It was late by the time Kurai finally climbed into the bed that Ren offered to him. At first, he'd declined, but then Rai and their aunt, Hana, also joined in the fray in persuading him, and Kurai found himself standing inside the guest bathroom with a set of clean clothes before he even knew what was happening.
A part of him tried to rationalize that it was all a part of the hidden quest since he hadn't used his limited amount of coins even once throughout the day, but the other part of him instinctively wanted to reach out to Lin and ask for some advice.
He knew that Lin would've been able to guide him through things, but unless she also entered the game, he was kind of stuck at the moment.
Kurai showered and then dried his hair before he put on the new clothes and sneaked towards his bedroom once it became apparent that everyone in the rest of the house had already gone to bed.
He needn't have worried, though, because even a loud snore from Rin, Ren and Rai's father, didn't even seem to wake the family up, although Kurai made sure to be silent just in case as he got into bed.
Rin had been silent throughout dinner, and from what Ren had quietly tried to explain to him, his father had been that way ever since their mother had died.
Rin's sister, Hana, had noticed this after the funeral, and she decided to take over the household and take care of them until their father recovered, but Rin never recuperated, and Hana simply seemed to stay.
Kurai closed his eyes and wondered whether it was possible to dream inside a game. Technically speaking, his consciousness was mere data now, and although he tried to steer his thoughts onto a different path, he couldn't ignore the fact that data could get corrupted.
Heck, Lin had often scolded him for going to random sites during his research sessions whenever she had to fix his laptop after it went haywire, and she even forced him to back up his data weekly just to make her own job easier when the inevitable happened.
The thought had him tossing around quite a bit before he finally seemed to dose off, only to find himself in an empty room.
His initial reaction was to look for a way out, but naturally, he found none, and this made him wonder whether this would be what 'dreaming' would be like from now on.
The echoing sound of a 'ding' startled him, and he turned around to glare at the message that had appeared without reading it.
'Is it really necessary for the game to send messages even when we sleep?'
He swiped over the message, refusing to read it and hoping that it would disappear, but unlike the other messages, it stayed, and Kurai groaned in frustration, "Fine! I'll read your stupid message!"
His head wasn't really in the right place after the thoughts started plaguing him, and he just wanted a moment to vent his frustrations, but the moment he read the message, he blinked in surprise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Warning: Your headset is currently being accessed by an outside source. Do you wish to open the communication channels?
Please note that this should only be done with trusted sources, as Zenomitec will not be held responsible for any losses that may occur once the connection has been made.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kurai stared at the message and then rubbed his eyes to ensure that he wasn't just imagining things. Someone from the outside was trying to access the game?
Communication channels meant that he would be able to speak with them, but his thoughts from earlier made him hesitate and think of the other implications as well.
'If someone else is wearing the headset, then that means they removed it from my body. Could it be Lin? Or maybe someone from Zenomitec arrived to try and reverse things. Did they place my body in cryo like that contract stated, even though there was a mistake?'
The thoughts swirled around in his head, and he hesitated, but the thought of being stuck in the game if he didn't allow the connection made him accept it, only to see and hear…nothing?
He sighed and cursed softly before calling out, "Hello? Is anyone there? I'm in the game!"
He waited for a bit but still heard nothing, and he felt the anger rising inside of him.
'The person must have thought that the headset was broken or something. I took too long, and now…'
"Kurai? Is that you?"
The shock made him freeze as he heard a familiar voice before he closed his eyes and shook his head.
'Now I'm hearing things; I've finally gone off the bloody deep end, it seems.'
"Kurai?! Turn around and face me, you moron!"
Kurai's eyes snapped open, and he turned around to find a floating image hovering a few feet away from him, "Lin? How the hell did you…?"
He didn't get to finish his sentence as she angrily stomped forward and tried to grip the front of his shirt, but it slid right through, and with it, her anger seemed to vanish to reveal the scared expression that had been hidden underneath.
Kurai immediately tried to lay a hand on her shoulder, but it seemed like she was just a hologram instead of being inside the game, and she looked down at her feet with a strange expression on her face as she spoke.
"It's you, right? The real Kurai? I'm not just dreaming or imagining things, am I?" Her voice was soft, and yet he could hear every word as if it was being spoken out loud.
Kurai nodded and frowned, "Of course! Who else would I be?" Her expression made him worry, and he continued, "What happened?"
She slowly raised her head to look into his eyes as if she was searching for something, "I came back with the snacks and found you lying on the bed with the headset on. At first, I thought you were asleep, and I left you like that for a bit after I took the headset off, thinking you just had a very busy day. I tried to log in, but it didn't want to seem to work."
She clenched her hands in frustration, but Kurai knew her well enough to just let her finish, "I got angry at you, thinking that you had fallen asleep and failed to log in on time, and I tried to wake you, but you didn't even grumble or turn around like you usually would. I even went to fetch a glass of water to throw on you just in case it was all a prank, but then the reports started coming in over the news about the other beta players collapsing, and I-"
Lin gritted her teeth and looked at him, leaving him to see the raw despair in her eyes as she continued to speak after taking a deep breath, "It's all my fault. You wouldn't be in a coma if I had simply gotten everything ready before you arrived, but I was so excited that I got distracted, and now I'm probably passed out on the bed and dreaming up this whole thing just to try and make myself feel better."
Kurai quickly shook his head and cursed the fact that he couldn't at least hug her, "It's not your fault, and you aren't dreaming! I'm fine-"
Lin rolled her eyes and glared at him, "That is just what someone in my dreams would say. Even if this is turning out to be a very lucid dream."
Kurai didn't really know what to say to that, given that he couldn't simply pinch her to show her it was all real.
He thought for a moment before a thought hit him, "Wait, hold up a sec. You put the headset back on even though it caused me to go into a coma?"
Lin nodded, "I already said that I tried logging in after I thought you were sleeping, and it did nothing to me."
Kurai pinched the bridge of his nose, "And now you are wearing it again because?"
Lin frowned, "Some Zenomitec guys were going to the players' houses and checking something on the headsets, but the guys they sent didn't seem to know much because they didn't even realize that I had given them one of the models that I'd printed when I hacked the schematics from their servers. I noticed afterward that they removed the memory chip that I placed in it to try and get it to work."
Kurai raised a brow in suspicion, "You hacked-"
Lin laughed, "I was going to buy it anyway, which I did; I just wanted to see whether I could create one for you as well. Those things are extremely expensive, and you know how I feel about doing things on my own. Anyway, I wanted to try and see if there was something specific on the chip that may reveal why it made all the beta players fall into a coma."
Kurai sighed and opened his inventory before selecting the contract and bending down to allow Lin to read over his shoulder, even though she simply floated higher with a smug smile that only lasted a couple of seconds before she started to read.
Her face became more serious the further she went, and she let out a deep breath at the end of it, "Damn, this is truly one messed up dream."
Kurai growled under his breath before he finally lost it, and he would have shaken her back to her senses if he could, "Stop saying that this is a dream! If it truly were a dream, then I wouldn't be trapped in some stupid game waiting for some idiots to fix their mistakes and get me out!"
He saw Lin back up a few spaces and reached for her, but then simply dropped his arm with a sigh, "Just tell me something."
She nodded, but she seemed wary of him now, not that he blamed her. He never really lost his temper with her before, other than their usual quarrels, "Where is my body now?"
Her gaze fell to her feet, "At the hospital. My parents heard about what happened, and they rushed to our apartment. You know they love you like a son, so they didn't hesitate to place you in a private hospital before contacting your parents. I was there for a while before I came home to fetch a few of your things."
She seemed so sad and lost that Kurai couldn't help but feel bad for snapping at her. If only there was a way to…
'Wait a minute. If she can communicate with me through the headset, then she can take it off and put it on again!'
He laughed out loud and looked at Lin in excitement, "I just thought of a way to show you that this isn't a dream."
She suddenly looked extremely skeptical, "Oh, really? And what is it that you want me to do?"
Kurai could feel his grin turn shark-like, "It's simple, just take the headset off and pinch yourself."
He was sure he would never forget the expression on her face when he said that.