A Misplaced Reality (Or, "What If DV Were More Than Just A Website?")
This is, of course, sparked by Kiza's amazingly kickass and awesome story, and takes place in the same multiverse and roughly the same time period. That said, this is NOT meant to intrude on his story, or outdo it, or horn in on it, or anything else. This just came to mind as I read his story, and I wrote it down.
This involves DuB, Shift, and two as-of-yet un-revealed characters.
If You Can't Stand the Heat, Why Are You Sitting In the Fire?
The renting cough split the air, echoing off the thin walls of the tent. The boy had been getting worse throughout the night. He'd been trying to hide it, but the man saw the blood on the tissues before the boy hurriedly tucked his arms back into his sleeping bag. If he didn't improve soon, he was going to have to leave him behind.
After a moment's thought, the man spoke, “That sounds bad.”
“We should never have taken the road through-” the boy broke off in another fit of coughing, then, wheezing a bit, finished, “-through 4chan.”
“If that cough gets much worse, I'm going to have to leave you here and carry on alone. You'll slow me down too much.”
The boy's eyes grew big, and moisture began to bead in them before he got ahold of himself. “But-but you promised. You promised I could come!”
“This is no trip for a boy, anyway. The Web is a dangerous place. Look what a few anonymous immature imbeciles did to your immune system. It gets worse.”
“Worse than what that guy did to that skull? Worse than the VOGTFO pictures? My dog had less hair than those things! Worse than the suitcase full of dead ba-”
The man cut him off, “Yes, worse than all of that combined, I'm afraid.”
The boy turned his head, a look of barely restrained terror and revulsion on his young face. This trip had shattered his usually tough exterior, and he was having to grow up fast. Too fast. He started to say something else, then seemed to decide against it. He lay back against the rolled-up jacket he was using as a pillow, staring at the low ceiling of the small tent. Finally he spoke, “But you'll protect me, won't you, DuB?”
The man sighed, reaching for his ever-present bottle of cheap whiskey. Today it was Seagram's Seven. The Fighting Cock had run out in /b/. Why did they always look to him for protection? Even when he was still the last active administrator of Dreamv-
No.
He wouldn't think of that place. Not anymore.
Not after what had happened. Not after what he'd had to do.
He took a big gulp of the whiskey, hoping it wouldn't take long to get thoroughly drunk tonight. Life was so much easier when you couldn't count to three with all of your toes to help. Plus it made the huge horned beetles that kept crawling into the tent look a little like puppies, if he squinted. He hated to have to step on puppies and squish their guts out their asses, but they kept trying to burrow under his skin and eat him from the inside out, and even puppies didn't do that to DuB.
*
In a small oasis deep in the Sahara, a camel was chewing its lunch for the third time that day. By this point, there really wasn't much to chew, but the camel was a bit preoccupied, and hadn't noticed. It was trying to figure out, in its not very bright little brain, just what it was that the short skinny girl dressed in all the swirly robes and turban was trying to accomplish by beating it with a sandal.
It was a very hot day, as are most days in Northern Africa. In actual point of fact, the girl was really just quite mad at the camel for eating her last memory card for her camera for its lunch, and the sandal was the only suitable object she had at hand. Never mind that her camera had quit working three days ago due to pervasive sand issues*, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. In a somewhat roundabout way. Really, more like bruised its back. Not very badly, at that.
Finally she got tired, and sat down. She was determined not to cry, which was handy, because she didn't have enough fluids left to make tears anyway. A common misconception about oases involves the idea that you can always find fresh water in them. As you can probably guess by the use of the word 'misconception', this is not true.
In reality, oases quite often do not have any water at all, unless you are prepared to dig dozens of feet underground to find a very small bit of moisture; the moisture responsible for the green palm trees. Well, the one green palm tree. If you don't mind giving a bit of leeway on the term 'green'.
Shift, however, did not know this. Neither did the camel, but the camel didn't know much of anything. This is a common affliction of camels.
Fortunately, it is a small world. Not as small as in the beliefs of the Finfili tribe that lives on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, has never discovered fire, and worships an oyster, though. As far as they know, the world consists of their island and roughly one square mile of sea, and has a population of 21.5* people. They would not, however, be able to tell you this, because they cannot speak your language, or any language but their own, which consists of 17 words and 5 incoherent sounds that all mean “fish,” and it is against their religion to count.
Anyway, it is a relatively small world. At that very moment, another camel-riding traveler, who did know these useful facts about oases, was closing in on this particular oasis, not because he needed water, but because the GPS chip he had put in Shift's sandal was pointing him there. Or had been, until about five minutes ago.
Soon he would reach her, and save the day. Because that's the kind of thing he did. That's the kind of thing he was good at. It's what he was born to. Or his name wasn't-
*
“We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this urgent news message!”
*
*Ever try to take pictures of a sandstorm from inside a sandstorm? Don't.
*The tribal chief's wife, or what accounts for a wife in their culture, was bitten in half by a shark, and the chief hasn't realized that the reason she never has supper ready on time anymore is because she's dead.
