Haunted King

SIXTEEN | my dumplings

Melody woke up feeling more exhausted then she had for a while. Her muscles ached all over and her head was buzzing.

Cold metal tapped her forehead, and a loud click hung in the air. A gun was bring pressed into her temple. "W-what is happening?" She stuttered. "Melody?"

Melody recognized the voice. "Crystal?" The gun was immediately pulled back. She felt arms wrap her in a deep hug. "What the fuck man! Where did you go? How did you appear out of thin air! God, do you know how scared I was!" Crystals voice was shaking. Even though her bangs were covering her eyes Melody could still see the tears rolling down her face. For the first time Melody was witnessing her cousin cry. Crystal sobbed against her dazed cousin, questions flooding out of her through her sobs.

Crystal shook the questions away. "None of that matters now." She kissed Melody on the forehead. "Welcome home." Melody clung to her cousin. For the first time in her life she was being welcomed home. 'So many firsts today,' she smiled. Tears welled up in Melody's eyes. "I'm home," she grinned.

They were both a crying mess. They didn't know how much time passed before they settled down.

Crystal let Melody shower as she prepared dinner. According to the clock on Melody's bathroom wall it was 7pm. 'Crystal should be coming home from study group right now. Did she stay home because of me?'

Melody knew that she had to tell Crystal everything about Fallen Angel. Not only because Crystal saw her appear out of thin air, but because Crystal had waited for her. Crystal looked like she lost weight, and had gotten barely any sleep.

Melody stepped into the steaming water and began lathering soap all over her sweaty skin. She tried sorting through her thoughts as the water washed her worries away. She had definitely missed her finals but her grades were high enough that she wouldn't fail any of her classes. The problem was her parents learning she had a C in her classes.

Melody sighed and aggressively scrubbed her scalp. "What am I gonna do?" Now that she was a senior in college she didn't know how to feel. Summer break had finally come but so much had happened she couldn't even feel happy about it.

Once Melody was clean she turned the shower knob and grabbed her towel. Crystal scooped the soup into a bowl, along with a couple dumplings. She did the same in the second bowl and placed both on a tray. It was food Crystal's mom had sent over right before Melody disappeared. Melody appeared in a matching set of silk giraffe pjs. "Can I help," she offered.

Crystal nodded to the fridge, "get drinks?" Melody nodded and moved past Crystal to do her task. The two were back in their synchronized flow. Even though the air felt peaceful, both of their hearts swirled with anxiety.

They ate in moderate silence. They picked a random Chinese drama to watch and laughed at the silly actions of the characters. A part of them didn't want to talk at all about what had happened. They were scared of the impact these words would have on their peaceful way of life. Their comfortable way of life.

But Crystal still had her gun attached to her belt. She still had Melody's phone in her pocket where she observed Melody's actions over the past three days. She had ransacked every corner of Melody's room. Talked to every person she thought would have an inkling of knowledge of where her cousin was. No one did, and there wasn't a lot of people to talk to.

She had gone through too much just to bury it all under a layer of comfortable silence. Crystal turned to Melody. "Where were you the past three days."

Melody stared at the screen for a second. The female lead was confessing her love to the male lead. The characters kissed and hugged under the moon light. 'A proper romantic night under the stars,' she thought to herself.

Melody turned to Crystal, she had settled her heart to telling the truth. But that didn't make it any less scary. "I was kidnapped." Crystal nodded, "well that I knew. No way in hell was this just one of your silly running games." Melody narrowed her eyes, "silly running games?"

Crystal stilled, "no. That's not what I meant." Melody rolled her eyes. Crystal panicked, "It's just that I scoured the whole city for you. You left every single thing in your room. Not even a single set of clothes was missing from the hangers. The only thing gone was you."

Melody was in shock at just how smart her cousin was. "Every sign pointed to an abduction. But there were no signs of who did it. Where they took you. No letters. No incentives. You were just gone, like you never even existed."

Melody nodded, "I was stuck in a cage by the man I told you about. He tried making me fall in love with him by force." Crystals jaw tightened, "... was it a bird cage?" Melody's eyes went wide, "h-how did you?" Crystal opened Melody's phone and placed it screen up on the dining table.

Melody eyed the screen in confusion. Crystal swiped through the apps till she got to the photo gallery. Hundreds of screen shots and screen recordings filled her phone. Melody clicked on one and jumped at the image of her in a cage. The speech bubbles of what she had spoken were on the bottom of the screen. It was styled like a cut scene in Fallen Angel.

"Were you inside of this game? Fallen Angel?" Crystal felt insane just for asking it, but Melody's expression was all the answer she needed. "How? How is that even possible?" Melody finally answered, "I don't know. I wish I knew. It just... happened."

Crystal bit her lip, she was clearly not satisfied with that answer. So Melody explained everything. From when she first entered the game to the very last conversation with Gabriel.

Crystals face was stuck in a mold of disbelief till the very end. "Oh my god," Crystal gapped. Melody laughed, she was just as in shock as Crystal was about the whole situation. After a long processing moment Crystal burst, "I am going to murder him if I ever meet him."