Klara's Orbit of Courage

"So you're saying we need to get through two more levels to beat the game?"

"Yes. No."

"I don't understand. Which is it?"

"I'm saying that there's no way to beat this game. Not even the gods can beat this game. It's impossible."

"Well, what do you mean by 'not even the gods'?"

"I mean that I've been playing for aeons and I haven't made it through a single level."

"And yet you're still talking to me? You're not like... dead or anything?"

"No, I'm fine. Well, actually, I'm very dead. But before I died, I was alive and well enough to talk to you."

"Alright, so what do we do now? There are two naked people on the screen and they look pretty pissed off."

"Yeah, they're going to try and kill us."

"So how do we not die then? How do we win?"

"Well," he said, "you don't win this game. I mean - you can't win this game. It's impossible. And when I say 'you can't win' that means you can't beat the first level let alone any of the other levels." He said in a sighing voice while looking at the ground. "The only thing you can do is keep trying. At least until your battery runs out."

"Oh..." She sat back in her chair and rubbed her temples with her fingers as she tried to wrap her head around this new information. "So... what am I supposed to do again?" She mumbled. The devil sighed again and walked over to a dresser where he pulled out some clothes and started putting them on. "Oh! So we were naked!" She exclaimed loudly causing him to jump in surprise and hiss at her angrily while throwing his clothes at her face. "You took our clothes! You took our clothes so that we would die!" She cried out as she scrambled around on the floor trying to find all of her clothes which had scattered in different directions across the room. She finally stopped when she found all of her pieces and stood up staring accusingly at him with an annoyed look on her face. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again quickly as he realized that he didn't have an excuse for why he took their clothes away from them in the middle of space when she interrupted him demanding answers again, "What is this place? And who are those people trying to kill us? Do they want us dead because we're naked? Are we just supposed to stay here forever waiting for someone else to arrive who isn't dead yet so that they can kill us?"

[He paused a moment before answering.]

He looked down at his feet and then off into the distance towards a large metal door with two red lights blinking on either side of it before starting to speak, "This is purgatory... This is where souls go after they die... These people are demons who guard these levels until one of them kills us... They eat our souls after they kill us... That's why they're always angry... They want our souls so badly..." He trailed off sadly as he remembered what caused him to end up here in purgatory after life having lived it for thousands of years as one of the gods watching over everyone below him until he made one mistake too many and upset Zeus enough that he decided that instead of simply killing him he'd send him here instead so that he could watch these demons torture everyone for eternity.... Oh well... What was done was done now.. As long as Aria didn't make any mistakes then hopefully she wouldn't end up here too.. After all she wasn't even mortal... She wasn't even human.. He didn't know what she was but whatever it was it seemed like she'd been around for ages himself included probably even longer than most things including possibly Zeus himself.. Who knew really? There were things older than time itself after all.. Things unknown even by Gods such as himself.. Still there was no point in worrying about such things now.... They were safe as long as they could stay ahead of those demons.. Or maybe just one demon since there were two now but who knew how many more might show up later or worse whether there would be more later or not? All he knew was that they had better hurry if they wanted any chance at all at beating this level alive.. She was going to need his help if she wanted any chance at making it through these next few obstacles.. If she wanted any chance of winning.. Of getting through this level alive at all......