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One moment William was standing on Lyoko—sword in hand and ready to fight—and the next it was dark. For a moment, he wondered who had turned off the lights. His sword was gone, and so was the world.
It lasted for only a moment— he knew it did— but there was something strange about it. Like the plug behind his eyes had been pulled, and William was adrift in that yawning, unfriendly dark for far longer than he ever would have wanted to be. Like everything within Lyoko, it was neither warm nor cold, but there was a distinct feeling of unease that lurked within it. William didn’t feel like he was falling, but he couldn’t find the ground beneath his feet. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
The devirtualization process was instantaneous , Jeremie had said. Once you ran out of life points you got yanked back to the real world and spat out of the scanners. Nothing to worry about! Yet the darkness stretched ever forth, and William slowly began to grow nervous.
It felt like a finger at first—like one of his classmates had reached out and poked him in the back of the ribs. William took it as a sign that things were starting to work again, that if sensation was coming back then everything else would naturally follow. Except his eyes weren’t turning back on, and he still couldn’t draw a breath.
And that poke grew stronger.
It changed from a mild annoyance to something that would start bordering on pain if it kept going like it was. It changed from an ouch to a fucking ouch , until William wondered if this was what it felt like to get shot. Hot, lancing, and tucked right into a spot that would be hard to grab—he must’ve taken a laser to the back. That’s what it was! A sliver of reason reaching through the haze, that’s what had devirtualized him in the first place!
William was suddenly a person again, with ten fingers, ten toes, and a whole lot of everything else, standing in the scanner. He could’ve been in digital limbo for a year, for how it felt to emerge. Being on Lyoko was strange, but also freeing. It was like taking off a heavy jacket—suddenly everything was easier, be it running, standing, or holding something that should’ve been unwieldy. He hadn’t noticed that at first.
Feeling now, after everything, like a pile of bricks loosely stacked into the shape of a person, William yearned for the lightness of Lyoko.
He took a step with his all too real foot, blinked the light out of all too real eyes, and tried to keep his all too real knees from buckling. William’s sneaker had barely left the scanner floor when he wavered. Though his mind was plenty awake—hundreds of thoughts popping in and out—his body was tired. Exhausted even. It felt like he’d run ten miles, and because that hadn’t been enough, scaled a mountain for fun.
Every muscle pulled with soreness, but for some reason it felt more like disuse.
That was impossible, though, because everything had gone to plan. Sure—maybe devirtualization hurt like hell, and Yumi’s friends were sort of shitty for keeping that fact to themselves—but could he blame them? If they’d have told him he’d feel like he’d be hit by a bus, maybe he would’ve been less gung-ho.
(That was uncharitable though. William would’ve done it anyway, pain be damned. Who in their right mind would’ve passed on that chance?)
William’s knees struggle to support him, but he manages to lean against the side of the scanner. When it finally hisses open, Ulrich and Yumi are waiting for him outside. Leaning heavily on one another, they’d both clearly just been devirtualized too. If the process was that rough for seasoned veterans like them, then maybe everything was fine. Maybe that distant curl of anxiety was exactly that—baseless anxiety.
At the wide-eyed look sent his way, William felt the corner of his lips bend in a grin.
“So, how’d I do?”
The bug-eyed looks before him didn’t so much as budge. That whisper in the back of his head sounded off like a klaxon.
“What?” he asks. “Did I really do that—?”
The half-step out of the scanner that William took was the final straw for his legs, which sent him tumbling with all the grace of a person reassembled into Ulrich and Yumi’s waiting arms.
Before he could ask, the scanners to his left and right both hissed and flashed, sending Odd out in a cloud of smoke. Jeremie climbed down from the computer room upstairs, with his feet hitting the floor at the same time that Aelita’s scanner opened. In an uncharacteristic show of care, Jeremie quickly folded the girl into a fierce hug. If he wasn’t so weirded out, William would’ve clapped him on the back—that was some real romantic shit.
Despite the chaos of it all, and the joy that permeated the room, William didn’t miss the way that no one would meet his eyes. Except maybe Odd, who couldn’t stop staring at him—but not in the way someone normally did. Odd wasn’t looking at William so much as he was looking through him. There was something they wanted to say, but no one wanted to say it.
Shockingly, it was Aelita that broke first. “William, how do you feel?”
There was something strange about the question. Something more that he didn’t quite understand. William didn’t lie, but he didn’t say everything that was burning behind his teeth.
“Like I got hit by a bus… and maybe like I messed up.” He paused. “... just a bit?”
Jeremie’s eyes were sharp when he asked, “What day is it today?”
William’s shock must have shown on his face, because Aelita and Yumi’s expressions turned sad. “It was, what? Afternoon when we came in? So it’s Tuesday right? Or were we in there long enough that it’s past curfew on Wednesday morning?”
Odd’s unnatural stare began to make sense when he said, “Hate to break it to you buddy, but it’s April now. You’ve been gone for a few months on a digital vacation .”
William didn’t know what to do with this. His first thought was that he’s so far behind in history already that he might as well just move schools again. His second thought was horror, at having three months of his life wiped away in a blink. His third thought was whether his parents thought he was dead. He expected Odd to be holding back a laugh—to see Ulrich or Jeremie covering their faces in shame—but they all just stared at him, like they were waiting for something. Was he supposed to cry? Freak out? Yell and fall to his knees?
“Oh,” he said instead. Because what else was there to say? He knew he’d gone ashen. His mouth watered, like he was about to throw up. He was also standing now. William didn’t really remember getting his feet back under him, but he thought that maybe his traitorous knees were going to buckle again.
“Xana got you,” Jeremie said evenly. “You remember that, right? The scyphozoa?”
When William didn't respond, Odd added, “The big jellyfish thing.”
“I know it was the fucking—the jellyfish ,” William hissed. “And?”
Jeremie had never been one to mince words—always very concise, and always willing to correct. William had seen little stay his tongue. “And what happened after you saw the scyphozoa?”
“I fought it.”
“Did you win?”
“Did I?” William scoffed. “I—I thought I…” William thought for a moment, eyes searching the averted gazes of Ulrich, Odd, and Aelita.
“I don’t remember.”
It felt like a lie. William couldn’t remember what happened after that thing wrapped a tentacle around him. There was a tightness in his chest that reminded him of the first cigarette he ever smoked. His legs hurt like he never stopped running. He thought he remembered what it felt like to unspool in the digital sea.
Aelita nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”
Because it was late, and they ought to go back to the dorms. Yumi was out after curfew.
William walked to the elevator in a haze.
Jeremie enlightened him to the fact that a clone had taken his place at school. There was more to the conversation, but William wasn’t listening. No one wanted to get close to him in the elevator. His breathing had been labored since he was devirtualized, and maybe it was for the best that they kept their distance. William wasn’t feeling much like himself at the moment.
Halfway across the bridge, Yumi pulled him aside. The others spoke with their eyes, but moved onto the manhole cover and disappeared inside.
Yumi looked him in the eye when she spoke, which for some reason was worse than her avoidant gaze. “Are you okay?”
William didn’t know what to say. He said nothing. (Which, in retrospect, said everything.)
“I think I messed up,” he laughed.
It was high and reedy and he may or may not be crying. “I can’t remember—but I know something happened. I was there on Lyoko. I’ve seen all the sectors—I know where all the towers—fuck, I could draw you a map! But I’ve only been on one mission, and I got too cocky and lost five minutes in.”
Yumi stayed quiet, and her face was empty of judgment. She listened to him in silence, the furrow between her brows deepening, and her lips thinning further.
“I did good, right?” William asked, knowing the answer. Under the light of the moon, now sitting at the edge of the bridge, Yumi looked at him with an honesty that cut.
“You fucked up. Bad .”
He’d laugh if he wasn’t already.
“Xana got you and… we lost you. Jeremie couldn’t find your data, and Xana had complete control. You— he— did a lot of damage. Set us back pretty far. Nearly killed us a couple of times.” He could tell she didn’t say this to hurt him, but it didn’t smart any less.
“You rushed in, made a stupid mistake, and you fucked up.” Yumi said. “Just like any one of us.”
She didn’t smile, but it was a near thing.
“We’ve been our own problems a lot, we’ve all made the wrong decisions.”
“I doubt you’ve gone and done something like this,” William whispered.
“I let them bring you in,” Yumi said. “I could’ve fought harder against it—I could’ve done something more.”
“It’s your fault that I’m an idiot.”
“No, it’s not.” She waved her hand like she was gesturing to an audience. “But you’ve already paid more than enough for your mistakes and someone’s gotta share the burden. ‘S not like there’s anyone else here offering.”
“Why are you doing this—being all—being nice to me?” William asked. “It sounds like I made your life a living hell.”
This time Yumi did smile. “No more than usual, Lover-Boy.”
And Christ, William was smiling too, memories of a week-slash-months ago feeling too distant to grasp.
“I’m here because you don’t deserve to think you’re alone. I never want to see you on Lyoko again—but that doesn’t mean you need to forget. It won’t go away just because you or anyone else tries to ignore it.”
William hung onto every word, savoring the sound and the meaning. “It? What do you mean ‘it’?”
She shrugged, clapping a hand on his shoulder as she groaned to her feet.
“Guilt? Nightmares? Anger? I’m not really sure, but you’ll figure it out.” Yumi dusted off her pants. “When you really need someone to talk to, you have my number.”
“How do I know when I’ve figured it out?”
Yumi not-smiled again. “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Don’t get back too late now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yumi—” there were a million things he wanted to say, but “—thanks,” was what he settled on.