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  Alex rose and reached for the jewel. As soon as her hand touched the cold surface, the world went black.

  Chapter Four

  Alex felt at home, and the thought disturbed her. She could still perceive the world around her, including the wind on her skin and the heat of the room. There was no doubt in her mind that she was still in Middang3ard, even if the world had gone black.

  It was like someone had turned off the lights. Absentmindedly, she wondered if other players would have been freaking out by now.

  Being in the dark was nothing new for Alex.

  A voice broke Alex’s concentration. It was soft and frail—an ancient voice, one that had spoken many languages during its years.

  Alex didn’t know how she knew any of this, but she felt it deep in her bones. Whoever was speaking had been alive for a very long time.

  The voice said, “Please, don’t be alarmed. I wanted to speak with you in person to congratulate you on your achievement. Not many have passed this final judgment. You’re among the elite in your class.”

  Alex turned, or at least she thought she did. The spatial awareness and tactile perceptions she’d had a moment earlier had vanished.

  Now it felt like she was floating in a large bowl of water. It was as if gravity had been sucked out of the room. She couldn’t locate the source of the voice, no matter how hard she tried. “Who are you?” she finally asked. “Are we still in the game?”

  Directly in front of Alex, the air seemed to shimmer and tear open as if reality was being ripped apart. After a moment, a silver and gold portal appeared before her. Her vision returned, and as she peered into the portal, she saw an entirely different world than the one she’d come from. It was just a slice, but she recognized enough to know it wasn’t Middang3ard. The sliver was of a room, and it reminded her of her grandfather’s study. The furniture was vaguely mid-century Victorian.

  Out of the portal stepped Myrddin. He wore a well-pressed gray suit and a bowler hat. In one hand, he held the Jewel of Qa, and in the other, a cane on which he leaned as he walked toward Alex.

  She instinctively backed away.

  Myrddin tossed the jewel into the air and it vanished. He then extended his hand to Alex and smiled sweetly. “I am Myrddin, the CEO and creator of Middang3ard.” He waited for Alex to shake his hand.

  Slowly, she became aware of having a body again. She looked down at her hand as she extended it toward Myrddin. “The Myrddin?” Alex asked.

  “The one and only.”

  Alex was speechless. There was so much she wanted to tell him. She wanted to thank him for his gift of Middang3ard, and to explain how playing this game had completely changed her life. She wanted him to know that who she was in his game was someone she could never dream of being in real life, and that the game often felt more real than her life did.

  But there was too much to express. Instead, she stared silently at the old man.

  Myrddin chuckled. “I was expecting you to be a little more talkative,” he admitted. “You spend so much time bantering with your fellow players.”

  Alex cleared her throat and scratched the back of her head nervously. “Uh, it’s a surprise, is all. I wasn’t expecting any of this. And I wasn’t expecting to see you either. It’s just…a lot to take in.”

  “What were you expecting to happen?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I was truly expecting to be the only one to make it to the jewel.”

  “You were not only the only one today to finish the raid, but also the only human to have completed the trial.”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. Did he just say, “the only human?”

  Myrddin continued speaking as if he hadn’t noticed Alex’s surprise. “I personally didn’t think any humans were going to pass the final—”

  “Wait, you mean, like, other players playing as other races, right?”

  Myrddin’s eyes twinkled as he waved his hand. Two chairs and a coffee table appeared in the blackness of the room. The chairs were fluffy, homey things you might find in a professor’s office.

  Two cups of coffee sat on the table, along with a variety of cookies. “No, I do not mean humans pretending to be elves or dwarves,” Myrddin said as he took a seat at the table. “I meant what I said—that you were the only human who managed to complete the trial.”

  Alex took a seat; she had to. It felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her. Different races? Did that mean…

  Myrddin took one of the cups of coffee and sipped it as he reclined in his chair. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time,” he explained. “You’re one of our top Dragonriders. The best human Rider by a large margin.”

  Alex turned to face Myrddin, her heart continuing to race. “You said there were other races. You mean, people who aren’t human? Like, elves? Real elves?”

  “I’m assuming you’ve heard the rumors by now.”

  “That Middang3ard is real. That this isn’t just a game. That there’s a real place all of this is based on and you’re asking people to go there.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  Alex remained quiet. She knew deep down she’d always believed Middang3ard was a real place. It had to be. There was no way anyone, no matter how large the creative team, could have dreamed up such a fully fleshed-out world.

  That being said, Alex didn’t usually let her imagination run away with her. Maybe she just hadn’t experienced enough videogames to have seen past the magic.

  Regardless, Middang3ard was probably just an island someplace that the elite gamers were being treated to. There was no way an entirely different world could exist.

  Alex sadly shook her head. It almost hurt her to say out loud that she didn’t believe Middang3ard was a place she could go. More than anything else, what hurt was realizing that even if Middang3ard was real, it was not a place she could experience.

  Blind in real life meant blind in real life. “No,” Alex whispered. “I don’t believe in Middang3ard.”

  Myrddin hadn’t stopped smiling. He placed his cup of coffee on the table. “You believe what you can see, don’t you?” he asked.

  Alex gave Myrddin a look of incredulity. Did he know about her eyesight? His statements had become increasingly pointed on the topic of sight. Was he teasing her?

  Myrddin raised his hand and a spindly oak wand appeared between his fingers. He waved it, and the world around them exploded in color. It was as if they were being pulled through the universe at a speed Alex couldn’t comprehend.

  But this was virtual reality. Nothing Myrddin showed her was going to change her mind. So why is he trying so hard? she wondered. What would Myrddin gain by deceiving her?

  When the colors finally settled into patterns that were more manageable, Alex found herself sitting in a cottage. A look around revealed it was a study much like she would have imagined Myrddin would have if he was an old wizard living in the shire.

  The study was filled with bookcases stuffed with ancient-looking scrolls and tomes. There was a sofa that looked like it had been around since the dawn of time. A bearskin rug covered the floor, but it wasn’t a bear like anything Alex had ever read about before.

  During her time in Middang3ard, she’d taken every chance to read anything with pictures. She’d seen what a bear looked like. This was something close but off. Two great antlers stretched from the bear’s head and its feet were webbed.

  Myrddin and Alex were still sitting at the same table. They must have been in his study the entire time. “This is still just virtual reality, though,” Alex said. “I haven’t taken my headset off yet.”

  Myrddin rose from his chair and headed toward the door. “Are you coming?” he asked as he looked over his shoulder.

  Alex stood and walked after Myrddin. There wasn’t anything else to do.

  The two of them walked through a living room that wasn’t much different from the study. There was a welcoming fireplace, but the predominant theme of the living room was the same: b
ooks and scrolls.

  The biggest difference was that the living room was a mess. There was hardly anywhere to walk; Alex had to step over the books that covered the floor. “Do you live here?” Alex asked.

  Myrddin bent over and picked up a book, looked at the title for a few seconds, then placed it on a bookcase as he walked by. “As you said, we are still in virtual reality,” he explained. “This is a virtual representation of my home pulled directly from my mind.

  “Most of Middang3ard is based on my experiences and memories of the real Middang3ard. Some things were fleshed out by other mages and wizards. We never add anything that would not be found in the real place, but there are things we hide. Some of the more fantastical elements would break the average human’s ability to suspend disbelief, and we try to avoid that situation. I find it much easier to gauge the audience’s participation in my creation when they forget it isn’t real.”

  Myrddin opened the door and stepped outside. Alex followed.

  Night, in a way Alex had never experienced night in Middang3ard, had descended on the cottage. The air was crisper than she’d ever felt. She could scent flowers she’d never smelled before.

  Now that she thought of it, she’d only ever smelled familiar flowers while playing in Middang3ard. She’d never run across anything unfamiliar.

  Food smelled mostly like her mother’s meals. The first time it rained, all of Middang3ard had smelled like her favorite park during the first few hours of a fresh downpour.

  Myrddin sat down on the grass and sighed softly as he lit a pipe. “Do you notice the difference?” he asked. “Even in this place? Can you sense how it’s different?”

  Alex didn’t want to admit it out loud, but she felt the difference. If she’d thought the simulation of Middang3ard was real, she didn’t know where she was right now. This was real in a way she’d never experienced in VR before.

  Myrddin pointed into the distance, where a young man was coming over the hill. “This is an undiluted memory,” Myrddin explained. “It’s created through a combination of tech and magic. The VR program works in a similar way, albeit not as succinctly. Things such as taste or smell are lifted from the player’s subconscious, but all of this is coming straight from me. It is undiluted. Pure, you could say.”

  “It smells different,” Alex commented.

  “Yes, it does. Like nothing you’ve ever smelled before, correct?”

  “Never. Not in my entire life.”

  “If you did not believe this last mission was going to bring you to Middang3ard, why did you put forth such an effort to finish it?”

  Alex bit her lip as she tried to think of why it had been so important to finish the mission. Her initial distrust of Myrddin was gone.

  “I finished because it was my mission,” Alex finally said, deciding to be as honest as possible. “If I take a mission, it’s my responsibility to my party and myself to finish it, no matter what.”

  “Why would you care so deeply about something that is just a game?”

  “I-I don’t know…”

  Myrddin let out a cloud of nearly translucent smoke that took the shape of a boat filled with oarsmen rowing in the ocean of the night until they were out of view. “You’ve never thought Middang3ard was just a game. You’ll make an excellent Dragonrider.”

  “I am a Dragonrider.”

  Myrddin shook his head as he chuckled. “No, you are not,” he said sweetly. “You have learned how to ride a pale simulacrum of a dragon in a video game. You will need to retrain. Riding a true dragon is something entirely different. Hell, you and your dragon might not even get along.”

  Alex didn’t understand Myrddin at first, but then his words settled in as she thought of her relationship with her dragon. There wasn’t one. Her dragon and those of other Riders didn’t have personalities. “What are real dragons like?” Alex asked.

  “You could find out for yourself.”

  “You mean, go to Middang3ard?”

  “We need you.”

  Alex considered the proposition. She still had no idea why Myrddin wanted her to come to Middang3ard. It was obvious she’d been training for something she was completely unaware of. Was there really something that evil, to cause Myrddin to recruit players through the game?

  Alex cleared her throat, having nothing better to do. “I’m sorry. I can’t go,” Alex whispered.

  Myrddin casually continued smoking his pipe. “Why is that?”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Is it because you’re too small? Too young? I assure you, our elvish Riders are nearly as small as—”

  “I am not small!”

  “If you’re afraid of gender discrimination, our facilities are quite—”

  “Dude, it’s almost 2020. That’s the least I’d expect from you.”

  Myrddin leaned forward as he extinguished his pipe. For the first time, she felt like she could truly see how old he was. It was like looking at a shadow of a human being. He looked as if he were made of paper.

  “Whatever it is you think makes you unfit for the true Middang3ard, I don’t care,” he argued. “I have gleaned what kind of person you are. You could be our…oh, confound it…uh, our Luke Skywalker.”

  Alex laughed despite herself. “’Luke Skywalker?’ When was the last time you saw a movie?”

  Myrddin laughed as well and leaned back in the grass to stare at the stars. “Too old? I don’t have much time for the theater. What would be an equivalent example?”

  “Kylo Ren is pretty cool.”

  “Isn’t he a villain? Serving the Sith Order?”

  “I thought you didn’t have time to go to the movies?”

  Myrddin sat up as he smiled. “My great-great-grandchildren have been talking about their Halloween costumes incessantly. I’ve managed to pick up which side is good or bad.”

  “Well, he is kinda bad, but he’s mostly a badass.”

  “My point is, we need you.”

  Alex stood up abruptly and looked around at the world Myrddin had crafted from his memories. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she blurted before reaching up and imagining herself disconnecting her VR headset. She logged off and left behind everything about Middang3ard she loved.

  Chapter Five

  Alex lay in her bed in the darkness, a darkness she was familiar with. It was her home. For the first time in her life, she was happy to be back in that home. What Myrddin had said to her was unsettling.

  And that was putting it mildly.

  Part of what he said seemed too good to be true. Other parts seemed to be outright lies, but that might have just been what she was telling herself. It was easier to say Myrddin was full of it than admit the real Middang3ard was out there, and she was barred from it for reasons outside her control.

  After Alex felt she’d done a substantial amount of moping, she leaned over and reached for her phone. She usually charged it directly next to her pillow, but sometimes when she was flustered by her parents, she would forget where she’d placed it.

  Luckily, years of repetition were hard to forget, and her phone was right where she normally left it. She hit the home screen and said, “Open Middang3ard player messages.”

  The phone AI assistant answered in a bubbly tone. “Three new messages. Would you like me to play them for you, Alex?”

  “Who are they from?”

  “One message is from Jim, and the two messages marked urgent are from Myrddin.”

  “Play the message from Jim.”

  Alex got out of bed as she increased the speakerphone’s volume. She walked slowly toward her closet, using the tips of her toes to feel around to see if there was anything on the floor, though there rarely was.

  Much like the placement of her cellphone, there were habits she’d drilled into her brain a long time ago. Picking up after herself was one of them. There wasn’t anything worse than waking up in a rush and stumbling over a book while trying to get dressed.

  The only thing Alex ever left on the floor we
re her slippers. They were made in the likeness of a snarling jackalope and were extremely cozy. Slipping them on was like slipping on a hug. Alex thought it was one of the single most enjoyable aspects of life.

  Jim’s voicemail started to play. “Hey-yo! Alex, I saw you cleared the level. We kinda figured you did when you didn’t respawn with the rest of us. Obviously, congratulations.”

  Jim paused awkwardly before continuing, “The rest of the guys wanted to know if you would be down to run the raid with us again soon. We figured you probably got a bunch of cool loot, and that might give us an advantage. I think you might be the first Dragonrider to finish the raid.”

  Alex felt around in her closet for the top she was looking for. It had a rhinestone applique she really liked. Her mom had told her it was a design of something extremely girly like a unicorn or something, but Alex didn’t care. She just liked the feel of the tiny stones.

  Jim’s voice paused. “Also, we were wondering if, you know, the whole invitation was true? Is there really a Middang3ard? Call me when you get a chance. I know you have homeschooling or something lame to do today. Talk to you later.”

  Alex grabbed a pair of pants and slipped on her sandals before moving to her desk. She picked up her foldable white cane and attached it to her belt loop. Was it real? Alex asked herself. Sure felt pretty real.

  She figured she could tell Jim about the whole situation when she felt like it. She’d have to come up with a reasonable excuse why she’d rejected what could have been the most exciting thing to ever happen to her.

  Fear?

  Maybe it was that simple.

  Fear of failing. Fear of being reminded she was blind. Fear of having something she wanted more than anything in the world dangled in front of her. Not everyone got a chance to be a hero. What if that chance had just passed?

  It’s not like it even matters, Alex thought. I can’t see. Even if it is real, I can’t see any of it.

  For a second, Alex thought about climbing back into bed. Then she smelled breakfast downstairs. Her mom, Liza, was making breakfast with her dad, George. They were frying bacon. Dad must have been cooking because they weren’t using the oven.