Death Becomes Him: An Age of Steam and Sorcery Novel

Chapter Six

 "Hn!"

Peter woke into darkness. The real, honest to goodness darkness of his own room and bed. His heart hammering in his chest, the thought back to his last moments in the game. Something was very wrong with that rabbit. They're not normally carnivorous. Or huge. And those weird green spots on its coat were downright disturbing...

Swallowing hard against a dry throat, Peter sat up in bed. As he waited for his heart rate to drop back to something approaching normal he listened. The city never slept and there were far off horns and grumbles of transport vehicles as the lifeblood of civilisation flowed. Some music drifted up from a floor below and the muted sound of a vacuum echoed down from somewhere above. Much closer, his own home was eerily quiet.

Slowly and quietly slipping out of bed, Peter padded to the bedroom door and opened it a crack. Across the hall no light showed under his parent's bedroom door. No sound issued from the room either. Peter tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen to get himself a drink to soothe his throat. Pulling a cup from the cupboard, he turned on the tap as quietly as he could so as not to wake anyone.

His face was tingling almost to the point of pain, and he reached up and brushed his fingers over the area. He winced as he touched the bruise acquired the day previous. It seemed so far away, like a different life. Weird that the rabid rabbit had managed to bite him in exactly the same place as Billy had hit him.

A light flicked on in the lounge room, making Peter drop his cup into the sink with a clang. "Hey champ, are you okay?" It was his dad, sitting in one of the comfy lounges fully reclined. He was still wearing the same clothes he had come home in.

Peter gathered up the cup, which luckily hadn't fallen far and didn't spill, and took a quick sip. "I'm okay," he croaked. "Are you?"

"Yeah, I was working on something for tomorrow and must have crashed out. How about you drink up and head back to bed? I have to knock this over before work in the morning. We don't all get a day off." Peter's dad offered a wry smile.

"Alright Dad. Don't stay up too late. See you tomorrow." Peter put the cup on the drainer as softly as he could.

"Sweet dreams champ, and careful how you go down the hall, you don't want to wake the ogre do you?"

Sharing a little chuckle with his dad, Peter did exactly as he was bid, closing the door with barely a click and sliding back into bed again. He lay looking at the shapes on the ceiling, wondering whether he should go to sleep or log back in again. If death was as bad as he had just experienced, just how 'unkind' could respawning be? Well, if he wanted to keep playing he would probably end up finding out at least once. He closed his eyes and selected the login option.