark side, I can't help but think of cringe memes. Sigh, I used to have a dark side syndrome personality thing back in high school.
But I get what she's trying to say here, at least.
I only nodded in reply... As we walked and walked.
Then finally, we found something! A ray of light! It was just at the south direction from here.
I walked towards the ray of light excitedly, as I walked there I found the doppelganger from earlier fighting a group of 4 players.
The ray of light was an ability of one of the players.
Elenora and Rion watched as they fought and in the end, it concluded with the doppelganger consuming another player, leaving 3 players alive.
The players were already tired fighting but the doppelganger seemed to be way too strong to be tired...
Then it suddenly got faster as it suddenly appeared in front of a player and consumed them instantly, leaving 2 players alive.
They tried to help but to no avail. Elenora and Rion was also helpless aswell, only being able to watch as everyone else gets consumed by that thing...
".. doppelgangers are pretty rare to find, right? I think only one of these exists in some forest of spirits, including this one..." She whispered quietly to me.
The 2 players then started running at our direction. We couldn't blame them for it... But regardless another one got consumed before they reached us, leaving only one alive.
"...why do you..." The last remaining one lost all hopes that moment and muttered before losing her strength midway through her sentence.
...hmm, she looks familiar. Isn't she the one that woke me up in the tent? Right, I think she was the second highest level player here... Still low level though. Otherwise, a doppelganger isn't that threatening... And we didn't have knowledge about it beforehand, leading to too much casualties. Even if we had fought it together and ran together, the surroundings were on fire at that time...
But the doppelganger, after finishing it's meals, didn't look at the player but looked at our direction and "smiled", before coming right at me!
It was too fast for eyes to follow but I dodged it narrowly because I realized it's intentions the moment it stared at me.
Hah... You're kidding me. How do I survive this thing?...
It stared at me for a while, seemingly wanting to play with it's prey for some reasons. It probably considered me too weak and pitied me...
Ahh, f*ck. We've already walked enough in this direction so why is this forest so huge? I can't even see any live animals here...
The doppelganger finally got near me and as it was about to consume me-
Elenora threw a stick at it. She had been trying to think of ways to escape since earlier but she realized it was impossible... So why not die fighting!?
"Rion, please! Let's escape now!" She was trying to tell me to not give up, her voice sounded different from usual.
Her voice now was similar to one of that from when she realized there was a doppelganger.
The doppelganger shouldn't have stopped from a stick attack but it looked annoyed for a second as it looked at Elenora.
But the last remaining player that it hadn't consumed attacked again! With the rays of light from earlier!
It gave Elenora and me enough time to just escape together as the doppelganger was stunned for about 4 seconds or so. It only blinded the doppelganger but it was effective!
Nice save, the girl who woke me up... she's probably going to die before us now...
Elenora grabbed my hand without saying anything and ran towards the west direction again! Why?... Is this the right direction? Did she realize something?
We ran and ran as we got farther from the player and the doppelganger. By this point, the player who saved us is probably dead already... I hope she lives well next time.
But the scenary didn't change at all. No matter how much we ran... And the doppelganger started chasing us after a few more seconds! Why won't it give us at least a minute?!
Why isn't it going after other players...? Ah. I see... That's why. This turned out to be the right direction after all... That's why it was mostly around this area!
I finally realized we had a chance of survival but it will get to us in just about 4 more seconds or so... And I don't know who it'll target!
... I counted down as we ran, 4...3...2...
1!
I pushed Elenora to the side just a little, enough for her to be able to dodge the doppelganger's grasp as it tried to target Elenora first.
I guess this doppelganger's still got emotions... huh? It's still mad at Elenora for throwing a "stick" at it. A stick she picked up in a hurry ... Trying everything possible and testing every chances!
Yes, I'm not going to give up here!
The doppelganger started at me as it lunged at me, I dodged it narrowly because it was predictable... But Elenora and I kept running! Every seconds we dodged and predicted and distracted it's attention...
After a few more seconds of running, the forest's view seemed to end as there was empty land outside! The outside view! We can reach there and escape this forest!
The stakes were getting higher as they almost escaped the forest... And yet it's next move was out of their scopes.
The seemingly unintelligent doppelganger, tricks it's preys by targeting Rion first and then turning to Elenora and trying to consume it!
... Rion reacted quickly but it was faster. After all, it had consumed too many other players and even a single player could be considered stronger than both of them. It's strength and speed grows slowly even through consuming people. Otherwise, they'd already have died.
Even so, even so! F*ck!
Rion could only watch helplessly as the doppelganger consumed Elenora. Why?... Why!? We were finally this close to escaping and yet and yet!
F*cking stupid world! F*cking fate and my f*cking luck! What's this? Why am I losing a friend that I've just made? A precious friend of mine is dying here and I can only watch helplessly?
Rion punched the doppelganger multiple times and hit it helpessly using his head. His hands and head were bleeding but he didn't stop. The doppelganger was unharmed, of course...
...."Ah, this is how it feels to die?" Rion muttered out his last words before being consumed by the doppelganger.
He closed his eyes as if it'd ease his pain but getting eaten alive didn't hurt any less.