Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) Read Online Free PDF

back."
    "You can't do this to me, Liz, you can't."
    "It's too late. I've already done it. No more Continue, you need to return to reality before I'll ever let you back in," Liz said.
    "I'll get it overturned." There were legal routes that could be taken. Liz had guardianship over me after the second time I tried to end things. Fixing it was possible, but had never seemed important until now.
    "You try that, but until Doctor Litt agrees, I retain Power of Attorney." Her nose kept running and the steam from warm coffee couldn't be helping. "You're not in the right place with this, Grant, you're just not."
    "But I'm fine." I felt like a kid again trying to defend my actions to an adult.
    "Just like the first two times you tried to kill yourself? Where you call me and say I'm fine less than two days before? Because I'm not going..." God, Liz was breaking down. "I can't do this with you, Grant, I can't, not again. Seeing you flirt so casually with death."
    My mind ran through a silly thought that almost made me laugh while Liz was breaking down. So far, I had never actually met the Voice of Death. Maybe they were worse than the Jester Voice of Something. Or like Jean, the Voice of Blood. Voices were Continue Online's version of game gods.
    "You don't treat Beth like this. She's killed herself more in that game than anyone else," I said. We had discussed Beth's leaning toward self-destruction in the game before.
    "But not in real life! Not out here where death doesn't come with a stupid, stupid, save point!" Liz said, practically sputtering the words.
    "What's going on?" Beth whispered. I turned around immediately to see her standing at the top of Liz's stairs with a confused twist to her face.
    Both my eyes closed and lips tucked in with thought. Saying nothing would be a lie. There was no good way to know how long my niece had been listening.
    "Nothing. Your mom and I are just talking," I said. Liz managed to lose what little color remained in her face.
    Beth didn't seem much better. Her normal bubbly attitude and bouncy posture held very still. Like a rabbit paralyzed by something huge and scary.
    "You tried to kill yourself?" my niece said.
    "God dammit, Grant! God dammit!" Liz started coughing and shouting. "Get out! Get out of my house!"
    I fled. Monsters and demons in a virtual landscape seemed suddenly friendly compared to the voice of my sister shouting at me. My sister was rapidly trying to say something toward her daughter, but nothing felt clear.
    "Uncle Grant?" The whisper of Beth's wounded tone followed me out of the door.
    The van sat a house away on the curb. I dove into the driver's seat and quickly punched home on a navigation menu. The car's programming asked me to confirm. My shouting and banging on the vehicle dashboard somehow got a yes into the machine.
    Soon I was off down the street, worried about how badly things went. It shouldn't have been like that. We could have calmly talked things out, only she was sick and I was crazy. As siblings, there should have been a stronger bond of trust.
    Only Liz didn't trust me because I had tried to kill myself twice after Xin Yu passed. Two times my sister came to try and tape me back together. That was my fault, which meant her worry over Xin Yu was my fault as well. Maybe if I had been a better person after her passing this wouldn't have happened. Liz would have supported me if I hadn't screwed up my life and fallen apart.
    The car's steering wheel was banged over and over. I cried and shouted and pleaded for things not to end like this. No one answered my prayers and finally I started to try and rationalize all of it.
    I spent too much time in therapy groups and self-reflecting. Being ignorant of the hurt inflicted upon others by my actions was no longer an available luxury. Winning back my sister's trust could be done through explaining to my therapist, a man who always seemed very open minded.
    No. There was one possible option.
    I started the phone's intercom and