The Necromancer's Love (GL)

Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!

Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!

Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!

Mei Lian groggily opened up her eyes as the piercing sound of her alarm rang directly in her ear. She had been so tired last night that she had forgotten to shut off the damn thing since it was the weekend.

She stretched out her hand and lazily slammed her fist against the off button. The weekends were the perfect days to catch up on her sleep.

Socializing with people? Hell no.

The young woman curled back under her blanket and closed her eyes. It was going to be a peaceful Saturday.

Her parents were currently out on their anniversary trip and the only other person inside the house was her brother, who like all teenagers was a bit of a night owl.

He probably wouldn't be awake until the afternoon… at the earliest.

Mei Lian quickly fell back asleep and when she woke up it was now around midday and the sun was shining brightly in the sky.

She got from her bed and made her way to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

The woman staring back at her in the bathroom mirror still had heavy bags under her eyes and looked as though she needed several more hours of rest.

Mei Lian cleaned herself up and then headed back to her bedroom to grab her phone.

She planned to watch a few random videos on Youtube before walking downstairs to make a light breakfast in the kitchen.

Recently she had fallen down the rabbit hole of serial killer documentaries, so she was looking forward to finishing one about some maniac who had sown people into living pieces of furniture.

Scary stuff!

Mei Lian turned on her phone and waited patiently as it started to boot up. She hummed softly under her breath as she opened up her curtains to allow a bit of sunlight to enter her room.

Ding!

She unlocked her phone screen and then paused in confusion as she saw several notifications from her banks appear on her home screen.

Not just her bank accounts but also her investment account and credit cards. Mei Lian clicked one of the notifications and her heart immediately sank.

She saw that a large deposit had been transferred out of her account.

"No… no… fuck…FUCK!" Mei Lian angrily cursed while feeling a mixture of both shock and horror.

Panic began to set in as she clicked on the other notifications and saw that they were all saying the same message.

They said that her bank accounts had been drained of all their funds, and the cherry on top was that the thieves had also maxed out her credit cards.

Three years of savings had just vanished overnight.

Mei Lian swayed unsteadily as she felt as though she was about to faint.

She immediately locked all of her cards using the app but at this point it didn't really matter since there was no cash left to steal.

Had her phone been hacked?

It didn't make sense how she had lost her money from all of her different banking and investment accounts.

Mei Lian ran towards her computer and quickly began to search for the numbers for customer support

Unfortunately, most of the banks were closed on the weekend so she would have to wait until Monday before she would be able to speak to someone on the phone.

A few bank websites did have AI chat boxes on the side, but the stupid things just told her to contact a customer service representative.

Completely and utterly unhelpful.

Mei Lian stepped away from her screen and could feel her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She just could not understand what had happened.

She was always careful when browsing the internet and never clicked on any suspicious links that people would post on chat forums.

No stranger had reached out to her by email or text message so she just could not understand how this had happened.

Was it some kind of mistake?

Mei Lian felt as though she was about to throw up. All of the stress at work combined with the loss of all of her savings was too much to bear.

She closed her eyes and curled up her fingers into a tight fist.

"Breathe… breathe… breathe…" Mei Lian muttered quietly as she gently exhaled and tried to calm her raging emotions.

She glanced back at the phone and clicked one of the notifications again.

She had been so frightened by the 'your funds have been transferred' message that she had not properly looked at where they had gone.

"Azrean Online?" Mei Lian stared at the text with confusion as she saw the name of the company(?) that had received all of her money.

She had never seen that name before and it looked like some kind of video game. Mei Lian typed out the two words on her laptop and searched the web.

She soon stumbled on to a non descriptive web page detailing an upcoming role-playing game set in a fantasy universe.

The website was god awful.

The text fonts were different sizes and colours, and it looked incredibly cheap like an intern had set it up over a few hours.

She scrolled down the website and froze as she saw where her money had gone. Had the scammers bought an overpriced VR helmet using her money?

The damn thing was priced at around twenty thousand USD! What the hell?!

Wait but why would they steal her money only to spend in on what looked like another scam? Or was this website part of the scam?

Underneath the advertisement for the helmet was small line that stated that the beta test was opening this weekend so all helmets would be delivered on Saturday.

Today? Mei Lian didn't know what to do with this information and was honestly left with more questions than answers.

She took a screenshot of the page and sent it to her email. Maybe she could send it to the bank as evidence.

Mei Lian looked at the website for several more minutes but couldn't find any piece of helpful information.

The whole website reeked of false advertising or one of those Kickstarter campaigns for games that would never come out.

The game said that it was a role-playing game, but Mei Lian could not find any information about classes, races or even the setting other than the word 'fantasy'.

Mei Lian walked out her room with her head still in a daze.

All of her money… all of her money… just gone.

She glanced inside her brother's bedroom, but he was still fast asleep with a blanket securely placed over his head.

Mei Lian wanted to wake him up but then paused. It wasn't as though her sixteen-year-old brother would be able to help her.

In fact, it would be a miracle if that brat didn't burst out laughing.

Still, he would probably be upset that he couldn't mooch off his big sister's money to buy the latest video games on Steam.

Wait… she had given him her bank passwords in case of an emergency… surely… no.

Mei Lian shook her head in disgust as a small sliver of suspicion flashed across her mind. The pair of siblings may bicker but they both loved each other.

In fact, her brother was the first person she had came out to when she realised that she liked girls several years ago.

He would never betray her trust like that.

Mei Lian made her way downstairs and headed for the fridge for a quick bite to eat. She grabbed a sandwich and popped it in the microwave to reheat.

Not the most nutritious breakfast but at this point she just wanted something to fill her stomach. The microwave buzzed softly as her food began to heat up.

Mei Lian stared quietly at nothing as several thoughts filled her head. The stress of the moment was still affecting her, and she found herself unable to calm down.

Suddenly the silence of the moment was interrupted but a loud ringing noise as someone outside rang the doorbell.

Mei Lian walked towards the door and peered out of the peep hole to see who was outside. To her surprise, she didn't see anyone.

She opened the door slowly and looked left and right. There was no one standing outside but she spotted a small brown package on the doorstep.

Mei Lian furrowed her brows in confusion as she saw that the address marked on the package was her family's house.

Had someone dropped off a delivery and then just ran away? Or maybe she took too long to open the door.

Mei Lian hesitated for a moment and then picked up the package. Her dad would sometimes buy random crap on those auction sites so maybe this was one of those.

The package felt warm and heavy. Mei Lian placed it on the dining room table where it made an audible thump.

She used a pair of scissors to cut through the package and soon saw a white box with a familiar picture on the cover.

It was identical to the image of the VR headset on the shady website.

Mei Lian pulled out the box with furrowed brows and a thin sheet of paper fell out of the side of the package.

She bent down and picked it up to read. It was a small note of appreciation thanking the buyer of the headset for being brave and willing to save countless innocents.

Mei Lian glanced through the rest of the message and her heart sank as she saw at the bottom of the paper who it was addressed to.

'Thank you for the support, Mei Jianyu.'

There was only one thought in Mei Lian's head as she read that sentence over and over again as if possessed.

.

.

.

.

That boy must have lost his damn mind.