As soon as I neared the top of the next hill, my guess was confirmed. There was nothing left of that bunny save for the bits of scattered fur and blood that seemed to float in the air. I absentmindedly watched as the fur slowly drifted down to the hill below. Not that there was much of a hill left either.

  Eventually, I managed to shake off my stupor and look down from the edge of the crater my little fireball had created. It was no wonder the bunny had disappeared. The thing was deeper than I was tall and at least a dozen or two feet wide. It would have been wider, but the curve of the hill was such that it physically couldn’t.

  Seeing as there was nothing salvageable from my kill, I didn’t see a reason to slip and slide my way down the side. Instead, I followed the edge of the crater while being careful not to get too close. Who knew just how stable the dirt was after such a blast? Lucky for me, the next hill was fairly close. In fact, it seemed like three other hills were clustered fairly close to this one.

  Though, I guess close is a bit relative. In this case, I just meant that some of the hills seemed to ride up on others, almost as if they had been a part of a much larger whole before rain and wind had managed to wear them down.

  As I stepped toward the hill, a red and white missile blasted out of the bushes, flying directly at me. Not having any time to react, I took the hit full in the chest. Off balance, I fell backward as the object flipped in the air before vanishing into the grass. As it did so, I caught a glimpse of a single long ear and a red stump.

  It seemed like there were more than one of these things on each hill. If that was truly the case, then I didn’t even want to know just how many of the things I had blown apart in that single blast. Hell, I probably sent a number of them flying.

  The sound of grass rustling nearby caused me to yank my sword out as I scrambled to my feet. Not caring that my legs and skirt were wet from whatever liquid coated the foliage around me. Something blurred in my direction a second time. While I can react, there isn’t enough time for me to slice the thing down. Instead, I manage to tilt the sword enough to put the pommel between me and my attacker.

  Lucky, for me not my attacker, the thing hits the pommel squarely with its head. The force of the hit was enough to force me to sidestep to keep my balance. My head swivels as I try to get a clear look at what had just hit me. Lying on the ground, stunned and hurt, is a bunny.

  Blood oozes out of its one intact ear and dribbles out of the corner of its eyes while a red froth coats its mouth. Even the few feet between us was not enough space to deaden the sound of rattling as it struggled to take a breath. The sight and sound sickens me. No creature should be forced to go through such pain. Given that I was the one to cause it, I had to end it. Either by healing it or putting it out of its misery. Not that I was going to heal the thing. Chances were that it would attack me the moment I did, not that I could anyway. I should probably learn a healing spell or get some potions.

  With the briefest of hesitations, I stab the tip of my knife into its throat. The bunny doesn’t move as I do so. Almost as if it had accepted this outcome and had been waiting for it. As I knelt there, I watched the life fade from its eyes. The last of its blood pours from the wound like a faucet before finally stopping. Most of it soaks into the dirt below. All except for a small amount of spray that dyes the ferns surrounding me.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I close my eyes as I try to come to grips with what I just had to do. The pain that I had caused this creature. Pain that I could have possibly prevented if I knew how to use and control my power. But I had let my excitement over being able to throw a fireball, coupled with the anger over Mindi’s attack, overpower my need to always be in control. Something that hadn’t happened in many, many years.

  With a deep breath, I did what I had always been taught. What I have been forced to do at times to keep myself from doing something out of anger that I would regret. I force my emotions into a box. To pack them away. To contain and hide them from the world. To keep them where they had no power over me. Where they could not influence my decisions. Not that they would stay there. The therapist had been clear about the fact that I could not leave them there. That they could not be left to grow, to fester, and eventually explode. I needed to find a safe outlet and slowly release the emotions there.

  It was one reason I had gotten into video games in the first place. No one cared if you killed a million bugs or declared war on another player, not while you were inside a video game. Hell, it was highly likely that I wasn’t the only one that did it. But this game felt different. The pain the creatures displayed looked real. Almost as if the creatures themselves were alive somehow.

  Not that that was possible. After all, everything here was just a bunch of code. Code that told it the creatures where to go, what to eat, who to attack, and even which bunny it would fuck. Or maybe the fact that the game was meant to be realistic meant that the developers even made sure that everything felt alive in its own right. Maybe this was how high the bar was set for new games. Maybe they had to be this realistic to have any chance in this market. Maybe it paid to make it feel like one could find any of the game's creatures wandering down the street somewhere in the real world.

  Multiple plants nearby rustled. The sound caught my attention as it dragged me out of my self-reflection and back to my current situation. Before I could place the directions or numbers, some instinct deep inside of me took hold. The body of the bunny vanished into my inventory as my chest crashed into the ground where it had been. A moment later, several somethings whistled just over my body.

  With a snap, I shoved my body up in one powerful pushup. The maneuver was something I could never have pulled off even when I was trying to bulk up in high school to impress a few of the girls. The incongruity between reality and the game snapped me out of the sudo funk and allowed the gamer part of my mind to take over. It analyzed everything as it started to calculate the odds.

  My Chisa Katana swung up at an angle just as something blurred by. Judging by the red spay, I managed to hit whatever it was. But even if I had managed to hit one, another smashed into the back of my knee in such a way that the knee folded, collapsing under me. If not for the fact that I had been moving, I would have been sprawled on the ground.

  Not letting the opportunity pass me by, I twisted around and slashed the creature before it could get away. The attack hits the creature's chest, causing all of its organs to drop to the ground but, surprisingly enough, it didn’t outright kill the creature. It collapsed to the ground where it let out a cry that echoes strangely around me.

  It is almost as if the hills around me have decided to repeat it. The sound caused the little hairs on the back of my neck to stand up as a shiver raced down my spine. Something told me that I had fucked up by letting such a cry get out. Plants in every direction, on not just this hill, but every hill in this grouping, practically vibrated. I watched as a few of the vibrating plants started to move as if a large breeze was blowing across them. Seeing the number and size of each group left me speechless save for two words. “Oh fuck.”