The Anthologies Saga Volume 1-Pixelations

Dust Blood

At this time, JJ rushed to Keet's side.
"JJ, is he gone?"
JJ looked. "Yea."
"Are you sure?"
JJ did a careful inspection in the woods. "Sí, dude."
Now that he was gone, Keaton felt the Dust Blood overpower every other sense he had. He grabbed his head with his head as his knees buckled. It was getting hard to breathe. "Oh, goodness," he whimpered, his voice raspy and high pitched. "Oh, good golly gracious, what have I done?" Keaton curled up and closed his eyes, praying for the Dust Blood to go away. JJ knelt by his side. "Hombre, you good?"
"What have I done?" That was all Keet could say. "What have I done?"
"What in the Sam Hill is going on?"
Oh, no. JJ turned as Mama was walking down the steps. When she saw Keet, she bolted towards him. "Oh, sweet baby boy." She turned to JJ with wide and confused eyes. "What happened?"
JJ put a hand on Mama's shoulder. "Your kid kicked out someone who wanted to hurt a customer. The guy brought a knife and he broke it."
Mama's expression turned from fear to pride. In her head she thought My Keaton did that? She had to know. "Keet, is that true?"
Keaton looked up at her, tears in his eyes, and nodded. "Did I hurt him?" He asked in a tear choked voice.
Mama shrugged her shoulders. "That doesn't matter. You stood up for a friend. I knew you would. Come here." She wrapped him up in a tight hug and kissed him on the head. From the muffles of her clothes, Keaton could hear "I love you, Keet. So much."

When Anna and Gary met up with Keaton in the woods, they expected him to be chill about it. NPCs meet main characters in the woods all the time- the trope is as old as Pac-Man. Instead, Keet was fidgety and nervous, rocking back and forth on his heels. When he caught sight of them, he backed away a few steps. Anna found that concerning. They weren't going to hurt him.
Gary was searching through his inventory when he saw something that caught his eye. He clicked on it to read the full title. "Devil's Lettuce". Oh hell yeah.
As the weed materialized in his pocket, Anna stepped closer to Keet. "Hey."
"Hi," Keet muttered. "I, uh...didn't think you'd come." He saw Anna's companion and nodded. "Hey, Gary."
"'Sup?" Gary nodded his head. "Look, I heard you've been feeling out of it lately, so I got this." He took the baggie out of his pocket as a grin grew wide on his face. Anastasia stared at her computer screen in disgust. The game has weed? Why?!
Gary opened the bag and got out two blunts. He made it neat for Keaton and handed it to him. Keet examined it suspiciously. "What is this?"
"Not something you should have your hands on," Anna started, reaching for the joint. Gary grabbed her arm and pushed it away. He then turned to Keet and said "Now all you gotta do is inhale and hold. Watch, we'll do it on three."
Gary lit Keaton's blunt, lit his own, and then held it near his lips. "Okay, one...two...three."
Simultaneously, they inhaled the smoke. Gary had done this several times in real life, and since he didn't live there, smoked with ease. Keaton, however, was not used to the sour taste the smoke put in his mouth. It almost made him choke. Key word: almost. He kept it together on the exhale. Gary was impressed. The guy acts like Pee-Wee Herman and yet can hold in smoke on the first try.
Keaton laid back, looking up at the sky. The stuff made him feel giddy, but he was okay with that. What he wasn't okay with?
"Oh, good golly gracious, I can feel the buildup of Dust Blood already."
"Dust Blood?" Anastasia looked at Keaton. He turned to her.
"You don't get Dust Blood?"
Gary started to get impatient with him. "We don't know what that is."
"It's where your blood turns, like, grainy or dusty, and it fills your heart and makes it pump harder, and it fills your lungs so you can't breathe. I've been getting it a lot lately, ever since those two..." he trailed off. He didn't want to remember that.
Anastasia covered her mouth. She looked at the streaming camera, and she didn't need to say anything to ask, "should we tell him?" It felt like that was the right thing to do.
Anna sat down next to Keaton as he sat himself back up. "Keet, what you are experiencing is anxiety."
Keaton furrowed his brows. "But I don't get anxious."
Gary rolled his eyes. "Oh my god," he murmured. He was wasting his time. Armageddon was in five days, and he was giving an NPC a hit. He decided to toy with the guy a little more and he gave him the blunt. Keet pushed it away. "I don't want any more."
"Come on, Keet," Gary cooed. "We're friends."
Keaton looked at him. Did he make the wrong friends? "I wanna go home now, please." He got up and started stumbling towards the tavern.
Well, mission failed. "Geez, who knew that NPCs could be such a buzzkill?"
The entire chat fell silent, jaws dropped. Keaton stopped in his tracks. NPC? That's a non-player character in a video game. He's not an NPC, he's an Ordinary Joe.
"What did you call me?" There was no malicious intent when Keet asked that question. He sounded confused and, if anything, hurt.
"I called you a buzzkill."
"No, before that. What did you call me?"
Gary was glad that the game had some medium awareness to it. He kept going. "I called you an-"
Anna grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away into the woods. Kat was screaming in her ear. This wasn't the code for Keet. He shouldn't be aware of where he is. There are not a lot of video games in Memento Morí, just Pac-Man and Galaga and Centipede. He shouldn't know what an NPC is.
Gary was inconveniently dragged off into the woods for a bit before Anna stopped and pointed a finger at him. "Rule no. 1 in playing video games; NEVER point out that an NPC is an NPC. It screws with the programming."
"Oh, please," Gary snapped back. "It's not like he can feel any emotions."
"But he does! You heard him!"
Gary bit the insides of his cheeks. "That's a script, 'Stasia. You have got to stop getting lost in the game. It's not healthy."
They heard a branch crack. They turned to see Keaton leaning from an oak. Anastasia could see the tears forming in his eyes. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Why did you say that, Gary? Why did you call me an NPC?"
Gary was tired of trying to be nice for the sake of the party. "Because you are."
Keaton shook his head. "No, NPCs are from video games-"
"Sweet Jesus," Gary clapped in front of Keaton's face, emphasizing the syllables of the words that came out of his mouth. "WE ARE IN A VIDEO GAME! WE ARE PEOPLE BEHIND A SCREEN!"
Keet backed away from Gary's hands. His head was spinning with this news. "But I'm not...I'm not-"
"Behind a screen?" Gary completed. "That's 'cause you LIVE HERE."
It was as if the wires in his brain were malfunctioning. He could understand what's going on-in fact, he can imagine it. But if he's in a video game, then he's not...
He's not real.
The Dust Blood came as strong as ever. Keet instinctively brought his hands to his head, but that made it worse. It made him think that the tugging of his hair, the feeling of fingers against his temple...it was just simulation. He wasn't feeling anything.
Anna walked up to him and gently grabbed him by the arms. "Keet-"
Keaton freaked out and pushed himself away from her. "DON'T touch me!" He pointed at the both of them, breathing heavily. "I'm going home. Do NOT follow me." And with that, he turned and walked away, deeper into the thicket.
Anna turned to Gary. From his monitor, Gary could practically see the steam bursting out her ears. Anna strutted towards him and slapped him so hard, his character's head jerked to the side. The context of the slap made Gary feel as though he actually got smacked. Anna couldn't find anything else to say to the traitor, so she walked away.
When Keaton got closer to the tavern, the first thing he noticed was the ambulances. He hurried to the entrance when two doctors pulled a stretcher out. When he saw who was strapped on, his heart dropped.
"Mama?"