He moved towards her slowly. “Believe what you will, but I’m not here to hurt you.”
Mave’s heart was beating loudly in her chest. She had expected to play a role, to play a part, to get the people watching on her side. She didn’t have any idea what this was about. She wasn’t supposed to be confronted with her own reality. She knew this. It was supposed to be other people’s nightmares. Other things they still dreamed of or thought of when you slept.
Your Room could be a beach at the ocean, it could be a home you grew up in, and it could be a back alley or seedy bar. It could be a place you dreamed of: a rocky terrain filled with elves and orcs, druids and demons. It could be a jail prison where you had to collect coins or save the princess. Which was always awesome to watch, even if you couldn’t play; there were thirteen Rooms on at any given time. You could watch thirteen people battle mutant zebra’s while having tea with their grandmother, swimming through a lake that was filled with books, each page filled with either a friend or a foe. You could watch strange blue eyed children chase a hapless or a woman arguing with a man about closing her flower shop while trying to explain to Blair from the Facts of life as Ms. Garret that it is good so share.
There was always some sort of set, a series of challenges you had to move through. If you survived it, she would be free. She had to believe this, even as she gaped at her father. “Dad, what are you doing in my Room?”
“This isn’t your Room, not yet. You get to have a Goodbye. They try to find the person who matters most to the game player specifically.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
A silence grew between them. The words left unsaid stretched mountains. Mave looked at her watch. “How much more time do we have?”
Her father looked at his watch. “Five seconds after this. Whatever happens, remember I love you.”
Mave chose not to reply. Her mother had always taught her that if she didn’t have enough to say, not to say anything at all. Her father looked stricken for a moment and smiled at her anyways. He shrugged his shoulders at her as if to say: Sorry, Darling, but what was I to do? I’m only human.
She wondered if she disagreed with the current situation so much because she wasn’t.