Gauntlet

Chapter 2

"Watch your right, C!" The angered monster was coming up rapidly on my friend. At the sound of my warning, his character quickly dodged the attack. King and I ran to the beast from the side hitting and slicing our way into the monster as much as we could before we had to dodge as well. We had gotten the boss' health bar halfway down and it had only been about 20 minutes since we started.

"Did this bitch's health just go up?" Willow asked, clearly exasperated.

"Please tell me you are just seeing things." King pleaded. We were all tired of this monster already because of its relentlessness, and a sudden health regeneration would make us lose whatever encouragement we had.

"Oop, yeah I'm seeing things."

"Bruh."

"It's about to jump, be careful!" Widow dodged to the corner of the room, luring the demon her way whilst Kingsley steadily fired at its face with his dual guns.  Because the monster was preoccupied, I took the opportunity to run headfirst into the beast, activating one of my key abilities and striking its weak point from below as it leaped over my character. I hastily turned around and charged at it again, this time from behind. King joined me, and we both sliced at its dewy skin, earning us a rage filled howl.

"He's almost gone! Just a little bit more guys!" I was excited now. Hitting that weak spot brought the monster's health down significantly low. There was only a sliver of health remaining above its head. We gave the devil all we had, slicing, shooting, punching; anything we could do to kill it until it finally fell to the ground in a slump. We all watched as it slowly disappeared, its skin burning off into flakes of ash and floating away.

"Ayyyeee we didn't die!" C said after a long, silent pause, causing all of us to laugh. Soon, rare loot for completing the raid was added to our inventory and we were automatically teleported to the entrance gates.

"Thank you guys for letting me join. I had fun. I have to go, but maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." King walked up to us as if his avatar was talking to ours.

"Of course! Hope to see you around man!" Kingsley responded, followed by a goodbye from the other two.

"Bye King." I pitched in.

My mood shifted as soon as he left. I should have asked him if I could send a friend request at least. Not only was he a nice guy, but it had been a long time since our little friend group meshed so well with anyone in the game. Usually, if we needed a fifth player, we'd have someone join, but it always ended up being an asshole, or someone that didn't truly know what they were doing.

After turning my console off, I slipped into bed. The stress of the day had finally weighed down on me once again, and I wanted nothing more than to sleep it off. My phone chimed before I could fall asleep entirely. I rolled over so that I could tap it, the bright light immediately blinding me. A few seconds later I was able to make out the message on my screen.

CtheKing sent you a friend request. Accept or decline?

As excited as I was, my drowsiness had the upper hand. I sleepily opened the console's app and accepted the request before falling into a deep sleep.

-

The next morning I was dreading the day as usual. It was a Wednesday. For some reason Wednesdays made me feel weird. They made me feel stuck like I was trapped in between the start of the week and the end of the week, which wasn't entirely wrong. Regardless, it was a day packed with two mundane classes and a lack of social interaction until the nighttime.

As soon as my eyes opened, my thoughts went to King; the expensive gamer with the desirable voice. I wondered if the attractive voice matched a handsome face. I would probably never know. Whenever I pictured him in my head I saw a blurred out face with a literal question mark on it. It was probably as close as I'd ever get to seeing him.