One more night and we will clear the leafy and barky boundary of the Eldritch Doe Woods. At first light, we will push on and we won’t stop until we’re out in the open.

I remind myself of this when I have to go to the bathroom just outside the camp. Not that a tiger should care about such trivialities. But it would be nice to be able to go off without an escort. Even with our fragile truce with the Eldritch Doe, none of us wants to violate some unwritten rule.

[Are you sure there’s nothing?]

Lobo responds to my query with irritation. [Do your business and quit stalling. It’s like when you were five.]

[You weren’t aware. You were happily toddling around.]

He woofs. [Mama and Dad told me.]

I growl. [Are you sure that there are no rules? Is Amber?]

The love of my life gangs up on me. [I can hear you. Hurry up and come back.]

Wiping my furry behind on the grass, I trot back to the tent, stopped temporarily by a big fat raindrop. Maybe not a raindrop. Maybe evening dew. Best not to tempt fate.

Darting in the tent, I curl around the sleeping Finn and Leonie. In this moment, it does not matter that they are video game characters. They feel real to me. Their whiskers graze my cheek. Heir breath bathes me in warmth, smelling like the last of the meat that we finished tonight. It also smells like the crunchy exotic fruits they ate. They love crunchy exotic fruits.

[They’re fine.] I rub up against them. [They’re safe.]

Amber sounds satisfied. [Yes, and I am making sure they stay that way.]

[Look at them! They are conked out. Nothing could wake them, not even a thunderstorm.]

She relaxes against me. [And it’s time you followed their example. There are no more rules that I’ve been able to discover. And we’ve kept our end of the bargain. Hush and sleep.]

I sigh. [The first thing i will do when I’m back in the real world is bathe. Hold you.]

She does not point out that I will wake up in the hospital. [Won’t that be wonderful? But what about your parents and Damon?]

[I’ll hold them too. And eat food that isn’t raw meat or even cooked chunks of meat in a pet bowl or crunchy exotic fruits. Ice cream. Pizza. Burgers. Coffee! Pie. Real fruit. Real vegetables. That beef stew you sometimes make. Veggie burgers...]

[You’d think you were coming home just for the food.]

I rub against Lightning. [You understand, right?]

She offers a little "mrrp". [What else?]

[Hug first. Hold everyone as long as I can. Make love to you. Maybe not in that order. Of course, that’s when I get out of the hospital.]

She smells mischievous. [You did have a heart attack. They might restrict your activity.]

[Ooof. I guess I’ll have to watch my diet.]

She’s introspective. [Although I wonder if you’ll miraculously get healed?]

I contact System. [System, I’d like to add an addition requirement if I win the tournament.]

System is icy. [What now?]

[When I wake up in the hospital, there is to be no damage to the heart. I will wake up as if I never had a heart attack in the first place.]

Lightning piles on. [Right!]

System might as well be discussing battle stats. [That is assuming you win. If you lose, you, your family, and Amber will cease to exist. No one will remember you.]

My mind whirls.

This entity can do that? This entity that I trusted?

[This is the worst kind of Faustian bargain.]

System is immovable. [You make conditions, I do too.]

I can’t resist giving it logic. [Yes, but if our existence in the real world is erased, who played the game in the first place? It’s a paradox. Have you forgotten about that?]

System shuts me down. [The world won’t know you existed. But I will. I know everyone who no longer exists in the world and is in the game.]

I stop talking to System, because what can you say after that?

Lightning huddles with me. [It was a good question, but why did you have to be such a lawyer? I think you made it mad.]

[You mean madder. Although I honestly don’t think it has emotion one way or the other.]

She shudders against me. [It just simulated emotion before, you mean.]

[I can’t be back in the real world fast enough. Maybe I will dream of coming home.]

A feather-light lick from Lightning reassures me. Slowly, we fall asleep together.

It can’t be more than a few minutes before a mosquito stings me, at least in my dream. I jolt away, stunned. There weren’t any mosquitos in the tent. And ouch, where did i get bitten? My ear throbs. [What’s the big idea?]

[The cubs wandered off!]

Lightning’s words are calm but with an undercurrent of urgency.

I stand. The cubs’ absence is glaring. No one else is awake. Not Kaline, not Hans, not Minette or Lamant. Lobo sleeps. Naturally, I nip him on the ear, and he jumps up like a cartoon cat, minus the yowl. [What are you doing?]

[Cubs are missing.]

No further words needed. We have to go now. The three of us exit the tent, the fabric rustling. Dag and Gussie are already awake and circling the camp.

[We know where they are.] Gussie flaps with precision and purpose. [They went off by themselves. They don’t know any better.]

I’m beside myself. [Then take us to them. Now. Before everyone else wakes up and realizes that they are missing. And before the Eldritch Doe senses it. I just hope they don’t hunt.]

"Cubs smart," Dag says, his voice a buzzsaw to my nerves. Everyone in camp must hear him! He’s so loud. "Cubs be quick."

Lightning gives him a disgruntled "mrrrp." [Gussie, did either of you see which way they went?]

Gussie streaks through the black hole of the forest. It’s not an exaggerated comparison because the forest seems to draw all life into an ominous gap in the frees. Quietly, but still huffing and puffing in fear, we stay hot on Gussie’s trail until the winding small path away from the main road takes us into murkier territory.

As mother and father, Lightning and I roar and call out for the cubs.

[Finn! Leonie!]

[We aren’t mad!]

[Where are you? Roar and we will find you.]

[PLEASE be safe.]

Interminably, the path stretches off into an unexplored part of the woods. I roar again, hoping to provoke a response from our wayward cubs.

[Light!] Lightning’s eyes gleam. [A faint glow. It looks blue. Or black. Either way, it is what we have been waiting for. Maybe that’s the light from Finn’s and Leonie’s eyes.]

Tiger eyes probably don’t gleam what way, unless they are magic. But I don’t correct Lightning. Any possible lead, we will follow. It doesn’t matter how farfetched or small the lead is. Please, Primal Beast, let us find our children asleep and unharmed.

What is that smell? So hypnotic and fresh. Exotic. Like nothing I have smelled before. [What is that?] I nudge Amber. [You must smell it, too. It’s like dew.]

[Better! Because it also smells pure and furry and sweet like our cubs!]

We barrel toward the blue glow and crash through the trees.

Finn and Leonie yowl, a joyful noise. We skid to a halt before we crash into them--and before we bulldoze the vision of beauty that lies before us.

A glowing sea-blue orchid erupts in a shimmering golden fountain from the center of its corolla. This must be the mystical blue-dye flower with its fountain of golden nectar.

Reverently, we all gaze upon it.

[Oh, isn’t it beautiful?] Lightning corrals the cubs while the four of us admire the flower.

I’m reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, "The Rhodora." This flower just exists. It was just meant to exist. Maybe we should go back to the camp. It’s enough that we happened up this delicious secret in the woods. Finding the flower is its own reward.

[You could drink the nectar.]

System, as is so often its wont these days, has to impinge upon a sacred moment.

[No thank you.]

System is smug. [Even if you cannot beat me without it?]

Lightning growls. [We don’t trust you.]

Her research has shown that the flower is a power-up, but we still don’t know whether the Eldtrich Doe has strings attached. We should leave well enough alone.

The cubs sniff its sweet, pure nectar. That scent is making me dizzy. I have to bite my own paw to snap out of it. No, We should leave this power-up for others who might need it. D*mn, I hate being noble right now, but given how badly System WANTS us to partake of the nectar, saying no is easy.

[Make up your mind.] System doesn’t falter. [ThE doe will never know what happened. Take the offering. What’s it going to be?]