M is for Myg

After I gave the nekos the slip I skulked around Downtown, looking for a place to lay low until the grid would allow teleport again. With how shaky things had been, who knew how long that could take?

On every rooftop I sensed a shadowy figure, spying out over the city.

Nekos. They weren’t going to give up the search too quick it seemed.

Afraid to run, afraid to fly, sure that they’d spot me hovering above the dark skyline, I waited. There were few others in town and with teleport down, few would be coming in unless they logged here. The nekos would have little trouble finding me if I moved around too much. And if I stayed put, it was just a matter of time.

I edged my way around the corridors, trying to think invisible thoughts.

My heart was racing but still I felt cold all the way through. Not chilly, like a cool breeze on a hot summer neck. But cold-cold, like my very vitality was in short supply. Then I couldn’t feel my feet. I stamped them but freaked out about the noise calling attention to me. My toes started to ache. I shifted my weight from one to the other.

I thought about those ghosts and the paralysis I’d suffered a few hours earlier and worried. What if this feeling wasn’t going to go away?

I shuddered and pushed the thought from my mind. I had to move on.

Around the outskirts of town I found a condemned old bar and climbed inside through the boards. It wasn’t much but until teleport was back up it’d have to do.

The cold feeling came back and crept from my feet up to my knees. I sat down and rubbed my legs, trying to bring the heat back.

I tried to distract myself from the painful sensation and considered what I now knew about my damned predicament.

So it seemed the ghosts had been sent by demons. Where the demons connected to Dr. Moody, my ex-demon-shrink?

Moody’s words from that night came back to me, “You’ve put me back into alignment,” she’d said after I tried to wring her neck. “I’m ruined.”

What the hell did that mean? I had to get my hands on that demon chiropractic book–Explicatio Vertebratus Daemonicon–but where was I going to find an archivist to trace a copy for me? This isn’t the kind of thing that just turns up in “search.”

Then there was the issue of JellyBean Madison–why was she having the nekos look for me?

I was deep in thought but the ache in my legs was so damned distracting it was hard to concentrate.

Forcing myself to stay awake I rocked back and forth. Checked my inventory and it all seemed okay, but my friends list showed everybody offline. It couldn’t be. I tried to IM Alex again, to tell him where I was and what had happened, but nada. No dice.

My concentration was broken again when I heard something and jumped to my aching feet. My knees began to buckle but I steadied myself against the door frame.

It was. . .Pauly?

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. I almost hugged him. “Where’s Alex?”

He must have been shocked to see me like that, as it seemed like he was looking for a quiet spot to scratch off a lottery ticket. With the new gambling ban I understood the need for secrecy, but still, this place sure as hell was out of the way from Topgol.

“You need to get your ass home quick,” was all he said.

“But TP isn’t working and I can’t walk off–it’s isolated here.”

“I just TP’d in and found you with my mystitool. It won’t be long before others do too. Now get out!”

So I hit it. I didn’t even ask him how he knew I was in that kind of trouble.

Come to think of it, that wouldn’t have been a bad question. But I didn’t think of it then, as the coldness leeched up into my torso, then my neck and spread out to my arms. It started to hurt. Then I felt nothing.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:42 am and is filed under Met a stranger, Second Life.