Arrival

00:13 A.M., JULY 3RD, 2001

Ashley’s phone buzzed, and she all but leapt off her chair. Ashley’s phone NEVER buzzed. She quickly glanced at her computer screen, just to check whether or not she’d paused the game. After confirming she had - a gamer’s instincts never failed - she focused back on the little Nokia phone off near the edge of her computer desk.

She only bought it ’cause it was new and cool and maybe she’d talk to more people if she had it. Things didn’t exactly go to plan on that front. Her ... friends? The coven counted as friends right? She even talked to some of them every on in a while. Yeah, they counted.

They weren’t into cellphones though. They were too old to appreciate the tech, but it was the future! They’d come around eventually, and then she’d have LOADS of contac-

It buzzed again, screen lighting up brightly in the dark room, and again Ashley flinched away with a small shriek. It was her message beep, silenced. Someone had sent her a message, twice. Maybe even two someones once each! Surely, it-

The phone buzzed again! She was ready this time, and only flinched a little. Three times can’t be spam! Someone actually wanted to talk to her!

Heartened, she quickly swiped the cellphone and opened the first message. The words should’ve set her heart to pounding, but it couldn’t do that anymore. She was still pretty nervous, though. Excited too. But mostly she was terrified. David was here.

‘Arrived,’ the message read, ‘fresh off boat. You got time to meet up? Don’t know anyone else here.’

Oh God, oh God, he wanted to meet. Tonight. Oh God. Her watch showed it was just past midnight, so there was plenty of time. But still, oh God. He didn’t know. Didn’t know she had kind of ... embellished her identity.

Thought she was a ‘he’, worst of all! How was she gonna deal with that?! She just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

He was early! She hadn’t had time to think about how to approach him and now he was here and there was no more time!

This was all his fault! Not hers! She HAD to make things up or he wouldn’t be interested in her ... she was short and skinny and mousy with stupid blonde wavy horribly messy hair and stupid rat-eyes and no butt and small breasts that weren’t even the same size and she was boring and never did anything but hunt and play video games ... and when he assumed she was a guy she just had to go with it!

Who assumed someone named Ashley was a guy anyway? This was clearly all his fault! Oh God, she couldn’t go meet him! But he was all alone so far from home! She couldn’t NOT go! How would SHE have liked it if she was all alone in a dark, unfamiliar place full of people she didn’t know?

Not at all, that was how! She couldn’t just leave him ALONE - did he even have a place to sleep?! What the hell would he do come morning?! She HAD to go! He NEEDED her!

She opened the second message, which was obviously going to be him asking for her to come help him again, but kind of playing it off as no big deal even though he was scared off his wits and had no idea what to do!

‘Hey, sorry, forgot to tell you,’ the message started, ‘I’m headed to Elysium. Hit me up if you want to meet. Somewhere else is fine too, I know things aren’t peachy in the city right now.’

Oh God, she couldn’t let him go to Elysium! It was too dangerous! There was no Prince anymore and the whole place was anarchy! There was a fight in Elysium every other night! She had to warn him!

She quickly started tying out a message - god damn useless predictive text why did it have to be so bad? Midway through the text she realized she had never looked at his final message.

What if he had changed his mind and decided to do something else? She’d look so STUPID if she told him not to go somewhere he wasn’t going anyway, but time was of the essence, right? Who knew how much delay these messages had in the first place? Cingular was a shit service provider, they could’ve been sent hours ago! But she couldn’t risk sounding stupid...

She backed out of the write screen and opened the last message. Her heart sank. ‘Hey sorry for spamming you,’ it started, ‘but my friend here doesn’t want to go to Elysium, so I won’t be able to use his phone anymore. I’ll see you at Elysium, maybe! I’ll see if I can’t get myself an American number tomorrow night, bye!’

Her first thought was that she almost sent a text to a random stranger. Her second thought was that said random stranger now had her phone number. Her third thought was that David was going into an active war zone and she had no way to contact him.

Oh God, oh fuck. The first was terrifying and the second was annoying, but that last one was a bit more urgent. What was she going to do? What COULD she do? If the Invictus or the Carthians picked a fight with him, what would HE do? He wouldn’t ... he wouldn’t fight them, right? He’d run, right? But where? He had nowhere to go, she didn’t even know how he found out where Elysium was.

Maybe the stranger with the cellphone told him? But then why not tell him it wasn’t Elysium anymore? Oh God, it was a trap! He’d been sent into a trap, that had to be it!

Oh God, oh fuck. Should she go? Could she even save him? Wait, could it be a trap for HER? How? How would they find out David was coming? Was he talking to someone else? He said he wasn’t, but he called cellphone guy his friend, and you don’t just make friends with people you just met! And why? She was just some Circle neonate, no one important. No one would even miss her, for fucks sake! The hierophant would probably take revenge, but just to show strength, not out of any concern for her fate.

Nothing made sense. It was safer to stay inside, keep playing Baldur’s Gate and forget about this whole thing. But what if he NEEDED her? She couldn’t just leave him. He was the only person who ever talked to her anymore. She had no one else and HE had no one else. She couldn’t abandon him. But it could be a trap. But if he died she’d never forgive herself. But what if HE was the traitor? What if HE was luring her to Elysium to get HER? Would that ... would that be so bad...? To be ... GOTTEN? She shuddered.

She had to find out which it was. Was he in trouble? Was he a traitor? She stood up from her chair and examined the game on the screen. She was about to start the new Throne of Bhaal content too.

She really should’ve just breezed through the main story of Shadows of Amn instead of getting bogged down by the non-critical stuff. With a sigh she saved the game and turned off the PC. It was going to be a long night, damn David and damn her stupid Mekhet blood.