I shook my head.

  Calvin wasn’t the type of guy to make jokes, but there was always a first time, right?

  It was getting dark, and quickly. A bit weird, since the last I’d checked, the sun was only just past the high point, but then time had been passing in strange ways for a long time now –

  “MIK TSAAM! BREATHE!”

  Huh?

  Calvin was shouting but his voice sounded distant, as if he were yelling at me from another room. He even looked far away.

  The raven cannon-balled into my upper stomach.

  I gasped, a huge intake of air that flooded my blood with oxygen and brought everything suddenly and sharply back into focus. The room brightened, and Calvin was right there, gripping my shoulders –

  A child –

  Stay quiet.

  Did that count as me making a noise?

  No no no no –

  I scrambled backwards so quickly I fell off the bed, jolting my leg painfully. The wound in my thigh throbbed with the beat of my heart.

  Calvin’s face was a mask of anguish. Frozen in the attitude of reaching out to me, he hovered uncertainly. Eventually, he sat back, letting me pick myself painfully off the stone ground and crawl back onto the bed. Even the garrulous raven seemed to have been shocked into silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Calvin said at last. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  I knew that there could be some other way of getting through this scenario, but what? What would happen if we didn’t… if a child wasn’t born?

  I clutched my stomach and covered my mouth.

  Calvin slammed his fist down so hard on the bed that I heard the wooden frame splinter. The bed listed like a sinking ship.

  “YOU’RE REALLY GOING TO MAKE ME DO THIS?” he roared.

  I stared at him over my hand, barely seeing him.

  Stay quiet.

  “This game… gets in your head, Mik Tsaam,” Calvin muttered, digging his fingers into the straw and wood. I heard more cracks – the timber or his knuckles, I wasn’t sure.

  The raven cawed again, eyeing Calvin warily. It hopped off the windowsill and peered up at me, cawing repeatedly.

  I realised I was reaching for Calvin’s arm to write, ‘We don’t have to do this. No-one would know.’

  “All the people around here know about it. It’s a legend in these parts – the king will find a maiden in the forest and their child will become a great king.”

  The game really had thought of everything, hadn’t it? No wonder Calvin was cursing it so intensely. I sincerely wanted to join him.

  Instead, I clasped my hands in desperate hope and shut my eyes.

  Excommunicated. They’d really done it.

  “Are you Praying?” Calvin asked hopefully. “Did it work?”

  ‘I… Excommunicated.’

  “What does that mean?”

  ‘I can’t Pray.’

  “What? Why? For how long?”

  ‘A week.’

  “A week. We… We can manage with that. What about your other skills?”

  ‘I need to be able to say them out loud.’

  Calvin looked ready to throw something. “I can’t believe this. The game nerfs you at a time like this?” He pulled his hands down his face. “I… I need to…” Standing abruptly, he strode to the doorway and disappeared through it, slamming the door so hard that the timbers creaked dreadfully.

  With a caw, the raven hopped to the edge of the bed, beak swinging from me towards the door where Calvin had gone, and back again. I hobbled to the door and opened it slightly, gesturing for the bird to follow. Still, it hesitated, cawing to me one last time.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I waved again. Go and find him.

  The raven hopped through the door.

  I slid down to the ground, the weight of my body pushing the door shut once more.

  When I became aware again, I was back in the bed. I didn’t remember moving there. The sun was setting. Calvin hadn’t returned.

  There was a raven on the windowsill. It moved with a familiar swagger, cawing softly when I looked up and saw it watching me.

  I wanted to hold her. I wanted to push her out of the window.

  Leave me alone. Don’t look at me. Don’t pity me.

  When Jesse cawed again, I lifted the pillow and swung it, knocking her off the windowsill and into the air. Without looking, I buried myself under the blankets, gripping my head so hard I developed a headache.

  Jesse didn’t come back.

  The week crawled by slower than the previous two years. What if my Prayer didn’t work? What if we couldn’t find another way to pass the scenario?

  None of the ravens visited, thankfully, heartbreakingly. I imagined them telling each other what Calvin and I had to do, cawing to each other the shameful knowledge.

  What was Jesse thinking?

  Why do I care what Jesse thinks? Shouldn’t I care more about… I don’t know, Han Sung-hyuk’s thoughts?

  Han Sung-hyuk was a handsome, capable man. He wasn’t a friend of mine who I had known for years and therefore grew up with. He also apparently wasn’t a psycho like Wen Yong. Honestly, wasn’t he the most eligible guy I had met in a long time?

  Should I just try image training? Try and imagine Han Sung-hyuk in Calvin’s place?

  God, please, don’t make us do this.

  I threw my pillow across the room. It was too soft to be satisfying.

  Someone knocked on the door. I blinked. The sun was rising.

  “Mik... Mik Tsaam. We’re coming in.”

  We?

  Stay quiet.

  With a raven on his shoulder, Calvin stepped into the room. His eyes were sunken and dark, the whites bloodshot. But the faint horror with which he looked at me suggested that perhaps I looked worse.

  My arms were still covered in writing, I realised.

  “Mik Tsaam… It’s been eight days. We can’t…” He looked away, looked anywhere but me. The raven chattered incessantly in the background. “Wai Meng insisted on being here. He might have some way of helping us.”

  Would you really be saying it like that if he did?

  My head felt so heavy. Eight days had passed?

  I put my hands together.

  God… Please… Please…

  …

  Please help me. Please save me.

  …

  Please…

  “And- Oh my god, I’m human again, thank god. Do you know how shitty it is being a raven for years? I had to –”

  “We. Don’t. Have. TIME.” Calvin grabbed Lee Wai Meng by the collar. “Wai Meng! I can’t do this! You need to do something!”

  “I…” Lee Wai Meng hung in Calvin’s grip, deflated. “This is backend stuff I can’t change at this point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was an option at the start of the game, remember? Asking if you’re over eighteen years old? It’s to prevent minors from being exposed to the ‘red’ parts of this game.”

  “Are you saying I have to… We have to…”

  Lee Wai Meng’s mouth twisted. “I… I think I can... make it a skippable cutscene.” He looked to me. “I’m sorry, Mik Tsaam.”

  He looked ready to cry. I was the one who wanted to cry here. I was the one who…

  Stay quiet.

  I nodded.

  “Mik Tsaam…”

  There was a rushing sound in my ears.

  If Poppy were alive, would she know another way?

  Probably. But Poppy was dead.

  Calvin closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Fuck. Do it, Wai Meng.”

  Lee Wai Meng’s fingers shook as they moved through the air in front of him. His eyes met mine as he raised his hand.

  He clicked his fingers, and the world went out like a light.

  I opened my eyes, alone in the medical room.

  There was no way of telling how much time had passed. I lay perfectly still, afraid that if I even breathed too deeply, I would fall apart, a broken thing.

  The wound in my leg pulsed steadily. The pain had dulled a little, but I could still feel it with each flush of blood through my body.

  Empty. I felt so, so empty.

  I was becoming aware of another, fainter throb, in a different part of my body. It didn’t hurt, and yet it was far worse than the pain of the arrow wound. I knew… I knew…

  And yet without any memory of the actual act…

  On reflex, I rolled abruptly to my side, foetal position, and smothered my sobs with the pillow, biting the fabric until I was practically swallowing it.

  Wait. What if it didn’t work?

  People rarely get…

  I couldn’t even think the word.

  … from just one time.

  Would we have to do this again?

  I would rather die. I would rather bite my tongue like a tortured xianxia heroine.

  There were sounds outside the room, raised voices that scratched at the edges of my hearing.

  Shut up. Why are you talking when everything is falling apart for me?

  The door was flung opened.

  “So you’re the woman my son brought in.”

  The older woman who entered was pale, with equally pale hair curled into a fluffy mass around her head, a jewelled tiara peeking forth. Matching earrings and a heavy chain glittered in the light, as she moved forwards with a rustle of stiff fabric. Her blue dress had a wide collar that exposed extremely sloping shoulders; if she moved too much it seemed like her dress might fall off.

  Somehow, the dress stayed in place. Perhaps all the ruffles and bows were keeping it there.

  I blinked at her.

  “You say she’s a mute?” the woman asked over her shoulder of the healer who had dug the arrow out of my leg.

  The healer cringed and nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And stupid too, it seems. Look at how she’s looking at me.” The noblewoman’s thin lips curled mockingly.

  Sure, whatever. Just leave me alone.

  Stay quiet.

  The woman stepped in close, and tapped my forehead, hard enough to be threatening, but not enough to actually harm me. “You’re probably thinking that you’re finally set up for life, aren’t you? You’ve charmed my son, will bear his child, and will live your life comfortably as a queen. Very good. I appreciate a woman who tries to change her fate. But you’ve chosen the wrong person to use.”

  She straightened with a creaking of garments. “You will not have what you want. I will make certain of it.”

  Turning, she swept out of the room so dramatically that she caused some papers on the table to flutter and spiral to the ground.

  Long after she had left, I stared at the closed door, my mind a buzz of white noise. When I grew tired of that, I rolled over again and stared at the wall under the window.

  The sun rose and set and the moon waxed and waned and the stars turned.

  Stay quiet.

  The nausea began six weeks later.