Chapter 4

I woke up in bed, Looking at the ceiling and hardly remembering what had happened the day before. I sat up from the bed, looking down at my clothes that I was wearing. "What did I do..." I thought to myself as I stood up and opened my menu.

Out of nowhere, I felt a sudden pain in my head as some memories flooded back, stumbling forward a bit and caught myself at the door. "The...The girl..!" I muttered and thought at the same time, Opening the door and running out of the Inn without my gear on hand.

I looked down at myself and opened my menu, equipping my straight-sword and my Celestial Coat. "Now where is she!" I looked around as I tried to remember where the incident happened. "Damn it!" I thought to myself after I couldn't remember, running out of the Town of Beginnings and towards Boar forest. "Shit! Why can't I remember!!" I thought again, feeling anxiety build up as well as making sharp turns around treelines.

After a third sharp turn, I then ran into Sato along the way, ramming into him as both of us dropped to the floor. "Ow, the hell was that for?" Sato said in a surprisingly calm tone as I looked at him and quickly began to ask him a couple of questions.

"Do you know a girl that's about two inches shorter than me!?!" (I'm around 5'8)

"Have you seen a girl with silver eyes!"

"What happened last night!!"

I questioned profusely, trying to figure it out myself as Sato shook his head at all of the questions I asked. I sighed as the anxiety kept building up more and more, Sato then patted his hand onto my back saying to me "Hey don't worry about it, we'll find this person Kirin" as I looked at him.

He smiled at me with confidence backing up his smile, it comforted me a bit as he got up from the floor and lended a hand out to me. I felt relieved but also scared to find out the truth, nevertheless I grabbed onto his hand and helped myself back up with his help.

"Thanks, I guess I needed a pep talk from a friend"

I told Sato straight as he chuckled and replied to it in a friendly manner, "Yeah, I guess finding out about this whole thing and trying to keep things together can put a toll on someone.".

After he said that he then asked me "Hey I found a dungeon not too far from here, you wanna go check it out with me?", as for my response I just nodded and basically agreed to go with him. I followed behind Sato as we headed towards this "Dungeon" that he found not too far from the forest. "So.. Who's this girl you're so uptight about Kirin?" Sato said out of the blue as It caught me so off guard I jumped a little.

"Sheesh, I didn't expect that kind of reaction from you"

Sato said surprised as my face grew a little red and shouted at him in a slightly angered tone "Shut up! She's a friend I met alright!". Sato chuckled a bit replying "Alright alright, but really though, who is this girl you're so pent up on finding?" as his tone shifted in a blink of an eye.

I took a bit of thought about it as I couldn't remember any details on why I needed to find this person so badly. "I...don't really remember why..." I responded as Sato was surprised and concerned about the response he got. "So you met this girl and you don't remember what you did?" He said trying to get the gist of what my explanation was, I nodded shortly after.

"That's odd... Your Nervegear isn't damaged, is it?"

Sato said concerned as I shook my head replying "No.. It's still new" as I felt what was a connection delay on my HUD, game, and experience overall. "Hey Sato?" I said as Sato looked back and he noticed he was significantly farther away from me.

A message then appeared on my hud saying "Your Internet Connection has been lost... Reconnecting to the server, This may take time to reconnect" as my heart dropped in the moment. "No...Nononono..!" I shouted as I couldn't move my character, as if my character had been frozen in time. Another message then popped up saying "If connection isn't found within 10 minutes, You will be automatically disconnected from the server" as I began to have my anxiety attack as well.

"No, I don't want to die! Not here!!" I thought to myself as everything around me was grayscale, all colors had lost their touch and everything was frozen in place, except a textbox and a connection circle on my HUD. The textbox said "Reconnecting..." as the reconnection circle kept circulating.

"Am... Am I going to really die here...?" I took more thought into it as I was thinking about my final moments. "If...If I really am going to die here...I...I might as well just say goodbye to what I hold dear.." I thought as my train of thought kept going, "I...I should have been more into school like my siblings... Leaving my family one sibling short...An older sister and a younger brother... I guess I can't really be relied on at all...She was right...". Six minutes have passed as I looked back at my mistakes.

I then thought to myself, "I'm sorry...Really sorry for being such a mess and fuck up..." as I ready'd my mentality for everything to just go dark. At Nine minutes I waited for it to hit the Ten minute mark, ready for everything to just vanish and everything to go dark. Suddenly a wind chime sound clicked through my ears as the sound of a new textbox had appeared on my HUD, on the new Textbox it said "Reconnected to server" as the grayscale started to regain its color.

I couldn't believe it, I somehow managed to get a new Wifi connection as Sato kept poking at my face. "Hey are you really okay Kirin?" Sato said to me as he pointed out "You've been crying for almost Ten minutes" as I blinked and looked at him. I then began to tear up more as I hugged him without a second thought, Sato on the other hand was very confused at what happened.

"I...I never thought I'd be so happy to see you after Ten minutes..." I said to Sato as he questioned "Okay, explain what happened in Ten minutes?" as I began explaining to him my Wifi reconnection problem.

Sato and I sat nearby where I had my little breakdown, "I see... I'm glad you did make it out of it safe and sound Kirin" Sato said to me as I nodded to agree with him, He then got up saying "c'mon we have a dungeon to go to" as he began heading over towards where we were supposed to go.