Reeve waited until the two additional hives of bees had been sent to swarm the shield before she ran on a diagonal to flank the last position at which she’d made out Helia before the elf had been obscured by one-hundred-twenty-thousand bees. As she ran, Reeve hazarded a quick look toward the rest of their party, but she couldn’t see anything useful through the tight circle of enslaved souls that ringed them. She scanned her logs and her heart sank as she jumped down the entries.

  Thomanji’yheri is afflicted with Paralytic Shock. If left untreated, the affliction will last for five minutes.

  Dusk (II) is afflicted with Paralytic Shock. If left untreated, the affliction will last for five minutes.

  Is it just Leaf in there? She thought.

  A Level 12 Enslaved Soul impales Bunce with a putrid bone sword for 5 points of damage.

  Reeve shook her head with a begrudging respect for the honey badger. Guess she got loose, she thought.

  Reeve rounded the shield, within which she could see nothing clearly, and tried to position herself directly opposite the side on which she’d previously faced the three within. Sucking air through her teeth and squinting in anticipation, she aimed for the center of the sphere and drove her blade into the shield, which felt at first like she’d struck wood but, once the blade penetrated, allowed her to lean into the thrust and plunge the shaft until her hands met the bees on its surface.

  A high scream emanated from within, and the shield to Reeve’s right began to crumple like an old, brittle balloon collapsing days after a birthday. Bees streamed in through gaps in the collapsing shield, and a moment later Helia and Dawn ran with startling speed out of the shield to Reeve’s left. The bees pursued, leaving only a few stragglers in their death throws where they’d stung Dusk, who lay in a heap in front of Reeve. The half-elf rolled herself far enough to gaze first at the deep wound in her left buttock, then up at Reeve. She sneered.

  Reeve shook her head. “Darn it. Seriously. What is it with your butt?”

  “We will have your world, half-orc. All of your worlds.”

  “Sorry, Real Dusk, if you’re in there.” Reeve swung her naginata and struck the side of the half-elf’s head with the shaft.

  You bludgeon Dusk with a naginata for 13 points of damage. Dusk is unconscious.

  “OK,” Reeve said, “one evil twin down,” she glanced at her logs, “only Leaf and Bunce left fighting the enslaved souls,” she looked in the direction Helia and Dawn had fled, “and that…”

  Helia and Dawn had stopped their flight after only a few dozen yards, as they’d found themselves barred by a three-yard high wall of bees that stretched along the water’s edge, across the bank, and into the plane. Walter appeared to be sending swarms of bees through the wall into the army of elves on the other side, an army that seemed to quickly be losing its previous well-organized regimentation. Reeve watched Helia and Dawn use some sort of fire magic to combat the bees targeting them. The elf and her daughter appeared to be making headway, but it was clearly slow. Reeve wondered if she’d be able to get to them before they noticed her.

  Something large, heavy, and warm pressed itself down on Reeve’s shoulder. She looked up—way up—into the eyes of a giant, whose hand raised and then lowered to pat her with nearly shoulder-dislocating force. “I untied the skunk,” the giant said with a voice so low it made the twiceling’s seem falsetto. “Where’s your father?”

  Biting her lip, and glancing toward the group of MMO players watching through the ring of smoke, a group now numbering two or three dozen, Reeve pointed to the halfling who was drawing hive-trees from his Inventory, launching their contents at elves, casting the trees aside into quickly growing piles, and repeating the process as quickly as he could, which, Reeve had to be honest, was pretty fast.

  “Are those bees?” The giant said. “?Dios mío!”

  Reeve nodded.

  Between sending swarms, the halfling looked in their direction, and Wanda lifted her hand from Reeve’s shoulder to wave at her husband. The halfling froze, stared at the half-orc and giant for a few seconds, and then offered a tentative reply wave. He looked back toward his protective wall, which seemed to be doing a highly effective job of keeping back an increasingly panicked army of elves, and turned back toward Reeve and Wanda to trot in their direction.

  “Hola, mi amor,” Wanda rumbled as he approached.

  Walter smiled as he stopped in front of them. “The bird thing worked well.”

  “Thanks,” Wanda said, one of her enormous hands making a waving motion to dismiss the comment but clearly pleased. She leaned forward and patted Walter on his bottom, which sent him sprawling face-first at their feet.

  Reeve glanced again at the MMO players, one of whom, a human mage, was pointing at them as she talked with a dwarf next to her. Reeve covered her face. Feeling the leviathan grasp her by the ankle and begin to pull her into a black hole from which she might not escape, she remembered a mantra she’d never before tried to apply to the problem of her parents.

  The more I let them go, she thought, the better I will feel.

  After a few seconds, she uncovered her face and looked at her father, who was back on his feet.

  “What are you doing!?” The calm she’d been desperately grasping for already forgotten, she thought she might explode.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “This used to make you laugh, Evie,” Walter said, as he pumped his knees high, robe billowing frantically. “When I’d do the Jogging Man dance thing you learned in that class you took, you know, before your… it just…it looked like you could use a laugh.”

  Reeve held both sides of her head. “It made me laugh…when we were at home, alone, and I was six, and I could still do it too.” She looked at the MMO players, a few of whom were bent over, hands on knees, laughing. She looked back at her father. “And that is not the Running Man, that is running in place.”

  Walter looked down at the halfling knees he was pumping high into the air. “Yeah, Running Man.”

  “No!” Reeve thrust her naginata into her mother’s giant hand and began shuffling her half-orc feet. “This! This is the Running Man!”

  Walter frowned as he watched her slide her feet across the ground, her motion effortless, then looked down at his own legs, which, as far as Reeve could tell, were doing some sort of aerobics high-knees exercise.

  Walter looked back up at her. “I don’t see how it’s different.”

  Reeve looked skyward for a moment in frustration, and when her gaze dropped, it landed beyond Walter, and she found herself staring at the MMO players. Two of them were now standing with their backs to the portal and to Reeve, arms around each other’s shoulders. They were clearly live streaming, the POV of the stream capturing them, the portal, and, in their background, Reeve and her parents. They’re describing the scene behind them, she thought. Making funny comments about me. Taking snapshots for memes. Wondering why I’m here. Why I ever thought I could fight an army of elves. Who the halfing and the giant are.

  Reeve realized that she’d stopped shuffling.

  Months of omnipresent but vague fears condensed. Infinite paths into the future, her future, collapsed into only one.

  This is how the life I’d hoped for dies, she thought.

  As she stared at the MMO players, that path came into sharper focus. Within minutes of Helia walking through the portal, Reeve would be banned from the game, booted before they’d even reached the automatic logout. She’d spend the night closing her social media accounts as they lit up with horrifying news, anger, mockery, and threats from around the nex, her parent not understanding any of it, except maybe the actual reporters who would begin knocking on her door the next day, maybe even that night. She wouldn’t go to school, wouldn’t answer messages from her friends. If there were any messages. If there were still any friends. She’d finish school remotely, maybe through a different school, find a remote-only job for which you only needed a high school degree, probably in customer service, spend her work days taking calls from angry idiots who’d treat her like she wasn’t human. Most of them would probably assume she was a poorly crafted AI. But, at least they wouldn’t know who she was. That kid. The one who was too incapable to stop a global catastrophe.

  She’d apparently been staring at the MMO players long enough that, even with the difference in the game modes’ speeds, they’d noticed. Some were pointing at her. Some turned to each other, talking. The distance silenced their words, but she could imagine them.

  Walk away, she thought. This fight is already lost. The life you wanted was a nice dream, but it’s dead. Accept it. Quit pretending you’re capable of handling any of this. Leave with whatever dignity you still have. Go and start hiding from the world like you will for the rest of your life.

  Something cold pressed against her biceps, and Reeve looked down at the dull black metal shaft of her naginata, held gently against her, an offering from her mother.

  She took her weapon.

  Reeve had been sure she was quitting. Now she was not certain.

  Reeve looked up into the giant’s eyes.

  “You’ll need that, Mija, no?” Wanda said, voice quiet, at least for a giant.

  Reeve looked at her mother, uncertain.

  “You know I don’t condone violence, Mija,” the giant looked toward Helia, “but that...that…”

  The silence stretched for a moment, and Reeve was fairly certain her mother’s own internal profanity filter was saving the game’s filter some work. Apparently a lot of work.

  Wanda settled on a rumbling grow. “…just stop her.”

  Reeve dropped her gaze to her halfling father, who was still trying to shuffle and had started sweating. Under her critical gaze, the halfing pumped his knees higher.

  “You are never going to stop, are you?” She said.

  Walter looked at her with some concern. “Even with this limber halfling body,” he gasped, “I doubt I can keep this up all that long.”

  “No, I meant you being you, doing the things you do.” Being Luddites, Reeve thought. And helping me when I don’t want help. And embarrassing me all the time. And dying for me, over and over and over. Reeve felt a stab of regret and wondered if she’d miss some of those things someday. It might have felt like she’d be trapped with her parents in the game forever, but…IRL, parents weren’t around forever. She looked down at her half-orc in a whitewater robe smeared with blood. She bobbed on the balls of her feet for a moment and then shuffled another few imagined beats, the robe bouncing in time. She snorted. She looked at the MMO players, and one was clapping his elfin hands above his head, the motion slow due to the discrepancy in the game modes’ speeds. Reeve looked back to her father, who finally stopped running.

  She laughed.

  He looked concerned.

  “You OK, Honey?” Walter said.

  “Me?” Reeve said, her voice high. “OK? No, not really. I may be losing my mind. Surprised I made it this long, actually. But, I realized you’re not going to change. You’re not going to get any better at this.”

  “The Running Man?” Walter said, his brow furrowed as he started to run in place again.

  “The shuffling, the game, technology, everything I want…wanted…my life to be,” Reeve looked up at the sky, across which she watched one errant bee making its way to join its brethren in their fight. “But, it doesn’t matter.” She looked to her mother, then her father. “You’re living your life, and I’m living mine. And you’re not trying to ruin it—“

  “We’re just doing the best we can for you, Evie,” Walter said.

  “I know.” She stood, panting from the shuffling, bouncing the shaft of her naginata in her curled fingers, the metal already warming in her hand. “Listen. I’m gonna go kill an elf possessed by a malicious AI. You two fling bees and look after badgers you think are skunks and whatever else you can do to keep this fight to just me, Helia, and evil Dawn, OK?”

  Walter looked up to Wanda, where she towered above him. He looked back at Reeve. “We could come with you, Evie,” he said quietly, as though to keep the distant MMO players from hearing. “We’re always there to help you, you know, out there.” He pointed to the sky. “We can be in here too.”

  Reeve shook her head. “I may need you out there sometimes. Maybe a lot more of the time than I’d like. But that’s why I need to be on my own in here. Maybe here it’s easier to find myself, you know?”

  The halfling and giant nodded at their daughter.

  “Thanks,” Reeve said. She turned and broke into a run, her path arcing toward Helia and Dawn’s blind side.

  Walter and Wanda Williams watched their daughter’s half-orc avatar sprint across the plane. “All those clichés about how fast they grow up,” Walter said, “they really are true. One day she’s eating pureed peas in the highchair and then the next…” Walter looked around them for several seconds, taking in the chaos, the crumpled bodies, the screaming elves, the bees. “Well, anyway…now, we have to let her figure things out on her own. I may have lost sight of that a little bit when she got hurt, in real life.” He looked up at his wife. “They call that IRL.”

  Wanda ran a massive thumb along her moist cheek, while a drop of mucus the size of a watermelon fell onto Walter’s head, knocking him to the ground.