To (s)he who views and runs away: I SEE YOU. COME BACK HERE. COWARD.

…

So that fanfic I thought of back in late June? The one I decided against because of SAT’s and all? Um, I wrote half of it anyway. I actually think I’m over halfway now. And here, look, I’m posting it!

No, don’t start crying yet! Today I’ll have mercy and post only an intro/teaser. *scrolls through document and selects a couple of paragraphs, hoping they make sense*

Navigation: 1, 2, 3 …

Absence Stunt, 1: Introduction

Laik, Eirii, Luuz, Kaerin, Ryuuki, Fayl, and Fyal all sat in a ring on the third highest floating island above Pumpkin town, in that order. Fyal fidgeted a little and glanced over at her brother—who happened to be red, fuming, cross, and wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers. Ryuuki sighed.

“Listen Fayl, it’s not your fault and it’s not ours, don’t be going around blaming it on anyone and everyone.”

“Ryuu, she deleted me! She DELETED ME! I freaking got DELETED! She didn’t even leave me any CLOTHES! And if she was allowed to, she would’ve sold these boxers too!” As the boy magician roared these words, Fyal shut her eyes and whimpered a little, jabbing at the ground with her wooden sword. Fayl glanced at her, looked guilty, and scowled back at Ryuuki. “But you’re wrong, Ryuu, I’m not blaming anyone and everyone. I’m just really frustrated that she’d give up so fast on me.”

“Don’t feel so bad, mate. She hated me, too.” Kitou scratched his ear dispassionately.

Fayl glared and hissed, “But you didn’t get deleted!”

“Break it up, children.” Eirii fixed the gold-trimmed red hat on her head, which matched her gauntlets and suit and boots. “I don’t see what the big deal is, all she did was put you out of your misery.”

“I would hardly say that Fayl is in any less misery now, Eirii,” observed Laik. Kaerin nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I’d say he was better off being useless than being unused.”

Fyal let out a squeak that opened up into a bawl. “I’M SORRYYYY!” she wailed. “WAAHHHHHHHHH.”

The rest of the group blinked at her.

“IF SHE DIDN’T CREATE ME SHE WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO DELETE YOU! WAHHHHH!”

Stare.

“AND THEN SHE HAD NO USE FOR ME BECAUSE VAGRANTS CAN’T DELEVEL AND STOCK UP ON TWINKLESTONES AND PEAKYRINDS—”

“Right, so back to the original objective of this meeting.” (Fyal sobbed in the background as Ryuuki went on.) “Since we have two newcomers to the family, let’s introduce ourselves and give a warm welcome!” She smiled at Fyal, who only sobbed harder. “Uh,” Ryuuki faltered, unsure how to comfort the guilt-ridden girl.

Kaerin started off. “I’m Kaerin,” she announced proudly, “And I’m the very first member of the family. Level 34 Mercenary, yo.” Her outstretched fingers flew to her turquoise cadet cap in salute as she winked.

“Second member, Kitou.” The acrobat tipped his cowboy hat, giant yoyos still grasped in both hands. “Level 38 yoyo Acro and going nowhere.” He shrugged. “Everyone—both my owner and my owner’s consultant—kinda gave up on me.”

“Third member and the highest level so far, me.” Ryuuki flashed a smug grin and held up a hand. “Level 61 full-support Ringmaster!”

“I’m next,” said Fayl gruffly before he flopped over on his back and lay there, saying nothing.

“He’s a… was a level 38 wind Mage. And he had great damage,” added Luuz, trying to comfort his brother.

Fayl said nothing.

“Er, well,” continued Luuz, “I came next. Level 41 wind and lightning Mage.” A brief silence ensued. “Sorry, bro.” Luuz glanced sympathetically at his older brother. Fayl twitched his shoulder a little.

“Ahem,” Laik began. “The name is Laik. Level 45 Acrobat. How do you do?”

Next to Fayl, Fyal suddenly burst into tears. Wringing at the hem of her dress, she bawled, “AND THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN. BOO HOO HOO…”

“Yes dear. Eirii, your turn!” Kaerin turned to their newest member, smiling.

“Huh?” Eirii zoned back in. She’d been intently examining her shield and knuckle—not a big getting-to-know-you person. “Umm, I’m an Assist going Billposter. Level 40. By the way, how are we related anyway? We have parents or something?”

Kitou grinned. “No no, nothing like that. We just say we’re siblings if our user is the same person.

Fayl sniffed. “User, indeed. She used me alright.”

“… Me, Kae and Laik are under one roof, and Ryuu with Luuz and Fayl and Fyal are too.”

“What about me?” asked Eirii.

“We’re not sure actually, you’re somewhere between my family and Ryuu’s family.”

“… Um?”

“You’re the result of a joint account,” explained Kaerin. “There are two users who are able to log you online. Though I think,” she mused, “that Ryuu’s user is the only one who has ever done so. But whatever, you’re a shared character.”

“Kind of cool, anyway,” interjected Luuz. “Kit’s already like my bro, so whatever.”

“Uh, ‘kay!” Eirii shifted awkwardly. “Nice to meet you all then. What do we do, fight together?”

All the older characters, excepting Fyal, exchanged glances. “Is this your first time in the Absence Stunt, Eir?” asked Laik.

“The what?”

“The Absence Stunt. Have you ever heard that term mentioned prior to this meeting?”

“Not once.”

Laik blinked. “Hmm. You might want to listen carefully then. Kae, I think you’ve spent the most time here. You want to explain?”

The mercenary shifted into a more comfortable position and set her axe down on the grass. Clearing her throat, she nodded and began.

“Hopefully you’re aware by now that you’re a game character. Thus, we all have users who play the game by logging us online. But none of that has to do with anything here except for our stats and items, but forget about that.

“Popular belief says that when the user logs off, our character just goes into hibernation. We get taken offline, off the game, our data frozen, our information kept intact as long as the game’s headquarters doesn’t get nuked. We don’t do anything.

“But actually, we’re still here offline, since we can’t really go anywhere, and as long as there is an offline ‘running’ we should be able to run offline. Of course, nothing is saved but we function offline too—apparently. What’s even more confusing is, the game here works differently. For example, you see how my axe is still on the grass? It’s still tangible. How come it hasn’t disappeared yet? You see, a dropped item doesn’t have a live timer counting down to its termination here.

“But the immense paradox lies not in the fact that we function offline but in the way we function. There are no users here. We are all just game characters. And somehow, we all have personalities and the ability to perceive and judge for ourselves. And technically nothing here is supposed to be saved, but all characters retain their memory here no matter how long a character stays online or what happens there. In fact, our life offline seems to be entirely disconnected from what happens online since we retain almost no memory of our life online. As far as we know, being online is actually just our dreams—blurry, fuzzy hallucinations. How do we remember these things? What is it that enables us to make our own decisions without a user? Some characters here that have dedicated their time to unraveling this puzzle have theorized that we know the identity of our user, we recognize ourselves as game characters, and we understand the concept of being online all through pure instinct alone—which is an idea that, I don’t know about you, sounds pretty shaky to me.

“We call this place—being offline—the Absence Stunt, or the Absence, or the Stunt…”

Sorry y’all, I don’t have the patience to proofread anything, so what’s here is raw. I’m planning on giving the full story to a friend when I’m done so if anyone wants to criticize or point out typos I would appreciate it very much.

(I apologize in advance to my first readers for any formatting errors, because I copied and pasted this from Microsoft Word and only modified paragraph breaks because indenting doesn’t quite show up. If quotations and dashes are messing up for you, rest assured I’ll have them fixed as soon as is convenient for me.)