Digital Nightmare Chapter 13

*Note, this chapter will contain situations involving depression and feelings of suicide.  It will subside eventually, but if these situations make you uncomfortable, simply look for the bold text; as that will mark the end of the depressive stage.  I would also like to point out that neither I, nor my sister, have ever felt feelings of suicide or depression.  I have done research on the matter and this is what I came up with; it’s how I think a person feeling in such a way may be like; and is in no way supposed to resemble anyone in particular.  It may not be accurate; but hey, I tried.*

               “Come on, Leila.  Work with me here.”  Mark’s words barely registered in my mind as he tried to lead me to his bed.  I didn’t respond, I couldn’t respond.   I felt hollow, empty; meaningless.  Mark bent over and hooked his arms around my knees, carrying me for a minute so he could set me down in his bed.  He set me in an upright position, and I just stared out into space, my eyes blank and emotionless.  ‘Why was I here?’  I wondered.  ‘How did I ever think I could manage to help Mark?  I can’t fight.  I’m not smart.  I probably only came here just to meet the man.  What is wrong with me?  I can’t do anything right.’  I felt myself tear up as Mark tucked me into the blankets.  “Stay with me, Leila.”  He said, his voice seeming to echo in the dark room.  Was it always this dark here?  I shut my eyes tight and hid my face in my hands.  I didn’t even deserve his kindness.  He was going out of his way to take care of me, ‘What was this; the second time?  No, it’s the fifth time.’  Five times he’s had to save me in one way or another.  And I thought I could help him?  I was worthless.  A waste of space.  “Look at me, Leila.”  ‘I should just make things easier on him.  Maybe if I did that, then he might have a chance.  It’d give him less to worry about.  And Rose would have one less thing to think about too.’  “Leila, please look at me.”  ‘I should just kill myself and get it over with.  Just let myself get slain by one of the monsters, then Creepyplier would get all happy.  It’d give Mark a chance to escape.  Maybe then I’d serve some use.’

I felt Mark’s hands on mine, gently trying to uncover my face.  I looked up into his eyes, my vision blurry from the tears that were streaming down my cheeks in waves.  His brown eyes that hid behind his glasses, his kind smile that grew wide when he saw me look at him.  He was only supporting me because he had to; wasn’t he?  He didn’t really care.  He just pretended to so I’d still help him get out of his own computer.  “Hey there.”  He said.  “Come on now, he’s gone.  Stop crying.”  His words were soft, and for a moment I felt a hint of warmth.  But it went away as soon as it came.  I shivered and looked down; my hands looked so weak next to his.
               “I’m so worthless…”  I whispered, feeling tears come to my eyes again.  Mark’s hand shot to my chin and made me stare up at him.
               “You’re not worthless.”  He told me.  He sat down next to me on the bed and wiped away a tear that was forming beneath my eye.  “You are smart, beautiful, and an incredibly witty young woman.”  He told me.  ‘Lies.  Empty lies.’  I thought.  “You kicked a baseball bat into Jeff the killer!”
               “After nearly dying.”  I grumbled.
               “But that doesn’t change the fact that you did it.”  He said.  
               “You’re so much better than I am at this kind of stuff!”  I shouted.  “You’re the fighter, you’re the one that’s already gone through college!  I still can’t even spell Czechoslovakia without looking at a dictionary!!  I’m just a pathetic waste of space!”  Mark stared at me.
               “Ok, first of all that word is hard to spell in the first place.”  He deadpanned.  “But you have killed hundreds of monsters on the way to my house.  You charged head-first into a rage stage even I couldn’t handle.  You completed a heart surgery that I almost messed up,  and you completely beat up that weird a** monster from House 2!”  He held me at arms length, staring into my eyes.  “Your sister should be very proud to have a sibling like you.”  I sobbed, my eyes closing again as he finished his speech.  I didn’t deserve his kind words, I was a nobody.  I heard Mark sigh for a moment before the mattress creaked.  I guessed he had stood up to leave me alone.  I was taken by surprise however, when I heard the mattress creak again and two arms around my back.  My eyes shot open a split second before I felt Mark’s chest against the side of my face.  “You’re not worthless.  You’re not a waste of space.  You are Leila; a crazy but brilliant sixteen-year-old Latina, with more guts than I could ever hope to have.”  I waited for my eyes to water again, but they didn’t.  I felt myself get warmer and warmer the longer Mark held me.  His heartbeat pounded against my cheek, and I closed my eyes; slowly, tentatively, hugging him back.
“Leila’s sanity has gone up 10 points.”  A voice above us said; its gender indeterminable. “Leila’s sanity has gone up 10 points.”  “Leila’s sanity has gone up 10 points.”  “Leila’s sanity has gone up 10 points.”  “Leila’s sanity has gone up 10 points.”  The voices disappeared after granting me fifty points of sanity, and I felt whole again.  
I let go of Mark, feeling much better now.  But he still held onto me.  I huffed, my original personality having returned.  I gently pushed Mark off of me, glaring at him slightly.  He laughed at my expression though, adjusting his glasses casually.
               “There’s the Leila I know.”  He said happily.  I smiled a bit, getting out of bed.
               “Yep.  And the Leila you know hopes you remember to keep your distance despite what just happened.”  I said.
               “But—”
               “Unless~ I happen to become depressed again and need some support.”  I added with a small smile.  He chuckled a bit,
               “You know you liked it.”  He said.
               “It’s the closest human male contact I’ve had since dad stopped picking me up eleven years ago.”  I told him.  “It’s still taking me some getting used to.”  I opened the door to exit Mark’s room, and headed to the first open door I saw.  I glanced back and saw Mark following me, an energy bar halfway in his mouth.  I smirked as I opened the door, jumping inside.

I woke up at some kind of bus stop, and when I turned to my left I found Mark in a sort of pale stick-figure form, his tongue sticking out.  I laughed for a while until it clicked.  How ironic for this to be our rage stage.  As if on cue to my discovery, I had to jump to the left as a giant cube landed right where I was standing, and three floating pills appeared out of no where.
               “Gimme my PILLZ!”  Mark shouted, making a mad dash for them.  I laughed until I realized that I was supposed to be doing the same thing; so I quickly ran to my right to head for two that were close together.  The second I touched them, I felt like laughing.  Everything was all happy and joy-joy.  Were those clouds smiling at me?  How lovely.  The feeling of happiness went away and I became normal again.  ‘Eesh, talk about your emotional roller coaster.’  I thought.  ‘First depression, now elation.  What’s next, psychopathic?’  I shrugged and dodged another cube, taking more pills by the dozen.  
               “OOOOOOOOH MAAAAAAH GOOOOOSH.  THIS IS SO TRIPPY!”  I said, a goofy laugh escaping my mouth.  ‘THAT SIGN.  IT’S ALL WOBBLING.  I WANNA TOUCH IT.’  I laughed and tapped the sign, watching as the face kind of got pushed a bit where I touched it.  I continued to touch it for a few minutes, watching the faces mess up, but I was soon pushed out of the way when Mark did something of a swan dive to get me out of the way of a cube.  I thanked him quickly, jumping when he did to avoid the spikes that were coming out of the ground.  Just as I was about to land though, the ground changed and I landed flat on my face on a grassy surface.  Literally flat on my face; it must have been some pixel game.
“Uuugh.”  I groaned.  “Where…?  What…?”  I opened my eyes and found a strangely shaped red flower sticking straight up from the ground.  I squinted, pushing myself up as I tried to figure out where we were.  I stood up and wondered why my body felt so strange.  I looked down and received my answer.  My hands were pixilated, and cubed.  I felt a grin reach my flat face and I punched the air.  “Minecraft!!!”  I cheered.  I bounced around in a circle, admiring the lush green foliage around us.  We were in a jungle biome.  “Mark!  Mark, we’re in—”  Mark let out a moan, and it was then that I realized exactly where we were.  “Drunk minecraft…”  I mumbled.  I sighed, looking around as Mark tried to stand up.  The more I looked, the more I realized that this version of minecraft was old.  It was 1.5.2, at least.  It was at least past the 1.6’s by now, wasn’t it?  I scratched the back of my head, I didn’t keep up with the latest updates.  I had an old hacked version that got shut down after 1.5.2 went out; so I didn’t want to tease myself by looking at what I couldn’t get.  Mark finally stood up, and I began to wonder; if Mark currently looked like his minecraft skin. (Himself), then what did I look like?  I mentally marked where we spawned, and I led Mark to a clearing in the jungle, where I looked into a pond that was in the middle.  I was minecraft-ified alright.  And I now looked like a girl in a blue kimono.  I smiled, at least I always liked this skin.  I turned back to Mark, who was chasing around a chicken and screaming nonsense.  I sighed, this was going to be a long day.  I only hoped this wasn’t hardcore mode.  I decided to let Mark roam around while I began making the house.  Since we were in the jungle, I decided to do what I usually did.  Make a spiral staircase going up a tree trunk (the kind with four squares), and use what wood I got from that to make a house on top.  I faced the tallest tree I could find that was within a twenty-square radius of our spawn point; and I punched the wood in front of me.
I have never before known such physical pain.
“SON OF A MONKEY’S UNCLE!!”  I screamed, “CHEEZ-ITS AND RICE! WHAT ARE WE, IN ADVENTURE MODE!?”  I bit my lip and bounced around, trying to get rid of the throbbing pain in my wrist.
*Yamimash has set gamemode to survival*
A light gray sentence appeared across the sky.  The pain in my hand went away as I stared up at these words.
“What?”  I asked aloud.
*Yamimash has entered the game*
*n00by-n00b1 has entered the game*
Right where Mark and I spawned appeared two new figures.  One of them I recognized as Yamimash’s skin, and the other was an incredibly pixilated version of my sister’s nine tails avatar.
“Gee, thanks for the username, Yami.”  Rose’s voice came from her avatar; slightly muffled as she was obviously using her headphone microphone.  I laughed and ran up to her, jumping up and down repeatedly in excitement.
“Yaay!  You guys made it!!”  I cheered.
“Hey there, Leila.” Rose said, the smile evident from her voice.

Rose’s POV…

As we walked back to home base, I was fuming with so many different emotions; I think I may have even startled Yami.  My fists were clenched, my teeth gritted, and I kept glaring at every small noise that dared to interrupt my conversation with Yami.
“…And it appears that the farther out you get; the more diverse the monsters become.”  I told him.  “But if you get closer to Mark’s home, then they gather together; no doubt to protect Mark’s computer—AND WOULD WHATEVER IS MAKING THAT CLICKING SOUND STOP IT ALREADY!?”  I shouted, aiming my bow at a little beetle that was scuttling along the concrete.  It dashed into the grass, and I felt Yami’s hands on my shoulders.
“Ok, Rose?  It’s just a bug.”  Yami told me, his voice a little shaky.  “You can calm down now.”  I sighed, slowly lowering my weapon.
“Sorry, I’m still on edge after his little speech back there.”  I grumbled, “Grr, I just wanna punch him in his smug little face!”
“Which is technically Mark’s face.”  Yami told me.  “I mean, they look the same.”
“WHATEVER!”  I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air.  The clicking sounds continued, and I mumbled nonsense as I once again knocked my bow; this time aiming into an alleyway that we just passed.  The clicking continued, growing louder as whatever it was came closer.
“That clicking is starting to sound familiar…”  Yami said right before the creature emerged.  We were face to face with none other than a clicker from the last of us.  Thankfully for us, the clicker didn’t seem to know exactly where the shout from before came from; so it sort of stood there for a while, searching for the source.  Yami looked like he was about to scream, so I covered his mouth and pushed him against the wall, waiting for the clicker to walk away.  Slowly, so as not to make so much noise, I picked up a rock from the ground and threw a distance away.  It clattered on the concrete, and the clicker chased after the noise.  Once the clicker was far enough away, I shot an arrow through the back of its head; killing it instantly.
“You truly need to stop shouting every time you see a monster.”  I told Yamimash.  “It only makes you more of a target.”  I removed my hand from his mouth and he pouted, adjusting his clothing.  “Well; we’re definitely in the last of us territory now.”  I said.
“That means a whole bunch of zombies, then.”  Yami added.
“Joy.”  I mumbled.  I reached into my bag and pulled out a sturdy lead pipe, handing it to Yami to serve as a weapon.  “Let’s try and get out of here quickly.  I’m tired, I’m soaked to the bone, and I really just want to go home.”  Yami nodded,
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.”  He said.  “But don’t you have a gun in there or something?”  I stared at him,
“And risk attracting more clickers?  I think the lead pipe is enough for now.”  I told him.  He sighed but nodded, following me as we began to carefully make our way back to home base.  We did have a rough time a couple times; as the zombies were able to see us on occasion; but we made it out of what we thought was the densely populated area alright.  We were about to relax when we heard another noise from an empty parking lot.  I turned around and gasped; there was a bloater staring us in the face.
*time skip!*

I groaned, exhausted as I plopped backwards onto my bed.  I was covered in zombie guts and blood, but at the moment I didn’t care; we were in the safe place again.
“Next time, remind me about bloaters exploding; alright?”  Yami asked me as he set down his supplies to start working.  I chuckled a bit, Yami had forgotten that bloaters explode when they’re defeated, and he got the worse end of the explosion’s mess on him.
“Sure thing, if you promise to do more than flail your lead pipe around uselessly.”  I said, a small glare in my gaze.  Yami had panicked when encountered with both the bloater and the dozens of zombies all coming at once.  He basically just swung his weapon around, aiming for the monsters but not really hitting anything; and I was the one who killed most of them.  Occasionally Yami would bump the pipe into something, which made something else fall onto a zombie, but that was about it.  “We really need to teach you how to fight.”
“But if I’m fighting…”  Yami began, booting up his laptop for now and beginning to plug in his stronger computer for later.  “Then who will contact your sister and Mark in such a way that Creepyplier can’t see?”   I shrugged, rolling over and off the bed before it got too dirty.  I grabbed a towel and began to clean it off.  “Oh wait, wait…”  Yami typed madly on his keyboard.  “I got it—I got it—I got it— there!”  I ran to Yami, looking over his shoulder to see his screen.  It was incredibly fuzzy, as though we were looking through one of those horror movie video cameras.  But I was able to make out both Mark and Leila on the screen.  Leila was being led into the room by Mark, who had her arm wrapped over his shoulder.  The screen fizzed out for a second and came back with Mark carrying Leila.  He was saying something I couldn’t make out, and Leila’s face…  Her eyes looked empty.  I held a hand to my mouth as the screen fizzed out again, coming back even later.  Now she was in Mark’s bed, covering her eyes.  Mark had his hands over hers, and he looked like he was trying to console her.  She was crying.
“I’m gonna kill Creepyplier!”  I shouted angrily as the screen fizzed out again.  This time the feed didn’t come back, and Yami’s screen went black.
“Aww, darn it!”  He said.  “Internet connection cut off, I need to finish plugging in my computer.”
“Well hurry up! I need to know what he did to my sister!”  I growled.  I paced back and forth in the room, anxious for Yami to finish setting up his computer.  It felt like hours before he was finished, but finally he was done.  He logged in and immediately set for…  his e-mail!?
“DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”  I practically screamed.
“Just real quick—”
“Boy, I will give you exactly four seconds to go and connect to Mark’s internet.”  I threatened, slowly raising my bow and arrows.  His eyes widened and he typed like mad, soon re-connecting to the server.  The feed was clear, and the room was empty.  “Where did they go?”  Yami typed a few more keys, and a message popped up.
“I’m guessing…”  he typed some more.  “Oh, cool.  Excellent, actually.”  He said.
“You found them?  Are they ok?  Is Leila ok?”  I insisted on knowing.
“Yeah, as far as I can tell.  They’re in Minecraft; so it will be easy for me to get us connected to them.”  I saw him close out of the window and double click a logo on his desktop.  “You’ve got a minecraft account, right?”  I paused.
“No.”  I replied plainly.  He stopped in the middle of logging in, turning to me slowly.
“You’ve never played minecraft.”
“Nope.”
“Has your sister played it?”
“I think so; I don’t know her username or password though.”  I answered.  Yami sighed.
“Great.  Now we have to make you an account first.”  He finished logging in and minimized the window, going to Minecraft online.  He messed with a few things on the screen, he went to fast for me to really pay attention.  After a few moments he double clicked something and nodded.  “Done.  Now do you have any particular preferences as to your appearance in game; or would you be alright staying as Steve?”
“Well I have an avatar that I use for other games; my sister would recognize it.”  I said.
“Alright, send it to me; I’d probably need to pixelize it.”  He said.  I nodded and quickly logged into my computer, sending him the file to my avatar’s design.  I then sighed, closing my laptop.
“I’m gonna take a quick shower, see ya.”  I said, leaving the room with a spare change of clothes.

I came back a while later, combing out my hair and watching as Yami cracked his knuckles triumphantly.
“All done.  They’re running an older version; so I even downgraded.  We’re logging in now, I hope you don’t mind that I used your computer to log in.”  He said.
“It’s fine, just give me a quick walkthrough of the controls.”  I said, putting on my headphones/microphone.  Yami paused after typing in a command for the server.
“Wait, you mean you don’t even know the controls?”  He asked.  I was about to answer when the screen loaded, and I could make out two figures in the distance.  One of them looked kind of like Mark, and the other was a girl with a blue kimono; no doubt it was Leila.  The words “n00by-noob1 has entered the game” appeared at the bottom of my screen, and I sighed,
“Gee, thanks for the username, Yami.”  I said.  Leila ran up to me, laughing and cheering.
“Yaay!  You guys made it!!”  She said happily, bouncing up and down in front of me.
“Hey there, Leila.”  I said in response, grinning wide.

End Chapter 13~! ^.^