Someone who left us
Miroslav Mareček
A pair of tired eyes was watching the scene on the blinking monitor. Three adventurers were standing near a deep crevice surrounded with half-monkey humanoid creatures on the other side and were arguing if they should continue killing them searching for very good(and expensive) spears, for which they were favourite underlay for falling battleaxe or magic meteor rain of nearly all players on the game server. All of our three heroes were watching the chat window:
Krazt: last 10 pls guys i need taht wpn
Deja Wow: ---- you, my eyz re red i go sleep
The orc priest tried to log out, but Krazt quickly shot an arrow on him and thus pushed him into the crevice on which’s edge the priest was standing. Hunter slowly walked towards, looked into the hole and with malevolent joy realized that the priest managed to die of fall just before his logout was executed by the server.
Krazt: haha now that’ll teach u ----er, leaving us in da ----!!!!
Krazt: cant do it without that stupid priest man, i log out2, cu
The last player, wizard Hack Dealer, was experienced enough to know that hunter and wizard alone can’t kill not even one of those monsters all around them.
Hack Dealer: u2
Hack Dealer logged out of the game, yawned, and looked at time on his mobile. He could barely recognize numbers 23:06 on bottom of the display. He knew that he would be tired to death in the school next day, but try to convince yourself to go to sleep knowing that the next thing you will do afterwards will be trying to convince yourself to get out of it and ignore the irritating freeze in the entire house and then wasting from five to seven hours of your life by pretending that you are interested in memorizing loads of useless information about right-angled triangle or boring books and their authors.
The half-conscious gamer fell on bed and thought about the game he was playing a minute ago. That hole before them. Big monkey-like humans with spears. Or were they human-like monkeys? How many of them they killed before someone left... But who? “I must have that spear“! Wizard’s impatient face flashed before his eyes. “Still nothing. Where’re those damned spears“? A hunter saying pressingly: “He is with us no more. We can’t let him be with us“. Voices of all the people who the hunter knows: “Yes, now we understand you, you are right. He is no more here. We should put him into the ground, into a hole“. Wizard: „I finally found at least one spear. Let’s dig a hole with it.” The hunter digging the hole, feeling badly... „You left us. If only we were strong and mighty as those big beasts all around us, we could do it without you“. Hunter telling the wizard about big beast’s power... „Look at them, such big and powerful creatures, their spears are surely much better than ours. We should take them from them, they should be strong enough to break the lifeless lianas all around us and let us go free”. Wizard agrees: „I thought about it already. We will...“
Dumdumdudumdumdu... A brand new Siemens began to record an annoying tone louder and louder. The sleeper silently swore. He began to reactivate his brain slowly and was focusing all his will to get out of the warm bed. He was staring at the stuff in his room for a while. Old Playboy posters, cheap souvenir sabre catching dust on the wall, his computer, and finally a message which he found in his pocket yesterday (I can’t live without you, Will!!!). Though it was anonymous, Will knew from whom it is. From Suzie, the only girl in his class who was neither talking to him normally or calling him an idiot, but avoiding any contact with him at all cost. Will anticipated her feelings for him, but it’s still better to have an assurance. When he was thinking about it, he remembered that they are going to the ZOO with class today. Bah! Into a ZOO, like 10-years old kids. But on the other hand, it’s a good opportunity to get high somewhere aside. Or to get a bit of privacy with Suzie, persuading her can’t take him more than an hour, now when he knows where he stands.
Will got out of the bed and when mechanically doing his morning routine, he was thinking about his dream. It was a mixture of some of yesterday’s events, long-forgotten memories of his early childhood, and finally some pictures and sounds senseless at all as usual, but this time, he couldn’t tell how, it was something different. Will was sure about some parts of the dream; they were derived from the incident in that game he played before he went to bed. But he felt... no, he was sure that they were somehow merged with someone others‘dreams, kind of alien ones. Those were such... slow, primitive, basic, narrow minded. But they weren’t childish. Will felt that the „other side“ was considering itself not only as an adult, but as a very important individual, second only to some kind of leader. Will was recording the dream in his memory again and again and pointing out all the details all the way to the city ZOO (most likely because he haven’t anything better to do). From his station it was just a few bus stops to the ZOO gate.
There he joined his classmates, waiting for the teacher and joined to their arguing about the best drink in Anaconda bar. Finally their teacher came and they went to the ZOO. After approximately 50 meters, Will and some of his mates separated from the rest and found some unused resting place, occupied only by some harmless pensioners, and one of the group began to roll a joint. Will perceived that he still has to hunt down Suzie and being stoned or just high really isn’t the ideal state of mind. “I have still somethin‘ to do, sorry dude“said Will and turned back. “Hey, what’s wrong with you, not takin‘a hit of grass“? But Will didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. He already was on his way to the Pavilion of Apes, a place of which he was sure that Suzie would be there, drinking hot coffee at the only place in the ZOO you can buy it, a bistro near the pavilion. Will got there, found her just as he presumed and began to talk. Then it was just a matter of time for him.
Two hours later, Will decided it’s time to finally get some privacy. He was going with Suzie to a secret, quiet place which he found when he was a child, an forgotten stone bench, hidden behind chimpanzees‘cage and tall bushes. As they were crawling through a narrow tunnel in the bushes to the bench, Will, who was going first, saw a very strange scenery in the chimpanzees‘cage. All the chimpanzees were assembled behind a thick wall of bushes and tall grass (thus they couldn’t be seen from the other side) around a hole in the ground. At the left stood three biggest apes of the group with sharpened sticks and were digging a hole with them. In front of Will was the rest of the group, females, some of them with youngs on their backs, and lesser males. The strangest member of the group however, stood on the right of the hole. He was looking much older than any ape of the group, had similar stick as the chimpanzees on the left but wasn’t digging, and had a long, fake gold necklace (Will presumed some of the visitors accidentally dropped it into chimpanzees‘ cage) around his neck, clearly a sign of higher social status. Then Will looked closely at the thing behind the largest group. He presumed it to be a stone at the first time, but now he found out that it’s another chimpanzee, but dead! Then this is a burial! Will knew that chimpanzees use spears for hunting, but digging a grave with them? Or wearing stolen jewellery? And all of that in a comfortable cage, where they get food served on silver plates and don’t have to fear predators, without any reason for developing any weapons, tools, or society? In a ZOO, under noses of thousands of curious visitors with cameras and experienced ZOO employees, who clean their cage, feed them and all of that stuff! The chimpanzees finally noticed Will and Suzie. All of them were looking at the pair with scandal in their faces, even the youngs climbed a little higher on their mothers‘ backs to get better sight of the intruders. One of the three apes who were digging the hole few seconds ago walked slowly towards Will and stared into his eyes. And Will finally found out whose dream he was dreaming.
