Play of Shadows

3.08: Fire flowers

"I am, as well," she admitted.

Arendse's expression eased. The other players shared looks, no longer on the edge between combat and fleeing.

"What can you do?" Vernon asked.

Ann did not know. She was starting to realize that her shiny leathers and handy mask might have come with hooks attached. "What I must," she said, hoping that cryptic confidence would be dismissed as a character setting.

"What's your combat level?" Frances asked, promptly dashing her hopes.

Ann twitched, darting Frances an irritated look. The man looked on guilelessly. "Moderate," she said shortly.

Frances drooped. Ann wondered if the man had been planning to ask her for a spar, had she shown any enthusiasm over her battle prowess.

"What's the use to you, then?" Vernon scoffed.

Ann smiled. Unbeknown to her, the smile etched into the mask she wore stretched into a crescent grin.

"Tracking," Ann said, and produced a dull soul disk from her coat.

The players stared. Michael, whom Ann had been doing her best to ignore, took a step closer to see the object better. "Is that –" he began.

"This is my task," Ann interrupted. She looked at Michael, and was somewhat pleased to see the man flinch when faced with her unnerving, masked face. "Keep your distance."

Michael stepped back. His gaze was searching, a frown of confusion on his lips. Ann wondered if a part of him had recognized her. She decisively squashed the spark of prideful happiness the thought inspired. She didn't need anyone's recognition, least of all his.

"Be prepared to move," Ann announced.

The players had already guessed the purpose of the object in her hands. They were aware of soul disks – each had seen the item in their own game inventory, and knew what it signified. The hum of hurried conversation was broken by an eerily familiar voice.

"What of the kids?" the false Ann asked.

"They're not real, Empress," Vernon scoffed.

The others, too, looked taken aback by the question. Ann watched her own face crumple in distress. The longer she looked, the more uncanny she found the sight. She knew that the woman was not her, but did the woman know it herself? If both of them thought themselves as Ann Sufort, who was right between them?

Ann shook the strange thought away. She gathered herself up and asked, "Who are they to you?"

The players struggled to answer. The children were avatars of little importance, as far as they knew. Ann's twin stiffened before bowing her head.

"My name's Nick, and this is Sarah!" the little boy called out. He pulled at his sister's hand until she giggled and waved, hiding back behind her plush.

"Hello," Ann said softly. A burst of sorrow and anger threatened her composure, so she looked away from the small, familiar faces.

Nick and Sarah Barton were dead. Twice over, it seemed.

"They will remain here," Arendse decided. She left the matter to the false Ann to settle, which the woman did promptly and with great care. Michael kept glancing her way, Ann noted with dark amusement. Was he taken by the motherly image the doppelgänger painted? Was that what he had wanted from her all along?

Ann laughed under her breath. She was thinking too highly of herself again – Michael's motivations were always far simpler, and had little to do with her from the start. It was her own bad luck that breaking her trust ended up fetching the man a good price.

"We are ready," Arendse announced.

Ann nodded. "Follow me, but keep your distance," she bid. Like the players, she was going in blind. Unlike the players, she had literal plot armor to shield her against whatever the glitched instance decided to throw her way.

"Playing at a tank, in that getup?" Sasha said, brow arched in disdain.

Ann cut her eyes to the woman. She had not paid much attention to Sasha Osmonova, but now found her flat stare somewhat intriguing. She always felt as if the woman knew more than she let on. Now, too, she wondered what it was that Sasha saw, when she looked at her.

"More of a scout," Ann replied.

She raised the disk. It spun over her palm, the metal rings that made up its surface spiraling out around the crystal center before bursting apart. A line of gold struck through the darkness like an arrow.

Ann chased after the light without making a conscious decision to move. The ground blurred beneath her. The players' aggravated shouts were a distant rumble in her ears. Her vision narrowed to the slip of light darting through the city, always just out of reach.

When Ann could think again, she found herself standing on a deserted beach. A thin strip of sand snaked around the rocky shore. Ann looked out into water so blue it seemed unreal. The sky hung heavy overhead, leaving only a thin line of glittering indigo over the horizon where it met the sea.

Half a dozen wooden docks speared out into the water. A man sat on one, a fishing pole propped on the railing next to him. His back was to Ann, but she did not need to see his face. The light she had chased across the city was now wrapped snugly around the man's throat.

Ann approached warily. The dock creaked under her feet, the boards waterlogged and thin. "Mr. Rohit?" Ann called, then, "Frans?"

The man did not respond.

Ann came to stand directly above the man. She could now see his face clearly. It matched the picture of the man she had seen projected in A's office.

"What happened to you?" Ann said softly.

The man didn't answer. He looked out into the water with empty eyes, unconcerned by the masked creature curved over him like death calling.

Ann reached for the light. Her gloved fingers slipped under the glowing band, her body knowing what to do even as Ann herself did not.

"There she is!"

The shout tore through the oppressive silence. Ann turned her head in time to see the players run out onto the beach. "Go back!" she bellowed, panic burning up her throat. She did not know what it was that she feared, but she did, and as she took in her surroundings the feeling of crisis only worsened.

The sand was shifting. It churned under the players' feet as they advanced, sticking to their soles and climbing up their shins. The resistance was minute and easy to disregard as the group hurried over but Ann saw it; she saw, too, the way the dock bowed under her weight, as if melting.

Frans Rohit turned his head. The man smiled, but the expression was all wrong. His eyes looked like shards of glass. In them, Ann's masked face glowed with a ghostly light.

Ann pulled the string. The light from the broken soul-disk seeped into the dead player's skin and as it did, the man's face melted away like wax. The avatar swelled up swiftly, glowing as if lit from within. Ann barely had time to take a stumbling step back before the avatar disintegrated in a wave of red code, like fire ants scrambling out of an anthill. The soul disk, no longer contained in the avatar's body, burst out and soared into the sky. Fireworks lit up the night.

Ann's foot caught onto something. She looked down and saw that the planks that made up the dock had shifted. A pale hand stretched from the gap to grip Ann's ankle. A swollen face grinned up at Ann from the shadows beneath.

Then, there were screams.