Page 24 of Control

“I think you’re mistaken,” I said as I pulled Reyna in closer to me. “I’ve…I’ve never met you before. I don’t think we know each other.”

“Oh, but we do!” His deep and confident voice echoed throughout the room as more and more people began to look toward me. “I know you may not remember me, but I sure as heck remember you.” He motioned for me to come closer. “Come, my dear girl. There’s no need to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” I blurted out, my blood still warm from my encounter with Ashley’s abuser. I felt myself releasing my grip on Reyna and Ashley and began walking forward to him, his arms still outstretched and open to me. I could feel every eye in the room on me and this mystery man whom I’d never met before in my life.

“Good,” he said to me as I drew closer to him. After a few more steps, I found myself before him and looking up. Our eyes met for a moment before he looked away, instead appearing to look me over as if to be sure I was who I claimed to be even though he obviously recognized me. “Now then. I wasn’t originally planning on doing this in front of a large crowd like this, but I suppose this is just as well. You, my dear! I have something for you!” A smile came across his slender face, his cheeks sinking in slightly as it grew.

“What?” I asked.

“Just a little something I’ve been cooking up for some time,” he said, a somewhat creepy grin coming across his face. “I am here to bestow upon you something only two other individuals in all of Aurora will have!”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I, along with everyone else in the room, were still thoroughly confused. “What is this all about? What do you want with me? Why are you here?”

“I’m here,” he said to me as he reached over and tapped my forehead with his long and bony index finger, “to give you this!” A sudden burst of energy filled my body and I could feel my temperature going up. I began to feel somewhat dizzy and my vision began to blur. “You enjoy that now, my dear! It will bring you the recognition and acclaim you deserve.”

“Deserve?” I said, barely able to focus on him. “What?” I felt him place his arms on my shoulders and grip down on me.

“Just relax and let it happen,” he said to me as he leaned into my ear. “We’ve had our eye on you, been watching you since the beginning…and you deserve this.” I blurrily watched him as he pulled back from me, released his grip from my shoulders, and stepped back through the portal. Once he was through, it quickly closed behind him and the light that accompanied it slowly faded away. I felt my balance and vision returning to me, but a strange sense of calm I’d not had before had overtaken my body.

The lights stayed out and we were all still so confused as to what had just taken place. Without warning a massive burst of purple light exploded from my chest and filled the room, sparks streaming out of my very body. I fell to the floor and felt my skin begin to heat up, a light burning sensation running across it. Looking down at my hands as they were planted palms down on the floor, I’d realized they’d began to glow purple. I sat myself up and looked over my arms, the glow having engulfed them as well. In front of me, a collection of red, blue and purple light began to form some sort of shape. Second by second, the shape became more and more clear. It was some sort of flower with a large number of petals, and the lights in and around it pulsed and changed color each time I felt my heart beat. I forced myself to my feet and looked around to see 7 other flowers surrounding me taking shape making a total of eight, each of them a different color from the next. The light they emanated became brighter by the second. I could see the crowd around me withdrawing even further from the center of the room as these flowers encompassed me.

With each beat of my heart, the flowers moved closer, spinning around clockwise and growing so large they’d managed to fill almost the entire room, forcing people to withdraw even more to the point of having their backs against some of the walls. Once they’d all completely surrounded me, they quickly collapsed into me as if all wanting to join together to become one. As they did, a great rush of adrenaline hit me and I felt more alive than I’d ever had in my life. As the flowers all merged into one, they began to float up and out of me again until they reached the top of the room where they slowly dissipated. I became so overwhelmed with that rush of energy and the quick pace of my heart that I fell to the ground once more as I felt the breath rush out of me. As the flowers faded from view, the room grew dark once more and a murmur started to creep back in as people began asking what it was they’d just seen happen to me.

The main lights slowly came back online, the darkness giving way and the room returning to what it was before everything had happened but the music stayed off since the DJ had disconnected his gear not knowing what was happening. Within seconds, Reyna was by my side and her arm was around me.

“Ana!” she said to me with a mass of concern in her voice. “Ana, are you alright! Oh, God! Please be alright!” She brushed my hair from my face which had managed to slide out from my ponytail, and helped me to my feet. Everyone in the room stared at us, unsure of what to think. As I looked back over them all, I noticed that they were all recording and streaming all that had just happened to all of their friends who weren’t in the room. In other words, everyone on the game had just seen what had happened. “Ana…are you OK? How do you feel?”

“I feel,” I said, taking in a deep breath and looking down at my hands, a faint purple glow still emanating from them. “I feel…so alive.” I looked to Reyna and saw the worry in her eyes. Like her and everyone else in the room, I had no idea what had just happened to me. All I knew was it felt as if I’m been hit with a bolt of lightning. As I stared at her, light purple sparks began falling down in front of my eyes.

“Oh, God!” Reyna said as she pulled back from me. She was looking up to my name plate which for some reason appeared to be sparking, glowing, and alternating in color be between red, blue, and purple. The voices in the crowd began gasping again. Although I could tell my name plate was there, I could not see what was happening to it.

“Reyna!” I said, unsure of what was going on. “What is it? What’s happening? I can’t see it clearly.”

“Your nameplate,” she said, still staring at it, her mouth slowly openings as if in awe. “It’s…changing.”

“What do you mean?” I said to her. “Changing how?” Reyna initiated a pairing with me and I accepted. Once paired, she shared her HUD and let me watch what she was seeing. Sparks were flying out of my name plate, mostly in purple but occasionally other random colors. After several more seconds of various sparks and hues, my nameplate doubled in size, making my name appear far larger than any other player and below it, where there had been nothing, appeared some additional wording. “Reyna…what is that? What does it say?” Reyna stared at my nameplate for a few more seconds and then back down to me.

“Ana,” she said to me in a confused and slightly fearful voice. “It says… ‘Ana…The Lotus.’ It says you’re The Lotus, Ana.” Reyna once more looked up to my nameplate as it continued to glow and change colors. After staring at what appeared to be my new and improved nameplate for a good 30 seconds, I closed the visual feed from Reyna. Taking back my own view, I realized that most of the people in the room had moved closer to me to take a look not only at my nameplate, but also at my body, the faint purple glow dazzling virtually all of them.

I looked back over to Reyna who seemed relieved that I was alright, but still concerned over what had just happened. At no moment during any of my playtime in Aurora had anything like this happened. Nothing even remotely close to this was mentioned in the player’s guide and no mention had ever been made in the real world-only forums. Just then, a random person in the crowd whom I’d never met before mentioned that the exact same phenomenon had occurred in two other locations to two other players at the exact same time as it did to me. Voices became louder as word spread from one person to the next within the room. Live feeds and recorded video were already making their way into the game only discussion boards and eventually the videos made it to the real world, all within just a few minutes of it all happening. Several people projected their incoming visual feeds to a couple of spaces in the room so we could all see the occurrence in the other rooms.

While not exactly the same in presentation, the same event happened to two others. Their names, now plastered on every single discussion board in the game along with mine, were Spell Caster, ‘The Wizard’ and Mustafa, ‘The Beast.’ Each of the others had the same strange animation of lights happen to them, but Spell Caster’s focused on items like flasks, wands, and other gear typical of a wizard or spell caster. Mustafa’s focused more on animals, showing such powerful creatures as elephants and lions, and finished off with the image of a Bengal tiger.

“No!” I heard Reyna say as someone reached out to touch me, the glow of my body apparently too much of a temptation to resist. “She doesn’t like to be touched unless you ask first.” I turned my head to her and smiled, her immediate reaction to protect me and make me feel safe reaching far beyond our role play sessions.

“It’s OK,” I said to her, realizing more and more people had been reaching out to me. “I think…I think I’m alright.” I lifted my hand to my face and looked over my skin once more. Everything looked and felt the same as before except for the faint glow the event had left on me. I immediately began to wonder if this change was permanent or if it was temporary. “My body doesn’t feel any different.” I ran my fingers up and down my arms. “Still feels like me. It’s just…glowing for some reason. Maybe it’s some sort of bug or something from what just happened.” Everyone got quiet and stared at me for a few seconds until someone else in the crowd spoke up.

“What in the living hell just happened!” they said loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “What is going on with your nameplate?” Another spoke out as well.

“And why can I see it now?” they said. “I play with nameplates off but when this all happened, yours turned on for me.”

“I don’t know,” I said, somewhat exasperated. “I wish I did! I really know nothing more than you all do!” More and more people began to speak up and ask questions about what had transpired. I looked back at Reyna, the concern and sadness that had suddenly filled her eyes telling me exactly what I should have seen coming.

The following week was a flurry of activity as all of those who were off line for the event got to see the videos and their aftermaths. Within hours, Spell Caster, Mustafa, and I were instant celebrities in the game and for some reason everyone wanted to meet us. They all asked so many of the same questions. Why did this happen? How? How do you know them? They were all questions I had no answers to. As all the videos of the event gained views online, it was then that I realized my “coronation” was different from Mustafa and Caster’s. No one came looking for them. There was no portal or strange man. This difference had been noticed by countless people who watched all three of the events happen which placed a spotlight on me. A spotlight I didn’t want.

By the next day when I logged into the game, a massive number of messages - text, voice, and video - had begun to accumulate in my mailbox, all from people wanting to know more, and each day more and more came in. Not only did I get requests for information, but I also began to receive gifts and gold from random individuals who only wanted to offer me kind words and their best wishes. The gold gifts had become so much that I had to author a mass reply to them all asking them to no longer send me gold and instead offer it to the creators of their favorite rooms or use it to buy gifts for their friends. Even after that though, the gold and gifts continued.

“Interview!” someone yelled to me as I was walking with Reyna through a park which I had hoped would be a small escape from the near constant attention I had started to receive after the event. “Ana! I mean Lotus!” I turned to see that it was an in game blogger who liked to publish articles, both internally and outside the game on the happenings and latest gossip that took place in Aurora. “Ma’am, so many people want to know about the event! Your new name…er, title! Is that what it is?”

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