Akane pushed leaves and branches out of her way. She was thankful this game didn't include pesky little bugs like mosquitoes, or she would have been making more sounds than a rhino crashing through shrubbery. As it was, the mere thought of bugs like mosquitoes made her twitchy and she wanted to brush off her arms and legs. It took her a bit, but she realized her mind was wandering. Inside her head she gave herself a dressing down or tried to: her thoughts were rebellious and she always came up with a defense or an excuse. Finally, she gave up. She was wasting time, and losing the argument with herself.
She shook herself a bit, rested her eyes for a moment, and then renewed her focus. She was trying to survive; she wasn't on a camping trip in a safe little camping spot. She’d already been attacked once, so she really should know better. She hadn’t expected her concentration to slip so easily. Hadn’t she already resolved to be cautious? Through experience, she knew this would take a long time. It would probably be the work of years, barring serious misfortune, that she would finally become the epitome of caution and cunning as she wished. Stop that! My mind is wandering again… she thought to herself wryly. Again, she shook herself, rested her eyes for a moment, and renewed her focus. Practice makes perfect. God, I’m tired…
She peered into the gloom of the forest, searching for signs of trouble or shelter. Fatigue was making her mind wander. Remaining on high alert was taxing on her mind and body. She’d run into a few other monsters in the past few hours. If she had to hazard a guess, dawn probably wasn’t too far away. It would be her second day in the game then, and her first sunrise here in «Sword Art Online». Pushing through for another morning so that she could sleep like a normal person and rise in the day seemed like a foolish idea to her. If her concentration was already shot after a night, another day would probably see to it that her name would be set in stone, literally. It would be best if she found shelter soon then, so that she could hopefully wake while there was still light out, and continue on her way.
Her destination was the furthest village from the «Starting City». She had no desire to mingle with her own kind. Actually, that was a lie. She wanted the reassurance of trustworthy companions, but she didn’t dare risk it. Risking her heart to make friends was bad enough. Choosing companions here might well be risking her life as well as her heart. Even without that factor, there was the issue of success or failure in a relationship even so platonic as friendship. Just because she tried didn’t guarantee she’d meet someone trustworthy, and past experiences had shown that she chose her company poorly.
Much of her time online had been spent being taken advantage of by people she had trusted and cared for. She’d learned to harden herself, but she knew she hadn’t armored her heart enough to avoid being taken advantage of. To her, both her heart and her life were too high of a price for such a high-risk gamble. No, it was much better to be alone. In the end, all people were alone. There were some things that would always be a secret. It was impossible to truly understand one another. People were too different for that. Others couldn’t be trusted; the only thing that could be trusted would be the self.
It’s not as if you can trust yourself either. Think of all those things you failed at, all those times you chose wrong. A little voice whispered in her heart and mind. Remember all those times you said something or did something to hurt and destroy yourself and what you loved? All those mistakes you made, the things you made yourself suffer. Can you really even trust yourself? To Akane’s dismay, she couldn’t deny it in all honesty. So in the end, what was it that could be trusted? Physically, bodies would fail you, little subtle signs your body gave you could easily betray you. What else then? Could you trust the mind, the heart? No, the mind would and could steer you wrong, and so could your heart. Often, both would clash with each other. So, what then could be trusted?
The question echoed in her mind. Was there anything she could think of that could truly be trusted? After pondering it for a while, the end result was a resounding “No.” Nothing could be trusted. Not family, not friends, not strangers, not loves, and not even “self” could be trusted. But then how can you live? A part of her cried out in frustration and distress. It seemed to dip its toes slowly into despair as if testing the water. I don’t know. She plunged headfirst into it, not quite despair it seemed, or she would have already slit her throat or sought her death some other way. She let it caress her, taste her, and she embraced it with something akin to joy, reveling in this self-destructive feeling.
Perhaps I’m already dead, and I just haven’t realized it. The idea excited her in a strange way. The idea that somehow her “self” was dying, that the sparks of healthy joy and trust were being trampled on, made her heart race. She felt truly alive for a moment, filled with a fierce joy that lifted her soul. Carefully she nursed it and cared for it, as she examined herself. These emotions should not exist, not when I am rejecting trust and giving myself into despair of it. Yet I feel so happy, so light, so… free. The last word caught her attention. Was that it? Was that the cause of the feeling? Yet how could she be free like this? How could she be happy?
My soul is twisted. I’m not quite sane. What an ugly, dark soul, joyfully writhing in silent darkness and agony. I’m not normal. Somehow, it felt as if there was truth, and triumph in the words. I will never be normal. I will never be well. That too, was a truth. Suddenly, the dark, the danger didn’t seem so bad. Suddenly, she felt stronger, more courageous, and more ready to take on whatever stood in her way. Idly, she wondered if this was a good thing, or bad thing. She dismissed it, it didn’t matter. This was what she was. With great effort, she reined in her newfound energy and brought herself back to the task at hand.
She blessed her night vision and the lightening sky when she found the place she would stay. Already, she was truly exhausted. Besides keeping her guard up, she had been attacked many times in this forest, and had to make detours to avoid serious danger. By serious danger, she meant that she had managed to avoid monsters that she had no hope of defeating because of level difference and the disadvantage of not being able to see well in the dark. She’d also wandered all this way, relying on memories of the beginner map. She hadn’t even taken a break for food, she was too keyed up to be truly hungry, and so she’d only snacked a bit on pieces of bread while walking.
She had decided to stop looking on the ground, after finding a hollow rotten log she could have stayed in. After examining it, she had decided that it wasn’t safe enough. Even if people couldn’t see her inside, if monsters sensed it, she would be in trouble. If they could pull her out, she would be doomed. If they couldn’t, but a player saw them, a player would soon realize something was in the log. Instead, she looked for a place to roost up in the treetops. The trees of this forest were huge things, ancient, wild, and beautiful.
She had chosen a spot where it appeared as if lightning had struck the tree and caused it to splinter and snap in half. She had searched around for a place with branches low enough to climb it, and then from there, clambered around the tree limbs to find ways to the broken tree. She had long ago decided against damaging the tree bark if she could help it. It would do her no good if she left visible signs of her passage. When she reached the damaged tree’s broken off stump, she had found that parts of the center were hollowed out. Inside was a pile of leaves that made a soft enough bed.
The tree was an ancient oak, and big enough for her to stretch out to full height while laying down in the widest part of its center. Perhaps she had found a place to stay for a long while. She checked her map Somehow or other, it seemed she’d wandered far enough that she was quite distant from the «Starting City». Finally, she was beginning to feel hungry. She took out more of her bread, and fed herself to quiet the urgings of her mostly empty stomach. She made a cursory inspection of the inside of the tree and the surroundings. She saw no signs of danger, but she would be very visible when examining her surroundings.
Her eyes flicked up towards the sky, then at her new abode. She would need shelter from the sun, and possibly from prying eyes. She climbed out of the hollow and descended to the forest floor. She gathered as many fallen branches, sticks, and foliage as she could and returned to her place above. With those materials, she fashioned a temporary shelter from the sun, and was careful to prop her new screen in a way that would prevent it from showing at the top. A notification message popped up as she finished it. The number of people that had died on the first day sobered her a bit. She had almost added one to that number multiple times that night. Deep down though, she couldn’t find it in herself to care. They were just numbers and she had survived. She glanced up at the fading pink of the sky as it turned blue, before crawling under her temporary shelter, into the pile of leaves.
She closed her eyes and did not dream.
