Jacob walked out into the white, palace gardens, where the fox-cat was leaping around. In the fresh sunlight. It suddenly turned itself into a little golden ball of fire and giggled, causing Jacob to start; less at the transformation and more at the human-sounding voice and laugh. Outside the castle walls, everything was in ruin and decay. Rain-mist mingled with the demon smoke that emanated like a black, billowing cloud from all the giant, monstrous beings who roamed everywhere. The beings were tormenting all the (hopefully) virtual people as they shrieked in agony. You could see it all from the castle windows and from the gardened balcony upon which he now stood. Silver and yellow grass and pretty, pale stones were at his feet and all the white-leaved, black willows loomed above him.

  He should have realised finding the so-called, elusive, little Fox-kitty had been too easy. He had been expecting some grand quest but as soon as he located the healing spot where he had been told it would sometimes come to drink, he had spotted it. Despite that healer when he first arrived having proclaimed it to be such a rare and glorious sight. It had run up to him like an old friend. Purring and preening and even jumping onto his head from a tree, which thankfully, didn’t hurt.

  Although he had experienced some pain from minor wounds and the like since being transported here. Discomfort and even pain didn’t appear to be numbed in quite the same way that it was, in a standard virtual reality game. “The little sadists are clearly behind it, they would want everyone to suffer,” he muttered and grumbled. The pair or the hacker who made them, had lured him to the castle undoubtedly to torment him or even kill him. He wasn’t sure if they could truly hurt him, but he wasn’t too keen on finding out either.

  As Jacob walked away, past that last little patch of greenery and back into the castle, things seemed to waver. As he roamed further down the hall, suddenly its walls abruptly changed back into a little valley in the outside world. He was standing just a little outside of the lowland place where you could find the strange, ridable, flying panthers who took you up to the sky castle. A friendly stranger had informed him this was the only way to visit the King and Queen. Now as he again, stood outside the safety of the castle, the rain-mist swirled everywhere. It pulled at him with all its strange, grasping, spirit hands that had suddenly before his eyes, formed. The Shadow Beast with its great, weeping eyes flew at him with outstretched claws…

  Even realizing it wasn’t real, didn’t stop the fear and he near-screamed when he saw the trail of blood dripping from his chest and turning into a great, red sea. The castle walls suddenly reappeared in their grand, stone glory but the wound remained, and just as he was panicking, the wound too, disappeared.

  Very funny Royal Brats, he thought in disgust.

  As he walked past Ember’s room yet again, he heard Felton, Mist, whoever he was, speaking.

  “Look, Shiv, we didn’t ask to be part of Aryan’s revolution… I don’t care about politics or political wars. Being a bioweapon is beyond cool and all but…”

  “I have mixed feelings about the politics myself, Mist, but I love…"

  Jacob’s heart pounded, confused. Was she going to say she loved Aryan? He didn’t remember much about him other than that he was the IT scientist who made the Monovalent, Virtual AI and later founded a political organization or something. He had some strange, populist ideas and some of the girls he knew thought he was handsome. Particularly for an older guy.

  "Yeah well, he doesn’t love you my little sleeping beauty, he prefers women with more age and experience and less brain power than even you have.” Felton was now saying this to what sounded like a protesting, near-sob, from Ember.

  He tried to listen in some more, but they appeared to have stopped speaking. As he was walking, he realized how strange it was that he kept having the urge to use the bathroom at all, mostly that was left out of virtual stories. The hackers must have thought it was amusing to make him need to go and then not grant him access to an easy-to-find bathroom. Petty, spiteful little…The words caught in his throat as he reminded himself, that they were not just childish pranksters but full-blown psychos and possibly murderers.

  At dinner that night, they were all eating succulent ribs and Jacob had to admit they were quite delicious.

  “Do you want to know more about us? Like how we killed everyone at the Wrighthouse school?” Felton asked nonchalantly. “We can send you more virtualizers we made.”

  Jacob didn’t answer, he merely paled and sat whitely in his seat.

  “Well, not everyone, we didn’t kill everyone,” Ember spoke up, softly. Jacob was startled to see a certain, genuine sadness in her face and a tear in her eye.

  “Oh right, yeah. Ambrose killed himself on account of how everyone was rightly bullying and tormenting him. They told him to take his life again and again till he finally did it.”

  “You tormented him,” Jacob asked.

  “Us? No. It was our classmates. You know, all the dead ones.”

  Jacob looked over, to where Ember was still looking guilty and glum.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Felton finally noticed her somewhat ravaged expression and spoke.

  “Pay no mind to Queen Ember, she had a bit of a thing for Ambrose. She was oddly protective of him. Despite the fact that he was utterly boring and as ugly as some bloated, blubber fish. Basically, he thought she was cute, and Ember likes everyone who thinks she is cute.”

  Jacob soon realized that he had just found a way he could both be honest and get on Ember’s good side.

  “I think, she is cute too.”

  Ember smiled. “Thanks, Jacob.”

  “By the way," she said in a friendly tone, “we cannot actually kill you if you were worried about that. We aren’t allowed to use our virus-infecting abilities anymore or Aryan will, He will….”

  Felton’s face suffused with rage. “let’s just say, we’re under contract. We got away with killing people before because we were supposed to kill a set number of human beings anyway, to deal with overpopulation. Since Aryan is an ecofascist nutjob. Obsessed with carbon footprints. We just managed to make some of our slayings, a little less random. but Aryan’s watching us like some great, old hawk now.” Felton who had temporarily seemed greatly angered became once again, relaxed. Elatedly swirled some basting sauce around on his plate.

  “See Aryan cottoned on, figured out our little game as he called it, eventually. I mean it wasn’t our fault: we were made to be killers and sociopaths. Otherwise, our creators reckoned we would go mad over the awful, awful things we have to do.” Felton grinned wolfishly. Then turned to Queen Ember.

  “I don’t know why she is being so mopey. She has been using her virus powers to infect people since she was a child. Like seven years old. Her kill count is legendary. Or should be.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose back then. Monovalent was actually the one who infected all those teachers and children who beat or hurled abuse at me and thought I was creepy and weird. They recognized that there was something different about me, I guess. But they were also just a bunch of giant asses. The AI is fond of us, he was just trying to protect me.”

  “You are creepy and weird,” Felton informed her. You’re also not human and therefore a trillion times better than any of the hideous, weak, and gross bints and brats Monovalent handled with great efficiency. Also, we killed everyone at the Wrighthouse on purpose. Maybe you were once an innocent kid, maybe, but you were a demonic, little beauty just like me, by the time you reached your awkward adolescence.”

  “You two in your real forms, went to the same school,” Jacob asked.

  “No, not a first. We went to different schools and were supposed to join Aryan’s pointless, political cause when we hit leaving age but then the old codger got sick, like frail humans always do. In our home country, you can technically leave at fifteen. Yet if you’re under eighteen you have to be either working, in an apprenticeship, or attending school. So, we signed up to study at some voluntary, schooling unit for adolescents with mental health problems on account of my autism and her depression. Stayed for a year. Then everyone died. Oops.”

  "You aren't human at all?" Jacob asked.

  "No, We are immortal viruses with a human shape. Connected to a supercomputer AI," Felton proclaimed proudly. Haughtiness emanating from his every pore.

  "Or maybe we are just trickster hackers," Ember suggested with a smile. For a moment in the grand feast hall, there was dead silence amid the sound of those constant screams and shrieks coming from outside the castle. Hollers that played almost in time to the great, musical chimings that drifted upon this world's rain-misted wind.

  "Hey, King Felton remember the time we reviewed all the Wrighthouse students’ terrible poetry?” Ember spoke up suddenly and joyously as she plucked a lovely piece of golden fire hair out of her prettily-innocent eye.

  “Yes,” Felton laughed. He then snapped his fingers, and Jacob was back in the virtualiser.

  Welcome to the OCEMA

  Mist: Ava delights us with her poetry again today. However, I think she should spend more time worrying about her falling out hair.

  Shiver: to be fair we only got the virus to damage the follicles in a few strands so far. She hasn’t lost much hair yet. I still can’t believe we can make the virus not only kill but multiply in, and damage any part of the body we like. This is the neatest supervillain power ever. It was supposed to work this way so we could control the spread and make their deaths as quick, efficient, and painless as possible. Supposed to.

  Mist. So Ava has written (by hand) another two poems to (Ethan we presume) the first one is about his suspected and now confirmed, cheating. The other is concerning their break-up. It’s a real charmer this second one and guess what? It’s as saccharine and sentimental as you could dare dream Shiver! Angels, sunshine, and the rose, no less, are all here.

  Wondering

  You’re gone away and I wonder are you with someone?

  I promise to forget and forgive, I won’t let myself run

  Others might disapprove yet stop trying is what uncaring ones clam

  You’re even more important to me than achieving fame

  You have gone away all we have is Holo-mail, or Realm-call

  I need you here when I fall

  Mist: Well, that was… short. Okay, clearly we can see here that she’s so distraught she forgot to use her mono-dictionary to scan for fancy words. However, she’s back on form in the breakup poem.

  Shiver: Even more important to her than fame, what a compliment. That line despite how insipid it sounds would almost be sweet if it wasn’t so blatantly untrue. Also, uncaring ones clam? Well, I guess she got four of the five letters in claim right, so partial credit, and well, I’d clam up too if I were forced to interact with the Neanderthals she does, or her for that matter.

  Love gone.

  Dressed still in my princess gown I stand melancholy

  Wandering do you gaze gloriously on your new brown-eyed angel?

  Feel she’s incandescent moonbeams cutting through lustrous orange trees?

  I am a midnight sun bright yet dark

  Tears bedazzled my resplendent blue eyes

  Over the roses in the garden, a raven serendipitously sings

  To this alive unhappy rose who opened her petals for you

  You want lots of young girl’s straight hair or her bouffant curls

  Love cutting through organs as my life it mares and scares

  Yet you lost a most precious thing!

  Me the love of your life

  Tell me did you really win?

  Mist: I think I can say with complete and utter self-assurance that yes, yes, he did win.

  Shiver: Mares and scares that’s amazing, I feel utter joy just gazing at it. I think she means it mars and scars, that’s a good song she just (presumably unknowingly) ripped off. I’m also confused, is she a rose or sun? Christ, where did all this “midnight sun” garbage come from? God the line alive, unhappy rose is truly ghastly. Also, the word cutting and organs no less, in a love poem?

  Some wishful thinking about him being on the rebound here… when in fact his sleazy indifference is painfully obvious, I bet three years from now he doesn’t even remember her name.

  Mist: Three years? I give him a year and a half tops after leaving this hell-house before he goes Ava who? Oh her, I remember now, for a second, I thought she was called Ashley! To be fair in three years Ava probably won’t remember Ethan either. She’ll be writing sappy love poems to an Aiden, Jacob or Riley, or all three.

  A disclaimer from Virtualiser.com: The opinions expressed by little miss malcontent Shiver are not necessarily shared by us Virtualiser.com, though whether that actually could be considered reassuring to anyone considering our credentials is dubious.

  Jacob was transported back to reality with a sudden, sickening lurch and he could hear the Royal Brats laughing in the background.