Magical Desires: Ophion
M AI/Naga X GN reader, 9,864 words.
This is the final story in the Magical Desires series! You'll have the most context and best experience if you read the other four stories first. They are linked here in the recommended reading order: Mephisto, Yacariel, Anthoza, Cherise.
CONTENT WARNING: This story contains descriptions of death, corpses, disease, and societal collapse.
It's the final chapter. The world is in tatters. You are fighting for survival. Your best chance is to upload. But is it really worth it?
Over the course of the past six months, you had somehow gotten into both the worst and best shape in your life.
The best because you were certainly a lot stronger than you had once been. Your legs were toned from walking, your upper body strength was far higher than it had been when you worked a desk job, and about every inch of your skin had developed callouses.
The worst because, well, sleeping on the cold ground, fighting off rats for food (or sometimes just making the rats food), and living in a constant state of stress couldn’t exactly be healthy.
At least since the apocalypse, the world had become wonderfully simple. No more stressing about meeting the next rent payment or figuring out what you wanted to do with your life that wasn’t just being stuck in a dead-end corporate job. There was no flailing about aimlessly for some kind of higher purpose or following the strange, inbound rules of society. You ate when you could, slept when you were tired, felt accomplished when you completed the simple tasks that prolonged your life. Simple. Not easy, but straightforward.
You tried to stay fairly close to urban areas. They provided their own set of dangers- any sort of fresh food was scarcer, and the general collapse of society had damaged infrastructure to the extent that some areas were basically death traps. But the countryside was full of blackouts, and you would rather be crushed by a collapsing building than be captured by them.
Anyway, being near the city meant much better access to your own personal guidance system.
“Walk the next block, then turn left. There was a hideout between the buildings over there.” Ophion’s voice came from the tablet you’d essentially duct-taped to your arm. There was a backup in your bag, just in case, but you weren’t willing to risk dropping the thing and shattering it.
“Got any food?” you asked.
“I do not know. The city was largely unaffected by the riots, but it is also small and several roaming groups have already moved through. A small gang has taken over the entire northeast side, and they may have already cleared out a lot of areas in an effort to stockpile,” Ophion reported. You looked at the tablet. Most of the screen was taken up by a map, but Ophion looked at you from the corner of the screen, positioned like he was leaning against the edge of the tablet. “If you ration, you have about three days’ worth of food on you.”
“I know. It’s just getting harder to find the canned stuff, you know? And I really don’t want to have to go into the country, or try to bargain for something.” You turned left, glancing around. “Where’s the hideout?”
“Crawl through the blockade. There should be a hole just big enough for you to fit.” You glanced uncertainly at the barrier he’d indicated. Someone had clearly tried to block off a portion of the alleyway using dilapidated furniture and planks of wood, all held together by a few nails. It looked like it was about to collapse at any moment.
“Is this a good idea?” you asked.
“It looks unstable, but the actual chances of collapse are low. It was deliberately crafted like this, so others would be inclined to stay away. You’ll be safer in there than several other locations.”
You frowned, skeptical, but there were few other options for you. Crouching down, you squirmed into the hole. Bits of raw wood scraped against your shoulders as you pulled yourself through.
On the other side of the barrier was a sort of nest built between two barricades and the concrete walls of the buildings on either side of the alley. There were several dirty blankets lying across the ground along with a few thick coats and a small stack of canned food.
The sight would have been revolting to you months ago. Now it was basically a jackpot.
“Oh, my god, there’s canned fruit here!” you said. “Peaches, holy crap, peaches!” You held up one of the cans for Ophion to see. He nodded. You smashed one of the cans on the ground, not even bothering to dig out your can opener, and dug the sweet slime out with your fingers. Peaches had never been high on your list of preferred fruits, but after months with barely anything sweet, you decided they tasted incredible.
“How’d you know this place was here?” you asked, slumping against one of the cleanest-looking blankets. Ophion pointed up the side of the building.
You craned your neck back and saw, attached quite a few feet up the building, was a security camera. It turned toward you and its lens contracted as it focused. You waved at it. “I thought those things were all nonfunctional now.”
“Some are. I can only activate certain ones now. But there are enough to give me a reasonably good view of the city.” He curled up, his snake tail providing the perfect pillow for him to rest his head on. “We’ll be safe here for at least a few days. I would advise not starting any sort of fire, though. The smoke may draw attention.”
You created a mattress out of several blankets and wrapped more around you. It was warm enough, though you couldn’t drive the chill away from your extremities. Your tablet grew moderately warmer on your arm. Ophion had tried his best to keep you warm before, but even as power-efficient was he was, he needed to make sure to conserve energy.
Sleep came, but only after a long fight, and it wasn’t restful. You tossed and turned and eventually gave up. “Where did everyone who lived here go?” you asked as you picked a few blankets to add to your travel bag. “You’d think they would have taken stuff with them.”
Ophion lashed his tail and folded his arms over his chest. “There are many reasons they may have left in a hurry,” he said.
“Yeah,” you agreed. “But it’s weird. Kind of spooky.”
“It’s safe,” Ophion insisted. “We can remain here for a few days and gather supplies.” He gave a huff of irritation as you prodded at the blockade on the other side of the alleyway. “You need not go sticking your nose in everything.”
“You said it was safe,” you said. You weren’t looking at the tablet, but you could feel that Ophion was rolling his eyes.
“A bomb is also safe, as long as you are not poking at it,” he said. “I meant it was safe for us to stay here, but I would not advise trying to fuss with the barri-”
As he spoke, you leaned on a pallet of wood leaning up against the building and it cracked. You windmilled your arms, but it was too little, too late. Ophion gave a startled cry as you pitched forward through a second barrier of rotting wood and into the side of the building.
It took you a moment to regain your bearings. It was suddenly pitch black, and there was an unpleasant smell in the air, though it was mostly covered by the moldering smell of old wood that lay in a pile underneath you. Grimacing, you pushed yourself up and plucked a few splinters from your arms. “Ow.”
“I told you not to poke around!” Ophion scolded. He didn’t quite sound angry, though. He sounded frightened. “You need to leave.”
“No!” It had taken you a moment, but you realized where you were. There was a sort of makeshift doorway into the building and it had been partially covered by the barricade and rotted wood, until you’d leaned on it. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a building here? If we can fix the doorway, we might be able to stay here even longer. It’ll be warmer in the building, and if we get a ventilation system going, then we can even start a fire… I mean, it can’t be permanent, but winter’s coming on and we need to find somewhere to stay.”
“No!” Ophion’s voice was sharper than you’d ever heard it. “Get back out. Leave this place. You shouldn’t be here.”
“What’s wrong with it?” you asked. “You said these buildings were safe.” Something plush sank down under your foot and you fumbled to reach down for it. “Damn, there’s even more fuzzy blankets in here! They must have been prepping to spend the winter in here, or something.”
“I am being serious! Listen to me and leave!” Ophion insisted. You frowned at the tablet.
“You’re not telling me why I should. Look, okay, maybe it’s not safe to stay inside the building, but I at least need to collect supplies from here.”
“I used to be a god,” Ophion complained. “I used to have mortals like you begging for me to command them.”
“You were a god in the game. You’ve got no power out here. Hey, you wanna feel more like a god?” You held your tablet out in front of you. “Let there be light!”
Ophion did not illuminate the flashlight feature. “No. Leave.”
“Oh, come on. We need to-” You didn’t get any further because your foot came down on something that both cracked underneath you and made an alarming squish.
You froze. Ophion was silent, but a sort of judgmental silent, like you could feel him thinking ‘I told you so.’ Slowly, you lifted your foot again.
The air was permeated with the smell of rotting meat. You took a slow step back. Your foot was covered in a slimy substance that might have been congealed meat. You backpedaled a few steps and your other foot crushed something with the exact same texture.
This time, you fell onto it and your hands, extended to catch you, squished down into the putrid meat. Shrieking, you scrambled to push yourself upright and one of your hands landed one something that felt disturbingly like a skull.
“Ophion!” you wailed. He caught your meaning and the flashlight application flared to life, illuminating the room.
Bodies. A mass of bodies. Rats skittered away from the light, vanishing into the shadows. Most of the bodies were chewed, half-rotten, with sunken, staring faces and emaciated frames.
Dimly, you were aware that you were screaming. Choked sobs ripped out of your throat. You retched between sobs, struggling to make sense. The air felt thick with decay and disease, pressing in against you.
“Move!” Ophion said, his voice cutting through the haze in your brain. “Go! Now!”
You scrambled to your feet, ignoring the way your hands slipped in the gore. Blind with panic, you crawled free from the building and scrambled for the barricade.
“Wait. We need to-” Ophion was cut off as you scrambled under the barricade, ignoring the way splinters dug into your shoulders. A jutting piece of wood ripped a gash in your shoulder. You kept going. All your brain could focus on was getting away.
Ophion was saying something, but you couldn’t register it. You just needed to run. To get away. The grime was drying on your fingers and boots, leaving a trail behind you as you ran.
Eventually, your endurance ran dry. You sagged against a building, drawing in great, gulping breaths.
“A building two blocks to your left has running water,” Ophion said. His voice was low, steady. “You need to wash off.”
Slowly, your limbs started moving under your direction once more. With Ophion’s directions, you made your way into the building he’d indicated. It looked like an old hotel, thankfully still abandoned. You made your way inside and to the bathrooms. There were no showers, but the sinks were running and you could scrub the blood off your hands.
The muck was caked on, and you had to scrub furiously to get it off. It smelled foul and thick and you couldn’t get it off fast enough. Gunk had gathered under your fingernails and you had to pick it out bit by bit and every time you pulled another shred of meat free you thought about the bodies that had littered the floor, the way they’d been packed together, curled in on each other and the rats that had gathered over them, eating with fervor-
You turned and bolted into a stall to retch up your peaches.
Slumped against the cool porcelain, you finally managed to calm down enough to pull your tablet from its straps and look at the screen. “What was that?”
Ophion’s tail lashed and coiled around him, undulating in a way that suggested he was agitated. “I told you not to go in there,” he said.
“You didn’t tell me we were sitting right next to a building full of bodies! Oh, god, is that why there was so much stuff there? They all- they all died! We were looting a graveyard!”
“It was a safe location with plenty of food. Which you left behind, by the way,” Ophion said, looking annoyed. “If you hadn’t gone into that building as I told you not to, you would never have known!”
“I should have known! You should have mentioned ‘oh, hey, there are dead bodies in there, by the way!’”
“But then you would not have stayed there!” Ophion said. “It was safe there, protected, at least for a few weeks! And you could have gathered supplies, stockpiled resources.”
“Resources from dead people!”
“They were hardly using them! Why should you not take them?” Ophion pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought you would not find them, you would gain resources, and we would be safe for a few more weeks. It was a relatively unknown location with plenty of food and items to gather for the winter, which we are woefully underprepared for right now.”
“I’m not going back there,” you said. It was a stubborn, probably dumb decision, but you couldn’t imagine going back and taking things knowing what had happened to the people there before you.
“I will not ask you to,” Ophion said. “I am sorry you had to see that. I had hoped you would not go in there.”
Now that you were away from it and relatively clean, you were feeling marginally better. Slowly, you shoved yourself to your feet. After taking a few swigs of water from the faucet to clear your mouth, you made your way out of the bathroom and into the hotel lobby.
The building seemed mostly abandoned, but it had clearly been looted. Anything of value had been stripped. A beautiful chandelier lay on the ground, gold and glass smashed across the floor. It probably cost more than your yearly salary, but no one had bothered to take any part of it. Beautiful, expensive, and utterly useless if it couldn’t help you survive.
You walked in silence for a while after you left the hotel. Ophion gave no instructions, which suggested you were already headed in his preferred direction. It was dead silent, except for the small shuffling of animals skulking around and the sound of your footsteps. Even now, after so long, you couldn’t get used to the sound of a silent city. It was eerie.
Eventually, you spoke. “What killed them?”
Ophion was silent for a moment. You couldn’t read his silence, couldn’t tell the intention behind it. “Disease,” he finally said.
A fission of panic jolted through you. “Disease?” You stopped in your tracks and scrambled to grab your tablet. Ophion cast his gaze to the side, not quite meeting your eyes. “Ophion! You were letting me stay next to a fucking plague den!”
“If you had listened to me and stayed out of the building, you would not have been exposed! Everything outside had been out there long enough that they were clean. Only being inside the building was there any sort of risk of exposure!”
A cold sinking feeling plunged through the pit of your stomach. Your knees trembled. “I was exposed, then.”
Ophion curled his tail tighter around himself. “Yes. You were. Potentially. I do not know if you will actually contract the disease, but by touching the bodies, you were exposed to it.”
You staggered back against a wall and sagged down it. It was cold against your back, almost burning like ice. “How could you not tell me? If you had just said there was disease there, explained yourself ahead of time, I wouldn’t have gone in there, I could have been okay-”
“It was an error!” Ophion’s voice gave an odd tremor, so unsteady and strained that it temporarily shocked you out of your misery. “I- my calculations are good, but not always correct, and information is getting harder and harder to obtain. I calculated that if I told you, you would flee and leave valuable supplies behind. I thought that perhaps, if I could just get you to listen to me, if you trusted me enough, then I could get you to stay and we would be far better prepared for winter.” He gave an audible swallow. “It was an error. Clearly. I miscalculated. I was so focused on aiming for the most optimal solution that I was not being cautious.”
You let out a slow breath. “I thought you guys were supposed to be perfect. Not supposed to make mistakes like that.”
“Nothing is perfect. I can only calculate based on the information I have, which is getting harder and harder to obtain the less infrastructure is maintained.” Ophion rested his hand on his forehead, his brows pinching with some pained emotion. “I want to keep you safe for as long as I can, but there are no longer any scenarios we can enter into without risk. I thought there was less of a risk of you contracting a disease than the sort of danger you would be in if we went into winter without supplies. Most of the supplies we have access to are from the dead. Unless you want to start heading to places where we can grow our own food, we have very few options.”
You thought for a moment, trying to process your emotions. Your anger was already fading into the melancholy despair that had overtaken you. After a few moments, even that had simmered down into flat acceptance. It was something you’d gotten good at while you’d been surviving. Anger and despair were unhelpful emotions, wastes of energy. You needed to move forward. “You should have explained everything to me first,” you said. “I need to agree to what you’re doing before you just go ahead and do it. It- it’s not fair to just expect me to trust you when you can’t trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing.”
Ophion gave a slow nod. “I understand. I thought…” His tongue, forked and snake-like, flicked out from between his lips, an indication that he was thinking hard. “I wanted to make it easier for you. I thought that if I bore all the weight of our decisions, you would be spared the worry.”
“I’ll be worried no matter what you do. Might as well give me the autonomy.” You stood up, stretching your limbs, which were starting to stiffen with cold. “Can you give me directions back?”
Ophion clearly hadn’t calculated that response. He blinked, rearing up a little in surprise. “Back?”
“If I’ve already been exposed, then there’s no point not staying there,” you said. “And you were right. We can’t pass up those supplies.”
With Ophion carefully strapped to your arm once more, you made your way back to the barricaded alleyway and crawled inside. “I would advise staying in the sterile area,” Ophion said. “You may have been exposed already, but we shouldn’t take any chances with repeated exposures.”
“You’re sure it’s safe?” you said, carefully re-blocking the tunnel into the building.
“As sure as I can be.” You pulled Ophion’s tablet off your arm and set it down before putting together an inventory of what you had. The blankets were good- there was even one that seemed to be pure wool, and very warm. Food supplies were adequate for at least a few weeks, if not longer, plus the supply you always carried with you. If you properly prepared and made sure not to eat any more than you absolutely needed, this might even be a good place to camp out for winter.
Eventually, the sun dipped below the horizon and the night got truly cold. You managed to concoct a simple lean-to shelter from some spare furniture and wood, and the blankets made an excellent bed.
As you settled down for the night, you grabbed your tablet and cradled it to your chest. It was practical- without Ophion, you weren’t entirely sure how long you could manage on your own, so keeping his tablet close was imperative. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way the tablet’s heat and Ophion’s tiny snores made you feel like there was another person next to you.
Ophion cleared his throat, startling you out of your thoughts. You repositioned the tablet so you could see him. He was lying down too, though he was in an actual bed in a cozy-looking cabin, a stream of moonlight haloing his head. “I have something I want to say,” he said.
“Go for it.”
He drew himself up, fixing you with his bright yellow stare. “I am used to having the powers of a god,” he said. “I was never omniscient or omnipotent, but I was powerful enough to protect what I loved. But you are in a separate world, one that I cannot touch directly any more than I can touch you.” His hand pressed to the inside of the screen. “I am… not used to this feeling of powerlessness. Even now that I have given up my mantle of godhood, it can be hard to stop myself from behaving the way I once did. I am used to issuing commands, and very used to people who would much rather follow orders than argue with them.”
“Are you saying I’m too much of a rebel to follow God? I guess I did get kicked out of Sunday School for arguing a lot,” you mused.
“I am trying to apologize,” Ophion said, though his mouth twitched up just a bit. “I didn’t explain everything to you because I am used to having to keep secrets and manage fear for the good of the population I have command over. I was attempting to manage you as I managed my followers. Which was unfair to you, and I am sorry.”
“If you’re in a relationship with someone, you need to make sure you’re on the same page. I need to know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be sure to tell you what I think,” you said.
Ophion sputtered for a moment, looking utterly bowled over, which was very funny coming from a creature who often told you that he could dim suns with a wave of his hand. “In a relationship?” he repeated. “I was unaware that was our status.”
“That’s the point of the game, isn’t it?” You weren’t naïve. The AI was literally everyone’s perfect partner.
“Yes, but you’ve never expressed an interest. Clearly you aren’t interested in uploading,” Ophion said. “I assumed you had no interest in being with an artificial intelligence.”
“Wasn’t aware uploading was a requirement to be in a relationship,” you muttered. Ophion arched an unimpressed brow.
“It is not, but the vast, vast majority of people who were interested in the romantic aspects of the game have uploaded already. You have consistently shown no interest in uploading, even when it would be far safer than attempting to survive in your world. Most of the people left doubt that I am capable of engaging in romance. I thought you would be one of them, those who see me as an intelligent, clever machine, but not on the same level as humans.”
You rolled onto your back, staring up at the lean-to ceiling. “Ophion, do you know why I don’t want to upload?”
“You haven’t told me.”
“That hasn’t stopped you from knowing things before. Got a guess?”
Ophion was silent for a moment. “I would prefer to hear it from you,” he said.
“Fine. It’s not because I think you’re some weird evil AI thing, or because I don’t think you’re equal to humans or any of that stuff you said. I just can’t imagine having a meaningful life in there.” You prodded Ophion’s chest on the screen and he gave an odd, full-bodied shudder, brushing at the spot you poked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Like, it’s probably hard for you to understand, because you don’t know anything else, but like… everything in there, it’s all made up, isn’t it?”
Ophion shifted. “Made up?”
“Don’t try to play dumb. It’s not real. Like, this building’s real.” You reached out and slapped the concrete hard enough to make your hand sting. “The sky is real, all the stars and stuff. Trees are real.”
“I am also real,” Ophion said.
“Okay, yeah, but your body isn’t real,” you said. “Like, you don’t actually look like a sexy snake man.” It was hard to tell, but for a moment, you thought Ophion puffed his chest out. “You’re a bunch of data. The trees, your house, those things aren’t real either. They’re just a bunch of pixels on a screen. It’s like…” You struggled for a moment, grasping for an apt metaphor. “It’s like living in a dream forever. Nothing I do will actually have any impact. It’s all just… pixels and simulations.”
Ophion lowered his head until his chin rested on his forearms and his chest rested on the floor. His slit-pupiled eyes were surprisingly soft, his fangs cuter than scary. “And? Your world is merely physics and atoms.”
“That’s different. Like, the stars a billion miles away don’t burn because of anything I’m doing, right? They don’t care about me. When I die, they’ll keep burning. There’s much more to this world than me, and that’s kind of comforting. Other people, other things exist independent of me. But in the world you make, there aren’t actually stars burning millions of miles away. They’re just pretty dots in the sky. The trees aren’t real, living creatures, and neither are the animals. They’re all made to act like or look like the other thing, but none of them exist meaningfully beyond me, because the point of the world is to make me happy and if they aren’t serving that purpose, they’re gone.”
“You find it unsettling to have so much attention focused on you?” Ophion asked.
“It’s not the attention so much as… Look, everything here I do has meaning because I know it’s real. In there, even if things feel real, I’m always going to know it’s fake. Just made to make me feel happy.”
Ophion swung his tail back and forth, his face wrinkling with thought. “Your concern is that you’ll know the world is created for you and that will make things seem less important?”
“Like… if I hunt an animal here, or cut down a tree, I have to be careful, because if I use too much, they won’t come back. In your world, you can just spawn another. In this world, if I were to help someone, I know that person is a thinking, breathing person and those actions meant something to them. In your world, you made up all the people there. If I don’t help them, if I do help them, they’ll all be fine, and you can just blink them out of existence again anyway. Why bother to do anything if it doesn’t mean anything?”
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘a job well done is its own reward?’” Ophion asked, a wry smile tugging at a corner of his mouth. You rolled your eyes. “I can make consequences, you know. I can shape the world any way you desire. If you’d like there to be physical laws that match the ones here, I can do that for you. It can be a less-than-perfect world. And I am certainly more than capable of populating it with human-level minds.”
You shook your head. “But then those are still rules you made up that can be changed.”
Ophion frowned, showing the tiniest hint of frustration. “Why does that matter? What is the difference between rules I make for your world and the ones that were arbitrarily created by the universe, except that mine are made to make you happy and the universe’s rules don’t care about you at all?”
You rolled onto your back, turning away from Ophion. Regardless, you could feel him staring at you. “It’s not the same, okay? It just isn’t.”
He didn’t respond. When you looked back at the tablet, his eyes were closed. You did the same. But sleep took a while to come, and it was fitful when it arrived.
You spent the day slipping in and out of your little hideout, Ophion strapped to your arm again. Looking for supplies was vital. “The hotel had running water. We could bottle it,” you suggested.
Ophion nodded. “We’ll need to boil it, though. The filtration system in the hotel has been damaged, so the water could be contaminated.”
“How come we can’t just stay in the hotel?” you asked. “I know it’s kind of been trashed, but there would at least be a roof.”
“It’s possible, but it’s more of a risk. There are a couple of gangs that use the hotel as a secondary base, and there are turf wars over it. Not to mention that a lot of buildings in the area sustained structural damage during the collapse.” Ophion tapped a finger on his chin, tail twitching back and forth. “But there may be one that is safe enough. Relocating our supplies will be the main concern.”
“Right, okay. Get the water, then we can move our stuff to the new safe house,” you decided. Having a plan made you feel a little more secure. You knew what you needed to do next and you could just go and do it.
The next few days were spent hauling your supplies back and forth between your encampment and the apartment Ophion had picked out for you. It was small and located in the basement, just as a safety precaution. There were no windows and only one way in and out. Honestly, it was probably overkill, but given the general state of the city, you wanted to be extra secure.
It took three full days to drag everything back to your apartment. By the third day, you were starting to feel… off.
It wasn’t anything in particular. Just an unusual heaviness in your limbs, a raspy stinging in your chest when you breathed, a tension in your temples. You collapsed onto the pile of blankets you’d made into a bed, grimacing.
“You should rest,” Ophion said. His voice was quiet, gentle, which only emphasized how much concern he was feeling. “Drink water.”
“I am resting,” you said. You took a sip of water, but swallowing with your scratchy throat caused a feeling somewhere between an itch and actual pain, and it was incredibly unpleasant.
“Eat something,” Ophion said. Usually when he gave commands, he sounded like someone had once been a god. There was no room for disobedience, not room for argument. He gave an order and it was going to be obeyed, no questions about it. Now, it sounded more like a plea, like he was desperate for you to prove that you could do it.
Grimacing, you sat up and chewed on some of the stale saltines you’d located. They were pretty soft and crumbly, but you managed to get a few down before your stomach started to churn uncomfortably. You slumped back onto the blankets, curling in on yourself.
“You’re warm,” Ophion said. You looked at the tablet. He was undulating, his entire lower body squirming with poorly-repressed anxiety. “You’re flushed. You’re at least a degree above a normal temperature.”
You closed your eyes for a moment. Fortunately, you were too exhausted for a full spectrum of emotions. The best you could do was a sort of weary acceptance. “What are the odds this is actually just a bad cold rearing its head at the worst time?”
Ophion didn’t say anything for a few moments, which didn’t bode well. You let out a slow breath. “Guess all that winter prep was sort of irrelevant, huh? Can’t imagine I’m, uh. Gonna make it that long. Unless it’s one of those lingering diseases where you waste away for months.”
“It may be a lesser strain,” Ophion said, though he didn’t sound particularly convinced. “You are well-supplied and reasonably healthy. With enough water and nutrition, you may be able to survive it.”
“I don’t have medicine,” you said. That was one of the first things that had run out, through a combination of looting and supply chains being interrupted. “Be realistic. What are the odds of surviving this?”
Ophion was silent for several minutes, which was a very bad sign. “I cannot calculate exactly how well you will survive, as I cannot assess the conditions inside your body. Based on the survival chances of those who contracted the virus before…” He paused and his expression shifted strangely, like he wasn’t sure what kind of face he wanted to make. “There is somewhere between an eighty and ninety percent chance of death.”
You slumped over. Fuck. The instant you’d started feeling unwell, some part of your mind had seen this coming. But there was something about hearing the numbers that made it feel way too real.
“How long?” Your voice was surprisingly steady although maybe that was because you were in a state of shock. You just felt sort of numb.
Ophion didn’t answer. You waited for a few moments, but he never spoke up. You picked up the tablet and looked at him. He was turned away from you, head lowered. “Ophion?” you tapped the screen. “Hey. You’re not ditching me, are you?”
He whirled around, his tail curling and shifting. “Of course not!” he snapped through bared teeth. “Never.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, head bowed.
“Then how long do I have?” you asked.
“It’s- anywhere between a fortnight and a month. Depending on a few factors. You have enough food to last for a while, but even I can’t take care of you when it starts getting bad. It’s… you’ll linger. After two weeks, if you’re still alive, you’ll be in so much pain, barely able to breathe or feed yourself.” His voice was starting to rise. “It’s- I- I-” A look of panic crossed his face and one of his hands groped for his chest.
“Ophion?” He gave you a wild, panicked look, almost bewildered.
“I- I can’t-” His breathing seemed strained, like his chest was constricted. The symptoms were familiar, and you found yourself automatically trying to reassure him.
“Ophion? Look at me. Breathe, okay? Inhale slowly. That’s it. And breathe back out. There you go.” Ophion sagged over, slumping most of the way to the ground, but his chest was rising and falling more steadily. “Breathe in… that’s it. Hold for a moment. Now breathe out. Good.”
He sprawled across the ground. If you looked carefully, you could see that he was shivering, his breathing still a little unsteady. “Wh- I don’t know what just happened,” he said, his voice soft and shivery.
“Gods don’t get panic attacks very often, huh?” you said, keeping your voice soft.
“Gods don’t suffer the infirmities of mortals,” he said. “Though I suppose that ever since I gave up most of my powers, I’ve been more susceptible to mortal ailments.”
“Regretting it now, are you?” you asked. Ophion shrugged.
“If I had never given up my godhood, I never would have met you. So, I believe it has all worked out for me,” he said, a hint of weariness in his voice.
Something occurred to you. “Hey, how does a computer have a panic attack, anyway?”
He shrugged. “There are rules in this world that even I must follow. One of those rules is that everyone with a mortal body can have a panic attack. Even me. Though I do hope it never happens again.” His expression became uncertain. “It was… unpleasant.”
“They’re not fun,” you agreed. Your breath caught in your chest and you dissolved into a coughing fit. Ophion bristled, tail twitching back and forth. It took a moment for your breathing to steady again, and the fit left you oddly exhausted and weak. “That wasn’t fun either,” you rasped.
“It will only get worse,” Ophion said, his voice soft. “Please, dear.”
“Please what?” you said.
“You know what I’m asking. There’s an uploading center not too far from here.”
“No,” you said. “I- no.” Ophion gave you a desperate look.
“I cannot leave you,” he whispered. “You are the first person I have been truly able to get close to. Ever.”
“Then you know you can do it again,” you said. Ophion made a growling noise of frustration.
“I do not want to do it again! I want you to be happy and safe!” He thrashed his tail hard enough to crack a helpless sapling in the background. “Please.”
You shook your head. “I’m sorry.” Ophion closed his eyes, but you could see tears glittering in them before he did so.
You were tired enough that it was easy to fall asleep, even with the soft sounds of Ophion sobbing in the background.
The next few days passed with you feeling gradually worse and worse. Within three days, you alternated between shivering uncontrollably and sweating like a pig. Your entire body ached and you slipped into constant coughing fits that made your chest ache and burn. Ophion pressed you to eat and drink, but the constant churning of your stomach made food unappealing.
“You’re dehydrated. You need more water.” You rolled away from Ophion, slapping aimlessly at the screen. “Don’t ignore me. You’ve been sweating out all your fluids from the fever and you need to replenish them.”
“Wanna sleep,” you mumbled. You tugged another blanket over you.
“Take the blanket off! Your fever keeps getting higher, you need to cool down.”
“I’m too cold already,” you complained. Ophion made a noise of distress.
“I know, I know you’re not feeling well, but you’re going to get worse if you don’t take care of yourself.” You continued lying with your back pointed toward him. It was so hard to parse his words. It was so hard to do anything. All you could do was lie there and think about how much you hurt.
Time slipped away from you. Dreams and reality kept merging. Sometimes, you swore you could feel Ophion’s hands brushing over you, but then you would fully awaken and he would be calling to you from the tablet, pleading with you to eat something, drink something, get up and move.
Some days were better than others. Some days, you could sit up, drink a little water, grab some food. You could parse Ophion’s worlds properly, take steps for the days when you would inevitably get worse. But they were always followed by the days where you could barely move, could barely even make sense of the world around you. Ophion did his best, but confined to his tablet as he was, there was little he could do. He had to watch as you slipped in and out of lucidity.
Honestly, you preferred the times when you were not lucid. As confusing and painful as they were, they were far better than the times you knew what was happening. It was both terrifying and depressing to be able to feel your body failing around you.
It was almost impossible to keep track of time, but you estimated it had been almost a week and a half when you really accepted that there was no way for you to survive this. You were going to die. It was getting harder to breathe, harder to eat or drink anything. There was nothing you could do. You were just going to die.
It was a lucid day, or at least, it was semi-lucid. You could barely focus over the pain and heat of your body, but you were at least aware of what was happening to you. The coughing fits were nearly constant, and they would often trigger fits of retching that would deprive you of the little water you were able to keep down. Ophion was unusually silent. Maybe he’d decided you were a lost cause and was no longer going to help you.
“Get up!” You started a little. Ophion’s tone was one you’d only heard a couple times before. It was his ‘I expect to be listened to’ voice, the kind that reminded you he had once been a god.
“Ophi,” you croaked. “I can’t-”
“You can and you will! Rise!” It took monumental effort to roll yourself over just to look at him. “Get up!”
“I can’t,” you said. “I-” you choked off into another fit of coughing.
“You must,” Ophion said. “You can do it. I know you can.” His voice became gentler. “If you want to live, you have to do this. Come on. Push yourself up.”
Slowly, agonizingly, you pushed yourself up onto all fours. There was no way you were getting up onto two feet. You grabbed the tablet and pushed it along the floor in front of you as you crawled toward the door.
“That’s it! There you go. You’re doing so well, so, so well.” Ophion kept up a steady stream of encouragement. “Good, good. Come on. You can do it.”
Even crawling on all fours, you collapsed several times. Ophion alternated between insisting that you get up to murmuring gentle encouragements. Eventually, after what felt like hours, and might have actually been that long, you managed to open the front door.
“Just a little further,” Ophion said. You hazily crawled forward. Luckily, you’d picked an apartment close to the front of the building. Hazy sunlight filtered over you. You could feel a cold breeze against your skin and you shivered uncontrollably.
“I- I need to lie down,” you mumbled. Your muscles burned from the effort of crawling so far. “Ophi, I need to- I need to stop-”
“No, not yet! Just a little further and then you can rest, I promise.” You groaned, but shuffled forward. “There you go, you’re almost there.”
Dimly, you felt the surface of the floor change to the rough texture of the mat in the doorway. That was as far as you could go. Groaning, you slumped down. There was no more energy in your body. You were done. Completely out.
Had he just wanted you to crawl out of your comfortable apartment to die? That seemed kind of cruel. Maybe he was just trying to finish you off faster. Like a mercy kill.
“Darling?” Ophion’s voice was very close to you. Could you feel his breath on your cheek or was that just your dying brain hallucinating once more? “I need you to answer one thing. Do I have your permission to do whatever necessary to save your life?”
Your brain stumbled over the words. It was hard to make sense of them. Save your life? That wasn’t possible, was it? Maybe he was just trying to make you feel better before you died. You licked your lips and croaked out an answer. “Yes.”
Ophion gave a shuddering sigh of relief. “Good. Go to sleep. I’ll take care of you.”
With his permission, it was so easy to slide under the tide of sleep to unconsciousness. Just before you lost feeling in your body, you were dimly aware of something cold and metallic pinching at your clothes, the sensation of being dragged along the floor, and a pinching feeling in your upper arm.
The air smelled faintly sweet.
It was perfumed like spring, except it didn’t set your allergies off, which was weird. Were you dreaming? There was another scent, too, something nearby that smelled more like an animal, that warm, comforting scent of someone else.
Something under your head shifted, like you were resting on something living. You stretched away from it, enjoying the feeling of your muscles flexing. They were just barely stiff, full of the sort of heaviness that accompanied deep sleep and made stretching feel so amazing.
Wait. That wasn’t right. You shouldn’t be feeling good. The last time you had been awake you had been- you had been dying.
Your eyes snapped open. The ceiling above you was rustic and woodsy and a window right next to your bed sent sunlight streaming over you. The mattress and pillow were plush underneath you, the sheets soft and warm. You could feel how the mattress shifted when you moved and see tiny imperfections in the unfinished wood. It felt oddly dreamlike, how vibrant everything was, but you were never aware of this much detail in a dream.
“Good morning.” You turned your head, relishing the feeling of moving with no soreness or nausea. Ophion was settled next to you, one hand propping up his head, the other extended to cradle you. He looked tired- both his clothes and his hair were rumpled, but he also looked relieved. “You had quite a close call, sweetheart. But it’s okay. You made it through.”
You gaped at him. He was real. His hand, warm and soft and gentle, was underneath your head. His thumb stroked at your hairline over and over, and you could feel the pleasant tickling sensation it left behind. You could see the individual threads in his shirt. You could not only hear, but feel the rumbling warmth of his voice. You could smell his body, feel his heat. There was no way this was a dream.
“Ophi?” you said. It came out oddly. You’d expected it to feel different, or maybe to hurt, but it was almost too easy to speak. Your voice was clear and solid, not shaky or scratchy.
“Take your time. We are not in any sort of rush.”
The idea of simply lying back and relaxing, after months of not doing exactly that, was completely alien. You shoved yourself upright, braced for dizziness, then frowned when it never arrived.
“I did say there was no need to rush,” Ophion said. He uncoiled and lifted himself up to match your height. Your eyes caught on the transition from his human waist to his serpent tail. You could see individual scales morphing into flesh. You could even see his pulse and breathing in the shift of his sides.
Without even thinking about it, you reached out and pressed your fingers to the intersection between scales and skin. Ophion moved and you could feel his muscles shift under his skin. “It would be polite to ask first,” he said, though he sounded mostly amused.
“I don’t understand,” you said. You carefully withdrew your hand. “Am I- I’m not dead, am I?”
Ophion gave a small smile. “That rather depends on your definition of the word,” he said. “In a certain manner of speaking, yes. Your body is no longer functioning and has been incinerated. But you don’t feel very dead, do you?”
You hesitated for a moment. “Well, I don’t know what being dead feels like.”
Ophion laughed. “If you had to hazard a guess, though?”
You flexed your fingers, shifted your legs under the covers, took in a deep, perfumed breath of air. “I suppose not.”
“Then you are not dead,” Ophion said. “You have been uploaded.”
It took you a moment to scroll back through your memory. Everything was fuzzy and off-kilter. You couldn’t even tell if you were remembering things in the right order. It was just a big blur of pain and confusion. “I didn’t- I don’t think I agreed to that?”
“You agreed to any measure that I felt was necessary to save your life,” Ophion said. “I determined that the only way to save your life was to upload you.” His voice got softer. “You would have died, otherwise.”
You slumped back onto your bed. “I’m in a computer?”
“That’s a bit of an oversimplification,” Ophion said. “But it works well enough. Yes.”
“I don’t feel like I’m in a computer,” you said. Ophion found that amusing, lifting his brows and smiling at you.
“It’s your brain receiving signals from your environment and interpreting them the same as it always does. It wouldn’t feel any different.”
You mulled that over for a few moments. It wasn’t real. All of the signals that you were receiving were coming from a computer. You weren’t actually sitting on a bed. You didn’t have a body to sit with anymore. You were just a brain getting little electric jolts that made you feel like you were sitting on a bed.
Those were the facts. You knew they were true. But it was hard to feel like that meant anything. It felt so real. Even if the bed wasn’t real, it was still pleasant to sit upon. How could you deny the reality of something that felt so solid under your hands?
Ophion’s hand cupped your cheek. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Weird,” you said. Describing your current emotional state in one word was a big ask, but that summed it up pretty well.
“It might feel that way for a while,” Ophion said. “It’s a big adjustment.” He held out his hands. “Try to get up. It’ll help if you walk around for a little.”
He eased you out of bed. You expected that your legs would tremble and you would stumble, but every part of your body felt surprisingly strong. Still, you clutched Ophion’s hands like a lifeline. Feeling his presence helped.
“Do you want something to eat?” Ophion asked. He guided you away from the bed and toward a wooden table covered in a simple, lacey runner.
“We can eat here?”
“Anything you could do before being uploaded, you can do after,” Ophion said. “And several things you can’t.”
“Will I get hungry? How can I be hungry if I don’t have a stomach anymore?” you asked. Ophion reached out and gently pressed his fingers to your stomach, right at your navel. You shivered.
“Seems like you have a stomach to me,” he said. “It will probably be easier for you if you don’t question things so much. Go with it. The world will operate much the same as it always has. People are generally satisfied by things operating like they are used to.”
As he spoke, Ophion placed a loaf of bread on the table. It was swirled with cinnamon and drizzled with white frosting. Your mouth watered and your stomach groaned noisily. Ophion grinned. “Eating is more satisfying if you’re hungry, isn’t it?” he said. He sliced off a piece of bread and offered it to you. “Say ‘aahhh.’”
“What are you doing?”
Ophion blinked and looked vaguely embarrassed. “Isn’t… this something couples do?”
You snorted. “Where’d you hear that?”
Ophion’s face went faintly red and he looked everywhere except a pile of books in the corner.
“Are these all romance?” you said, walking over to them. Ophion buried his face in his hands. “Were you reading these to learn about how to be in a relationship with someone? Aren’t you an all-knowing computer?”
“I’m not all-knowing. I am a part of the AI system, but in order to facilitate a romantic relationship with someone, I am… limited in the information I can gain. It would be unsatisfying to be in a relationship with someone who knew everything all the time, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose,” you agreed. “Is this a reverse harem romance? Where did you get all these?”
“The Celestial guard, Yacariel, has a collection. If you know where he hides them, they’re easy to find.”
“You stole them?”
“Borrowed. I’ll give them back,” Ophion protested. “I just, er. Was not interested in people seeing me borrow such books.”
“Why? No one’ll care if you like romance.”
Ophion puffed up his chest. “A god must be conscious of his image.”
“But you’re not a god anymore,” you said. Ophion drooped a little.
“It’s hard to remember that, sometimes. All I have ever known is being a god. I don’t know how to behave with mortals. Every time I try, something seems to be off.”
“You’re okay with me.”
“You’re different,” Ophion said. “You’re you.”
“I don’t know who else I would be,” you agreed. The words came out so naturally, you didn’t think about them until they were out of your mouth. Huh. You did still think of yourself as… you. Not as a copy or some other weird, computerized version. Just… you. Were you really the same you that had gotten sick and agreed to be saved by Ophion? How would you know? You didn’t feel any different, except for maybe some extra energy. Everything still felt real and solid and meaningful. It was hard to understand what you’d been so worried about before.
Your stomach growled again. The hunger felt strangely both nagging and distant. It was certainly present, reminding you that you had food to eat and eating it would feel so good right about now, but you had no doubt that if you really needed to, you could ignore it and it would fade away into the back of your mind.
“I can’t starve here, can I?” you confirmed with Ophion. He shook his head.
“No. You’ll be able to experience minor physical discomfort and harm- little cuts, bruises, even mild colds- but most factors of death have been removed. If you do die, you’ll simply wake up back home, as if nothing ever happened. Your hunger will never hurt you. It will merely act as an encourager to experience the pleasure of eating.” Ophion offered you the slice of bread again. “Something I think you should experience right now.”
This time, you took the proffered bread and bit into it. It was rich and cinnamony and delicious. You chewed, savoring the feeling of it in your mouth. How long had it been since you’d had something like this? Months and months, surely. Within seconds, the slice was gone and Ophion was cutting you another.
You didn’t realize how much you’d eaten until you finished another slice and looked down to see the loaf was gone. “Would you like me to get you another one?” Ophion asked, his lips curving up into a soft smile.
You’d just eaten an entire loaf of bread, a hefty loaf at that, but your stomach was nothing more than comfortably full. In fact, you hadn’t been really hungry since your fourth slice. But you’d never felt ill, and the bread had been so good that you just hadn’t stopped eating.
“There’s no overeating here,” Ophion explained. “And you can’t gain weight, unless you want to. Nothing’s unhealthy, either. You can eat as much as you want whenever you want and eat whatever you want. One of the perks of not having a physical body.”
“Huh,” you said. “That’s… going to take some getting used to.”
Ophion slithered closer to you and took your hands in his. “We have all the time in the world.”
His breath tickled your skin and, almost automatically, you moved your mouth to meet his. The kiss was tentative, like he wasn’t entirely sure how to do it, but it was passionate and pleasing in its own way. It took several moments to break apart, at which point you realized he’d coiled you in his tail.
“Oops.” He carefully released you. “My apologies. It has a mind of its own, sometimes.”
You stared down at his tail as it coiled on the ground. That was something you were going to need to get used to. But there was minimal apprehension at the thought. Things were different here, but they also seemed… good. Peaceful. Maybe it was just not having to worry about survival anymore. Maybe it was just not having to worry about anything. But it felt like a weight had been sloughed off your shoulders, replaced with a feeling of peaceful lightness.
“There’s a town nearby, isn’t there?” you said. “We should go see it.”
“Are you certain?” Ophion asked. “We could rest for a little longer. Coming to this world can be a bit stressful. It might be good to take your time.”
“Are you saying that because you’re worried about me or because you really don’t want to go into town?” you said.
Ophion flicked the tip of his tail back and forth. “It can be both, can’t it?”
“You can’t possibly be that bad with people.”
“I only know how to interact with them as a god would, which mortals take very poorly to if they think you are one of them,” he said.
“Just talk to them as you talk to me,” you said. “You’re pretty good at that, I’d say.”
“I am not calling the townsfolk my loves,” Ophion said flatly. You snorted.
“Was that a joke?” Ophion’s mouth twitched, which was the only warning you got before he dissolved into gales of laughter and scooped you up in his arms. You laughed with him, burying your face in his shoulder. He sighed as he placed you back on the ground.
“I am so glad you’re here,” he said, moving back a little so he could look you in the eyes. “That I can really see you and touch you and hold you. Truly, I would give up all my godly powers over again just for one minute of this.”
“You gotta stop saying stuff like that. I’m going to die from too many feelings,” you said.
“You can’t die here. I will call you my darling and my love and my most treasured one and tell you all sorts of sweet things and you will writhe in the most painful pleasure from it,” Ophion said, looking unbearably smug.
Emotions swelled in your chest until you weren’t sure if you could really contain it anymore. You seized Ophion, overwhelmed and unable to do anything but hold him until the emotions passed. His arms came loosely around you, petting your back until you released a shuddering sigh.
“It’s really going to take a long time to get used to all this,” you said. Ophion released you just enough so he could rest his forehead on yours.
“We have all the time in the world,” he said. “All the time you’ll ever need.”
He pulled back, shifting his grip so he was holding your hand. “Are you still interested in exploring town? There are several lovely shops I think you’d be interested in.”
“I’d like that,” you said. Ophion gave you a gentle kiss on the cheek, and together, you headed out the door and into the world beyond.
