It was a sunny Saturday morning at 10am and Anya pulled her silver hatchback up into a free spot by the Thousand Blessings Cafe in Richmond. A magpie warbled its song above her in the treetops as she locked her doors and made her way to the cafe’s front doors. Inside, the aroma of roasted coffee and frying bacon tickled her nose while Eri, her best friend, sat by the window engrossed by her phone. Anya tapped her on the shoulder.

“Morning! How are you? It’s been a while”, Eri said cheerfully as she stood up to give her friend a tight hug. Anya hugged back and stole a glance at the phone screen as it lay on the table behind them.

Anya gasped. “Is that what I think it is?”

Eri quickly sat down and flipped her phone over, face down. She put a finger to her lips and hissed, “Brunch first before dessert.”

It took 15 minutes for both ladies to get settled, order their brunch (Eri chose the avocado and toast with poached eggs, while Anya got the big breakfast) and idly chat about their work (Eri shared some work gossip about a client that Anya knew, and Anya shared progress on how her projects were going).

Once their brunch was served and their privacy guaranteed, Eri glanced around conspiratorially and pulled out her phone. Anya eagerly leaned in with bated breath as Eri began opening her social media feed. 

“I was in the middle of choosing which ones to send to you, but you may as well check them out now.” Eri scrolled, her finger dragging slowly down the length of the screen. Some may have thought that she was a mousy, shy woman but Anya knew that this face of innocence was a facade for a depraved mind. Several images of sweaty muscular men, both fleshy and pixel, slid to the top of Eri’s phone screenings she scrolled to find what she was looking for. “Check this out…”

”My god,” breathed Anya.

Playing on the screen before them was the latest companion release trailer for their favourite online romance game “Husband Heaven”. It depicted a handsome young man of peak fitness and energy, surrounded by falling flower petals as he entered different stages of undress. His lustful gaze zoomed into the screen and the soft sounds of guttural moans were heard but gradually diminished as Eri hurriedly tapped the decrease volume button on her phone.

“Argh! Why do they make them so hot?!” Anya cried. She leaned back in her chair in despair while fanning her reddening face.

”I know right?! It’s making it so hard to choose… I can’t keep up!” wailed Eri. She leaned in and whispered, “My vibrator can’t even keep up anymore. I’m doing it three times a night!”

“What would you do if they were real, Eri?” asked Anya as she shovelled a fork full of toast and eggs into her mouth. “Like, if you could choose one, who would it be?”

Eri carefully sliced open her poached egg and smeared the contents over her sourdough toast as she pondered deeply. “I’d have to say… Reuben. He’s totally my type: fun, cute and totally innocent. And most of all - has a rock solid body to completely tamper with. Which would you choose? And it can only be one!”

Sighing, Anya turned to looked up at the ceiling. “Oh god, I can’t choose…,” she said before gulping down a small glass of water and refilling it. After several moments of shovelling down some avocado and potato gratin, she announced, “I guess… Joe. He’s a kickboxer, which I love, he’s super charming and flirty, and most of all, he’s got money and is super responsible.”

“Do you think these kind of guys even exist in real life?”

“There’s 8 billion options. Odds are at least one of them will be.”

Eri sipped her juice and continued on with nibbling on her brunch. “And the odds of them entering our lives?”

“Ha! Absolute zero, Eri. Keep dreaming.”

Wailing almost childishly, Eri kicked her feet back and forth under the table. “It’s not fair. I pray and wish every night but there’s literally no one that I know of that attracts me in this sort of way. The gods have forsaken me.”

“You better hope they’re not listening to you whine right now. They might curse you for being greedy.”

“I’m not greedy. I’m just asking for one guy. You on the other hand…”

“Hey! Don’t judge. I have difficulty making decisions, ok? The devs of this damned game just know me too well!” Anya stabbed at the tiny remainder of her brunch. “To be honest, I’ve been wishing and praying too. There’s just no one around that meets my expectations. This game has ruined us, Eri.”

“Should we lower our expectations then?”

The two of them locked eyes briefly before giggling loudly. Though they had celebrated their 40th that year, Eri and Anya were still both as childish as they were since they first met 30 years ago. 

Anya took another full gulp of her water and pulled out her phone. “Have you been doing the daily activities to unlock the memories?”

”Ugh, the new way of doing it for this event is so hard. I don’t get it. I just want the memories. Can’t I just buy them?”

”It’s super easy. Here, I’ll show you. Open it up,” Anya nodded her chin towards Eri’s handbag by her feet, “Don’t be so frivolous with your spending. You’re still saving up for an apartment.”

“Ok, so how does it work?”

As Anya took Eri through the entire process of hunting for new memories in their favourite game, unbeknownst to them, a pair of pointy amber eyes belonging to a strange small creature watched them from afar. It sat on top of a large preening black raven, its devilishly red skin starkly contrasting with the oily shadows of the ravens feathers.

“What wishes heaven ignores is answered by those in hell,” it chanted as it clicked its tiny pointy fingers together. Sparks burst out like a lighter from its fingertips and the creature blew a small puff of soot into the air. The soot trailed between the breeze and wormed its way toward the unsuspecting women before fading into nothing.

With a high pitched chuckle and the flap of a raven wing, the creature and its steed flew off into the midday sun. Sowing chaos was its favourite pastime and these two ladies were going to be the perfect vehicle for delivering just that.