Light shone, but Minoru had no intention of waking yet. Rolling in her sheets, she smeared her eyes against her pillow, grabbing as much darkness as she could. It had been a long time since she had such a pleasant, light dream, and now, all she wanted was to bask in that pleasant warmth again. Her alarm was set for 6 AM, and it couldn’t be past that yet. She’d get up after it rang.

Time passed as she laid there, becoming more and more restless as minutes ticked away. Napping longer was good. It was even great. But what if she fell asleep and then couldn’t wake up even after the alarm rang? What if she forgot to set the alarm last night? It wouldn’t hurt to look at her clock, just to gauge how much she could commit to sleeping longer.

She rolled over and opened one eye carefully.

There was no clock. The walls were wood. The sun shone soft. No cars sounded outside. Her cheap curtains were missing from a window that was much larger than what she had before. There were bright, beautiful flowers bundled up in an expensive vase by the window, and her bed was so much larger than the cheap, DIY twin-sized bed she purchased two years ago.

Minoru’s first instinct was to jump up into a sitting position, pulling the sheets up over her body. Where the hell was she? Whose bed was this? Did she have clothes on? Yes, thank god for that. Didn’t recognize them, but…what did she even do last night? Think, think. Drinking, but she remembered coming home later. Wait, why [i]didn’t[/i] she have a hangover? Was this kidnapping? Her phone, oh god, she needed to Google maps her way out of this cabin and get to work. Her eyes scanned the room, and she spotted a wardrobe easily enough. Scampering off the plush bed, Minoru stormed towards the wardrobe and practically tossed it open, hoping for…

[b]“Oh, this is bad.”[/b]

This could be the actual worst. These weren’t the clothes of some muscular lumberjack. These weren’t even the clothes of some off-grid hippie. These were child-sized clothing that looked like they all came from a cosplay photoshoot, from frilly coats to fabulous hats to gorgeously colored cloaks to amazingly cute shorts to a whole bunch of things that Minoru definitely could NOT wear on the Tokyo line. Hell, that wasn’t even her first concern. Her first one would be…did she end up sleeping with a minor?

No. She reached for her throat and felt that strange bulge. She looked at her hands, and realized they were much paler than she remembered, much smaller as well. Fingers combed her hair, coming away with silky silver strands. The memories came back. How cute it was, that limited edition Red Riding Hood outfit. How nice and dainty it was, to be a small cute kid who fought monsters so bravely. How little it made sense now. On a whim, Minoru pulled out the Menu.

…

Of course the Log Out option didn’t work. As expected, none of her friends were online either.

Slowly, she sank to the floor, hugging her knees with her too-thin arms. Minoru always knew the world didn’t need her, but to be shunted into a game she hadn’t touched in five years? That was even worse. Yeah, that’s what it was.

This was the worst.
[hr]
It wasn’t like there was any particular reason for him to get up. No real motivation behind it, no particular drive that propelled him out of his comfy little house. It was just that, after ten minutes or so of crawling into a little ball, his butt was sore from sitting on the hard floor and he figured that it was probably a good thing to look around after all. Even if no one else shared his plight, confirmation that civilization existed was a good thing, right?

Right.

With that, Ewan pushed open the doors of his house and into the blinding light of…nature. Just nature. Nature of the wild kind, nature of the savage kind, nature of the ‘monsters will be here’ kind. Of course. After five years, the developers WOULD have changed the world map a bit, wouldn’t they? So there was no civilization nearby and his house was in the middle of nowhere. It was enough to bring a tear and a chuckle to the Halfling.

Then he picked up a rock and hurled it against a tree, leaving a dent in the bark as the rock ricocheted into the deep grass.

Nothing more to it than to walk, that’s for sure.