LINKED | Brothers Online Series | BK #1

Chapter 7: Trap

Thomas (Thom) Min:

We both chased after the scurrying figure, watching black, messy neck-length hair streaming in the wind.

'Wait what? Neck-length black hair? Holy crap! She's a girl!' I was shocked at my internal revelation and I screamed back to Karim in English, "Dude! She's a girl!"

"W-What?! The heck?" I heard his foot rate double and I assumed that he'd increased his speed. The little black-haired girl glanced back before running faster, dashing madly through the forest. I had gotten a glimpse of her face and saw that it was that of a fifteen year old.

'This is so weird,' I thought. 'What is she doing all alone in here? Better yet. Why'd she fall for the trap?' We continued to chase after the girl and she soon realized that we weren't going to stop. She began to zig-zag through the trees, vanishing and then appearing again after a few seconds. I looked back at Karim and flicked my head to the right. He nodded in understanding and began to veer off. I continued running and hoped that Karim had been able to parallel the girl. This way, we could get her from both sides and block her escape. At least that was the plan anyways. We didn't expect the girl to continue running straight and burst into another clearing. We definitely didn't expect for her to charge through a crowd of monsters and head towards an open cave.

Like I said, things were moving way too fast.

Karim Min':

Thom and I had just recently escaped the wrath of an Elite Vine Snare only to end up in a wild chase after some girl with long, black hair. Even worse, she seemed to be breaking away. There was no way I was going to let that happen. I quickly broke off from the chase and ran to the right of the girl, paralleling the girl's path. The path suddenly opened up into another clearing, and I caught sight of flowing black hair. Up ahead, a group of Wandering Treants meandered around. They had not been aggroed (attracted; it's a video game term) by anything and were just walking around. I didn't know if the girl was reckless or had a death wish, but she charged right through. The plant monsters spun their heads to target the girl and their eyes lit up in a red gleam.

'Not good. Not good at all.' I skidded to a stop and watched in horror as the girl dodged around the Treants and made her way over to a cave. She quickly vanished inside and the Treants began to follow her. Fortunately, the big giant plant things weren't that fast. If they were, she would have been in a bad position.

I then heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Thom standing there with a strange look in his eyes. I didn't know what he wanted to do, but I did know that we had to save the girl. "Thom, we've got to go in there and get her!"

My brother flicked his eyes over me and then back to the scene ahead. A few moments passed before he said, "No."

"Hold up. What?! You can't be serious!" The look on his face confirmed my suspicions. "No... you aren't kidding. Thom! We've got to help her!" The expression didn't change. "What are you thinking? We can't just leave her there!" Thom looked me steadily in the eyes and that same cold face remained. 'No. This can't be happening! No... no no no! Damn it Thom! We've got to help her!' I looked at my brother and ground my teeth. Why does he have to be this way? Can't he see that she's in trouble? She'll get herself killed and what were we gonna do? Just stand here? My mind flashed back to the first day when this game started. I could clearly remember the conversation.

"So that's the plan," said my brother. "We keep ahead and grab all the quests, the resources and rewards. We level up, train and fight our way out of here. That's the least we can do. However," Thom stared me in the face to make sure that I'd gotten the message, "we always, always stay alive. You got it? No heroics. No search and rescues. Our top priority is survival. Got it? Our first priority is to survive, not to save others. So come on. We've got to move." He closed his map menu and started walking away. That's when I sighed.