He opened his eyes and was greeted by a brilliance his eyes could not stand. He closed them, opening them ever so slightly against the light, realizing that a large amount of liquid was beginning to form in his eyes. After what seemed like an eternity he was finally able to open his eyes and look out upon his surroundings. He was on his back on some floor, surrounded by…an expanse of nothingness. He blinked again, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him again, and yet, as he opened them once more, he saw the floor beneath him spreading to eternity. After taking a deep breath he rolled his body and tried to get up. He was struck with pain immediately, and as he looked at his stomach he wondered how he had gotten to this place. Memories of falling flooded him, but none of them made sense. He saw that his armor had been broken in many places, and he felt as though he were anything but in good shape. Nonetheless, he gritted his teeth and pushed himself into a standing position.

Zavier felt as though his body had been decomposed and put together numerous times. He wasn’t tired, and yet it felt as though he was sleeping, as if he were somehow removed from his body and looking on from an outside view. Things seemed blurry, hazy…he wasn’t sure if he were accurately depicting his surroundings or not. He looked at his body and saw that he appeared just as bad as he felt. His once white armor was tarnished and darkened in many places. He couldn’t tell how long he had been unconscious…and at this point it didn’t seem relevant. What mattered was piecing together the events that led up to this point in time. He could only remember bits and pieces, and nothing made sense.

“I might as well try to go somewhere…nothing will happen by standing here.” He slowly began to walk in a straight line, not sure what direction it was and not caring. Everything seemed to be never-ending in this place, and one direction looked the same as another. He remembered that he had been searching for something. He had wandered, trying to find something that had been lost to him…no, not lost to him, but promised to him. He had spent so much time finding a lead, and when he did, he made his way to the field. After that, things became hazy. He remembered fighting something…but he didn’t know what or why. He frowned at himself, surprised that his memory was not working correctly. He normally was able to remember minute details about anything…and now, he couldn’t remember something that apparently was a major thing in his life.

He walked for what felt like hours. When he finally decided to sit down and relax, he found that he didn’t seem to have gone anywhere. “This is incredible. All of this walking, and I haven’t gotten anywhere.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that you haven’t gone anywhere. You just haven’t gone where you wanted.”

Zavier turned around, jumping and placing his hand on Order. Before him was a…creature. It seemed to be like a normal player in the World, but it was segmented and not complete. It seemed to float instead of walk, and Zavier couldn’t figure out how it was standing.

“And who might you be?”

“Who might I be? Well, what an interesting question. I suppose I haven’t thought of it in quite some time. I’m…I’m…well, I’m not quite sure what I am. I guess you can call me a bit of an enigma.” The creature laughed, and the cackling of his voice seemed to reverberate across the expanse. He promptly held up his hand and his echo stopped. Zavier’s eyebrow went up.

This was getting interesting.

“So you don’t know what you are? I guess you then wouldn’t be able to tell me your name then.”

“Well, well, jumping to conclusions are we son? Just call me Nemo. I think that name will suffice. Now, let me ask you a question you have already asked me: Who might you be?”

“My name is Zavier, Zavier Dragonus. I am a player in the Word…well, I was a player at one time…” Nemo looked at him, confusion obviously mirrored in his eyes. “I might as well explain it to you, or you’ll never understand.”

Zavier, as briefly as he could, explained his occupation of the World. He explained how he had found himself a prisoner, how he had become corrupted by a virus, how he had eventually gained control, and eventually been changed into the person before him. Nemo didn’t say a word and made no movements while he explained. He remained quiet for quite some time after Zavier finished, and Zavier wondered if he had fallen asleep. However, as though he had never paused as at all, he began to speak.

“My, my, you seem to have had a very interesting stay in the ether. Well, Zavier, it is good to meet you in any case. May I ask you how you came to this place…or should I say this point of space?”

“I’m not even sure where this is. I can only assume we are in the World still, am I correct.

“Yes. Well, no. Well, yes and no.” He chuckled once more.

“Well then, where am I?”

“A better question would be ‘where aren’t you.” You are not exactly in the World anymore. In fact, we rarely get visitors in this place. Which is why I’m so interested in who you are. Tell me, how did you come to our plane?”

“I wish I knew. So many things are blurry and unclear. I don’t know what has happened…I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

“Well that’s simple enough. According to our clocks you have been here for 4 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes and 32 seconds. It was at this point that long ago that we felt an anomaly in the system. We have been looking for you ever since we felt that disturbance and I have been the lucky one to have found you.”

“You said ‘we,’ right? You mean there are others like…you?”

“Hm…I believe it would be best if you came with me. All will be explained once we get there. Come on, you look a bit tired, but you should be able to keep up with me.” Zavier chuckled to himself. This person thought that he could outrun a Dualist? Zavier’s eyes opened in surprise. That’s what he was called. A Dualist because of the two swords he carried. He shook his head, focusing on making his body move correctly. Nemo looked at him one more and then zoomed ahead…literally zooming, his body moving at incredible speeds.

“Wa-wait for me!” Zavier screamed as he moved to meet him. Zavier began to run, moving as fast as his legs would take him. He was surprised at how fast this creature was able to move. His body was not responding as well to him impulses as it should have, but he would have time to tend to himself. Right now the only thing he could do was trust this creature that seemed to know much more about his situation than he did.

Just as Zavier did they seemed to be going in one direction, but they didn’t seem to be making any progress. Zavier’s eyes scanned the surfaces for something to identify that they were even moving. He couldn’t even tell if they were running or standing still. For all he knew he was moving his body, but something was keeping him still. He thought of asking Nemo if he was sure where he as going, but decided against it. Keeping an ally in his situation was his best bet for survival. He didn’t need to doubt his ‘savior’.

After hours, however, Zavier began to become a bit ticked off. He was about to ask a question when Nemo abruptly stopped moving. Zavier collapsed into a sitting position, tired and wanting to recharge. He looked around…and saw that nothing had changed. “Nemo, we haven’t gone anywhere, have we? We’re doing exactly what I did earlier, and I never made it anywhere.”

“Zavier, if we haven’t gone anywhere, what is that door doing there beside you?”

Zavier’s mind told him not to look, told him to reject what this old man was saying. But he looked, remembering the hundreds of times the same thing had happened to him. Sure enough, there sat a black door carved into the white wall not 5 feet away from him, a gold handle the only means of entering. Nemo walked to the door and mumbled a few words. It promptly opened and he turned to Zavier, a wide smile on his face. “Well Zavier, are you going to just sit there or are you going to join me?”

Zavier walked inside the room, and was amazed at what he saw. The room was completely different from the surroundings he had just left. It…looked like a broken root town. Music played, but it was disjointed and didn’t follow a specific pattern. He saw players…players that looked like Nemo…moving around, some repeating a certain phrase, some talking with others. The sky overhead was broken and splotched with different colors. The door behind him closed, and Zavier felt as though a great pressure had been lifted from him.

“Welcome, Zavier, to Between.”

Zavier was overwhelmed by his new surroundings. He had never seen something so…wrong. Nothing about the place made any sense. He walked up to Nemo and looked him square in the eyes. “Nemo, please, explain to me where I am.”

“Zavier, you told me that you where from the World, the computer game that has spread throughout the entire world’s network. Well, this place…this place was originally part of it. This place was one of the towns in the original game, called “Fragment.” Many people believed that the towns were simply deleted when ‘The World’ came out, but that’s not the case. It is rumored that millions of fields exist because of the way in which Fragment worked. We know of some of these fields, but we don’t know if this rumor is true.

“In any case, Zavier, this place is off-limits. We don’t even know if the people who once took charge over Fragment know we exist. It’s been quite some time, as I said, since we last had a visitor, human or otherwise, or some kind of hybrid like you. To tell you the truth, we don’t even know how you would have found yourself here. We don’t even think it was possible for anything to get in here.” Nemo walked over to one of the buildings and opened the door. “But don’t despair. If you got in here, that has to mean that there’s a way to get back out. Anyway, you can stay here for the time being.”

Zavier walked into the room, which was surprisingly small. Nemo showed him to a room on the 2nd floor. It was small, and very basic, and had only a bed, a window, and a desk with a chair. “It’s not much Zavier, but I hope it will suffice.”

“Thank you, Nemo. It will do fine for as long as I need it, which hopefully won’t be long. The sooner I find a way to get out of this place, the better. I think I’ll just head to sleep for the time being. My body still hasn’t recovered from everything it’s been through. Zavier stretched out onto the bed and closed his eyes. He still didn’t know what had happened in the past week, and what he found out just served to make him even more confused. But, tomorrow he would be able to take on his surroundings and deal with everything a step at a time.

“Goodnight Zavier,” Nemo whispered as he turned to close the door. Nemo moved downstairs and noticed that characters had begun to come to his house.

“What is he doing here Nemo? He’s not supposed to be here.”

“Maybe they’ve found us! We have to hide!”

“Everyone, quiet! Zavier is not a part of the administration, nor is he one of the hackers. He is not here to harm any of us.”

“But what if he finds out what we are? What if he decides to take out his aggression on us?”

Nemo held out his hand and a lone katana appeared, the length of the blade white with a red tip. His eyes turned red and crackled with energy.

“If it comes to that, then I will end his life on my own.”