Insomniac Player

The man himself seemed to have no idea he’d just been spotted. He looked back up at the stars and let out a small, self-mocking laugh. "...Heh. For a second I thought he was actually looking at me." He shook his head. "Guess the loneliness is finally getting to me."

Damien walked closer. The man didn’t react, still fixed on the sky.

He stopped beside the bench. "Hello there."

The glowing man went rigid.

"..." His head turned, slow, eyes sliding straight past Damien and back up to the stars. "...I’m imagining things."

"You’re not." Damien smiled. "I was talking to you."

The man’s smile vanished. His head turned back, careful this time, and their eyes actually met.

Confusion first. Then disbelief. Then something closer to shock.

"You..." His voice shook. "You can see me?"

"I can."

He shot up off the bench, his whole outline trembling. "No. That’s not possible." He circled Damien fast, studying him from every side like he was checking for a trick. "I’ve been sitting in this park for a full year. Thousands of players have walked through, first-generation heroes included. Not one of them ever looked at me twice." He reached out a glowing hand, stopping just short of Damien’s shoulder. "You can actually see me."

Damien thought about it. "...Might be my class."

He pulled up his status window and stopped on one line.

Passive Skill: Nocturnal Eyes. The description clicked into a different shape than he’d first assumed, not just night vision. A way of seeing things ordinary players couldn’t. Ghosts, apparently, fell into that category.

The man let out a quiet laugh. "Lucky or unlucky, hard to say." He sank back onto the bench. "Would you sit?"

Damien did. The two of them looked up at the sky together while the park kept moving around them, people walking straight through the glowing shape on the bench without so much as a shiver.

"...What’s your name?"

A long pause. "Anthony."

"Yours?"

"Sleepless."

Anthony’s mouth curved. "Alias?"

"Damien. That’s my real one."

"...Nice to meet you, Damien." A beat passed before he added, almost lighter, "You’re the first person I’ve said that to in a year. Practice makes perfect, apparently."

Damien huffed. "How’s the delivery?"

"Rusty." Anthony actually smiled at that. "You’d be amazed what a year of nobody hearing you does to your conversation skills. I’ve had entire arguments with pigeons."

"Did you win?"

"Every time. They never talk back." He tipped his head at Damien. "You’re already a better conversationalist than most of them."

’This guy has lost it.’

Damien laughed despite himself, then let the quiet stretch out a little before asking the obvious question. "...What exactly is a ghost?"

Anthony’s smile faded slower this time. "Players. Sometimes NPCs. People who couldn’t move on." He turned his hands over, watching the glow along his fingers. "When someone dies carrying somethin too heavy, regret, hatred, revenge, betrayal, sometimes even love, the soul doesn’t always go where it’s supposed to. Some of it stays behind. Like this."

"So you’re stuck here."

"Can’t leave. Can’t touch anything. Can’t eat, can’t sleep. I just exist." He shrugged, a small, tired motion. "The upside is I’ve gotten very good at people-watching. The downside is I’ve also seen things in this park I very much wish I hadn’t."

Damien raised an eyebrow. "...Do I want to know?"

"You do not." Anthony’s grin flickered back for a second before fading again. "Eventually you stop counting the days, though. That part’s true." A bitter edge crept back into his voice. "I stopped somewhere past three hundred."

Silence settled for a moment. Then Anthony looked over at him. "Actually, I’ve been waiting for someone."

Damien blinked. "...Me?"

"No." Anthony laughed, short. "Didn’t know you existed until about two minutes ago. I was waiting for anyone." He pointed north. "There’s an epic dungeon out that way."

"...Epic?"

"The Verdant Labyrinth. Entrance sits hidden under an old botanical research facility. No guild’s ever found it." Anthony’s tone sharpened, more serious now. "It’s not the monsters that make it dangerous. Nobody can find the way out. The walls shift constantly. There are plants in there that eat people and mimic flowers, trees, grass, even human voices to lure them in. Lose your bearings once, and you don’t come back."

Damien listened, committing every word to memory.

"The boss isn’t strong. He’s clever. Asks riddles. Answer right, you pass. Answer wrong, the maze keeps you for good."

Another window opened.

➤[Hidden Quest Discovered]

➤[A wandering spirit has entrusted you with knowledge hidden from the living.]

➤[Name: The Verdant Labyrinth]

➤[Difficulty: Epic]

➤[Status: Undiscovered]

➤[Objective: Locate and clear the hidden dungeon.]

➤[Rewards scale according to completion.]

Damien accepted it without a second’s hesitation.

Anthony laughed. "Brave or stupid."

"Ask me again in a week."

For the first time in what looked like a very long while, Anthony’s laugh came out clean, no bitterness underneath it. It faded slowly, and his expression settled into something heavier.

"There’s one more thing." He looked directly at Damien now. "A personal request."

A second notification opened, its border glowing dark crimson this time.

➤[Personal Quest]

➤[The Forgotten Betrayal]

➤[Anthony demands justice.]

➤[Will you hear his story?]

[YES] [NO]

Damien selected Yes.

Anthony closed his eyes. "I wasn’t killed by monsters. I was murdered." No anger in it, just exhaustion worn down to the bone. "My own teammate."

"...Why?"

A bitter laugh. "Loot. Experience. Maybe just because he liked it." His fists curled slowly. "He called it hunting."

Damien said nothing.

"His alias was Kill_For_Fun." The name alone sat wrong in the air between them. "Already had a name for himself among the Player Slayers before he ever got to me."

"...Player Slayers?"

"Criminals. Players who hunt other players on purpose. Steal their gear, their rewards. Some of them just do it for the feeling." Anthony’s eyes stayed on Damien. "They kill because they can."

Something cold settled low in Damien’s chest. His own legendary title sat in the back of his mind now, uninvited, the word Player Killer suddenly a lot heavier than it had felt reading it off a screen.

"We cleared a dungeon boss together," Anthony went on. "Then he put a blade in my back before I even understood what was happening. I kept asking him why. He just laughed." His voice dropped further. "That’s the last thing I ever heard."

The park stayed quiet around them, only distant kids’ laughter drifting in from somewhere else.

Damien stood and looked Anthony in the eye. "I can’t promise it’ll be soon. I’m still weak. Really weak." He held out a hand anyway. "But one day, I’ll find him. And he’ll answer for every life he took."

Anthony stared at the offered hand for a long moment before reaching for it. Their palms never actually touched, one of them wasn’t fully there anymore, but he smiled like they had.

"...Thank you."

Warm light wrapped around him. Golden particles lifted off his shoulders and drifted upward. His outline thinned, going translucent by degrees.

He looked down at his own hands. "...Guess my regret wasn’t revenge after all." He smiled toward the sky. "It was being remembered."

His eyes found Damien one last time. "Live well. Don’t become him."

Then he came apart entirely, gold light scattering upward into the dark until there was nothing left of him but stars.

The bench sat empty. Truly empty this time. Damien lowered himself onto it anyway, the breeze moving through the leaves overhead, a whole sky of stars stretched out above him. Somewhere up there, maybe, Anthony had finally stopped waiting.

He leaned back and let out a slow breath, something heavier than he expected settling into his chest.

"Rest well," he said quietly.

Then he sat there a while longer, alone under a changed sky, carrying the last wish of a man nobody else had bothered to remember.