Part 2NPC and Final Boss

Three years ago, the horror game merged with our reality.

Back then, Ross and I were eating popsicles on Main Street. It was November in Duluth, twenty below zero. The two of us were freezing like idiots, yet we stubbornly insisted on eating them.

Ross took a bite, shivering and hissing through his teeth.

"Why do we even like this? I'm freezing to death."

I laughed, calling him a wimp. He glared at me playfully, shoving his popsicle toward my mouth.

"Fine, tough guy. You eat it. Let's see if you can swallow it in one bite!"

Just as I opened my mouth, the sky went black.

Everyone looked up. A colossal screen materialized in the heavens, towering crimson letters rolling down line by line.

【Game loading...】

【Instance generating...】

【Players logging in...】

I stood frozen, completely numb.

Ross's first instinct was to drop his popsicle and grab my hand.

"What the hell is that? We need to run!"

But the anomaly seemed to shroud the entire planet. The whole street erupted into chaos. People screamed, while others wailed.

Once the text finished rolling, the screen began broadcasting the rules. The gist of it was simple: the real world had been retrofitted into a horror game. Everyone was automatically designated as either a player or an in-game character.

Completing quests and slaying monsters yielded points, which could be exchanged for survival resources. Instances would refresh continuously, each one harder than the last.

And the monsters inside those instances were once human. Those who failed to awaken as players in the first wave turned into beasts.

The weaker ones became NPCs.

And I was one of the weaker ones. I wasn't even a high-tier NPC. I was a background prop, a scenario NPC.

I was the kind of background character that merely triggers a single line of dialogue when a player walks past: "Lovely weather today, isn't it?"

My entire existence was meant to stand there, spout a useless line, and then be ignored by players or devoured by monsters.

But Ross was different. He awakened as the ultimate Boss of this sector. In the Northern Sector, he was the apex predator.

The day he carved his way through a sea of monsters to find me, he was drenched in blood. His crimson eyes had stared at me for what felt like an eternity. I had thought my lover, now turned into a monstrous Boss, had forgotten me entirely.

Instead, he pulled me violently into his arms, weeping like a child.

"I was so scared... Thank God you're okay!"

He brought me back to his safehouse. He used his hard-earned points to buy me the finest food, the warmest clothes. Whenever I pouted and said I wanted fresh fruit, he didn't hesitate to spend half a month's savings to get it.

Under his protection, I lived a life more comfortable than before the world ended.

But now that I thought about it, the chat feed was right. Over these past three years, Ross's spoiling had turned me into a useless, demanding parasite.

I truly didn't deserve him.