Zombie Game (Might Make New Title)

Level Twelve

After Edwin had logged out, Jullibi sat at his table, staring at the phone screen. She looked up when he entered the room. He sat down at the table. "What is it?"

"We believe that the player...t-the player who had bought the screen and the..." Her voice dropped.

"Jullibi?" Edwin's eyebrows knitted. She quickly shoved the phone screen towards him. He looked down at it, and his blood ran cold. "N-no...How could this happen? How?" He stood up too abruptly and the chair fell back and hit the wall. Darting back to his room, he grabbed his headset and put it on. Jullibi had followed him, her face ashen.

"What will you do?" She asked.

"I'm going in. You should log on, too."

"I can't just...look, Ed, this won't be good for me. I was there when the arrest took place. What if this is just a prank? Someone with his screen name?"

"Well, I'm about to find out."

"Ed, please! If he really is there, he's probably found her before us. He locked the server, right?"

"He sent us the password." Edwin's voice went to ice. Jullibi could see his hands shaking a little.

She put her face in her hands. "I'm in no place to follow you, Ed."

"Then don't. Find out if he really is the one who bought the screen. Question him, or whatever you do. But if he's on the server, I want you to sent a message to the lab to shut the entire game down."

Ketterjet sat next to Keymat, tears running down his cheeks. There was no way Keymat's health would regenerate. It was in the red.

Tinkertoy stood up. "I'm gonna look around. The hatch is closed, and none of us would be able to open it, anyways." He slid to a wall and moved along it, finding a table. There was a lantern. He lit it, then turned around and looked around the pit.

Ketterjet was holding onto one of Keymat's hands. He was mumbling something to her, but Tinkertoy wasn't interested. He marched around the room, found a door, and tried it. It was locked. He took his gun out and shot at the handle- no damage, but there were burn marks. He turned around. "I need Key's gun."

Ketterjet looked up, confused. "Why?"

"There's a door here."

Shortii walked around the village, wielding her rifle. She paused when she reached a building, drew the gun, and turned around the corner and shot at one of the lower-leveled players. They died instantly- a shot to the back of the head took out a lot of health. But after they had fallen, in their place was a younger-looking Shortii.

Stumbling, the real one backed up. "Wh-"

The smaller one turned and lifted her gun up- the level one pistol. In her eyes was fear.

"N-not real," Shortii mumbled. She lifted her gun. "You're not real."

"I'm real to you," the other Shortii smiled sweetly. "Say, that's a cool gun. Where'd you get it?"

Shortii backed up again, her finger trembling over the trigger. "N-no. It's mine."

Then the shape changed. The figure was now clad in bandages, a large helmet over his head. "N-no. It's mine." He mocked.

Shortii dropped her rifle and ran.

Edwin rapidly typed the password for the server in, his blood running colder than a winter day in the north. He finished it and reached to press enter, but his hand froze.

What if Jullibi was right?

He sat like that for a long time. This investigation was still open, even after they had arrested him. People could've seen it on the news and wanted a laugh. They could've made a fake screen name and sent a message to Jullibi.

He looked up. Right. Because they would've sent it to him, but they didn't know him. His number wasn't public anymore.

It was all just a little joke. He logged out and sat up, releasing a breath. "Jullibi!"

The house was empty.

She sat at the waiting area until they allowed her permissions to go to his cell. She stood up and asked for something to hold onto, and the other officers, seemingly understanding, gave her a stress ball. She walked back, gripping the ball until she could feel her own hand through the rubber.

Her throat was clenching up, and her eyes were watering.

Jullibi gulped. She just needed to see if there was a screen in his room and a console. She didn't need to talk to him.

She closed her eyes when she stopped in front of his cell. Nothing. No noise. Letting out a breath, she guessed that he was in the courtyard. She opened one eye and nearly screamed.

He was laying in fetal position on the bed, with a cheaper headset over his head. The television screen, which was hooked up to the visor, showed that he was in the 'Desert Village' map.

Jullibi fumbled a little, dropping the stress ball. She reached for her phone and took it out of her back pocket, her hands shaking as she sent the message. "It's him he's real go on the server if you haven't already I'm calling the lab".

She turned and fled the jailhouse, running all the way back to Edwin's place. Too bad that she never checked to see if she had internet connection. The message never sent.

Shortii ran into a smaller hut and tipped a dresser over in her wake, climbing to the back of the room where there was the most clutter. She dug into the ground and curled up into a ball, her breathing becoming involuntary and deep. "They're not real, not real," she kept repeating to herself. "J-just my imagination."

There were footsteps outside. Shorti squeaked and hugged her knees even more, tears streaming through her mask. "N-n-no, they're...not real. S-snap out of it."

The footsteps approached, and a taller shape walked in. Shortii burrowed her face into her knees, sobbing louder.

"What the Hell is going on? Shortstack...?" Thalator stared down at her, his eyes rounded a little. They narrowed, and he pointed his gun at her. "You're messing with me, aren't you?"

Shortii flinched and looked up for a brief moment, then squeaked and pressed herself back to the wall. "N-n-no...don't shoot!"

Disturbed, Thalator turned his head away a little. "The Hell has gotten into you?"

"Pl-please," Shortii started to repeat the word. "Please, please, pl-...please...."

Thalator lowered his gun and crouched down. "Shortstack?" He noticed that her high-powered rifle wasn't there, and he narrowed his eyes. "What happened?"