Chapter 15：Looking For An Escape (1/2)

[Music Recommendation: ”Above the Sea of Clouds” by Yu-Peng Chen (Genshin Impact OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

I curled myself in bed, still wearing bathrobes—not even drying my hair. I was lost in the thought of how to solve the problem. But no matter how much I thought about it, no feasible solution came to mind. If only there was a way to somehow escape this scenario and jump into the future where we already surpassed this, free to live happily together.

An escape… how nice would that be. Yes, I wanted to escape somewhere not here, somewhere far from reality.

How I wished life was just a fairytale, filled with sunshines and daisies. Because in fairytales, the good guys always win, and the bad guys always meet their just end. And everyone lives happily ever after.

But this was no fairytale. We need a solution. But what? How? I had no idea.

Perhaps it was my great desire for an escape that I stood up from bed and went to the couch. I turned on the console, and played Armageddon. I told myself so many times that it wasn't the time to play games… but somehow, I felt an urge to do it.

Once logged in, I went to ”Open World” mode and explored. I didn't do any world quests, or fought any monsters, I just made my avatar run, and run, and run, until it reached the next town by foot—not using teleportation circles. Fortunately, the changing of scenery and background music helped lighten up my mood. So I continued running and running until I found the perfect place to just sit and relax, on top of the highest mountain in the game—”Mount Altus”.

”Ahhh… what a beautiful view,” I marvelled at what I saw. On top of the highest mountain, everything looked so small. And the music… so perfect, relaxing, and soothing, both to the ears, and the heart.

As I sat there, staring at the beautiful scenery and listening to the music, a sudden pop up box distracted me.

”Grim Reaper is now online!” it said.

”So it gives notifications when your friends are online, too, huh?” I asked, talking to myself.

Then, I was reminded of what Ken told me—that it would help lessen the burden if I talked to someone about my problem. I couldn't possibly drag Hora and Ken in this serious problem so I thought maybe, just maybe, telling a stranger wouldn't hurt, right?

Thinking that, I grabbed the keyboard from my desktop and connected it to the console. Ken told me during lunch that I could actually just connect my desktop keyboard to the console to avoid the hassle of trying to type via virtual one.

And so, I pinged him, privately.

”Hello, Grim Reaper!” I typed and sent it to him. It was funny how I sought to gain comfort from someone whom I initially thought was out there to fetch me and guide me to the other side—to death. I chuckled thinking so.

It took him a few minutes to reply but I'm thankful he did. I thought he just accepted my friend request out of politeness. But then again, he was so blunt and a bit grumpy for him to be polite.

”Yes, Senara Lee?”

”Pft! Senara or Sena is fine.”

”What do you want, Senara?”

See? So blunt. I found myself chuckling again. They said honest people liked honesty in return. In that case, since he's so honest, maybe I could do the same?