Hollow Twilight - A LitRPG Novel

Chapter 7

"Hello?"

"If you called me, why are you saying it like a question?"

Reid almost dropped the phone from his hands at the response. He was being a real idiot about all of this, feeling so confident in himself a moment ago for figuring out something as simple as calling people in a game. Yes, now he knew what the numbers did and meant, but he still had this particular person listed as Mystery Girl in his contacts. He was not ahead of anything.

"Sorry, hi," Reid stumbled over the words as he fought to regain his composure. "You gave me your number earlier, at school. I'm-"

"I know who you are. Put me in your contacts as K."

"K?"

"K."

And Reid did as he was told, pausing the call to put in the name. This woman, whoever she was, she knew what she was doing, and she didn't hesitate to let him know. It was a cruel and constant reminder that he was fairly clueless to all this. As excited as he might be at the prospect of exploring all these unknowns, it was likely a thousand other people had already done it all before and a thousand more would do it after. He had to stop getting caught up in himself.

"Alright, done."

"Good, are you logging out soon?" K asked with a harsh abruptness.

Reid thought about the question a little. Was he going to log out soon? He wasn't really aware of how long he had even been here. Were people trying to contact him outside? Were Maple and Issac confused by his sudden absence after sending them those messages?

"I don't think so," Reid answered, rubbing at the back of his head until he realized the caller wouldn't be able to see his gesture.

"Are you or not?" K pressed.

"Not," Reid replied, just barely holding back an "I think."

"Good, then send me your location."

Reid pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it quizzically. He hadn't seen any function in the Hollow Twilight app that let him send his location around. There were no maps for any of this. "How do I do that?" Reid asked, hesitantly.

There was a huff from the other side. "Like a regular phone, open up your phone's map app and send your location to a contact."

Reid blinked a few times in disbelief. How much could his phone do in this world? And how did it even work? He glanced up at the sky, envisioning satellites circling somehow. But this was a game in some way, so it probably didn't need to have the same things built as in the regular world. No cell towers or satellites, just the game connecting them through the internet or something.

But what did maps even look like in this place? Where would his phone say he would located? Did this mean he could explore the entire game world, finally?

When Reid finally got his map open on his phone, he was hit with a mixture of disappointment and confusion. It worked, and his little dot showed where he was, but the map itself was for the real world. There were streets in front of him with names he recognized, landmarks and buildings that apparently existed.

None of them did.

There was no grocery store or coffee shop nearby. These weren't houses he recognized. He wasn't close to the type of intersection it was displaying. Not wanting to anger K further, he shared his location with her as requested, but he was still going to get to the bottom of this.

"How does it work, it doesn't show the right map."

"It's just..." K paused, frustration echoing through the receiver. "It...the location is right, you just see if you're moving closer or further. Sometimes you're in buildings, I don't know." And with that, she hung up. It seemed she was coming to find him, but Reid wasn't sure if he could push her any further for explanations on things without her abandoning him in anger.