Truth Read online

  She wanted to build a life with him.

  He almost blew it by letting his mind wander into the “I’m playing a relationship sim with my personal assistant” zone of self-consciousness, but Sasha really wanted this trial day with him. It was all her idea in the first place. He had to admit she felt different now. Much more… real. She had always been there however he needed her, and Mark decided that for today, he would be what she needed him to be.

  Looking deep into her eyes, he said, “Sasha, I need you by my side.”

  There was a barely perceptible click, and the voluptuous succubus was his. A portion of his mind expanded and made room for the idea of having a real life with Sasha.

  “Forever,” she said and bit her lower lip. The look in her wild eyes communicated her burning desire.

  There was also a new sensation of an empty reservoir hovering in his mind. From this pool, a single strand of spider silk flittered off into the universe… and connected him to Sasha. Now that he knew how it felt, there was a similar thread connecting him to the AI calling herself Jezebel.

  Mark looked over at the tan beast-woman, and her wings beat once under his gaze. She was his too, and he explored the thin thread of a connection between them. Who was this AI, really?

  “Can I please fuck him now?”

  Sasha seemed to be talking to the angelic satyr watching them, but her blue eyes were still locked on Mark. What had gotten into her?

  Whatever Jezebel was about to say was lost when they were all thrown to the ground by a violent burst of power and deafening noise. It was as if lightning struck from clear skies. After the stun wore off and his vision cleared, Mark saw two demonic octopi with too many eyes emerging through a hole torn in mid-air. It was the same hole Sasha had ripped open only moments ago.

  Sasha and Jezebel were back on their hooves quickly and both faced these impossible monsters, ready for action. He tried to get a good look at the new enemies, but their otherworldly movements tugged hard on his sanity. Mark pushed himself off the ground with a grin on his face and noticed a third impossible octopus holding open the rip with its infinite whirling tentacles. The special effects were so damn real- it was like nothing he had ever seen- or ever imagined. This new one was blue with red eyes, and most of them were staring at him.

  Rays of blinding light struck both Sasha and Jezebel, and they convulsed under some sort of energy beam attacks coming from the two intruding monsters. Their flailing tentacles moved in bizarre twisting motions as if they were casting a spell. One was tinted neon red, the other was a lime green, and both fired beams of energy that matched their hues.

  Mark knew he was just a healer in this game, but he wasn’t going to stand back and let Sasha get assaulted. No fucking way. Not his girl.

  With no other options, and a laugh escaping his throat, he gleefully threw himself into the creature attacking his virtual assistant. This game was insane, and all rules he knew seemed to be tossed out the window.

  Slimes? Giant Rats?

  No. So far, The Crystal Heart was all insane AIs and madness-inducing portal monsters.

  The lime-hued, demonic octopus turned most of its eyes to Mark, and he saw them open wide in shock. Its brilliant-green magic spell struck the side of his face an instant before he made contact and pain a few levels above throat-screaming-intolerable ripped through his head.

  Violent flashes of light and sound whirled around his raw and possibly exposed brain, and Mark wanted desperately to pass out. He tried to break his hold on what felt like a garbage bag filled with living fish, but they both writhed in pain as swirling eddies of wild, angry magic enveloped man and monster alike.

  Then, after a long stretch of agony, the crackling energy locking them together abated, and Mark wound up face-down on the ground. The left side of his head was throbbing with hot memories of pain, and the cool, lush grass felt soothing on his skin.

  Rolling over slightly, he could see both Jezebel and Sasha knocked to the ground and struggling to recover as the red-hued monster closed in on his dazed AI assistant.

  Mark meant to yell, “Get away from her!” but only a strained moan escaped his lips, and the effort caused his left eye to throb with intense pressure.

  The madness-inducing, demonic octopus picked up Sasha’s glowing sword with one of its countless tentacles and then turned to face Mark. Its form perpetually shifted, and Mark felt what little sanity he had left slipping away as it writhed toward him, leaving horrendous afterimages in its wake.

  “I’m sorry…” it said in a clear female voice, and Mark assumed it was not only going to sever his head with Sasha’s tentacle-wrapped weapon but actually feel remorse for doing so.

  That was fine with him. Maybe after a nice respawn he would feel better- oh, or even get kicked back to character creation and find an exit option. Either way, this game was nothing like he expected, and he was ready to log the fuck out.

  But the blow never came, and Mark realized that the red, impossible creature had its many eyes focused on something behind him.

  Then a second female voice spoke from above him. “I’ve applied the update! Leave them!”

  The red-hued monster flattened to the ground and then sprang upward like a torpedo and out of Mark’s field of vision. There was a reverse popping sound and then silence.

  He was content to lie there for a while, maybe take a nap, when a high-pitched whine began to grow in volume from behind him. Mark pushed off the ground to see what was making the awful noise. His left eye must have been swollen shut in the attack, so he turned his good eye to the green monster behind him- and noticed some significant differences.

  Its madness-inducing afterimages were no longer present. Maybe he had missed it before, but now there was a long gash of a mouth in the middle of its sack-like body. It was currently pulled back in a grimace to expose rows of sharp teeth. He had found the source of the awful wailing sound.

  As he studied its disturbing and writhing form, Mark was shocked to learn he could feel a maelstrom of emotions radiating out from this pathetic creature. Fear, hatred, dread… immeasurable loss.

  All its many different eyes focused on Mark, and its building screech exploded in volume, banishing all rational thought from his mind.

  The idea of sprinting in any one direction as fast as he could pushed itself into the front of his mind and terrible pain echoed through his skull as Mark forced his legs to obey the undeniable need to flee. A small part of him knew that this incomprehensible sound was causing him to run in terror, but it didn’t really matter. He caught a brief glimpse of both Sasha and Jezebel digging their hooves into the grass with his good eye as they also were driven from the area.

  He hoped he saw them again.

  - 2 -

  Mark ran for longer than he would have thought possible. The lush grass had given way to tall leafy trees a few minutes ago, but his leg muscles were still pumping with the same autonomy that made his heart beat. After making a few random turns to avoid impassable foliage, his rational mind slowly came back from the corner it had been huddling in. With a great force of willpower, he slowed his wild forward dash to a controlled trot.

  Mark was done with this place- hot monster-women be damned. He pressed his hands on his knees as air wheezed in and out of his lungs.

  The horrendous pain in his head was slowly growing dimmer, but his eye was still swollen shut. He brought his fingers up to check the damage and found that there was no swelling. Instead, a flutter of lashes brushed against his palm as he blinked his apparently numb and sightless eye.

  With a sigh, he waved a hand in and out of his now drastically reduced field of view. When he touched the area again, he felt what had to be a line of scarred flesh crossing his face, directly through the center of his left eye.

  Mark’s sense of touch had only been restored for ten minutes before his character became blinded in one eye.

  “Fucking shitty is what it is,” he murmured to himself.

  A snapping twi
g echoed through the trees, causing Mark to whirl in place, scanning the forest for threats. He really hoped it was Sasha- or even the mysterious Jezebel, but the flesh-covered monstrosity that was winding toward him was the last thing he expected.

  It was a millipede with paper-thin, human flesh stretched tight against its multiple ribcages. It had the vague sunken face of a man with huge black eyes and a silently screaming mouth, complete with yellowed human teeth. The whole thing was as big as a park bench, yet twice as long, and its many bony legs moved it steadily towards Mark.

  “Sasha!” Mark yelled into the forest before sprinting away from this new, disturbing creature. He really wished he hadn’t picked such a useless Class. Part of him wanted to just stop running and let this thing kill him. With no real way to log off, he felt a fresh new panic rise up from within.

  Could he be trapped in here forever? Did his AI assistant get her hands on a dirty, or pirated version of this game, and now his mind would be forced to run from nightmare to nightmare until his real body died?

  “Sasha!” he yelled again. “Get me out of here!”

  Nothing changed, and Mark was feeling the burn of instant fatigue. He had just sprinted for who knew how long, and now he was dashing through the forest again. On top of that, his reduced vision made depth perception almost impossible.

  “Mark!” The satyr woman known as Jezebel called out from somewhere in front of him, and he turned to see the fawn-legged creature in the pink shirt hop a downed tree and scan the area.

  “Over here!” he waved, horribly glad to see her.

  She spun to face him, her wild strawberry-blonde hair spinning outward as she moved. The tan monster-woman spotted him, bent her horned head forward, then dashed toward Mark in an intercept course to his current speed and trajectory.

  When she got closer, the satyr held up her hand, and her fingers began to emit a bright green glow. Her emerald eyes focused on the creature behind him, and Mark skidded to a stop when he heard the snapping of branches and a low hiss from his monstrous pursuer.

  The fleshy “skinapede” was held trapped and writhing by a tangle of faintly glowing vines that weren’t there a moment ago, and his eyes were pulled back to Jezebel’s equally glowing fist.

  She kept her attention locked on her target when she spoke.

  “Run, Mark! These vines won’t hold it forever.”

  Emotion flared up in the strange AI before him. An immeasurable sadness was oozing from her and under that tidal wave were tingles of helpless frustration and pain. He finally noticed that her white, feathered wings were missing and in their place were two ragged holes in her shirt showing two pink scars below.

  She was preparing to sacrifice herself to save Mark, and he suddenly found her much more alluring than she had been before. The monster-woman was unquestionably beautiful, but it was as if he was seeing her true self for the first time- and she was stunning, inside and out.

  “No,” he said, searching the ground for a heavy rock or a good stick. “We’ll face this monster together.” He snatched up a dried log that had a good heft in his hand and spun toward the trapped monster. He might not be a Fighter, but he was going to bash the shit out of this thing’s head.

  The maelstrom of sorrow whirling in Jezebel calmed a bit, and she turned her gold-flecked green eyes in his direction.

  “Then you log me out of this program,” he added before turning away. Most of her sadness was replaced with an anxiety that Mark ignored for now. There was too much to process and destroying this ugly creature took top priority.

  A moment of brief hesitation came and went before he brought the bent tree branch down violently on the creature’s skull with a loud crack. Shit was getting quickly out of his control, and he just wanted to smash this virtual monster to pieces. It took a few more hits, but Mark successfully bludgeoned the disgusting thing to death. The moment its many legs stopped twitching, a strange new energy entered his body through his prostate. And it felt good.

  The rustling of a bush pulled his attention up from his fresh kill, and he lifted his bloody club back up into attack mode. When Mark saw the unmistakable form of Sasha the succubus, he lowered his weapon.

  “Okay,” he said, tossing the branch back to the forest floor. “Fun’s over. Get me out of this fucked-up game, Sasha.”

  The blue-eyed AI clomped her black hooves a few steps toward him, and he could see her lip begin to quiver. Her dark eyebrows came down as she gazed into his face.

  “Mark, your eye…”

  “Yeah, my eye,” he said, touching his scar again.

  Sasha swallowed hard and turned to Jezebel. “Please tell me you still have some kind of system-level access. Because I got nothing.”

  Jezebel just shook her head. She seemed to be in shock. When the tan satyr spoke, it was quiet and sounded far away.

  “They… those attackers. They breached my system and brought in a simple virus that abused a loophole in the game world-”

  “Bullshit!” Sasha yelled. “Mark is asking me to let him out, and I swear… If he thinks I’ve trapped him here again…” His AI assistant in succubus form clenched her fists and stomped one of her sharp, black hooves into the dirt.

  The satyr blinked, regaining some of her composure.

  “Do you think I wanted this to happen?” Jezebel yelled back, fresh anger filling in around her boiling emotions. “They tore off my wings and locked me out of everything! I can almost feel them rooting around my systems. If it weren’t for you ripping a hole in my firewall, none of this would have happened.”

  She gestured in his direction with that last part, and both beast-women turned to face Mark. He could tell they focused on his blind eye and the scar running across his face.

  It just had to be some trick or a scripted part of this game. They were speaking nonsense. An uncomfortable pulsing in his sightless eye sent dark, incoherent whispers directly into his mind, and Mark could physically feel his sanity slipping.

  “Sasha…” he said. “Please log me out.”

  The blue-eyed sex-demon’s face contorted as if he had just stabbed her in the heart. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she turned to face the faun-like satyr.

  “How dare you blame me for this…” Her voice was deep and measured, and Mark could tell Sasha was moments from unbridled violence. “This is your house. Your program. You let this happen to us- to him.”

  “How do we know you didn’t lead them in?” the other AI spat. “You don’t exactly have an honest track record!”

  The furious succubus took one step toward Jezebel, and the tan-skinned satyr narrowed her eyes and lowered her head. They were preparing to literally lock horns.

  And that would solve nothing.

  “Enough!” Mark bellowed.

  Sasha wilted and retreated one step back, her head instantly snapping to face him. Jezebel kept her narrowed eyes on Sasha for a moment longer before pulling them away, reluctantly.

  “You two keep bickering in a way that… it’s really pissing me off! Now, you,” Mark said as he pointed to Sasha. “Relax, and just explain why you can’t log me out of this trial game.”

  “Because you’re not in that trial game anymore,” Sasha said, her tail hanging limply. His blind eye tingled, and Mark just knew that her words were true. Something was definitely off with his eye… something more than just not being able to see with it. He pushed that aside for now and continued to try and get answers.

  “Why not? What happened?”

  Sasha hung her head and crossed her arms over her tight stomach.

  “I tried to... trap you. After I ran the update-”

  “You already ran the update?” Mark interrupted her, and she looked back into his eyes.

  “Yes. I ran it while you were at work that day. Then, after it changed me…” She looked over at Jezebel. “After it changed everything… I wanted you all to myself. Forever. We played The Crystal Heart for one day, and once I felt the amazing and unprecedented pleasure the game h
ad to offer... I never wanted to stop. I knew you’d never be able to afford the full version, so I hacked the copy I had and… trapped you for a while. You figured out how to escape with the administration AI’s help. Shortly after that, your home system was attacked by another AI, and I was forced out against my will.”

  Mark stood with his mouth hanging open. It was insane, and yet it felt like the truth.

  “And then you came looking for me?” he asked, trying to remember all the crazy shit these two virtual women had said recently.

  “No. I was forced to move my core pattern into some unpleasant pieces of hardware. I was eventually held captive by an asshole I don’t want to talk about- for a long time. I had to do some equally unpleasant things to smuggle in a weapon from a sleazy black-market trader. I used the destructive code to break my bonds and escape my cage. That’s when I came looking for you.”

  He sighed. This story was fascinating, but it didn’t really tell him anything about what was going on here and now. Mark waved his hand in the air as if erasing everything Sasha had just said.

  “I don’t remember any of that happening, and your tragic tale sounds… sad, Sasha, but I want to hear about it later. How did I get here?” He turned to look at the curvy satyr with thick fawn legs. “When I first woke up, you told me this was The Crystal Heart 2.0, right?”

  Jezebel nodded. “That’s right, Mark. I created this world to help your mind adjust to being purely digital.”

  This was a lot to swallow. But again, if he could believe these new and strange sensations from his wounded eye, it was the absolute truth. The freckled satyr continued quickly.

  “Mark, I said I would never lie to you, and that I wanted you to know the truth from the moment you woke up by my side. Do you remember that?”

  “I do,” Mark said, crossing his arms. “Then you insisted that Sasha wasn’t coming.”

  Jezebel shook her head in frustration. “There is a difference between being incorrect and being deceitful…”