[color=red]ScarletRain
[u]Day 16 - Night - Level 15[/u]
[@Tracyarmav][@BlackPanther]

Scarlet found enough momentum in her movements to keep moving forward for the next few hours. The sun turned the desert turf a reddish hue around her as she sliced her way through beetle, scorpion, and the like. Her hair seemed to blend into the environment almost, like a fire shining as brightly as her passionate fury. Even in the darkness, she seemed to glow as her axe glinted in the moon's soft glow. After about three hours, she was burnt out and stopped where she was. Fresh tears rolled silently down her cheeks as she glared toward the dark ground. [i]Damn it all... Those damn old geezers and their damn opinions and their damn big mouths...![/i] She was frustrated, but by this point her temperament had cooled down into pure exhaustion. After all, she'd been out here fighting most of the day. Her stomach ached with hunger, and now she realized it would be a good five or six hours to reach Bull's Run, again. Not only that, but she'd have to fight through hoards of monsters that she had cleared to get here.

The gorge seemed to run on forever as she pushed forward. Why were things so far apart in this game? It was convenient being to teleport in other games - Scarlet hoped they would have the opportunity to do so later as they progressed in SAO. For now though, she decided to take a break before the monsters in this area respawned. Sniffling, she dug her axe into the hard ground and sat leaning against it, holding her knees to her chest. It was strangely cold out here at night, though not surprisingly she was still extremely parched. It was still a dry landscape, after all. After taking a small drink of water from her inventory, Scarlet buried her face into her knees in an effort to stop the tears. [i]Crying is useless...[/i] After all, nobody ever came to her aid when she cried. All those times she cried alone in her bedroom, nobody even knew. Or they didn't care.

However, just as Scarlet was starting to feel that same biting loneliness from the previous evening creep up on her, she heard a noise in the distance. Her head immediately perked up, alert. [i]Now that I think about it... Where am I...?[/i] She had barely looked at where she was going as she blasted her way through here. You could say it was almost like she had been throwing a tantrum, but this time an adult wasn't around to stop her so she kept going until she got tired. In a way. Now she knew she was deep into the gorge, but were there any closer towns? Or maybe... maybe she could reach that hidden dungeon she'd heard rumors about? [i]I'm almost level 16, after that... That's a pretty high level compared to a lot of people. I could probably give it a shot...[/i] If there was one thing she was, it was confident. Even in a game like this, she knew how to hone her abilities and had done so well. [i]I don't have much food left on me... But I can't imagine a dungeon being too far from a town. Maybe I could finish the dungeon and then head toward the town... I'd be the first one there.[/i] The thrill of it kind of excited her. [i]One more adventure for the night to take my mind off of everything.[/i]

Feeling a bit better, Scarlet wiped the tears away and leapt to her feet. Just as she was about to move forward though, her heart sunk. [i]That's right... It's said that you gotta travel two or three days, at least, to reach the dungeon...[/i] Well that was a bummer. What would she do, now? [i]Guess I'll just have to make it back to Bull's Run. I can't set up camp out here by myself.[/i] Suddenly, she heard the noise again, this time a bit louder. [i]What... What is that?[/i] She was alert once more as she picked up her axe to squint into the darkness. [i]Monsters...?[/i]

Out of nowhere, a huge gush of wind seemed to burst up from the ground, swirling dirt and rocks around as it slammed into Scarlet's petite frame. A gasp instantly escaped her lips as she clung to her axe, attempting to stay grounded with it. However, the dirt quickly dislodged the axe from the ground and the tornado-like gusts carried her up into the air. Her heart raced with fear as she yelped, spinning and thrashing through space. She couldn't tell up from down anymore, and her body became scratched and bruised as the rocks hit her at the same painful speed of the wind. It wasn't by much, but her HP was declining bit by bit. [i]I... It hurts...![/i]

Suddenly, the wind stopped, as if turned off by a switch, and Scarlet felt herself falling through darkness. It was hard to see anything around her, especially as disoriented as she was. Before she knew it her body was crashing into hard rock. It didn't stop, though. The momentum continued as she tossed and rolled, her HP continuing to decline bit by bit as she fell into the chasm of unknown terrors. Her body ached as sharp rocks dug into her ribs, scraped her knees, and such. Flying dirt blinded her eyes even more, and all she could find the will to do was scream with pain. [i]It hurts...! It hurts![/i] A game wasn't supposed to hurt. Games weren't supposed to be frightening (at least not the ones that she enjoyed). Games weren't supposed to be lonely. Games weren't supposed to be able to kill you.

Everything ended as quickly as it begun - in an instant. She felt something sharp jab her in the eye, then something warm followed... and then a cold, hard surface blocked her path. Everything was even darker than before, and she groaned, trying to get a grip on what had happened. The area [i]reeked[/i]. Everything ached. [i]What was that...? A sort of game defense system...?[/i] It made sense. Some games set up barriers for when you wandered too far toward the edge of the designated player-allowed areas. Usually anything past the barrier was undeveloped or non-existent. In her panic, that was all Scarlet could think that possibly was. Even so, she was in bad shape. Her body felt bruised, scraped, and mangled. Thankfully, her HP was only in the yellow. But where was she?

A sharp pain rushed to the right side of her head as she tried to open her eyes, and she let out an involuntary scream. [b]"Aagh!!!"[/b] Her hand immediately reached for her eye, which was covered in some sort of warm liquid. [i]Blood...[/i] Fear gripped her as she realized that a rock had actually punctured her eye. Blood covered half of her face, dripping through her fingers before evaporating into pixels. [i]Oh... Oh my god...[/i] Although she was afraid, she knew that she needed to know where she was in case monsters were around. So Scarlet carefully opened her left eye to scan the area around her. No monsters. But she did see two dark shadows against the moonlight, along with another small dark shadow. They seemed to have noticed her. Something in her chest panicked. [i]M-Monsters...[/i] Her body ached too much to move, though. Fear shook her from head to toe as she struggled to sit up, only to fall over and groan, once more. That cocky teenage confidence from before had now shriveled into the fear and desperation of a child. [i]S-Someone... Help...[/i][/color]