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Virtually No Chance

Ciara M. Blecka

    “You know she’s into me, dude,” Echo said, waving his VR controller around by the strap in elegant circles.
    “No way, man,” his brother Edvin argued. “Buffy was way wasted that night. She’s my girl. Besides, you’re supposed to be with Bria and you know it.”
    Echo groaned inwardly. “But Bria’s a nerd. You know she’ll never put out.”
    “Not my fault,” his brother said. “Let’s play. The girls are always on point in the game.”
    “If Bria weren’t such a friggin good flute player, I’d say kick her out of Athens Panic,” Echo said, strapping the headset on.
    “Stop it,” Edvin scolded. “You know you love her. Our band would be in its coffin without her.”
    “True,” Echo admitted. “On both counts. I just wish virtual reality was reality,” he moaned, slipping into the online world of their favorite video game The Music of Orpheus. It took him half a second to get his bearings. Everything did seem oddly real in the vast playspace they had drawn out on the living room carpet. “In the game, we are the heroes. And the girls need us.”
    “Yeah,” Edvin agreed. “Whereas in the real world, I think we need them.” He snorted, remembering the night Buffy had seduced him. The two brothers had been fighting over the girls since. Whichever brother ended up getting the beautiful glamorous sister would be the alpha male—supposedly.
    “Besides,” Echo added, “In the video game, Brea is a busty seductress. In real life she’s just a mousy librarian.”


    Buffy and Bria’s scantily clad avatars greeted them ingame with a hearty hail. They were ready to traverse the Underworld and confront Hades on his ebony throne. “Yassou, boys!” they shouted.
    But, something was...peculiar. Something had gone awry. There seemed to be some kind of glitch with Echo’s headset. He seemed glued to the spot and couldn’t move his feet. And even though he felt like he was moving his controllers, they weren’t tracking. In fact, his hands in the game felt like... his real hands. To his amazement, he seemed to be seeing his entire body, not just some virtual ghost hands. Virtual reality had never felt more real.

    “Guys, was there an update to the game?” he asked, glancing around at the scorched red earth of the Underworld.
    “We are here,” Bria said, walking towards him. He realized she was somehow herself, but yet still the busty avatar that he had played so many hours of video games with over the years. “This is real, Echo.” She stopped in her tracks when she heard a snapping of branches in the distance. “Did you hear that?” she said. “Someone’s coming.” She huddled close with her sister.
    “Echo, look,” his brother said, nodding to a great winged figure shrouded in black stalking towards the girls. They did not seem to see him or be aware of him, but he moved towards them with purpose, slow and quiet and deadly.
    “It’s the God of Death,” Echo murmured. He watched open-mouthed and speechless as Thanatos gently touched the foreheads of the two young women, weak with fear and beaded with sweat, as the realization of their fates washed over them. But it was too late. There was nothing they could do to fight the inevitable.
Death had come for them, oh so quietly, and they crumpled before it.
    Echo railed against his frozen limbs. He must save Bria from Hades. He had only now realized what he had now that it was gone. He did love Bria, his unbearably cute little nerd, and if he didn’t save her, then she may be doomed for an eternity to Tartarus. But just as he regained the use of his limbs, a beautiful chiseled young man with golden wings for ears and curly brown hair floated in front of his eyes, almost levitating, and Echo began to become afflicted with debilitating double vision. His exhaustion was overwhelming. It was Hypnos, he realized, using hypnokinesis to induce sleep.

    “May you dream your destiny,” he said in a singsong voice before Echo slipped into fitful nightmares, dreaming of the fate that awaited Bria and Buffy beyond Pluto’s Gate. In his dreams, it seemed all he was trying to do was reach them, but it was like he was running through molasses. Floating ethereally all throughout his dream was a mass for a dream of death. He regretted his desire to make virtual reality a real reality. Video games and fantasy women were better off staying in the realm of fantasy where they belonged.
    His brother shook him awake. “Echo, wake up. You have to play your lyre,” he said.
    Echo tried to shake the sleep from his eyes. Was it time to go on stage with Athens Panic? Had they never been stuck in a video game? “It was all a dream,” he said sleepily, rubbing his eyes and sitting up on a patch of dead brown grass. Someone must have been camping here for too long.
    “No. Echo.” Edvin shook his shoulders. “Wake up. We are stuck in the Underworld. You have to play your lyre. Play it for Hades. Convince him to free the girls.”
    “You mean like Orpheus? How will I do that? My lyre is at home. In the real world.”
    “This is virtual reality, right? Check your inventory.”
    Sure enough, there was a small wooden lyre in Echo’s inventory. Enough of a weapon to fight the likes of Hades. Or so he hoped. And Edvin’s sweet melancholy voice might be just enough to melt Hades frozen heart.
    “Are we too late?” Echo asked. “How long have we been asleep?”
    “I’m not sure,” Edvin said. “I just broke the spell myself. I do not think Hypnos meant for us to sleep forever.”
    “If we hurry we can catch them at the river Styx,” Echo said.
    “Genius,” his brother agreed. It seemed like a fine idea. There was even a spare boat on the shore of the river. They could see the girls ahead in the distance, pale and shimmering and at the mercy of the ferryman Charon who carried the souls of the newly deceased from the world of the living to the world of the dead.
    Edvin paddled the boat while Echo stood proud at the helm. The water frothing beneath them was as black as ink and as poisonous as venom.
    “I see them, Edvin,” Echo said, gesturing to the boat speeding ahead in the distant churning waters. “Paddle faster.”
    “I’m paddling as fast as I can,” his brother spat bitterly. “You try it, see how easy it is.”
    “Don’t look now, but it’s about to get a whole lot easier,” his brother squeaked, ducking as two black-winged shadows swooped down upon them, clawed like terrifying birds, but beautiful as sirens in the pitch-dark night.
    “The Keres sisters,” Edvin warned, paddling with all his might. His years of workouts on the rowing machine had finally paid off.
    “You have virtually no chance, boys,” the sisters warned. “You will not make it through the night.”
    They were so close to Brea and Buffy that they could almost touch the fabric of Charon’s dark cloak, but the Keres sisters had a violent death planned for them. They summoned a tumultuous hurricane to blast the boys out of the water. Echo steered the boat on a reach across tall breaking inky black waves. It seemed they would pull through, but eventually—inevitably—the waves swallowed them and their boat rolled over. To touch the black water would mean certain death. But the boys managed to scramble on top of the driftwood before touching the poisonous bubbling pitch. Ahead was a rocky waterfall.
    “If we go over, we are doomed,” Edvin shouted.
    “We cannot touch the water,” Echo agreed.
    “Your inventory,” Edvin reminded him. “Do you have a rope?”
    The rain splashed down, blurring Echo’s vision. But he searched his inventory anyway, half blind. “Yes,” he said. But I don’t know if it’s long enough.
    “We have to try,” his brother encouraged him. “Hurry.”
    Echo tied a loop in the rope and swung it towards a fallen tree that jutted out over the Styx. His first try failed. “It’s no use,” he moaned. “It’s too far away.”
    “Try again,” his brother said. “We’re about to go over.”
    His hands shaking, Echo swung the rope with all his might. The loop caught the branch jutting out of the log and stayed fixed. He was able to pull them through the swirling lapping black waves to safety. As soon as they were ashore, the storm subsided. Soaked and bedraggled, they gasped for air, doubled over in exhaustion on the riverbed.
    Echo was the first to rise. “We have to save Brea,” he declared.
    “And Buffy,” Edvin added.
    Echo blushed. “Well, of course.”
    “They’ll be beyond the gates of the Underworld by now,” Edvin said, mopping his brow with his soggy sleeve. “We’ll have to face Cerberus.”
    “The Hound of Hades,” Echo said with a low whistle. “He’s strong.”
    “Not strong enough,” Edvin declared.
    They continued on, following a small footpath that led to the mouth of the river where Pluto’s Gate loomed in all its dark glory. The three-headed dog stood guard vigilantly, assuring that none of the dead escaped their grisly fate. All three of the dog’s heads bared its massive sharp teeth, saliva dripping from its jaws, and crouched in preparation for an attack.
    “Your lyre, Echo,” Edvin whispered.
    “What?” Echo breathed, backing up a couple of steps in abject fear. The dog’s thick fur was matted and greasy and it was rank with the smell of death. Its six beady eyes were fixed straight on Echo.
    “Your lyre,” Edvin repeated. “Charm him.”
    The music of Orpheus had had the ability to charm the animals and make the trees dance. Could the music of Echo echo that effect? His fingers fumbling and his teeth chattering, Echo procured his polished wooden lyre and began to play a sweet lullaby for the vicious Cerberus. The ghostly twisted knotted charred trees began to dance in the wind like gossamer sprites and the hell hound found himself charmed, almost in a trance, as if Echo had all the powers of Hypnos. The lullaby soothed him into a deep sleep and the boys were able to sneak beyond the gates where Hades rode out to meet them on a black chariot drawn by four coal-black horses. He carried a two-pronged fork high in one hand, shaking it at them while he roared his battle cry. He was a dark regal man with a dark beard and as grim as his station. He drew abruptly to a halt before them and demanded, “Who goes there?”
    Echo stepped forward, determined and unafraid in the face of death itself. “Echo and Edvin Aphelion. Sir.”
    “And why do you dare trespass in my kingdom?” Hades wanted to know, turning his sharp nose up in the thick pungent air.
    “You have stolen our friends who did not deserve to die,” Edvin spoke up. “This is a game. This is not real.”
    “Oh?” Hades said with a cruel smile. “Is that so?” He was a pitiless man, Echo thought, loathsome, and monstrous. He knew very well this reality was nothing more than virtual, and yet somehow he had turned it into reality in order to spirit away what was most dear to them.
    “You will return Brea and Buffy,” Echo commanded.
    “Or you will what, little man?” Hades wanted to know. “Will you take off your headset? Quit the game? You will never see Brea again if you do.”
    “Let us sing you a song, good sir,” Edvin offered.
    “A song?” Hades scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his black robes.
    “A song, a plea,” Edvin confirmed.
    “Very well,” Hades said. “Make your plea.”
    Edvin nodded to his brother, and Echo withdrew his lyre. Edvin sang his melancholy lament, and Echo accompanied him with miserable drawn out notes. And Hades was moved. His hard heart was softened, and he made the boys an offer.
    “I will give you once chance to roll the die,” Hades said solemnly. “Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos are the judges of the dead. Bring your ladies before them. Let them decide if they shall pass on into Tartarus or Elysium.”
    “No,” Echo objected. “They shall not pass on at all. They deserve to leave the Underworld altogether. They were not meant to die at all.”
    “Did Thanatos touch them?” Hades wanted to know.
    “Yes,” Echo said carefully.
    “Then they have died,” Hades said simply. “They only have one destination now. And you know where that is.”
    “How could they have died?” Echo wanted to know. He wrung his hands in his wretchedness.
    Hades once again turned up his sharp nose. “Perhaps you killed them.”
    Had his desire for a virtual girl turned Bria into just a fantasy? “Edvin,” he said. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
    “There is no charming the judges of the dead,” his brother said.
    And then they were standing before them, and so were Bria and Buffy, glowing a ghostly blue in death. Echo tried to reach out and touch them, but his hands went right through them, and they did not seem to know he was there. Tears ran down his face and he called out for Zeus, but there was no reply from the gods, no reprieve from Olympus.
    The three judges appeared, each holding a black six-sided die. “We will roll the dice three times,” they said. “And their fate will be decided.”
    Minos rolled the die. “These girls have been sweet,” he said. “Perhaps they deserve to go to Elysium.”
    Echo breathed half a sigh of relief. However, he could not be satisfied with such a fate. “Roll the die again,” he said grimly.
    Rhadamanthys rolled the die. “These girls have been wicked,” he said. “Perhaps they deserve to go to Tartarus instead.”
    “No,” Echo insisted. “Roll the die again.”
    “Once more,” Aiakos said. He rolled the final die. “Aha. These girls should not have died. It was just a game after all. These girls should take off their headsets and be alive once more.”
    “What?” the boys said together.
    “Game over, Aphelion boys,” the sisters said, their shimmering blue visages morphing back into their normal avatars. “We heard what you said about us being more attractive in the video game. We thought we’d show you what virtual reality was like as reality. Your mics were on. Ready to go back to real life?”
    Echo smiled. For a nerd, Brea was pretty much a fox herself. “Real life sounds virtually irresistible,” he said. “And so are you, Brea.”

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