Game On

Chapter Two: "Tutorial"

Bringing up his own menu, he quickly asked Mark curiously. "Mark, look at my menu. What do you see?" Mark stopped scrolling and peered over to answer with a sarcastic shrug. "I see your main menu and a nonexistent logout button. Why?" Sean pressed a button to read his racial stats, then asked him. "And now?" Mark paused again to look, but this time looked just as concerned. Locking eyes with him, Mark said uneasily. "I see... weird writing. It looks like cursive but with swirls that are vine like and... Sean, what did you do?" Sean gestured to his menu and told Mark a little excited. "Our menus are shown to other players in our racial language. Except for the main menu. I can't read yours because it is written in runes of the Aesir. You can't read mine because it is in Elvish. Yet, we can read them just fine." Mark's eyes looked to his menu, before whispering out anxiously. "That is going to make this game so much harder." Sean nodded, absently taking a moment to scroll through his small collection of basic spells that he had.

After a few seconds, he found a spell that he thought might help. Memorizing the words, he closed the menu and toward Mark hopefully. "Close your menu. I think I can give you something better than a torch." Mark obeyed, telling him with disappointment. "I hope so. Because I have nothing. I'll need to buy something in town." Sean raised a hand to cover Mark's eyes, then leaned in closer as he closed his own. He's used only one spell in the tutorial, and it had worked fine. He just had to concentrate on charging his energy before saying the words. He saw the blue bar behind his closed eyes charge up to full slowly. Filling the bar to max allowed the quality of the spell to be perfect. If he waited for the frame around the bar to glow white, then the spell would last longer. The skilled he became, the longer and stronger in quality the spell would become. While he waited, Mark asked him in a low whisper. "What are you doing?" Sean shushed him, trying to keep his breathing even. Which was hard when he could smell Mark.

Mark's smell was different in the game, but still had a similar deep musk with a hidden lighter scent underneath. Like a mountain sprinkled in fresh rainwater. His mind drifted a bit as he wondered why Mark smelled like that, until Mark cleared his throat. Jerking, Sean uttered the words for the gift of night vision, before the white bar had filled halfway. The spell wouldn't last long but it should last long enough to get him out of the woods. Dropping his hand, Sean turned slightly away and told him a little embarrassed. "Sorry. Magic takes time to prepare when used on others. Can you see?" Beside him, Mark gawked out. "Whoa. That's so cool. Everything is tinted in a soft blue. That's so cool!" Sean smiled to himself, then told him across his shoulder. "Come on. Let's head to the next town before it wears off. We can sell some of our stuff to hopefully snag a room at an Inn." Sean didn't even get a chance to move, when he felt Mark's fingers slide up one of his long wings.

A sharp sound that was a mix between and giggle and a moan tore from his throat. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he leapt away from Mark, his eyes burning into him with startled embarrassment. Keeping his hand over his mouth, he glared at Mark with slightly heated eyes. Mark chuckled to himself, shrugging out. "I couldn't help it. They are shimmering with color like a clear bubble. I wanted to know how they would feel." Sean's long dragonfly like wings were raised high behind him now. Even in his own night vision, he could see how they glowed a soft blue and shimmered just as Mark had described. They looked soft and fragile. So thin but elegantly intricate. He already knew how fragile and light weight they were, but he'd never touched them. The tutorial only taught him how to move them with the muscles of his back and shoulders. He hadn't really taken the time to accept his new body. He had been a bit disappointed with fairy look he had. Now, he was terrified of them. He'd felt Mark's touch like tingles down his spine. It sent heat to every nerve in his body that was far too intimate for the relationship they had.

Mark had no idea what he'd just done to him. Mark chuckled, strolling past him without a care as he told him teasingly. "Still so ticklish, huh?" Sean's followed him as he walked away, before he lowered his hand from his mouth. Relaxing his back muscles, his wings folded back down as his heart sank. He couldn't read Mark anymore. He was too good at closing himself off to him since his old girlfriend had sparked a fight between them. They were slowly hanging out again since he was with someone new now... but it didn't repair the damage that he'd done to their friendship. He hadn't trusted Mark about her. He had pushed him away. Teased him and hurt him. Only to end up being hurt just as deeply by her and forced from his own home. Proving Mark had been right all along. Mark refused to rub it in. Instead, he went out of his way to rekindle what little friendship they had left. However, at times it felt... strained. Fragile. Sometimes he wished that Mark would yell at him. Just so that he would know what he was thinking.

Sean longed to go back in time. He longed to be the innocent young lad that he'd been back when he met Mark. To go back to the weekend that changed him. To be back in that elevator the night Mark kissed him goodbye. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Sean followed Mark out of the forest to the main road. He opened his mouth in an attempt to ask him a question that died in his throat. He was still so scared to test whatever vulnerable bridge that kept Mark at his side. What if he'd killed the Mark that he'd loved all those years ago and all that remained was this crumbling shell of a friendship. Closing his mouth, he walked up beside Mark and told him casually. "I hope those turtle shells will be enough to buy a room. I can't imagine the prices being high at level one." Mark nodded and started to say something, but Sean slowed to a stop. Why could he hear soft distant beeping? Lifting a hand, he felt a strange sensation run up along his arm to the inside of his elbow.

Ahead, Mark slowed and turned to face him with worry. Sean flexed his hands that felt kind of numb and he wavered on his feet as a rush of the earth moving beneath him made him feel sick. Mark walked back to him, asking with louder concern. "Sean? Are you ok?" Reaching up to touch his head, Sean groggily murmured out. "I don't know... I feel..." Sean drifted off as the distant beeping and the soft hum of a machine grew louder in his ears. Reaching out to grab Mark's arms, Sean felt the sensation of falling as his eyes closed. He was trapped in a dark abyss. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Sean sat in the darkness hugging his legs. While in the muffled distance he heard voices talking but could barely make out things they were saying. The only word he heard clearly enough was 'hospital.' To Be Continued...