Euphony Of Blurred Lines

A shrill shriek of a bull echoed from the tree trunks of the dense forest, as Erin's ears perked lightly in interest. Raising his head from the bush he hid in, he heard the bellows of a boy - a rather loud one, at that. So loud, his own prey scurried away in fear. Mentally sighing, Erin got up from his bush, irely hopping towards the source of the sound sagaciously.

"Fucking stay still, you mutated excuse for an orgasm!" a boy fought verbally, as the exceptionally large bull tried to charge into his body.

"I think you mean, organism," Erin bluntly corrected, as he mentally typed in the chat. Emerging from the tree behind the boy, he activated his mask to hide his face, lean figure lightly stepping towards him. The virtual message swiped into the boy's vision, indicating he's opened and read it.

Do I help, or do I kill? Erin considered in his cognisance.

"Am I in a spelling class, you little twink?"

Well, that answers that.

Drawing out his rapier, he flicked his wrist gently. The light glimmered and glowed against the thin blade, catching the boy's attention.

"Fuck off, I don't need help from a he-she gender confused brat," he spat, inelegantly jumping to avoid the sharp horns.

Erin internally frowned. To even imagine simple-minded people co-exist with the era of virtual reality in the human cognisance made him fairly sick to the stomach. Even beyond that, the insults were childish at best, easy to ignore at worst. He knew better than to conform to a derogatory label based on whatever that player's beliefs are.

"1; You swear too much," Erin messaged, nimbly piercing the bull's heart with a single strike, leaping to avoid the bull falling atop him. "And, 2; I'm not helping you."

The bull's body dematerialised, shards of XP slipping out of its body, orbiting around Erin.

"What do you mean, you aren't? You just killed my prey!" Uriel aggravatedly flailed his arms in the air.

"If it were yours, it wouldn't be roaming in an unterritorial region," Erin calmly answered, lightly flicking his wrists, rapier glimmering again.

"Oh, so we got a smart mouth? You wanna go, is that it?"

"No, but you will be." Erin typed, deciding to pull off his mask, watching it dematerialise. Anyone could tell Uriel was new, even in if it were pitch black outside. It would be an easy kill. "Remember my face, 'V'," Erin passively replied, typing the boy's username out. Erin stabbed his own hand, facing it towards the nonchalant boy. Slight panic infiltrated his frame. The graphics were terrifyingly real, and Uriel would only ever admit it just this once.

The red matched the slight hue in the corner of the painting on his wall. Beautiful.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

Three steps in, and V was three steps out. He backed away as the player named 'Blue' approached him. Blue. Where had he heard that name before? He pondered, but he could only think so deep when a forty three inch blade was threatening to pierce him.

Blue.

Blue; a lone hue. A cold shade.

Blue.. I remember now.

"Aren't you that lone player? You really think you're all that, playing solo, don't you?"

"I'd much rather be solo than carry your dead weight."

Uriel clicked his tongue in amusement, cocking his head arrogantly.

"Just as I thought. How fucking sad. Do you really think you're at the top with a few bars of experience? Or that it means anything elsewhere?" Uriel scoffed. "It means nothing. You have nothing." Erin raised a brow, taken aback by the lack of discipline in a rather mature looking person. Even Uriel felt like a rebelling child, but his brain gushed out anything and everything like word vomit. "I could beat you in mere days, for the fun of it. Tester, bet. You probably spent the whole year this game was released trying to get that level up, you weed. Get off your high horse and out your room, shut-in nerd."

Oh, that hit a nerve. Such poisonous words were almost sang, with that deep voice of his. Mellifluous, even. Venomous words spoken almost sounded childish, bratty. Almost easy to ignore; though, Erin was never good at that. He was a sensitive soul, one who took everything to heart. Either V was an early bloomer or madly immature. V spat and smeared words around even if he were in the face of danger, which he indefinitely is.

Would it actually hurt? Could he see his own blood? If he shifted his body, could he feel the rapier rearranging his organs?

"Is it not past your bedtime? How about I escort you home?" Erin remained passive, now barely a metre away from V. A single bead of sweat trickled down V's forehead, which momentarily threw him off guard. Who knew you could sweat in this game, too.

"Don't even bother telling me what to do."

"Remember this." Erin stabbed V in the leg, not even fitting in time to muster a blink. The agile boy before him shoved the blade in deeper, and V got his answer. It stung. It stung to the point where it hurt. Of course, not ever comparable to the real thing, but it felt like millions of needles prodding into his skin. Not even a second later, his blade skimmed V's joints in his arms, rendering him unable to lift anything past his elbow. Floppy arms fell limp, as thick tears of saline solute armoured his eyes. Stab after stab, V fell to the ground, physically unable to move a finger, but he himself did say that he never needed to, and that everything was given to him on a golden platter.

To think that death could come on a golden platter too.

Crystalline orbs of perplexed pain rolled down his cheeks, but never did he once let out a sliver of sound, not once begging. With a dark glint in his rounded eyes, Erin morphed his mouth into a sinister smile. It was as if everything went in slow motion, as V watched the blade sink lower and lower, growing warmer to his body. A stab straight to the heart, piercing through the tree he was shoved against.

V's body began to rot, small sparks of XP emitted by his body. A thirteen second timer hovered above his still body, as Erin watched, like he was casually watching TV. Yawned. Fiddled with his fingers nonchalantly. Seven seconds remained.

"Mark my words," four seconds remaining.

Three.

Two.

Pulling out his ruby red healing crystal, he smashed it atop V's body, watching him as his wounds healed. Pulling his head up, he smashed it against the thick tree trunk. "I could kill you again, and again, and again, and reincarnate you again, and again, make you experience all types of pain you didn't know you could suffer within the flexible limits of this reality, but that would be a waste of my time. Remember my face, remember my name, V. Remember to never meet my eyes again."

Erin threw a teleport crystal into the air, before chucking the bull meat at V in pity. Facing away from V, he vanished.

Wound by wound, the blood spilt re-entered his weak body, glowing a sky blue before the cuts were no more. Uriel simply laid there, blood seeping nearly as much as he was seething.

Little boy pitied me.

Erin logged off, as the closed faucet of pain began to run violently. Chucking the headset off his head, his midnight black hair flung in all directions. That player served as a grounding, friendly reminder that no matter where he went, he will forever be the weak, diseased boy. All air winded out of his body, clutching at his throat as he struggled to breathe. A strangled groan escaped his mouth, as he felt a liquid arise from the pits of his stomach to the tip of his tongue. A ferocious splatter tore through his oesophagus, blood shooting out of his parting. His briny cries twisted with his blood, creating a mixture worse than venom in his dry mouth. He had officially reached the pinnacle of his life. Experiencing a panic attack because a potential adolescent demeaned him in the silkiest of voices. Pinnacle to be envied.

He felt embarrassed, but he also didn't care.

He wanted out. The finger that desperately reached out to seek the emergency button fell limp, no longer bothered for his own safety, retreating back to his body.

How lucky that a calico cat was in the room, perched against the window. How lucky that he was trained, and knew where to go and what to do. Rae pushed his paws against the red button, immediately alerting doctors and nurses nearby. The flock of footsteps made Erin whimper, shuddering as he heard the screech of the front liners ambushing the once eerily tranquil room.

Hours had passed since.

" - About ten months, Dr Lee. With his neural scans in mind, it's not ideal to-"

A cough ripped apart the quiet air.

The faint voice of a focused doctor grazed Erin's ears, as he flickered his eyes ajar, laced with unease. The light beep of the ECG machine in itself almost made him plummet all over again. He was back to the only place he's ever wanted to run away from.

Dr Lee mumbled quietly to his colleague, sending him off before turning to Erin.

"Oh, Erin, you're awake! How are you feeling?" the sweet faced man fruitfully spoke, eyes holding the warmth of the stars in them.

"You should've minded your own business," Erin dully hummed, eyes boring into the nothingness that is the pitch black sky, not a single star in sight. The doctor flinched, smile wavering faintly.

"Now, Rin. Please, trust in us. We aren't that bad, we promise!" he lightly chuckled, attempting to lift the lachrymal aura. The still boy did not move, nor smile, or even motor a twitch. He simply stared out the window with the stagnant static riddling his body. "I'll give you some alone time, Rin. Please press the button if you need anything at all, okay?" Dr Lee smiled tenderly, promptly stepping out with the doctor trailing close behind him.

The doctor full well knew that Erin didn't press the button; didn't even want to. Alas, he decided against taunting the just-barely-conscious boy.

Erin remained immobile, lifeless, stationary. The ECG machine became a reactant of white noise, the ache of his body being the only thing to embrace him so tightly on this solitary night.

"Mr Blue, I can't tell if you love or hate me," he barely whispered, a few decibels lower and not a single creature could hear his silent cries for help. "Do you love to hate me? Or, perhaps, hate to love me? Whatever that means. I don't really know."

A veil of silence sheerly enclosed the atmosphere. "Or maybe, you're lonely, too. There are no stars out tonight. Did you have your way with my fate so I could keep you company? Am I being used, or being appreciated?"

A heave of a breath hurled out of Erin's lips, voice growing hoarse. "Oh Mr Blue, I wish you could talk, too. I might lose my voice at this rate. If I could run to you, I would. With everything I have. In the meantime, please, wait for me. I have a feeling I might be dropping by very soon," the raven haired male sadly admitted, running out of tears to cry. "Do you think that I have time to love another before I go? Actually, no. That would make me selfish, wouldn't it," he dryly chuckled. "To love them and leave them behind. That's awful." he comprehended, kissing his teeth. "I guess not, then. I probably wouldn't find anyone who tolerates me to begin with; today was more than enough proof of that."

A delicate yawn slipped past his lips, and the rise and fall of his chest decelerated. "I'm sorry, Mr Blue. I think I'm going to fall asleep. Rae will probably be up to keep you company," a long, drawn out breath glided out from his body, uttering a whisper of a sentence. "I'll see you from the earth, or from the stars; goodnight, Mr Blue."

-

V didn't move a muscle. Well, he couldn't. Even if he wanted to. The series of wounds littered across his buff frame were still patching up, but nothing could quite match the livid anger fermenting in every bone of his body. Not only did he get irrefutably floored by the 'he-she' boy, but got pitied, too. That's one of many unacceptable things his sky high ego utterly refused.

The graphics in the game were just too realistic, and Uriel wholeheartedly admitted it now, putting his difficult nature to the side for just a rare moment. From the slits in the skin, the blood gushing out of the wounds, the pain- it was too hyper realistic. Way too realistic. It made his skin crawl, his virtual skin, that is. The mere thought of his virtual skin crawling made his skin crawl - a seldom ceasing paradox. He laid there, quivering, as he allowed all war-like flashbacks to invade his cognisance. No wonder this game is eighteen and over, Uriel pondered. As you may have figured, V is Uriel, Uriel is V; though, the nature of his sharp tongue gave that away with ease.

'V'? Yes; he chose V for victory, though he didn't quite live up to the name. Not quite yet, anyways.

The cerulean blue coating his wounds faded into mere sparkles, revealing the now smooth skin from the once chilling cuts. Distending his hand, he felt his spine shoot with electricity at the measly thought of the agony he experienced minutes ago. Harshly shrugging it off, he jolted upwards, ready to sky rocket his lowly level.

"That was nothing, Blue. I was just shocked, is all. Just you wait," he muttered, fooling no one but himself.

Before taking half a step, black seeped into his vision. Murkiness, yet, he was fully conscious. With a wheeze, he awoke. Awake, but madly confused. He almost didn't know which world was which anymore, but the screech of a slender woman made it all too obvious where he was.

"Kim Uriel. You've been playing for thirty minutes, that's quite enough, now. Get up immediately and attend to your homework." the red lipped lady ordered, void of any genuine worry or affection, thin figure leaning over Uriel's. Her piercing eyes only impossibly further tautened upon the vast difference in his appearance, more so around his arms. "You look like a commoner. Did you get into a fight? You know better than that! What if someone sees?" she frantically yelled, arms pointing at him stiffly. Uriel could only stare, stunned.

"I'm- sorry? I really don't know what happened," he sulked, twiddling his fingers with wide eyes riddled with perplexment.

"You are not leaving this room until those repulsive bruises heal, do you hear me?" she sneered, slamming the door before his son could even reply. His painting shook a little, settling a little tilted to the left. The stars looked a little odd like that, he thought.

Lucky they had pennies to toss around, or they'd have several broken doors clutching the hinges desperately. He couldn't even be fazed by that if he wanted to. The thing that caught every fibre of his attention were the abundance of bruises. Lots, and lots of multihued bruises littered across his previously unblemished body.

He hesitantly poked at one, retreating his hand quickly upon the stinging sensation. As soon as an idea dawned upon him, he fumbled out of the bed, scuttling towards his full length mirror. Articles of clothing were pulled and flung off his body, leaving him in nothing but boxers.

His mouth hung ajar unto the floor, in complete and utter astonishment at the sight before him. Yellow married red to form bruises beaming an aggressive hue, scattered across his once unpolluted torso. He didn't get into a fight; he knew he didn't. There was only one thing that could've caused this, which chilled him to even think about. There was no way that a game caused this - there was only so much reality that could fit into this mould of virtual reality, and he refused to believe that physical pain was one of them. Alas, he was forced to believe this for now; all his bruises were located exactly where he got pierced.

"Is this even legal, anymore?" Uriel mumbled, wincing as he touched the bruise on his chest. And for once, he makes a decent point. The game...It's questionable at best. A burst of loathing and odium penetrated his ragingly swollen veins, clenching his fists in untainted anger, before harshly uttering a sentence with a clenched jaw.

"I am going to end you, Blue."