Emily Boone bit open the cap of an energy drink bottle with her teeth in her trailer, bubbles exploding on her dentures. She had been living in this place for three years.
When the phone screen lit up, her daughter Grace was stuffing the cross made from the ribs of a baby crib into her mouth. The cross had been made three years ago when she used a hunting rifle to break three ribs off an abuser at church summer camp.
The Presbyterian elders had called it "blasphemy," but she believed it would protect her daughter more than any sacred relic.
"Hey, my dear sugarplum," her voice melted like butter, "Did ya help Granny feed the chickens today?"
The little figure in the video mumbled incoherently, the pacifier dangling from her mouth, dripping with shiny saliva. Behind her, her mother cursed, "Damn liberal teachers down at the co-op, trying to teach Grace about gender fluidity. As if God made us to be anything but what He said."
Three years ago, on that stormy night, the young pastor's assistant, Jacob, had pinned her down in the summer camp tent and said, "God needs pure sacrifices."
After Jacob was done, she reached for her CZ 455 rifle, which she never left her side. As the runner-up in the Texas Junior Precision Shooting Championship's 10-meter air rifle category, the rifle was always with her.
Three gunshots later, three of his ribs were forever embedded in her memory.
"You're talking about sin," she spat cornflake crumbs at the laptop screen, her leveling paladin character in *Holy Light Online* healing the Light Bishop, "There's no sin like a man who preaches love then locks a girl in a tent."
This game had been popular for the past two years, and Emily loved it because there were indeed many people willing to pay her to help them play. The money wasn't much, but it was better than facing the thugs at the gas station who were worse than rabid dogs.
The only hassle was that the game required a stable internet connection, so she had to roam around parking lots at shopping malls, churches, and other places with high-speed Wi-Fi.
A bank notification popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen: account balance $102.87. Not bad—this was the first time her account had broken into three digits.
But Emily's smile quickly faded when her employer sent a message, all in capital letters: "UR LATE U BETTER HAVE MY RAID GEAR OR I'LL REPORT U 2 THE MODS."
Emily typed her reply, the "J" key on her keyboard having already come off from being pressed too hard: "CHILL BRO, I'M WORKIN' ON IT. GOD DON'T MAKE MIRACLES IN A DAY."
Grace suddenly screamed in the video, her mother's shouts mingling with the sound of breaking ceramics: "Dammit, she's chewing on the dog's chew toy! And where's the formula? You said you'd send it two days ago!"
"On it, Ma," Emily yanked off her greasy baseball cap, revealing the faded "IN GOD WE TRUST" tattoo on her neck, "I'll hit the food bank first thing."
The line at the food bank usually took two hours, and it was a thirty-mile drive one way from here.
"First thing? You mean after you finish playing those demon games? You're a mother now, Emily! Not some teenage delinquent!"
Emily stared at her reflection on the screen: a 20-year-old face with dark circles under her eyes, mascara clumped at the corners, just like the day of Jacob's funeral, when she had deliberately applied thick black eyeliner.
That day, she had stood in the back row, with fragments of his tombstone still embedded in her fingernails.
She pulled out her e-cigarette. The e-liquid was cherry-flavored, the same scent as Grace's pacifier. As she inhaled, the burning sensation in her lungs mingled with the memory of gunpowder, reminding her of Jacob's last words as he fell: "Forgive your enemies."
"Save it for your own soul," she coughed, crushing the cigarette butt on the floor mat, "Mine's already paid for in bones."
The trailer door creaked open, and the twilight rolled in, carrying the smell of diesel. Emily reached into the back pocket of her jeans for the folding knife, the words "Vengeance is mine" engraved on the handle, worn shiny from use.
She glanced at the calendar on the wall, where the red circle marking Grace's second birthday was beside the words "Jacob's anniversary" written in pencil. It wasn't the day he was buried; it was the day she pulled the trigger.
"One day," she murmured to her reflection in the rearview mirror, tossing an empty drink can into the trash, "I'll tell her how the church defines sin: anything that makes you feel alive."
Her phone vibrated again. The employer sent a final ultimatum: "1 MORE DAY OR I REPORT U."
Emily hadn't slept for two days, but at this point she had no choice but to turn on her computer again. The gear her employer wanted was very rare and could only be obtained in a very difficult copy. Even a skilled player like Emily needed two hours to complete it.
Emily gritted her teeth, turned on her computer again, and forced herself to stay awake with mountain dew and canned chili, finally completing the order after nine hours.
When the "Transaction Complete" prompt popped up on the screen, her vision was blurring into three, and she dug her fingernails into the cross-shaped scars on her palms to stay awake.
"Grace, my dear… formula…" she mumbled, tossing the laptop onto the passenger seat and reaching for the car keys.The roar of the tow truck's engine felt like a dull knife slicing through her temples. She counted the cracks on the dashboard, trying to use that distraction to fight off the heaviness in her eyelids.
Emily started the tow truck's engine. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, and the "GOD & GUNS" sticker on the roof flapped in the wind.
The tow truck jolted out of the church parking lot, the church spire piercing the twilight, the cross glinting with cheap gold in the setting sun.
Emily turned on the car radio; the gospel station was broadcasting Proverbs 26:4. She turned up the volume until the pastor's voice was drowned out by the sound of tires crunching over gravel.
The tow truck jolted away from the church parking lot. The gilded cross in the rearview mirror grew smaller but brighter in the twilight, resembling the candlelight at Jacob's funeral.
Emily rolled down the window, letting the cold wind hit her face, but she smelled a sweet, cloying scent of beeswax. The smoke mixed with the smell of diesel fuel filled her nostrils, reminding her of the disinfectant smell in the hospital when Grace first had a fever.
The car radio suddenly crackled, and the gospel station's voice turned into static. In its place came the background music from "Holy Light OL."
Emily laughed, her laughter tinged with tears. Her fingers tapped the steering wheel to the rhythm of the game's battle music, but she didn't notice that the highway had already veered off course from the food bank's direction.
Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy as lead, and Emily shook her head violently, only to see the laptop in the passenger seat turn on automatically, revealing a copy of a game she had never seen before: Behind a bronze door was a gloomy underground tomb, with a priest in a holy robe kneeling in the center and mechanical wraiths roaring in the corner.
She reached out to shut off the computer, but her hand passed through the screen, touching the cold lapis lazuli bricks.
"This isn't a game..." she murmured as the tow truck's tires crushed the gravel by the roadside, emitting a sound like cracking bones.
Emily's head slammed against the steering wheel. As the horn's screech tore through the twilight, the trailer crashed into the ruins of a gas station by the highway.
Energy drink cans rolled across the floor, bubbles mingling with blood on the floor mats. She saw her reflection in the shattered glass.
"Grace..." Her fingers fumbled for her daughter's photo but instead touched the golden threads on the priest's robes.
In reality, the tow truck was burning, while in the alternate world, the floor of the tomb was rising from beneath her feet. The liquid seeping from the lapis lazuli bricks wasn't gasoline, but holy water with a rusty odor.
Amid the sparks flying from the laptop, she saw the paladin from the game charging toward her with a warhammer, while the flames in reality overlapped with the game's special effects, forming a swirling fissure.
An unprecedented wave of pain exploded in her mind, and Emily felt the dual torment of mind and body. It was as if information bombs were exploding in her head, and fragments of unfamiliar memories were crashing against her fragile psyche like a tidal wave.
The pain came as quickly as it left, and Emily blinked, processing the memory fragments while surveying her surroundings.
Once she could see everything clearly, Emily couldn't help but curse, "Jee-zus H. Christ! ... Either I'm dreaming or I just landed myself smack-dab in some kind of fairy tale. And what the hell happened to my trailer?"
Immediately afterward, she heard a rough, beast-like scream: "Quick, break the seal! Otherwise, once this crazy woman wakes up, we're all doomed!"
Crazy woman? Is she talking about me?