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Beep…
"Junwoo?" Beep… "I'm sorry… I wasn't there to save you."Beep…
Sounds of a soft voice trembling could be heard, echoing in the darkness. Then, light.
Junwoo jolted. Eyes wide open. Awake again. Lungs burning with deep, heavy breaths. His body shook as if he'd been dropped into ice water.
The moment his mind cleared, dread crashed in. What was that voice? And that name. He recognised it from that character he saw. Some part of his long forgotten memories?
But he didn't even need to look around to know exactly where he was. His body remembered before his thoughts caught up. The air was still, unnaturally clean. Polished marble floors reflected a ceiling painted with gold-leaf constellations. Velvet curtains hung heavy and unmoving, muffling the faint sound of the world beyond.
Then there was the artificial floral scent that filled his lungs with every breath. It made him sick.
The whole building looked like a palace, not just his room. The same room that he'd been waking up in every day for at least a week. Yet despite the luxurious, delicate and expensive looking scene around him, it all felt completely wrong. The room was devoid of life – of soul.
Horrible memories flooded his mind, being forced into killing monsters much weaker than him. Forced into exhausting himself by using skill after skill, whilst a collar burned at his neck. All because he tried to resist.
The man who'd captured him was pure evil. The other monsters he'd met didn't even look nearly as exhausted and defeated as he was, but he guessed it was part of the game. They were disciplined. Their stats all maxed, their health never dropped and they never ran out of stamina. Their faces were void of thought. Like puppets kept alive by code.
A shiver ran down his spine. 'Was that going to happen to me?'
He wasn't allowed to speak when they were together, and his mouth felt a familiar clamping feeling. Like as if his teeth were glued together.
He's coming.
He pressed a hand to his chest, his heart hammering. A phantom stinging feeling erupted around his neck, it wasn't real, but it felt like it. His muscles ached.
Quiet thumping became louder and nearer until the sound stopped outside of his door.
Panic. He sat on his bed with his knees to his chest and his head defensively buried in his arms.
When he first met the Summoner, he was given a new outfit. A suit of light armour that was black in colour, that increased his speed greatly. Long woven leather fingerless gloves that stretched up to just past his elbows with metal shoulderplates on both sides that connected to a black tunic. The shoulderplates were secured with leather straps that diagonally rolled across his chest and connected to a belt that wrapped tightly around his waist. His pants were black baggy trousers with a hole in the back for his tail to poke out.
The door creaked open without hesitation.
"Oi, we're leaving now. Get up."
He was never alone for too long. Only long enough for him to be rested so he can continue without any negative stat effects. He wasn't sure that the Summoner ever logged out.
Head no longer in his knees, he rose to meet his new master's eyes and nodded. Oh how he wished he could speak, or even resist. Instead, Junwoo followed obediently, trying to drag his legs as much as he could. His body moved on command, but his mind screamed against it.
Every step towards the corridor felt like stepping deeper into a void, the Summoner's shadow stretching long across the marble floor. The air smelled faintly of metal and incense, heavy and suffocating. Junwoo's tail flicked nervously behind him, betraying the fear he tried to bury. He thought, briefly, of what Kaelsu was doing right now. Oh and how he regretted everything.
Then the sound of boots against stone snapped him back, and he forced himself still, a ghost marching to the beat of someone else's drum.
Then before he knew it, they were outside. He walked alongside his new master, with other monsters following behind. Junwoo glanced up to look at his summoner. The staff he used was a flashy gold staff decorated with gems: precious diamonds, blood rubies, and fresh green emeralds.
Junwoo was slashing through enemy monsters, destroying other players in PvP and running through dungeons without rest.
Hours must've passed. Junwoo's stamina was quite low. Not low enough for his master to allow him to rest, but low enough for it to be affecting him mentally. The whole time, he hadn't been allowed to speak or move without permission. He felt like a spectator in his own body, a stranger trapped in his own skin. Every strike he dealt, every step he took, was not truly his own.
There was a point where he didn't feel real any more.
His vision blurred at the edges, the colours of the battlefield beginning to smear together. The weight of his claws felt heavier with each swing, but his body moved without hesitation, a marionette on invisible strings. Commands ran through his head like static, drowning out every trace of his own thoughts.
He couldn't even lift his hand to wipe the blood from his claws. The red dripped down his fingers, warm and sticky, a reminder of how far from human he felt in this moment. His breathing grew shallow.
Somewhere deep down, he wanted to scream, but even that had been taken from him.
The only times he felt real, that he was in control again, was every damage inflicted on him; every health point dropped. Conversely, the more damage he dealt, the less Human he felt. At times he would doubt his true identity, and even forget about the frazzled moments of his past that appeared in his dreams.
The monsters were thinning out. What had once been a storm of snarls and metal clashing against bone slowly turned into silence. The last enemy collapsed after Junwoo threw a ball of searing hot flames towards them. He'd just been switched back into battle, ready to fight more. He was prepared for the next battle.
Junwoo was no longer aware of where they were. A long corridor stretched out in front of him, until they were once again ambushed by lower level monsters. All it took was a spinning lunge of fire for them to evaporate.
Then, quiet.
The quiet was wrong. Junwoo's feet sank into blood-soaked ground, his breath coming out ragged and shallow. His body kept walking, step by step, down the narrowing hall.
The air grew colder. Every sound seemed distant, muffled as if the world itself was holding its breath. Somewhere deep inside, a part of Junwoo whispered to turn back, to run, but he couldn't. He wasn't allowed to.
A soft sound cut through the silence. A step. Then another. It was faint, but familiar in a way that made his stomach twist. His head tilted, not because he wanted it to, but because the sound was drawing closer.
The shadows along the corridor shifted, and a figure emerged from the dark. A figure with hair like snow and a staff as long as his body.
He didn't need to see the face to know who it was. His pulse jumped. His breath caught in his throat.
"I found you."