After the game world merged with world of reality, Millie and Elena manifest into our universe in the form of Cyborg avatars: 3D printed organic flesh suits on a metallic mechanical skeleton, and a digital mind. Many of the peasants in the world Voreth’s Promise manifest in a much similar fashion. This created weird social effects, as society was already headed into the direction of borderline self-ware androids, though those are subtly different from what we tend to call cyborgs.

Millie was a Cyborg who lost her will to be a princess in the game. Now she prefers a new reason to exist, and pursue her new flame, who despite her inner most tendency to hate chose love instead of the darkest portion of the self.

It was a cold tower, colder than the coldest of nights in the town. She had wanted to purchase a claymore, but had found a quest for a weapon in a region of the mountains few dared to explore. In these mountains, was rumored a tentacled monstrosity. Those who could verify the legend, usually did not survive to verify this hearsay. Things have changed sense Voreth’s Promise had collided with the non-game world, and she was never sure whether what she would fight in the snowy wasteland was real, or purely imagined by layers of haunted wires. Her pet cat was a Dire Tabby, whose fur was thick and black. Her cat would strangle those who attacked her from behind. At night she were hear the cat yowl for her attention, even when she tried to sleep.She met Nadine when she was tired and weak, and barely outside of her mother’s nest. The mother was attacked by poachers, and her new was only able to survive when she shot both of the hunters from a large cliff. But now the cat as grown to be twice her size in height, and three times in length. It took a special kind of laser pointer to distract her long enough to be satisfied with the amount attention she got. She could always pay the most attention to her cat, being to busy repairing the parts of her house that were attacked by wild ape-goats and spider-pigs.She brought up the GUI, displaying her stats: she had 95% hit points left, and her attack power had only increased by a small amount, do the slight sharpening of her long sword she commissioned in town. But she knew that this journey would be a long one, one unprompted by any mentor. Part of her was tempted to leave her cat behind to be taken care of by Millie, but knew that Luna would never go for this, despite how much she loved Millie. A certain part of Nadine wanted to restart the game, and actually let Millie die this time, but her friends would give her shit about it. And she enjoyed the fellatio she given to her as part of a good night present.

For Nadine, her bane was her life day in and day out. She saw the ruins of The Potato District in full view. What was once a thriving metropolis, was now a land of wild ape-goat tribes. She had finally gotten tired of eaten Spider-Pigs eggs, after she had finally found an air fryer abandoned in an old grocery store. It seemed like people were finally leaving the city in droves, except for those whom had no other options. But it wasn’t like it was back when the game world finally let loose upon reality.

When Ape-Goats came to roost.

When she visited the city, ordinarily you think of fresh water fountains, children playing in the park, and dove flying into the rainbow. Ever since the collision, the image of a once wonderland has been blurred by years of war. Dismantled guillotine guns litter the land like a decentralized landfill, whose network of automated incinerators have long sense been out of commission. Gone were the days when swept back flying wings took children from home to school. Gone were the days when life had more than piling dust. No more children holding hands, and encircling the water fountain in the park. Perhaps someday, in some distant future, they will return laugh and play. But it seems like faint hope, when you’re attacked by a spider-pig crawling on your back. Nadine felt funny eating their eggs, and part of her wanted to keep one as a creepy pet.

She gathered snow to melt into a saucepan, then ran back home as fast as she could. Her wooden shoes hurt her bare feet, that have now developed blisters, the clogs now more muted color from the snow having melted upon them. The only thing that kept her warm was her thick coat of fur, from a poached ape-goat. An Ape-Goat tip toed behind her, in order to break her neck.

Slash! The Ape-Goat’s arm was taken off. It stopped the bleeding with one of its tattered sleeves. Then ran off, limping. This was Nadine’s first mistake, keeping it alive. But she didn’t have time for remorse, as she needed to hurry home for Millie to make Lunch, but she would Nadine would go off to investigate the mountains. She felt a vibrating pulse under her furry trousers, but resisted the temptation until she got home. She knocked, and a young woman with curly blond hair peeked through the door crack.

“What took you so long?” Millie said.

“I was attacked again.” said Nadine.

Nadine had long broken off contact from her parents: even basic parental duties like defending her against total strangers had been completely broken. If this were the real middle ages, and she were queen, she would have already have them both hung. But there wasn’t much use continuing to think about it, beyond the memories, and they had long sense deteriorated into dust. Her mother in particular, was less about being right, only that she is correct.

Her mother would often times side were completely politically and morally opposing viewpoints, just so long as she could get an edge over her offspring. In this sense, she was less of a mother figure, and closer to wicked step aunt in some ancient fairy tale, written long before the game world merged with the real world. As she climbed the darkened mountains, she found it easy to sometimes lose her way, so she would have a kind stranger pointing her into the direction of the cave. “Why do you want to go this way?” they would ask, and she would simply respond that she was looking for ancient sword. This was the best of many options, as she wasn’t really sure who was an AI, and who was actually human. Most were human enough to have the largest minimum of sentience.

But today she stayed at a local tavern, where the brew was always fresh. And the girls based whose dick they sucked on, based on the suitors girl like qualities, rather than how much money they could get out of the deal. Money was already useless, with most vending machines being out of commission, thus who used to be prostitutes now based their client-el on the length of their hair, the size of their hips, and the ratio of hair on their body. It turns out, hookers had standards too. And at night, under the glow of slaughtered firefly, she jostled her fingertips on deranged GUI screens. For her daily pleasures, her world was a dream within a dream.Millie knew that sometimes it would be a while before Nadine would get home, so she would carefully make plans to this effect. It was a relationship of mutual open unfaithfulness, but neither one generally loved the ones they had as their object of cheating. The desires were usually fleeting, and not always indulged. But today Millie was there with her date far longer than Nadine would come to anticipate. When you’re in this business, sometimes you need to expect the worth in people, and not everyone is going to suck your penis exclusively. And make like different shapes and lengths. Nadine thought of girls in wooden shoes as she ventured further into the mountains.

Silence, it fills the woods with sharp clarity. Often as painful as the loudest of construction equipment, Nadine knew that this quest she found would be a slightly longer one. But it beat having to repair a broken virtual reality game. For Nadine, the most tactical of battles was far ahead. She drank out of her leather pouch, then sleep under a tree outside of the cybernetic ruins that once housed entire simulated ecosystems, but now was the catacombs of a bygone era. Here she dreamed of curly blond fairy girls in wooden clogs, pushing her back to the tree. Them slowly riding on her knob, and yet Nadine sense of pleasure was always mixed with pain and guilt.

“You girls are honestly demons.” she said.

She got up a morning later, and walked into the ruins. Here the room was considerably brighter in parts, and darker in others. She could here the old film reels in constant automatic replay, when the entertainment still had projector screens throughout the city, the sprawl having long replace the traditional movie theater, people indulged in constant streams from apparently independent video production teams, but had long worked for the National Security Agency.

It was at this point she considered taking her cyanide pills, but didn’t want to leave Millie alone in the world to fend for herself. And knew that she would be calling after a while to ask about dinner. Nadine got tired of eating Ape-Goat steaks and Spider-Pig roulettes after a while. But knew there wasn’t a whole lot of other options. In this ruins, a section of the city in which she had once lived, once called Purgatory Road, she had once trained dogs for a fighting rings. Yet now was replaced by overgrown vines, and scattered bits of cybernetic debris. Nadine was on the jungle of her hidden past.

But it was better than renting an apartment in Chattanooga, where nine times out of ten the landlords aid and abet in gendered harassment and stalking, and generally don’t care if a trans woman is murdered on the street. this is the once United States, and not Canada where it may or may not actually be better. Gone are the days where mothers can blame their daughters for being raped, but its been replaced by general financial insecurity, and institutionalized Stockholm Syndrome. But the super computer was something entirely different. Something that has once been a trans woman, decades ago, where the US was split between two different civil wars.

Here, the AI maintained a certain level of sentience, that unlike ones that controlled spaceships, could not easily by shut down. More often, people were to caught in fighting splinter groups of neo-Nazis, of which one apartment she had lived once played a part in the history books. In sense, no longer was society in the middle ages, they had in fact gone backwards in time. The AI 3D printed itself an avatar inside the catacombs, and waited for a human to take its prize.”There is no sword Nadine.” said the voice. The voice became a silhouette in the dark room, whose electrical lights have shattered in the darkness. “But I feel a great strength within you.” The shadow reached out its hand as if to greet her. She could hear the sound of slithering, then silence.

“Then why was I brought here?” Nadine asked, lighting up an American Spirit. This lit the room enough to see a translucent hologram of a young woman from nearly a century ago back in two thousand and nineteen. “I have things to do.”

“Dantino has returned.”

Nadine had minor hearing loss for many years, but first developed the signs when she was in her early teens. It didn’t help that she was also having to carry around a robotic arm and leg. But she never commented on it out of a sense of pride, and simply let Blanci think that she was ignoring her. But the issue grew gradually worse over the next nearly twenty years, until she eventually had to get ear drum replacements. She kept the old style of prosthetic arms and legs mostly as a form of nostalgia and retro fit, but for her hearing she wanted something as realistic as possible. But even today she would wonder what gaming would be like if she couldn’t hear, but even this would be nowhere near as bad as not being able to see. Even if they gradually improved prosthetic eyes.

She wondered about the idea of a game world, rogue like in design, geared toward those legally blind. How the procedurally generated dungeons of yore would be described in carefully worded language, lyrical echo location of a black and white grid chessboard. When she gamed, she decked out in black, whether in the mall or the run down shack. Gone were the days of robotic dogs on LCD screens, she preferred traveling worlds from here to France and areas in between. Her life an epitaph written in the form of an updated game of Ultimate Fantasy Tactics, becoming a ghost in her own wires. She fought empires, killed hordes of ape-goats and spider-pigs.

But it was never as satisfying as finding a playmate.

She never liked the idea of rescuing women from their own destruction, if one were at risk of possible execution, the least they could do was rescue themselves. Prove their own will to live. But what works on paper and philosophy doesn’t always work on turn based grid display of dots.

She imagined Millie beheaded.

Millie bled Polka dots.

Nadine was never one for the dance, despite imagining a French waltz played at Millie’s funeral. Her dance was a dance of pure imagination, like a nude body having melted dark chocolate poured on it. For Nadine, the chocolate flowing like the music of Andalusia, Spain. And the accordion of Paris. Yet behind the layers of this chosen reality, was a girl of skin and bones.Compared to flower girls, princesses, and queens, her attraction was less in her desire to rule a capitalistic industry, but a certain degree of non femininity, her dance the funeral march to her dead father, whom had ruled the fairy kingdom. In capitalism, we treat fairies as chocolate treats for a desert at Christmas concerts. But in reality, they were closer to grim reapers. Victims of circumstance, the absence of Dantino was taken as a relief, that they could restore the kingdom to its formal former glory, flowing like out of tune accordions to the waltz of a skeleton aristocracy. Millie wanted to be the queen, but wore wooden clogs like other peasant girls.She imagined courtiers with the musical accompaniment of Spanish and French violins playing flamenco to the contrast of the waltz. Millie woke up from her dream within a dream, and checked the door.

It was Nadine.

“I thought he died six years ago?” said Millie.

“I never actually saw what came of him, but now I know different.” Nadine said, taking a puff of her cigar, while sitting on the couch. “But I’m not entirely sure how much I trust this artificial intelligence anyway.” Nadine took the cigar out of her mouth, “Or what’s left of her anyway.”

“Every day that Dantino lives, it feels like there is no justice for my father.” Millie leaned onto Nadine stomach, yet did it mainly as an automatic reaction, expecting not comfort from the gamer, who had previously allowed for Millie’s head to get chopped off, and placed on a stick.

“I never got to have a rematch.” Nadine said.

“Is that all it is for you?” Millie resisted spitting on her face. “What about the fact that my father’s dead?” Millie said, then leaned in the opposite direction of Nadine, waited for her to unzip her pants, and rubbed her bare feet onto the bean that was inside of the gamer girl’s cargo pants.

“He’s just a game character, nothing more.” Nadine said this partially out of jest, despite knowing full well that the distinction between game character and human being was largely that of a semantic one. “As are you and Ellen, though I suppose it doesn’t make that much of a difference.”

“You don’t say!”

In the morning, when Millie was milking the Ape-Goats, Nadine went to main community center in order to find a quest, but found that it was largely empty, aside from some slaughtered game world pets. She stared into the back of a man in a large trench coat, with a note able metallic arm, that vaguely resembled an arm from a knight in shining armor. “Nadine! Nadine! It’s good to see you…”

“What did you do with the pets?” Nadine asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, vampire girl.” Dantino turned around slowly. “You know that you would do the same.” Dantino then took out his claymore, sharpened it with his sharpening stone, and began walking out of the door.”

“How did you not die from your injuries?”

“Come with me, you must see something.”

When they reached the town center, Dantino asked what happened to the town. It seemed as if the culture had changed over night. And that what was once snowy countryside, was merged with a sprawling complex of pyramids and sky scrapers. “Both of our homes are no longer as it was, what sense anymore does it make to continue fighting, when we both no longer have a home to go to?”

“I didn’t take you as the peace maker.”

“People can change Nadine, even you have. I see it in your face.” Dantino requested a cigar. Nadine obliged merely for the fact that she was basically trying to quit the habit, and the only reason she started up again, because her and her relationship with Millie had not been quite the same. No longer was there a purpose for her to continue being a damsel in distress, she also knew what some of Nadine’s sexual fetishes were, and could only oblige a couple of them, without risk to herself. “You see, you and me are not so difference. I have some of the same interests. I also have liked watching pretty ladies get their heads chopped off. So why is it then, that you continue to fight me?”

Nadine wondered if this was a new part of Dantino’s ambition, and was not entirely sure of what to make of his question. But she wasn’t a traditional game character, she was her own person. She took out her punching dagger, “Oui, but I’m not a King Killer.”

Dantino drew first blood with his claymore, then pushed Nadine on ahead. “Is that what you think of me Nadine? After all my efforts of trying to make amends? I suppose it cannot be helped. But know this, I can bring back the dead.” He waved his fingers across the air as if he were pressing keys on a keyboard. Rassie, Ellen, Malcolm, and the others were manifested a holograms. “What if I told you these people are wanting to kill you? And we can work together. I can make you a knight.”

“I wont give into your mind games.” said Nadine.

Malcolm, Rassie, and Ellen as translucent figures in the simulation, draw out their guillotines guns, as if to attempt an assassination strike on her person. “Choose wisely Nadine, I can’t always be there to protect you.” Dantino split the holograms in two with his Wallacian great sword, and they turned off like a dead television channel. “I could even let you train with me.”

“What are you wanting exactly?”

“Millie’s severed head.”

When Nadine returned home, she left Dantino behind to attend to his affairs. At home Millie asked Nadine what had taken so long to return, and she spoke of the fact that the community center had been completely emptied by the chaos that Dantino brought with him, and that all the pets the players had were completely slaughtered. Millie reacted more than Nadine did, but eventually a feeling of calm was able to reign supreme. She completely changed her dress from a princess inside of a royal court, to that if a female archer in a black leather outfit. She wore two Birkenstock Arizona sandals, and carried a small black dagger inside of her purse.

“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?” asked Nadine.

“What if Dantino chooses to attack me?” said Millie.

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I can’t rely on your word.”

Along the way to the community center, they were attacked by a tribe of giant Ape-Goats, but eventually they were able to slaughter it, and take its hide to make some water pouches for the trip. Day came and went, changes hex positions while taking turns on the battle field from different angles. It was easier to attack these creatures from behind, as their main advantage was in surrounding you. Eventually Nadine was able to punch the ape-goat’s head of, and they went along their merry way.

“How much longer till the community center?” asked Millie.

“Only a few more more miles to go.” Nadine said.

Mostly they ran across different neighborhoods, mostly seeing broken mailboxes that looked as if they were ransacked by teams of bandits, with the head of the mail box having long sense fallen to the ground. Like everything else in this neck of the woods, it seemed as if there was a giant fire that burned the little hamlets down. But every now and then would run across an abandoned interstate highway. They would be attacked by abandoned robot drones that were the pets of different scientists across the different periods of the United States, across their two factional battle royals.

Eventually they arrived.

All the shops collapsed.

Dantino waited a the community center, sharpening his curved great sword with an edging stone. The sword, though double edged, was closer to a Katana than anything else produced in the west. He enjoyed lopping off heads at fairy girl’s behest, this, after all, was what he did best. The sharpened protrusions give him a mixture of pleasure and discomfort; discomfort because he had also fight along side the princess with this blade that he had inherited from so long ago. But the edge was a constant companion, far more loyal than his most noble of fellow knights. As he walked through the enchanted forest in search of the digital fountain of youth, he remembered how his body had been modified with a robotic replacement to his old left arm, that had itself been disfigured do to gradual replacement of real limbs with segmented of plaited armor. The tale of amour for his armor, if not for anything else in the world.

He had waited for this day for two long years, the first of which had been of the most excruciating of pain. By the time Nadine had first achieved her victory, Dantino had been initially sentenced to a fate far worse than hanging, drawing, and quartering to his him having quartered the king. His death over the course of two years, gradually being turned into a living suit of armor. But he managed to get away just in time to reach the portal to the real world, before it had collided with the world of Voreth’s Promise. He had long waited for the day to take Millie’s head, once again. Initially his attempt to have her publicly decapitated was successful, but Nadine had resolved to repair the game she had broken, and then he could not achieve his final dream. Dantino had wanted to become ruler ever sense he could remember, ever since that slight about how Millie’s father wanted to replace him with a man his junior. He wanted to be the best.

But now it was simply a vague memory.

He knew Nadine’s secret, and knew that he could use this against her, because Dantino assumed that Millie did not yet know that Nadine found it as much of a turn on with short girls are beheaded by the ax. For they were both Vampires of a sort, though for Dantino far more explicitly. His time on the throne enabled him to be considerably less in the closest, with most people to afraid to say anything considering what he had done to the king. Part of him thought, if he were to have any successor, it would be Nadine, because she was most like him compared to anyone else. She had nobody else besides him, as he would recline her back inside of his royal bed.

He was the King, and she was the King.

For the people, freedom shall never bring; life would bring only death and decay. But he would feed her all the rare grapes into the kingdom. And slowly drip himself below the belt line. She would be his exquisite lady in waiting, as he vision gradually faded into a constant tunnel into the light. Tonight he would wait, he would wait for Nadine to come. Because he knew that she would be his mistress, and Millie his curly blond haired corpse, whose head was stuck on a stick.Yet he was an elaborate fugitive, being provided shelter by only his most loyal of companions, who had remained by his side throughout the time they had fought with the King, and as the direct guard for Dantino himself, as he sat on the throne, ordering strikes on distant villages. The girls in wooden shoes being decapitated by the ax, their heads on sticks, and the men sold into perpetual slavery as members of his armed guards. Non loyal soldiers would be dressed as a Deck Of Cards, and the loyal would would use them for different kinds of poker matches. In a sense, it was a game within a game. An extra chance to win big against the life of perpetual frost.Losers shredded their cards.

It was all merely a game.

Nadine arrived at the community center, with Millie in front of him wielding a bow. Part of her contemplated the idea of using the arrow heads to punch him in the throat, but find that distance was a far better companion. The distance in Millie Birkenstocks began to make her feet sore, thus they took a break at the nearest pub, where they partook in various kinds of darkly brewed beers. Along with the drinks, would be bangers and mash. Something that she had always wanted to try, but simply had never gotten to in her younger years, when all she could eat were bad chicken nuggets at a fast food joint. Nadine felt himself becoming stiff in her pants.”After we kill Dantino, want anything else?” asked Millie”What specifically do you have in mind?” asked Nadine.

She stuck out her tongue, moving it up and down. “What do you think I have in mind? I know what you long on the bedroom cushion.”

Nadine finished her beer, sharpened her punching dagger with a sharping stone. “I suppose we shall see.” After Millie winked at her, Nadine could feel the bottom of Millie’s foot rub against her pants leg.

“Another drink for me!”

“Wait are you sure, what about tonight?”

“That will be a ways later, I want to get used to not having a sore throat for a while. I still need training to properly do it.”

“You did great last time.”

“Shush.”

Dantino remembered when he ordered his men across the bridge to attack the town on the North Western coast, and how the only one he was able to successfully kill was Millie’s brother Aldiel, yet this was not as fulfilling as being watch a sharpened ax head be shoved into the princess’s throat. He detested the necks of princesses, especially those of long blond hair in pony tails. He found himself hating Millie, as much for her beautiful appearance as her status on the throne. She had rejected his offers of marriage, and he was looking forward to a fellatio from the girl whom was quite prolific with his tongue across the kingdom, giving this as a reward for those who returned royal treasure. Some of whom went onto become prized nights, whom attempted to fight against him. But instead they would always be crushed by the most stupid of heroic accidents. For example, one of them died from collapsing off a ladder and falling on their head, breaking their neck. But do to the circumstances there was no time for laughter.He thrashed knitted straw cones for target practice, and his mind tricks on the maids in his castle to lend him some fruit inside of the kitchen. Even if perhaps the only woman he ever wanted was Nadine, he wanted it delightfully entertaining lead lead his servants onto his affections. It was one of has many infections, along with his long dark brown hair. When he would walk through the castle with his long black trench coat, the ladies would always glance in his direction, for some cock they may never get to taste. But he enjoyed nibbling on their tender necks.Making sure that his sword was extra sharp, he remembered some of the companies of which had fought with Nadine and escaped the castle. The only one he was able to catch was Rassie, whom he prompt had publicly beheaded the following day. But the rest flew away in some magical metallic bird. Placing Rassie’s head on a stick, he wanted to make sure to remember her face, and the face of the other girls that Nadine had fought alongside with. The guys he didn’t care so much, as it seemed apparent that they were only into each other and not Ellen, Millie, and Rassie. His main thing against Ellen was how she reminded him of Millie’s sister Elena. If fact, you could always say that they were twins. He wanted to chop them both off, below their chins.

He was nothing but shit eating grins.

All over the floor, he barfed up some gin.

Nadine and Dantino meet each other at the community center. He raised his curved double edge sword boastfully, as if to declare that he has already achieved victory. And to be fair, if it were not Nadine and Millie, this would be reasonable to expect. As he had been one of the King’s most prized of knights.

“You have returned Nadine, my bride.” said Dantino.

“I’m only into other girls.” said Nadine.

“I suppose I could change your mind!” Dantino resisted a cackle, over what felt like a canned video game response, because he knew that she would see right through affectations. “But now, it seems you have brought me Millie. I want her head!”

Even Nadine had the intention of caving in, she was able to keep just enough of a distance, reaching out with his punching dagger, to give Millie the first strike with her long bow. The arrow struck him in the neck. He buzzed in and out like a broken melting hologram, and promptly ripped it out of his neck. He grimaced, but dealt with the pain. After all, it was nothing like the pain that he had first experienced all those years ago, when he could have become living armor.

“You should already be decommissioned.” said Nadine.

“Is that your statement to your loving husband?” said Dantino.

Nadine resisted the temptation to vomit. “I’d rather have my head chopped off with your headman’s ax.”

“I can grant you that wish, after you marry me. But now I must kill Millie.”

Millie shot him with a couple more arrows. But each time he was able to slice the arrows in two while in mid air. They would buzz out like broken hologram projections. Technically he didn’t even really need the sword, as he could simply beat her to down with his plaited left arm. But he wanted her head to be completely intact as a prized possession, he wanted to take it like a human under demonic posession. The suggestion that someone like him would marry Nadine made Millie want to throw up, but Nadine had more complicated feelings. She knew that Dantino was right, that indeed she partially liked the idea of her bleeding neck being put on a stick.

But she didn’t like the idea of sucking his dick.

She wanted her sucked on by Millie.

Dantino brought out the projection of Nadine’s former allies. Initially Nadine could not resist the temptation of their mind game, but when Dantino finally sliced off Millie’s head, her curly blond locks rolling on the packed dirt floor, suddenly Nadine broke out of her trance he had her under for so long.

But it was no use, Nadine was his exquisite corpse. He bridge to flow of a deranged French waltz, in the background of a slow flamenco. Then Nadine woke up to the reloading of the game. She found Millie beside her, resting under her arm. And gently playing with her belly button.It was a simply a game.

The next morning, she was called by Dantino, he wanted to met her over lunch. He mentioned that he had a taste for steak, and wondered if her and Millie might perhaps be interested in having some red meat.

“Sure, I’d love that. But don’t kill Millie.” said Nadine.

“Why would I do that, when she’d sooner die from undercooked beef?” Dantino said.

“Don’t be ridiculous Nadine, this is the new Dantino.” Millie said.

Indeed, Nadine thought. It was all merely a game.

A game, through all the petrified forests.

Her game, as her tailored nightmare.

She had the ponytail that reminded one of princesses from eighties fantasy movies. The only thing missing was a frilly royal dress.

Her entire picture was one designed to irritate people who hated flight of seagulls hair the most, while reclining back and having an alcoholic toast. And a side of the finest pot roast, by the finest chefs. She placed her napkin in her lap, like her mother would always tell her. By contrast, for those whom actually dine on Earth, the occasion was far more sparse. Only the buzzing of L.E.D. lights broke the monotony of extreme propriety. The rest of the planet was not the mafia.

The princess stood in contrast to the rest of the dance hall, where people downed nut brown ales to darksynth flair. Madam Millie, dined to T’en vas pas. In the actuality of the song, the singer was her polar opposite, who know gave up music for sake of working in a homeless kitchen. Contrary to the princess nature, whenever she went out with Nadine, she would take out her cell phone to text her sister Ellen. For her, she preferred the communication with her other royal family members, of the peasants of her immediate surrounding. Despite having long sense lost her throne. Nadine capitalized her displeasure with a zombie like groan. Among other less than mentioning things, resisting the temptation to sit at a different tables, until Millie shut the fuck up.

Nadine was a cryptographer, while Millie took whatever security came with the protocol largely for granted. It was this part of their relationship that made her question whether it was really worth being a free and open source developer. And ever sense the merger, she found it almost impossible to communicate the merits of the technology to those whom still lived in the past. She assumed fairies were telepathic anyway, so any protocol was largely moot for the occasions they would meet. And yet, Millie was more attached to Nadine than vice versa.

Of course, Nadine knew what would happen if she let her die again, although her affections were still largely sparse. But she could maintain the farcical nature of sarcastic laughter to the princess’s lame word play. Although the while imagining eating tin foil roasted in a microwave. The only thing that would make it worse was if Dantino never shaved.

Arguably, if going by appearance, Dantino loved Millie more than she. But there was something about her over affections, the somehow rang false. Part of her no longer cared if the game were broken, if not for the game world merging with the real world, and it would break her own sense of reality. But her sense of reality had already been on the outs, ever sense she met a super computer of the female gender, who would periodically warn her about Dantino’s false efforts to erase the past.

If life were an ocean, she was a vanishing point in the endless waves of time. And Millie gradually losing the wind in her sails. Dantino chopped down on Millie with razor wire teeth, as if her were great white.

“Nadine, you haven’t spoken a word.” said Dantino.

“At least speak me, I’m your reward love interest.” Millie didn’t totally believe this herself, and it was mostly a reference to no longer being bound by some abstract programmer’s formula.

Finally she could have a life of her own.

But Nadine didn’t understand the purpose of continuing to play this abstract game, a game where if it were a normal cassette, she would have traded it into the now defunct Game Shop, that almost everyone looking for a new console hated, but had no other choice besides Walmart. If it were a Nentendo Princess, the princess would be constantly outside of her reach, but with Millie she could not be anything but within her reach. There was no more game of chase, just constant floating in the hybrid between cyber and dream space. Millie was Jupiter crashing into Earth.

“You were fun to chase after, but now that your not a quest, you’ve been somewhat boring. Cuteness only takes you so far.” Nadine took out a cigarillo, popped it in her mouth. “You’re not even worth the chase.” Nadine left the table, purchased two extra bottles of Hard Eggnog, and drank it far away from the crowd. To have some bit of alone time.

Millie took her mind to other things. “So what about restoring my royal court?”Dantino smirked at Nadine walking alone. Finally he could have Millie all to himself. “Well there is no reason you can’t rule both worlds with in iron fist, and I can even train you in the ways of the sword.” In a word, Dantino knew what Millie liked. Some feeling of empowerment. She was playing right into his hands, while Nadine acted like a douche.

“And I’ll even pay for a Flemenco and Waltz musician myself to entertain you.” Dantino continued.

“This would be exquisite.” said Millie.

Nadine and Dantino were Vampires mutually after each other’s blood. The main difference was crucial, yet could easily go unnoticed. Nadine was inherently a people pleaser, while Dantino was out for himself. She didn’t start dating Millie under the idea of using her privilege pass into night clubs. Rather she had originally wanted to uplift the mass, such as her first girlfriend Ellen, who she had not seen in months. She loved Ellen, because Ellen simply wanted a better life, and her willingness to work hard at the burger parlor.

But for Millie, she came from the same upbringing as Dantino, who were closer to her other merely for being taught by the same tutor in the castle. Even if they had nothing else in common, they could both afford caviar, until very recently. But for Nadine, her fangs were not merely decorative, despite her hesitance to use them for self-defence. She dreamed of biting Millie into her neck, her begging for more, like some near orgasm growing steadily more faint over time. One of the reason Nadine initially hated Millie, was because she hated rich people. She had largely grown up with others on Purgatory Road, having to eat cockroaches from the city streets, and sell their bodies for quick bit coin.

Millie was never hungry in her life.

When Nadine used to be able to build robot dogs for fightings, Millie was never hungry in her entire life. She always wanted things Millie took for granted. Like endless mobile data, while those on Nadine’s street went through the effort of building an entire network from the ground up, only to have it suddenly become irrelevant by the merge of the artificial world and true reality, with nothing any longer as it seems. Simply put, Nadine was no longer sure what was real, and what was not.

Because of this judgmental impulse, and her desire to see Millie’s blood on the dance floor, after faint look into her flight of seagulls her was like looking in their past together. Nadine didn’t want a reward, and thought this was a stupid thing video games offered. She found Millie lacking purpose for her existence, but could not make herself take off her head. Only give soft butterfly kisses and tender bites on the neck. Every princess was just out of reach.It was as if the Trump family had never lost political office, that by now was more like their collective orifice, as they sucked the life out of the planet.

Nadine didn’t want a queen.

She found herself floating, with her wooden shoes barely cementing her to the forest floor. She had to struggle to keep her head above water, until eventually Millie had to push Dantino off of her.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Millie said.

“I’m just getting rid of scum. She hates you, you know?” Dantino said.

Millie seemed to take this at face value, but it left Nadine with a permanent sense of distaste for the man. That Millie would be chill with almost drowning the protagonist, showed how much she really valued her presence.

Nadine rued the day they ever met.

Dantino put Millie aside, and took out his hand gun. “You seem to want Millie back, you’ll have to get through me first.”

A blinding flash of light.

Millie took Dantino off balance. The bullet hit the top of the weeping willow tree. “Now is not the time, we can get rid of Millie later.” Dantino knew that Nadine was harder to manipulate than Millie, but soon he shall take the throne of Voreth’s Promise once more.

Nadine took this as a sign.

She left her apartment door locked.

Nadine could hear Millie’s pleading, as she banged on the door. But refused to let back inside for the night. Because knew how Millie really felt about her, or at least she thought she did. And there was nothing to change her mind. Because life was a like a nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.

Simply log out to a different level.

In this bite of life.

Hemato-Tomato saw what had become of the relationship between Millie and Nadine. Originally she had wanted to build the quests to be such that it was easy to obtain the princess as a prize, even if she had more personality than most other classical damsels in distress. Part of her sense of humor was letting life continue to go on as was for Nadine, despite knowing that Dantino poses an incredible danger to the fantasy kingdom. For the Vampire Game Developer, it was a much of a game to see just how much Nadine could possibly take.

With a flick of a finger, she reset the night.

Millie decided to turn off her cell phone. “Had enough talking to Ellen? I took you as more of a cell phone body.” Nadine said, winking at Millie.

“I can talk to Ellen at any point.” said Millie.

But Dantino felt that something was off, almost as if he had lived through a completely different outcome. As if he had already seen the past.

But Hemato-Tomato cackled in the darkness.

The was so much in store for Dantino. Hemato-Tomato could reset the world back to being whatever image she wanted, but mostly took very little part in the affairs between humans and fairies. She enjoyed savoring other beings misery, like it was blood flowing into a wine glass. She downed it with more class than Nadine could munch a pork belly on Symphony night. She played reality like a cassette tape.

Occasionally in rewind.

Never in fast forward. And with a tip of her hat, and a tap dance with her cane, she hops out of the game.

She released the rewind button.

Nadine considered Millie an NPC without a purpose in the plot. Millie considered Nadine more of a cheater than an honest protagonist, and they were all one loving familla. Millie never discussed her desires to have her throne restored, because she knew that if she were to bring it up, it would imply ruling both worlds, which wouldn’t wash so well to someone like Nadine, who was inherently anti-authoritarian. That they met at indicates that not everything in life goes according to plan. Generally it’s never been a good idea to assume there is one, but Millie held onto the idea there was one, slightly longer than most.

So it made living without a title of nobility somewhat difficulty to adjust to. In a sense, Nadine would have been better of traveling through time, and retrieving Jean D’Arc or Anna Boleyn, even if she would eventually chop their heads off. But whenever Nadine would take Millie to see a romantic comedy, these old animosities would eventually melt away like tide on the sea. Nadine however hated the sound of romance in a flower field, unless it was the flow of some abstract Japanese pop star, who had long sense deceased, but continued to be relevant in pop culture through the decades.

“Waboo Kapatcho you say? I’ve never heard of him.” said Millie.

“Of course you wouldn’t, you’re a fairy. And your culture is closer to Spanish or French.” Nadine said. Millie grimaced at her for so bluntly saying it, however she knew that this was true to a fault. Somehow Nadine knew, or perhaps that was the thing that attracted to Millie’s wing. “But this guy knows how to write one hell of a Piano Sonata in Japan. Helped make some great JRPGs.”

“Right, because it’s all Japan for you.” said Millie. “The romantic comedy wasn’t Japanese.”

“Neither is your face.”

There were times when Nadine would rather have her face sprayed on by pepper spray, than kissing the filthy lips that spewed the words that Millie did. So when Dantino would arrive from the grocery store, and leveling up by attacking some ape-goats, Nadine took it as a break from the both of them.

In truth, Nadine was afraid to love.

She had tried it once with Brittney.

Nadine didn’t want to be reminded of Brittney, because every time she remembered her, she also remembered the times she had to deal with living inside of a boarding school for boys, despite being a girl herself. They were never the most tolerant for people with extreme sensitivity, and Nadine had this to the ninth degree. She behaved the worst whenever Millie would make the effort to do motherly things for her, such as offering to comb her hair. Or cook her dinner.

Nadine preferred cooking herself, but would sometimes burn her hand on the stove. In Millie’s case, she wanted to learn how to cook, as she simply never had to back when she was living on the top most floor of her castle. To this day she remembers her lovely maid who had been more of a mother figure to her than even her own mother, when her mom was away for diplomatic arrangements. In a sense, she wanted to get to know Nadine more, and the gamer would simply have none of it. Yet here they were splitting a one bedroom apartments in Chattanooga.With nothing else to do, but rot.

Millie slept on the couch, while Nadine slept on the futon. Millie was stuck with a hero that almost seemed like didn’t even want her at all. And she finds Dantino’s advances more desirable by the day.

She wished she was still a Queen.

Then she could command respect. While listening to Flamenco Waltzes in her royal chair. And perhaps play a game of hand carved chess.

“You don’t speak to me very much.” said Millie.

“I told you, I’m not a talker.” said Nadine.

“But it feels like something else is going on. Like you’re missing someone from you life.” Millie stole one of Nadine’s cigarillos. “Frankly it doesn’t seem like you love me.” Millie flicked off some the ash.

Nadine wasn’t sure how to respond, it was to much for her to put her mind around that a video game characters would even really desire humanly affection at times. She found it easier to attend to an undemanding cat. Whom she could simply put food in their automatic feeder, and would be content for the evening. “Are you tired Millie? Your eyes are droopy.”

“But who would I sleep with?”

“Do you need someone to sleep with?”

Millie stormed off to Nadine’s futon. Nadine didn’t mind her attitude as much as she used to. She knew that love could be like a maze in a rogue like game. These days all to literally. She could dream of procedural generated dungeons, with her love always out of reach. She could climb endless floors in a tower, and her devotion brought her beyond all permanent death limitations. She fought Minotaur and demons, and unmentionable demons. Millie was the one that kept her holding on, when all hope was lost.

She was the princess, at the top of the tower.

– Yea we attract each other all right.

– Like matter and anti-matter.

Millie couldn’t help a misplaced giggle, but quickly piped down from Ellen’s glare.Nadine and Ellen had not seen each other for months on end, as the first love got tired of being only second best to Millie, whom she wished had stayed dead, and broken like the virtual reality game. – Remember when we first met Nadine? We needed each other; you were the one to teach me that there was another way than rebuilding robotic dogs, and fighting them in virtual reality screens.

– I’ve always appreciated your memory.

The only time Nadine was not being sardonic, an increasingly common ailment about anyone on Purgatory Road, especially after the merge of the game world with reality, and realizing that they were all controlled by an AI who was once a vampire a century plus thirty years ago. – Are we simply figments of her own imagination? asked Ellen.

Nadine remembered when they first met. She had fallen from the floating city, her world fading out like broken glass on the meadow of gold; but he current illusion was of a very different nightmare. Barely clinging onto to life, hoping for some better life. But realizing that the only ones to return her would be only dream-scanners. – So many years ago, so many good times. Yet so many tears.

– And you see me again.

– After all these years.

Millie had only recently developed a meat-space avatar, organically grown in a vat. Tailored to her own desires, to please only Nadine. She had not originally known about Ellen.

– I don’t feel real, and yet here I am! There were times when she wanted to rip off her wings, to feel what it felt like to hear the angel of death sing, despite herself having merged with its essence while in “the game”. – And yet there I was, longing for return to my old culture. Yet this is my new normal now, and all I am is dust.

Malcolm, he had nano-surgery to replace the missing part of his brain, gave her a cell phone call. No longer was he a hybrid of rust and flesh. – Malcolm, I need someone to talk to. My room mate, she’s having…

– Don’t say another word, I’ll be right over.

– Thanks.

– I was just about to drop buy anyway, as I needed to tell Nadine about Dantino. – Malcolm took a blunt out of his mouth, ashed it. – What seems to trouble is Mill?

– I’m not sure how to deal with these feelings. I feel this underlying emptiness, yet it’s not coming from myself. Sometimes have these memories, but they’re not my own.

– What you’re witnessing is the collective unconscious, the shared memories of people’s former lives and heart breaks. Want to go for a beer shake?

– Alright, but you’re paying.

Millie had never been on a real date before, except for that one time with Nadine. She saw this mysterious woman, who acted like she had met Nadine before. Part of the meeting made her feel nauseated. And yet there was a feeling of attachment. A feeling that somehow everything would be alright, despite all her wasted tears.

The woman hopped out of time.

Millie returned home from her unofficial date, a shake that was first rat. Nadine was not irate, or even a little bit irritated. – So you enjoy your time with Malcolm?

– Tres bien!

– Ellen, … Millie. Lets live together.

And somewhere, in the distance, was the memory of Blanci. Her physical body had died, beheaded by a guillotine gun. Yet her mind was backed up on a computer chip, smaller than a thumb drive.

She once cut through bullshit like a knife, yet grew her own meat space avatar. The process took three weeks per side, six total. One in the back, the rest front and center. Her love for Nadine was just a splinter, yet her feelings for Malcolm were more. Yet Malcolm had no attachment, preferring the company of Slephner who now was dead. Yet in this world both game and reality, she wanted to hold onto that last bit of relationship she could handle.

She wanted Slephner gone.

She was Malcolm’s girl. If anyone would ever be a partner Dantino, it would be her. And yet her loyalties were torn between factions, like in her earlier life with a physical body. She felt a crushing weight.

As if sat on by a giant.

She woke up with infrared vision.

Her new physical life.

Nadine didn’t want to face her feelings for both girls, Millie and Ellen. Part of it was that despite her great extent of empathy, other people felt like digital abstractions; people were like dying message boards, gradually losing topic focus, until eventually disintegrating into fine fairy dust. Millie was a heart of blood and rust.

She found nobody should trust.

Nobody to share her tears.

For Nadine, growing up, she was raised under the idea that the future held bounty hunters, deadly sports, and rampant prostitution. In a way, reality was way worse, but paradoxically better for those accustomed to it: most of the world spent its time in silence. Spending most of her time indoors, she came to love the aspect of never having to worry about reality, whether one presented by those on the plate, and those who live below the sky.

No longer did she reach out her hand.

No longer did she ask the world why. Instead she sinks without a trace, into the inner most thoughts of her mind. And unwound. Time to die, time to sleep; time to see the world continue burning.

As long as she wasn’t in it.

She wanted to rot.