But I had fallen on the line between dream and reality, suspended in memories that flashed bright, stinging colors on the inside of my eyelids. I saw, as if it were yesterday, an endless field of rye, golden ears. The sky was flooded with sunset, gradually turning to dawn – and so on again.  It was never day and night in the Silar fields, only sunrise playing catch-up with sunset.

That was the first time I came to this field – I stumbled upon a side quest by accident.  It was to find lilac field mice in the fields near the city of Silar, collect three hundred tails, for which the NPC at the main gate gave out search rings – quite good devices that help to detect hidden mobs in unexplored locations.

It was then I first met Kitana, a swordswoman with a high pigtail and an extreme insolence. There weren't enough mice for the two of us. I even fought with her over the loot, because the Mouse King had too much valuable stuff to throw around left and right.

From then on, we became bitter enemies. I hated her with every fiber of my being because she was always one step ahead of me. Whether it was a rare boss that needed to be captured and taken to the elders, or PvP tournaments, or faction warfare, popularity rankings. All in all, every time she appeared on the horizon, it made me cringe.

Once we got into a group in an instance, half of our party died in the first seconds, there were too many mobs, and whether it was a glitch in the system or new features introduced, but our attacks on the overgrown spiders did not work. By the end of the hour, there were only two of us left: me and Kitana. At this point, I had to humble my pride and go against the prejudice I'd been nursing for months. We miraculously survived, killing the spider mate on the last drops of HP.

Since then we've turned into best friends. All our mutual hatred blossomed into a close friendship.

I smiled, trying to hide the pain of happy memories that now carried only bitterness. There were so many sentimental stories in my Virtul, so many laughs and tears, emotions, relationships, and a Soul, all these scraps of my life were now grinding my bones and cutting my heart into mincemeat.

Strange as it may seem, most often all my relationships with live players in Virtul started with  reciprocal dislike; rarely did I find myself in sympathy with my vis-a-vis from the first seconds of a meeting. I knew from experience that the more fiercely you despise and hate a person, the more sincere and loyal you will be to him as a friend, if you have a chance to get to know each other better.

The first glimmers of dawn slid across the glass, and I stretched and yawned, reluctantly chasing the sleep away. The birds stirred in the trees, their morning chatter made me sad, melancholy flowing through my veins like mist on the yard tiles.

I looked at the young man who was never supposed to be my enemy – to never become my friend. I should let go of hatred and turn on indifference, to bathe in that milky-warm equanimity and sip a cocktail of abject detachment.

Grant Circul, you will never be my enemy or my friend. You will only be a means to an end.

You will be a nobody.