Pan's Treasure by Red Kinoko

It is so said that at the twilight of one's life, a lot of things are made clear by gaining a new height of perspective - that through looking back, realizations are made and the nostalgia that comes with age it seems teems with enlightenment.

It was, however, not really until that day that I realized I was already old.

That day Pan died.

Cold October rain greeted my arrival at our meeting place. I could no longer recall how many years have passed since I last passed by the area. The place is but a ghost of its somewhat glorious past now. A desk here and a chair there, a faded signboard, boxes of old equipment - there were only a few things to remind me of what it was before, blanketed by dust and forget. Images of the past were only drawn by streetlight and my failing memory of what was once the biggest internet cafe in the area - computers, chairs, lively players. It was the Collegian Cafe as I remember it. It was how we remembered it.

"She was smiling until the end," a seasoned voice said, coming from the darkened end of the closed-down shop. I adjusted my glasses to see who I was talking to.

His voice was barely the rowdy regular that I remember him to be, but this man was beyond a doubt Allan, a guildmate of mine from before. I saw his outline standup from leaning on one of the desks that used to hold the computers we played with many years ago. As his face came into the light of the streetlamps outside coming in from the translucent window I saw a face weathered by time. Black hair turned snow-white, wrinkles had grown around his face, pretty much the same way mine has changed. The smile was, however, as warm as ever.

I hugged Allan. "Good to see you again, Stripsleeve," I greeted.

"Stripsleeve?" he pushed me back a bit to look at me. "You have got to be the first person in fifty years to ever call me that," he continued. I laughed, partially because I felt a surge of youth using a name I shouted so often in the past, during sieges, during clan matches. I laughed harder still because I was able to remember, something that is somewhat a feat at my age.

"Sorry I could not make it to the funeral, amigo," said I. The flight that took me back to Manila could not have been arranged sooner due to my failing health and my grandchildren going against my wishes. When I learned from Allan of what had happened, I tried to get back as quickly as could - but as always I was late.

Allan sat down again, this time on a half broken office chair, almost intentionally left there for the nostalgic. "Celia, no, Pan would have understood. You were always the no show during sieges anyway, remember? The lazy guildmaster," he joked but softly. And I've almost forgotten about that as well. Once upon a time I had been Konstantin, guildmaster of the proud gaming guild Cirque 'd Sange.

Yes, and I remembered Pan. I remembered her. "The day Ragnarok Online stopped, the last Philippine Championship we competed in, we all agreed to go our separate ways, didn't we?" I said. Allan nodded. "There was not much else after that, wasn't there?" he replied, "not after we lost."

But that was not how I had remembered it. No, I was here at the shop for something about that and Allan should know it. I stood up and started poking the crumbling ceilings of the shop with my walking stick.

"Why did you ask me to come here anyway?" Allan asked - expression half-annoyed while watching what I was doing. "And what in the world are you looking for?" Let him wait, I thought. This was her last request and I just couldn't let it pass by.

I poked the cornermost ceiling tile and it easily gave way. A taped box fell to the floor, exploding a dust cloud that left me in a coughing fit.

"I was sent an email from somebody I couldn't recognize a week ago about this. In the email I was told to look here for Pan's treasure," I told Allan while stopping down with a cutter to open the box. Pan's treasure was it? I almost felt anxious to see it open.

Allan joined me in looking inside the box. As we opened it, a dusty, faded pink poring doll came into view. The stitched letters "CAKES" at the back made me recognize it immediately. Pan-cakes.

"Wasn't this the poring you gave Pan the first time we had an eyeball party? You really liked her even then, right?" Allan said as he dusted off the stuffed toy. I nodded my head while I tried hard to find explanation as to why she'd hide it there.

I chuckled. "If I knew the contents would be this embarrassing I would have gone here alone." Allan set the stuffed toy on a nearby desk and peered into the box again. "Probably not, I know you were always the one who cannot resist the urge to organize a party to do things. Even until now." He smiled back and took out several tags.

"RPC '08, competitor tags?" I recognized the logo and our names. Pan. Stripsleeve. Konstantin. Looking back, our loss during the finals wasn't really so much of a big deal as we all had thought back then. Pan apparently knew that much, and had kept the tags we threw away after the match. "Damn, Kons," Allan looked at my tag as it hung on his hand, "You really sucked as a priest."

I gave him a dirty finger. "Amp ka," I said, as though we were as young as we once were once again, "weak!" Allan began laughing hard and I followed suit. It was hard to imagine that fifty years ago things turned out quite differently. After a while we both tired from the laughter and silence once again flooded the room.

"After we fought about the last match, I officially disbanded the guild," I said trying to reminisce my actions over fifty years ago. "Pan was the guild lieutenant at the time. The night before the match, I revealed my feelings for her. She told me she couldn't at the moment, but I was too impatient back then. I couldn't anymore. And it was not like I didn't know about you two as well. I just wanted to move on and maybe in doing so, I'd give room for you in the picture."

Allan got back to the chair, sat down, and bowed his head. "It's true, I liked her as well. I love her as much now as I did back then. As matter of fact, I surprised her with a marriage proposal ingame. We planned to go get our characters hitched right after the match, win or lose."

Youthful emotions came back to me once again, bypassing all memories of my life after playing the game. Excitement, anxiety - jealousy. "It was good for you two then, right?"

"Many things ended that day of the finals," Allan spoke softly. "A year later I married Celia for real."

The rain outside had already stopped before I noticed it and there was nothing left around us but the silence brought by passing time.

"It was me who sent that email. Pan," Allan spoke but hesitated. He took a deep breath and finally proceeded. "Pan - no - Celia asked me to send that email during her dying moments. She told me 'there's something in the box I want Kosntantin to see.' She gave me a kiss after saying that and then she slept like a baby, smiling and in peace, and never woke up again."

"Sorry to hear that. Do you know what is in the box?" I asked.

Allan shrugged. "No, but I think I have an idea."

I looked inside the box and saw that she had intended for me to see.

An unused Ragnarok Online prepaid card, still covered in plastic and never opened. Beside it was a note, its handwriting I could recognize at any age. "With this card unopened," it read, "Pan never attended her wedding with StripSleeve. She was waiting for her real groom, and in a way, she still is."

I looked at Allan. The old chap was teary-eyed but smiling.

"The game wedding never took place. We never played again after you left. And it took her a lifetime to tell you," Allan said with a shaky voice.

"You were her real treasure."

And perhaps at the end of life there lies all truth in this world, that we may know what to regret and what to be thankful for.

Perhaps.