Begging

Chapter 62 - Begging

Mike pushed the curtain farther aside and stepped closer to the wide window, where the early morning light was beginning to spread across the street below. The pale glow touched the rooftops and filtered through the branches of the old oak tree, beneath which Claire stood.

She was exactly where he had seen her a moment ago, but now that he was looking more carefully, he noticed the two men standing beside her. She was at a good distance from the building, yet Mike recognized her immediately. He had known Claire since they were children, back when they had run through the same neighborhood streets without a care in the world, and he could have picked her out of any crowd without needing to see her face.

There was something unmistakable about the way she carried herself: the familiar set of her shoulders, the slight tilt of her head when she listened, and the gray hoodie she always pulled on whenever the mornings turned cool. All of it belonged to a Claire, he had known for most of his life, and seeing her there brought old memories to the surface with surprising ease.

He remembered her laughing beside him on the school steps years ago, when they had still believed those ordinary afternoons would last forever. He remembered the old fence, too, and the day he had fallen from it and scraped his knee badly enough to bring tears to his eyes.

Claire had been the one to kneel beside him, carefully cleaning the wound and wrapping it in a bandage while he tried to pretend it didn’t hurt. The memories came and went quietly, settling somewhere in his chest as he watched her now. For a few seconds, there was something comforting about seeing a familiar face from a lifetime he had almost forgotten, but the presence of the two men beside her made that feeling difficult to hold on to.

One of the men was Sam. Mike recognized him from the broad set of his shoulders and the restless way he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Even from the window, there was no mistaking him. The second man, however, was a stranger. He stood slightly taller than Sam and wore a dark jacket with the collar turned up around his neck.

Mike studied his face, searching for some trace of recognition, but nothing came. He had never seen the man before, at least not that he could remember at the moment. Claire was speaking to them, though Mike could not hear what she was saying through the closed window. He could only see the brief movements of her hands as she talked. The stranger listened without interrupting and then gave a single nod. A moment later, Sam glanced up toward the dormitory windows, his eyes moving briefly across the building before he looked away again. Mike stayed where he was, his hand still holding the curtain, watching the three of them with a growing sense that whatever had brought Claire there was not something she wanted anyone else to know about.

Mike remained at the window for another moment, watching Claire and the two men beneath the oak tree. The uneasiness in his chest grew until he finally did what he always did when he needed answers. He reached inward, past his own thoughts, and searched for the familiar presence that had been with him for so long.

“System,” he called silently. “What is this?”

Nothing happened.

He waited for the familiar blue screen to appear, but there was no response, no calm mechanical voice filling his mind, not even the faint sense that the system had registered his command. The silence felt heavier than it should have. Mike tried again, this time with more force.

“System, respond.”

Still nothing. Only the quiet murmur of his own thoughts answered him.

Mike frowned and turned his attention to the system shop instead. If the system itself would not speak to him, perhaps the other functions were still working. Almost immediately, the familiar grid of items unfolded across his inner vision, clear and unchanged. Relief came first, followed quickly by confusion. He checked the number displayed in the corner and found that he had accumulated a solid pile of karma points over the past few weeks.

The system had stopped giving him quests and refused to answer when he called, yet the shop remained accessible as if nothing had happened.

That was strange.

He moved through the items, checking what he had available and thinking about what might be useful. Every skill he possessed still responded whenever he reached for it, and the shop opened without hesitation.

As far as he could tell, everything was functioning exactly as it should. Everything except the one thing he had come to rely on most—the guiding voice and the quests that had always given him some indication of what came next. He pushed the thought aside for the moment and continued scanning the shop. Whatever was happening outside, he needed to be prepared for it.

His attention stopped on an item labeled Doppelganger Clay.

Mike opened its description and read through it carefully. The explanation was short and straightforward, but the price made him pause. Buying it would consume almost every karma point he had managed to save, leaving only a little. He stared at the number for several seconds, weighing the cost against the uneasy feeling that had been building inside him since he looked out the window. Finally, he moved on to the next item that caught his attention: a map equipped with a flag feature.

The map was useful enough that he decided not to hesitate. He bought it first, watching his karma points drop as the purchase went through. Then he returned to the Doppelganger Clay and bought that as well. His remaining balance fell to almost nothing, and for a moment he simply looked at the tiny number in the corner. Both purchases settled into his inventory with a soft mental click.

Mike tested the map immediately.

A simple overhead view of the surrounding streets appeared inside his mind, clear enough for him to recognize the buildings and roads around the dorm. He focused on Mia, who was still sleeping on the bed behind him, and selected her position. A small, bright marker appeared on the map and locked into place. The flag feature worked exactly as described. Even with walls between them, he could still see where she was.

That was useful. More than useful, given what he had just seen at the gym.

Mike reached into his inventory and brought out the Doppelganger Clay. A moment later, the small gray block settled into his real hand. He turned it over between his fingers, examining it. It looked completely ordinary, no different from the modeling clay a child might use for a school project, but the system tag attached to it confirmed that there was far more to it than its appearance suggested.

The system remained silent.

Mike tried not to let that bother him, but the thought kept returning. His skills worked, shop worked and map worked as well. Even the items he purchased could still be accessed without a problem. Only the system itself and the quests had disappeared, as though someone had reached into the system and switched off the part that was meant to guide him.

He slowly turned the clay over in his palm, his eyes drifting back toward Claire.

A violent pounding suddenly crashed against the dorm door, hard and frantic enough to make the wood tremble in its frame. Claire’s voice came through the door almost immediately, broken by sobs as she called Mike’s name again and again, begging him to open it. There was desperation in her voice that made him uneasy. He had heard Claire angry, annoyed, frightened, and even furious before, but he had never heard her sound like this. She was crying as though she could barely catch her breath, her words tumbling over one another between desperate bursts of knocking.

“Mike, please! Open the door! Help me!”

The bed behind him creaked as Mia jerked awake. Still confused and frightened by the noise, she scrambled across the mattress and wrapped both arms around Mike’s waist, pressing her face against his back. He could feel her trembling as another round of pounding shook the door, followed by Claire’s broken voice pleading with him to let her in. She sounded terrified, almost hysterical, as though whatever had happened had left her with nowhere else to turn.

Mike closed his fingers around the Doppelganger Clay and slipped it into his pocket before reaching back to cover Mia’s hands with his own. The map’s flag was still glowing steadily in the back of his mind, and the system remained unnervingly silent.

“Mike, please! I need you to save me. Please, just open the door!”

Mike stared at the door, unable to shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

Read up to Chapter 84 with new art every week. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/KDaddy935?vanity=user