Hollow Twilight - A LitRPG Novel

Chapter 31

Thick, wet flakes of snow drifted down from the grey clouds above. The second they touched the ground they vaporized, contributing to puddles for cars to drive through. Reid was hugging the walls of stores along the sidewalk, trying his best to avoid getting wet and failing. Snow hit his face and melted. The bottoms of his pants were soaked, pressing against socks and biting his skin with cold.

There was nothing like this in Hollow Twilight. Tim was right; you could die in both worlds but one of them was much more interesting. Monsters could get you there but at least you had your own powers to fight them back. How was Reid supposed to beat hypothermia here?

He got a text from Reily. She wasn't going to be walking to school today. She was going to get driven in later after an appointment. Reid felt his chest unwinding, bit by bit, at the knowledge he couldn't run into Reily for a lengthy period. His anxiety was delayed; he didn't have to ask her to the dance today.

It was coming, somewhere in the future, probably. Unavoidable. Unless he happened to get really busy in the game and then ran out of time and then what could you do, he would just go to the dance alone or avoid it entirely so he didn't have to watch Maple dance with Issac.

Reid shook his head. He had to stop going down these lines of thinking. He was better than this. He was moving on. He was going to ask Reily at some point and couldn't just hide behind pretend procrastination.

It was time to start rallying everyone else onboard. Issac was already out, by his request. Kari would be easy to convince since she seemed fairly used to the consequences of the game and was still enthusiastic about seeing Reid fail. Maple would be more difficult to convince. As much as she wanted to be tough, he knew her too well at this point. It would be a struggle to get her to join.

Right on cue, Reid found Kari waiting for him at his locker, playing with the end of a strand of her hair. She didn't look up as he opened the door and started stuffing in his coat and textbooks.

"So I guess you're going after the next one?" she said, tapping on the metal of the locker behind her.

"Yeah."

"And you'll want to know where they are."

"Yeah." Reid shut the door and snapped his lock back on, examining Kari's face. She didn't give him anything to work with, just her usual empty looks. She was forever unimpressed with him, no matter what he did.

"Lykia is different from other Pariahs." Kari followed Reid as he moved past her towards his first class. "You don't need all of us to fight them. It can only ever be one at a time." She tapped Reid's arm and shoved her phone into his face. It was confirmation of a message she had sent him with the location data. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket a second later.

"That all you're going to tell me?" Reid replied, withdrawing his own phone to brush aside the notification. "Why would you hide helpful info?"

A smile of satisfaction crept across Kari's face. "It won't change anything, you'll have to experience it. Much like the few survivors did. Pretty certain he let them live so they could spread the word. Lykia is fun that way."

Reid sighed, slumping his shoulders and readjusting his backpack. "I feel like all of the Pariahs work that way."

"They're arrogant, certainly. Oh, you will need to bring one person though, for safety. Just make sure you enter Lykia's area first." Kari spun on her heel and took off down the hall before Reid could ask any follow-ups. He tugged at the straps on his shoulders in a wasted effort to take the strain off.

He slumped into his desk for his first class, already uninterested in the subject matter before any of it had been taught. He was contemplating who he would ask to come with him, a toss-up between Tim and Maple. His legs started to shake and he shuffled from side to side in his seat.