Meph came and found me sitting on the edge on the ramparts of the large clocktower again. It was the tallest building in town, overlooking the Guild Hall from it's position in the rear courtyard. From here, you could see the whole, empty town, the forest that surrounded it, and in the distance the large clearing.

  In between my many attempts to…’opt out’ of the game, shall we say, Meph had explained that area was where Players would first spawn, as I did, and get to actually select their race, class and a few other options, which I didn’t, before making it over to the starter town, where people like him would help train them up the first few levels so they could safely and fairly venture out into the world. Where people like me would help the actual Players.

  There would be a number of starter towns like this all around the game world too.

  Meph settled onto the edge of the stone windowsill in the windows below the clock-face of the tower, next to me. We sat there like that watching the sun lower for a few minutes.

  "So, you going to try again?" Meph said, finally breaking the silence.

  "What's the point? They won't let me go, will they. I'll just pop right back in my bed yet again..." I muttered, sullenly.

  "Mm, yes. Though also with a little experience boost, which was unexpected. It seems like you found a little exploit there, buddy. Not one I'd recommend, but it's there, all the same."

  It had been about six weeks since I was dumped in Durrilan Town, in a weird fantasy world that was a glorified gameshow for angels and devils to laugh over. Six weeks since I found out that I had been dropped here not to play their games, but to be one of their little non-player character servants.

  Once again, I found my life was not my own and I couldn't bear it.

  Over those first few weeks since getting here, I had tried to end it all over three dozen times or so. I had given pretty much everything a try. Initially, I ran out the town gates and tried to escape, in a moment of blind panic. I had no idea where I was going, or what I thought was going to happen, I just couldn't be there, tied into responsibilities I never asked for and never wanted.

  I got almost as far as the edge of the clearing, but then my world flashed momentarily and I found myself back in the town, standing next to Meph and the fountain.

  "What the fuck?" I said.

  "Yeah, sorry about that. But your location has been set to the town, so you won't be able to stray far." Meph shrugged, not sounding too apologetic about it at all.

  I'm not proud of the sulk I threw after that, spending a few days refusing to leave my room. I barely even got out of my bed, just lying there cursing the impossible situation I found myself in. Eventually, I decided even oblivion would be better than this.

  Except I soon found that that was going to be impossible to attain, no matter how hard I tried.

  I moved onto weapons next. Meph warned me that destroying myself here wouldn't send me on, I'd either just find oblivion or get lost in that in-between place. Which confused me, because I thought this was the in-between place.

  At either rate, at least that would be my choice. At the time, that was all I cared about.

  However, I had about as much luck with them as I had running away. It started small, daggers and knives, and then I moved up to swords or trying to run into spears. Every time, I was met with failure. Blades would break, or would retract, or would pierce successfully but I'd lose only a handful of HP and then instantly heal.

  I moved onto potions and poisons. I went to the apothecary, and met Silda for the first time. I at first tried to tell her I wanted to escape the game, but her eyes glazed over like she had no idea what I was talking about. Meph would later explain to me the difference between people like us and the true NPCs.

  The fact that there was that distinction didn’t change things in my mind. That I knew I was an NPC, locked in a cycle and never being able to change anything made it worse, if anything. The idea of being blissfully unaware would almost be a relief, even if it would be no different than being totally obliterated in my opinion.

  Again, sometimes I would lose a bunch of hit points, only for them to rise back on their own, often with the nasty side effects of nausea or worse from imbibing whatever I tried. Poison effects were immediately negated, and my HP would rise to the top within minutes. Another dead end.

  I got to my most extreme by three weeks in. I had met Duggan the week before, the quartermaster at the weapon shop. He was a brawny man with a brown handlebar moustache that curled into sideburns, which then ended abruptly at his shiny, bald head. He could make all kinds of things I couldn't just find lying around the Guild Hall or in the armouries. So I got him to make me a bomb.

  I went outside town, as far as I could go. It had taken a few attempts to work out where the exact limit was, but once I found it I set about my task.

  Look, I wanted to blow myself up, but not the whole town. I wasn't a complete arsehole.

  I pulled out the bomb from my inventory, a small, hand sized metal ball. I was told I just needed to drop or throw it, and then it would have the desired effect. I remember vaguely admiring the craftsmanship, and thinking they really went all out with the Duggan character, before turning my hand over and letting the ball drop.

  The effect was immediate, and for a split-second, I thought I’d finally found success. I remember the sensation of sudden heat and being thrown in the air by the blast wave like a ragdoll. Mid-flight, I could feel my clothes burning, and the pain washed over me and panic rushed through me, mixed with the thought of finally.

  It ended almost as quick as it started though, as I crashed into the streets of the town and skidded along the floor. I came to a stop about half a foot in front of Meph, who stood there patiently staring down at me. I opened one eye and saw him, which was my first clue. The second was seeing my hit points flashing in red at 1HP before finally starting to crawl back up. Everything ached, but I was still here.

  "This won't work. You're an Essential NPC, Russell. They won't let you off yourself. Again," he added that last part after a pause, his arms held right across his chest. "You're needed to fulfil a role."

  "They can pick someone else, for fuck's sake," I groaned back up at him. "I can't be the only one, there must be thousands of other props for them to use," I felt my anger rising as my voice got louder, and I was forcing myself through the pain to get up onto my feet and get up in Meph's face.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Sure. Hundreds of thousands even. But what do you think we are, humans? We value a soul more than that."

  "Value?" I screamed, incredulous. "You pluck us out of the ether and just slam us into this place for your entertainment! You take people like me and just stuff me wherever you want, make me do whatever you want, without even asking. I don't even get a choice in the bloody matter! They can just throw me into the goddamn void as far as I care!"

  "Well, that doesn't sound like you'd have any choice in the matter either, does it?" Meph said, coolly. He stared down into my eyes and I glared right back for several moments. Then I spun on my heel and stormed off.

  I festered and seethed in my room for another three days and nights, staring out the window. At the clocktower. Finally, I got up and made my way to the building.

  I'd been avoiding it. I guess avoiding the well-known sensation, holding a familiarity I didn't care to repeat again. But what choice did I have left?

  I climbed the stairs slowly, as if I was moving through waist high mud. Eventually, I came to the top of the tower, to the window underneath the clock face. I looked over the edge, and stared down. The rear courtyard stretched out before me. I was easily about fifteen stories high, towering over the top of the Guild Hall. I sighed.

  And then I stepped forward.

  The feeling was distressingly similar. Wind rushing past, stinging my eyes and roaring in my ears. This wouldn't last as long as last time, I thought, but hopefully...

  There was a flash and that increasingly familiar feeling of a jarring stutter over my whole body. But I opened my eyes, to find myself back in my room.

  I screamed.

  The remaining weeks went on like that. I'd leave the Guild Hall, I'd trudge up the stairs of the clocktower, I'd step out the window, I'd find myself back in my bed. I tried again. And again. Rinse and repeat. Every time the same result.

  Sometimes, Meph would come out and watch. Sometimes, I'd put objects underneath, hoping to find a space above the point where I'd get snapped away and put in my bed, hoping to find some loophole. Every time, I wound up in bed, staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling over my head.

  This day, I just sat on the edge of the window, staring out over Durrilan. Meph sat beside me quietly. We stayed like that for many minutes. The sun moved across the sky, getting lower and lower.

  "Why did you do it?" Meph finally asked, almost a whisper.

  "Why did I do what?" I said, calmly and without any real feeling.

  "Why did you...leave early?”

  I sat there a moment and let the quiet descend between us. After a few minutes, Meph must have thought I wasn't going to tell him, and he started to make a move to leave.

  "Back in life," I finally spoke, and Meph settled back in. "I was working in sales. It wasn't what I wanted to be, wasn't what I looked for. I just kind of fell into it. I needed to pay the bills, to keep the roof over my head, and this job...well, it was the only thing which would take me, and I wound up there.

  "LifeZest, Inc. That was the company I worked for. Well, one of their stores anyway. It was just kinda like sales and customer relations stuff, things like that? Occasional helping people find items, mostly just packing orders to send out though, you know, so customers wouldn’t have to come in themselves - like a convenience thing?”

  "I'm familiar," Meph said, nodding, and then waited for me to continue.

  "I wanted to do something else, obviously. I wasn’t really sure what, but I liked making art, and hoped I could make some kind of, I dunno, some kind of impact. Something fun and interesting, and a little different. And maybe allow me to do some fun things with my life.

  "I studied hard. Went to university. I came out with a 2:1 in Art History. That was pretty good, by the way. After that, I applied for so many jobs in media. In games. Entry level. Hell, internships where I wouldn't get paid. I got nowhere. Half of them would never even reply. The other half would always say they wanted someone with 'experience'. Like that was just something you got without doing the job in the first place. A bunch of jobs just disappeared because AI could do it now.”

  The sun lowered towards the horizon in the distance, and the sky started to turn a deep dark blue overhead, and flamed orange in the distance. It was beautiful.

  "Anyway, money started running out, and I needed something to keep me going. I burned through a few simple jobs, bar work, retail. I flew from them after a few months each time, thinking it wasn't what I really wanted to do, I just needed to keep afloat while I kept trying for that 'real' thing, y'know? And hopefully figure out exactly what that was. Over the years though, I dunno. It ground me down. I got tired. Of trying and getting rejected without even being given a chance. Or worse, completely ignored.

  "Eventually, I wound up at a LifeZest store. I blended in well. Nice crowd of folks. But I guess I always felt a little distant. Not that I felt better than them, or anyone that was trying to build a career in that kind of work, of course not. Just...it wasn't what I wanted. What I saw for myself.

  "But I was tired. I stopped sending out applications to the other places. I was safe in my job, I thought. People would always rather someone else do anything for them, even if it was shopping. I was feeling exhausted and just thought, I need a break. To learn to enjoy myself again, because I wasn't anymore. I wasn't wanting to die, but living didn't really feel that great either.

  "Then LifeZest announced their Smart Assistants. AIs that could be installed not just online, but in branches. They had some sort of algorithm or some shit, allowed them to make the perfect match of product to customer. Stores were refitted to even make the whole process streamlined, they’d say. What they meant was so they wouldn’t need as many people to do the work. People loved it, praised it. What a massive boon for the human race, for our ingenuity. Now we could focus on the things we really wanted to do.

  "Except. I'd already been trying to do that, hadn't I? And getting nowhere. Whatever, at least I could pay my bills, and maybe eventually all those loans, and someday, someday maybe I could find a break.

  "But as the years went on, I saw the people around me moving on and getting on with their lives. Getting houses. Starting families. And the people getting ahead of me in life just seemed to be getting younger and younger. No matter what I tried, I felt stuck in place. It felt like I wasn't even the main character in my own story, you know? Heck, I wasn't even a side character. I felt like a background player, a figure in the background to fill up the scene of my life.

  "Then the boss called me into the office. I was redundant. The Smart Assistants we installed were really good, you see. I wasn't needed anymore. I wasn't cost effective.

  "That's not what they said, of course. They said some bullshit about times being hard or some such. But now the one thing I actually ever heard back from, the one kind of safety net I had left, was gone and I was told to just go. I didn't get to choose to leave. Even this thing I didn’t even really want was being taken away from me.

  “I just…I just wanted to be in charge. Not of the company, not of my team, not of others at all. I just wanted to be in charge of myself. To make my own way, my own story.”

  We sat there on the edge in silence again as the sun fell behind the hills in the distance.

  "I know it's selfish--"

  "No. It's not selfish to want to be the main character in your own story, Russell," Meph said after a few minutes passed. "Or if it is, it's a selfishness you're absolutely allowed to feel and want. We all want to feel like we matter, and not just to someone else's journey.

  "I think I understand now. And I understand why this is hitting you so hard. I'm sorry, Russell. Truly, I am. I don't think anyone realised that they were basically asking you to live in your own personal hell."

  "Yeah, well...what else is new, I guess," I gave him a weak smile. "Sorry for being a pain in the arse, mate."

  "Oh, please, this was nothing. But I hope you can find something worth it in this existence now, Russell. I promise, if we can, I'll find a way to make you feel in charge of your own afterlife, in some small measure."

  I laughed softly, and put my hand on the former-devil's shoulder. "Thanks. And hey, call me Rusty. Everyone did, before."

  Meph smiled and nodded. Then he got up from the windows edge, and offered his hand to me. "Okay. Ready to come down and try and make something out of all of this?"

  "Sure," I said, then, "Hey, Meph? See you down there," I winked, and I leaned over the edge and let myself fall again.

  I closed my eyes.

  The same lurch and sudden stop. I opened my eyes.

  I was not in my bedroom.