Read The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point for Free Online

slaughter. The monsters... they destroyed everything. The city is... ”
    She pulls away from my touch and inhales, summoning her own strength to continue.
    “Those of us that survived, that were able to remain hidden, we knew we had to figure out a way to end the death loop that you were in. The civilians came up with the idea to change your spawn point so that you'd reappear inside the game instead of outside the gates, in NextWorld.”
    I take a long, deep breath. I'm trying to allow all the pieces of the puzzle to find their place, but they keep spinning. I look down at my avatar again, studying my hands and my clothes. I feel new. Fresh. Untouched. I pull out one of my pistols. It looks shiny, like I've never fired it. I spin the cylinder of bullets.
    Cyren leans in and rests her head against my chest. “I made a selfish choice. We should have let you go, let you log-out. This world... it's falling apart. It's dangerous and-”
    I cup her face in my hands, look directly into her eyes, and this time I speak honestly, because there's one thing I'm sure of: “You're the reason I keep playing. You're the reason I stayed. As long as you're by my side, nothing else matters.”
    She shakes her head and wipes her eyes. “I don't mean to be like this. It's these emotions. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle the way I'm feeling. It's like this flood of passionate responses to everything around me.”
    She can sympathize and empathize and experience what's going on inside of herself and other people. She's getting in touch with emotions she doesn't recognize, because it's the first time she's ever felt them. She may have learned what it means to be human, but only on an intellectual level from whatever books were available in the game's library. Now she's experiencing it first hand.
    She's looking at me like she wants my help. She wants me to explain to her what it all means. The happiness and the sadness and the anxiety and the excitement. But the only thing I've ever felt is love.
    “Arkade,” she says my name as she reaches out and touches my hand. “There's something else you need to know.”
    “What is it?”
    She glances back at the civilians, but they're focused on their code books, not our conversation. When she speaks, she's unable to look at me.
    “It took them a long time to change the code. They had to be careful. Changing code is dangerous. If they made a mistake...”
    I wait with a blank face, oblivious to what she's about to say. I can hear the struggle in her voice, something internal, like she's unable to speak.
    “How long did it take? How long was I in the loop?”
    She grabs both my hands, but she still isn't looking at me. She can't. She squeezes, letting me know she's there with me. Letting me know she's strong, so I can be weak.
    “You were dead for two years.”

00110100

    The labyrinth is silent other than the constant scribbling of the quill pens that the civilians are using to correct the code in their books. They are still finding errors caused by the change in my spawn point.
    Cyren stands next to me, her body cold and defeated. I place my arm around her, trying to comfort her, to let her know she's safe again, but her mind is elsewhere. In another time. Another place.
    I know I should be more concerned with the years I've lost in my life, all the changes that have happened in my absence, but my mind keeps coming back to one thing.
    “How many?” I ask.
    Cyren looks at me, waiting for more.
    “How many died while I was gone?”
    She lowers her head, facing the fear of answering the question with a bashful hesitancy.
    “Nine thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven.”
    I stumble backward, as if the truth shoved me away from her. My fists clench.
    “The Level Zeros?”
    She bites her lip, trying a different pain. “Including me, there are twenty-seven of us left.”
    I feel distant from the truth, like the number is so unreal that I'm unsure of its meaning. I should have been