Solo Addictive Personality

[Ash Vargold]

Aisling was never an outdoorsy person. Her childhood was spent in front of a monitor and fed by an endless stream of dubious online content. Good genetics were the only thing that protected her eyesight and general physical health both then and now.

Since Terrasphere, that had changed. Running around in an avatar taller and stronger than she was did weird things to her mental, and lying in a bed for so long left her feeling sore as hell. The city was crowded, and gyms were shifty, so she'd taken to making use of her home state's many hiking trails.

Walking in nature was supposed to be good for you. There were studies and everything. So even when she found herself on guard, alert for the sound of a hungry wolf or lurking ambush, she told herself that it was fine. These forests were tamed and manicured, entirely unlike the wild tangles of Terrasphere's. Even in the deepest part of them she could hear the distant rush of traffic or catch the vaguest whiff of exhaust.

(Was that always the case? Her senses were nothing compared to Ash, but outside of game they seemed more significant now. It was probably nothing, but...)​

It was grounding, she told herself. A reminder of what was real, even if she still struggled to find a reliable tell between reality and virtual reality. Four years ago, Terrasphere had remained a small part of her life for the brief moment it existed. Now it had become something greater, leaking into reality at an unnerving pace.

(The blog, she had to admit, had been asking for it. But then there was Brian, and then Daeyon, and if she allowed herself more magical thinking she'd think their encounters had been more than coincidence.)​

That's why these breaks were important. It was important to feel the strain in her muscles as she reached the top of a climb, to feel the painful burn in her damaged lungs. To feel weak and vulnerable, all those things that Ash wasn't and Aisling was. She had to remember that she wasn't a hero or a champion, and that even as she preached caution on her blog she was taking very real risks.

There was no magic in reality. She couldn't solve her problems with a sword or a charming smile. She was a human, and not even a particularly skilled one, dancing on the edge of a mystery that would swallow her whole with the slightest misstep. A game that killed, possibly on purpose. A government that treated those playing it as criminals, when they should be considered victims.

(Sometimes she found herself weighing which fate she'd rather risk - the known factor that was UI-lock, or whatever charges awaited her if she were ever caught. That she hadn't come to a conclusion yet was worrying.)​

She still had a chance to stop. To step away, and leave the mystery to others. She should stop, before she inevitably fell.

"...I can quit whenever I want," Aisling mumbled, watched the mist from her breath mixing with the smoke rising from her cigarette, and wondered how many times she'd told that same lie.

 

[Ash Vargold]

It'd been exactly one week.

Aisling knew that counting the days wouldn't help. That the best way to deal with her problem was to find other things to think about. Out of sight, out of mind, or so she told herself as she walked into her makeshift office. She'd put the headset in the closet, but she still found herself staring at the VR comfort chair in the corner. It was being used as a shelf for office supplies now, one of several vague attempts to keep her from using it.

After Szofrit's attack she had been repulsed by the mere thought of playing. The pain and horror stalked her dreams. She spent long hours scouring the news, and when that failed to provide, obituaries. It kept her occupied, and she hoped it would be enough. Cold turkey.

In the span of months she'd progressed from nothing, to the occasional dive, to a nearly full-time existence within the world of that game. It had become a routine: wake up, shower, eat, dive. The time it usually took for her to adjust to being him had become almost nonexistent.

In fact, awakening had become the harder part. She should have seen that as the problem it was sooner.

The mania eventually faded, leaving her with a list of names and a growing itch. It was all too familiar, that almost painful need to do the very thing she needed to avoid. Addiction was an old companion, and withdrawal was a familiar pain. She'd started smoking more in an attempt to fend that off, and wasn't that ironic? Replacing one thing that would kill her with another thing that would kill her.

Aisling rested a hand on the closet door. Thoughts murmured at the back of her mind, how just a brief moment would be fine, a few hours, just enough to get out of Vintergard, maybe to Camp Hope, where it would be safer to log out and then he could get some new material to write about-

She pulled her hand away like she'd been burned. She stared at her own hand, trying not to think about how those thoughts had felt far too much like a different sort of chorus that he had grown used to.

It had felt normal.

...maybe she would take up her housemate on that convention after all.

 

[Ash Vargold]

"You know, I think I liked you better when you were still playing that game"

Aisling paused, cigarette halfway to her lips. She turned an unimpressed glare towards Jake, who was leaning on the railing of the porch and staring at his phone. He didn't even bother to look up at her, tapping rapidly at whatever game had caught his fancy.

"House smelled better, at least. Your cigs stink."

"Gee, thanks." Aisling looked back at her cigarette, suddenly feeling self-conscious. She ground out the tip, resolving to finish it later. "Glad to know you preferred me playing the literal death game because you don't like how I smell."

"You were a better person, is what I'm saying."

Aisling and Jake's relationship was a complicated one. They'd worked the same temp job, and Jake had, for lack of a better term, imprinted on her. She wouldn't call it friendship - they were too antagonistic for that. "Bully" was closer, but it had never gotten to the point of tearing each other down.

Whatever they were, it was close enough that she took a deep breath instead of immediately turning on Jake. "...what the hell does that mean, Jake."

Jake finally deigned to look up from his phone and meet Aisling's glare with a neutral expression. "You were... well, more Ash-y. Whatever you were doing in there, it was rubbing off on you."

Her anger flickered out, replaced by the chill of fear.

Aisling worried about what would happen if she played too long and went too deep. Every moment she was connected to Terrasphere was an opportunity to the game to wreak havoc on her mind. She had to trust that it wouldn't break its own rules, and so far it had done nothing to earn anything close to trust.

"...That's not a good thing, Jake."

"Yeah, I know. Mind-altering anime bullshit, yadda yadda. You've given me the spiel." Jake shrugged, turning his gaze towards the grey sky. "But you smoked less. You left the house. Fuck, you were exercising, Ais. Now you're just doing your best impression of a chain-smoking noir detective."

"It's watching two people playing chicken with a cliff," one of Jake's friends had told her. "You keep egging each other on, then yanking each other back before you get too close."

"...so what's the point you're getting at, Jake? That I should play Terrasphere again?" Saying it out loud felt blasphemous, like she was inviting bad luck with the mere mention of its name.

"I'm just saying that for a person that's gung-ho about not playing a game that might kill you, you sure seem to be in a hurry to finish the job yourself."

"You're lucky he likes you enough to stop you from going over the edge."