Two Lives

I've got two lives. One is real, and I guess the other one is real too, in a way. Right now, however, I wish I could abandon my life as Ara, human, shack dweller, and video game player on planet Earth. I'd much rather be Stormborn, level 100 Elemental Mystic, and master seamstress of the online world of Amoria.

It's one thing to fight monsters in a video game. There's usually a strategy to killing them, compromised of clear steps, and precise plans. I deal damage, another person heals the team, and another takes the bulk of the damage to keep the others alive. The monsters die, they give out loot.

Our monsters in real life aren't as straightforward. Water, the liquid of life and destroyer of homes is my monster. A few months ago, water flooded my home on the banks of the Paraguay River, displacing my family and forcing us to move to a refugee camp on the outskirts of Asunción. I know it's not the water's fault. That's what it's supposed to do: flow where the current takes it.

Today, Ma and María have become the monsters, yelling at each other while I'm trying to concentrate on the game. The screaming match began because one of our rickety floor fans died, and Ma blamed María for its demise. It's hard to keep a shack properly ventilated, and even the fan's shy breeze is better than the stagnant, humid air. The sun isn't up yet and my bedroom is already a sauna.

I'm hiding in my bedroom, glued to my screen, but the shack's thin plywood walls are terrible at insulating sound, and it's hard to ignore the uproar Ma and María are causing in The Room. We call that place The Room because there's no word for a crowded space that serves as a kitchen, laundry, dining, and living room all at once. Calling it a loft of some sort would be a disservice to all other lofts in the world.

After a brief silence, María yells that she's tired of living like this, emphasizing 'this'. Her tunnel vision makes it impossible for her to see beyond her own misery. I wonder if it has ever crossed her mind that no wants to live like this.

But this is our life now.

"Estoy harta" she yells.

I don't dare move. If María hears that I'm still up and playing Amoria Online, she might unplug my computer. She's done that before. And up until they distracted me, I had been on an important mission.

"Why can't we go live with Tío Alberto?" María asks. "He's the one who offered to take us in, so it's not like we'll be taking advantage of him."

Ma mumbles something I can't make out, and someone pounds on the kitchen table.

María continues. "No. It's because you're too proud or stupid to take help when we need it. I'm going to get a bus ticket to Buenos Aires and I'm going to go work as a puta or sell drugs, anything that'll pay rent for a decent apartment. What's the point of working my ass off to become a doctor I can't even help myself? You know we don't have to put up with this shit. This is on you, Ma. Tu culpa."

Ma doesn't answer for a while. Silence. A mango falls on shack's aluminum roof, and I hear it roll down and land on the ground. Then, when it seems like María has cooled down, Ma speaks again.

"I'm not paying for the fan," she says firmly.

That's all it takes for María to explode again.

Now I'm scared that she'll want to take my fan and leave me here in my pressure cooker of a bedroom. Trying to fight María when she's enraged is like attempting to kill a raid boss all on your own. She'll stomp over you to get what she wants. But I'm ready to lay down my life for the fan.

Just before María got home from work and the fighting began, I had finally found what I was looking for in Amoria Online. After three months of waiting for him, my prey has appeared.

He's the mighty Lobison, the elusive level 76 rare elite monster. He looks like an oversized decomposing dog, with an exposed ribcage, a salivating mouth filled with yellowish teeth, and cold white eyes that glow against his dark fuzzy skin. And he drops an item that could potentially be my family's ticket out of poverty.

It's a ticket to participate in an in-game tournament to commemorate the game's new update. The prize: 1,000,000 gold. That's a lot of money in Amoria Online and in the real world. There's also the prestige and glory that comes with winning the game's first organized tournament, but I don't give a shit about that.

Winning is a long stretch, but without the item, I won't even get a try at it. All the monsters that drop the pass have been hunted by organized clans ever since the tournament was announced. They set up timed patrols around the areas where the creatures spawn, killing any outsiders on sight. And even if a lone player like me happened to engage in a fight with those monsters, it'd be a slaughter. Lobison, however, requires patience.

He's not hard to kill, just hard to find.

He prowls the Antmound Grasslands near Chimstad and appears on random nights to gaze at the moon. That's his official description. After coming here every evening and waiting with the patience of a hungry and desperate huntress, I know the place of every anthill, stone and shrub.

And I've finally found him, a few minutes before the server shuts down for maintenance for the last time. Technically, he found me while I tried to listen to Ma and María.

And this is my last chance to get the ticket from him.