A nice melody of acoustic guitars play out from a radio. I'm sitting in my room, drawing. I don't know why but I've always liked drawing and music. My dad tells me to go outside more to train for The Game. I've already trained 5 hours today, and I'm tired. He keeps knocking at my bedroom door until I answer. "Get out and go train at the arcade." He says. I sigh and walk to the arcade.

Sky Project is there. The lady who works with them greets me at the door. "Ah, back again for more training Callum?" She asks me. "Yeah, I'm back." I tell Sky. All the people at the arcade just call her that. because she won't tell anyone her actual name. She gets real angry when you ask her, so we avoid that whenever we can. I walk to a lit up circle with chairs and headsets inside. I sit in one of the chairs as it leans back to make me comfortable. I reach up for the headset and my fingers brush it when a hand clamps down on my wrist and pulls me up out of the chair. "It's my turn, loser." Says Jeff. I always thought of Jeff as a generic dumb name that authors give someone when they can't think of anything else, but being as this is real life and not a novel then I decided that his parents were just dumb. "Whatever, I didn't want to play anyways." I say, instead heading to the arcade bar and getting a lemonade. I sip it slowly while watching the large screen above all the chairs. Jeff is 52/100. After a few more minutes theres only three people left. Jeff so far has the most kills, he even killed his own teammates. He knifes one guy and shoots the other one shot in the head. And that's it, game over. Jeff's body shakes a little bit and he takes off the headset. I notice Sky Project watching him. Jeff just walks off to the bathroom, talking really loudly about diaherria.

I quickly sip my lemonade and rush over to a open chair. I feel a little jolt of excitement when I see Jeff come out and take a chair. I decided that I'd beat him. With there being so many applications this year, SP decided to watch people in the arcade for now and wait until they accept anyone. Of course, you're probably thinking "Why not just accept everyone right?" Well they could, but it's better to dim it down so the game doesn't run for a whole year. Anyways, back to the story! I feel like I'm shaking and then suddenly the noise of the arcade is silent.

"Game start, select loadout" says a voice, as I open my eyes. There's a black box surrounding me and I walk around a bit inside it to test the MindTransport worked. The MindTransport is the official name of the headset because it essentially transports your mind and turns off all your nerves. Anyways, it turned out it worked fine and I choose a bow and arrow class. The black box that had surrounded me earlier disappear and I discover I'm in a forest. I look at my teammates. I'm paired with "Peter" and "Gorgeousgal101" I decide to ignore the stupid name for now and I go ahead and walk up to Peter. The boy looks frail and small, probably only 12, and above his username I can see "Peter Evins". You can see people's real names because of an ID chip planted in our brains when we were born. I look at the girl and figure out her name is Stacy. She... y'know what, these are only side characters so I'm not describing them. Anyways I'm so distracted that I don't hear the countdown. "3! 2! 1! PLAYERS BEGIN!" I hear the last part as they practically yell it out. A team comes up from behind us. It's a team of four. Normally you get four players but we got unlucky and only have three. At the start of the game, each starting weapon only has three bullets. Looting is a good way to get more ammo, but it takes at least three bullets to kill someone. 3 times 4 is 12 which means you could kill a whole squad with starting weapons. This tactic is only used by really good players. So by my calculations and basic knowledge, I thought that the best tactic is... "Run!" I yell, diving behind a tree.

Stacy doesn't know where to go and the whole squad gangs up on her. "Gorgeousgirl101 is dead" I hear right next to my ears. Peter breathes heavily as he looks out from behind a rock. I hear a few gunshots and see that 2 people from the squad have went down. Looking to my right, I see another squad shooting at the other. I gesture for Peter to follow me and together we head into a small building. I find ammo for my bow, bringing its total to 7, and Peter finds ammo for his assault rifle. We hear the door bust open and I turn to see the last player of the first squad come in. His other teammate seemed to have died, and the second squad, the one who saved us, throws a flashbang through the window. I'm blinded for a moment but I manage to get into the rafters of the building as a tall man walks in. He pulls out a knife and kills the last guy, who gets teleported away. The guy looks around for a moment, but fails to look up. I aim my bow at his head and fire. It pierces straight through his skull and I one shot him. His other teammates come in and aim their weapons around. I gesture to Peter to shoot one while I take the other. Together, we shoot two of the three remaining. The last one doesn't know where we are, but she saw the bullets. She dives under a bed in the far right corner, and aims her gun through the crack. She starts firing and one bullet hits Peter in the shoulder. I pull out a throwing knife, and luckily, hit her in the face.

My kill count goes up and I move down from the rafters. Peter picks a medkit out from the woman and puts it to his chest. "Heal!" He yells, and a green circle appears in front of him with 5 in the middle. He keeps the kit on his chest until the circle disappears and throws the now useless medkit down. Together we run towards a place on the map labeled "Market" and as soon as we're there we see that the entire place had already been looted. Peter manages to find some ammo and bandages, but that's all. As we're searching for anything useful I notice a little number in the top left of my vision. That's the players remaining. There's only 10 people left. Me and Peter quickly leave the Market and by the time we're out, we both hear shouts from the river.

We run down to the river and see three squads battling. one has two like us, another has three, and the last one has three as well. the first squads two people quickly go down and the last two squads battle it out. One from each team goes down, then another from the second team. It being a 2v1 between them, I decide to level the playing field. I aim my bow at the head of one of the people from the first team and fire. I also notice that the person I didn't shoot was Jeff. Whatever poor soul Jeff was battling would die, and then me and Peter would have to take out Jeff.

Jeff jumps up from his hiding place and starts firing like crazy at the last guy. Jeff loses no health, and knifes the guy in the throat. I decide that now is my chance and start firing my arrows. Jeff takes the bait, and while he's charging at me, Peter comes up from behind him and makes a quick slash at Jeff's throat. Jeff dodge's and punches Peter in the stomach. I try to fire off a few quick rounds, but notice I'm out of ammo. Jeff quickly stabs Peter and then begins to charge at me again.

"Oh loser it's you!" He says, delighted. I quickly pull out my melee weapon and start to attack. Jeff dodge's my first slash and then pulls out a pistol. He pushes it into my head, getting ready to fire. Peter, still having a small bit of health rushes up behind him and starts stabbing him like crazy. Jeff's tough armor manages to hold though, and he picks Peter of his back and grunts as he throws him into a tree. Peter's last bit of health dwindles out, and I'm left alone with Jeff. Jeff jumps up and does a downward slash at me with his knife. I deflect with my own and try stabbing him in an opening in his armor. He dodges and holds my arm with his armpit while stabbing me in the chest. I feel a tingling sensation as my health slowly goes down. Jeff pushes it deeper into my stomach and I'm once again enveloped by a black box. "Game over" a monotonous voice says.

I suddenly hear the old retro music of the arcade and feel the comfy leather chair behind me as I pick my headset off my head. I sit up in chair and rub my eyes. I decide that that's good enough for today, although I'm slightly disappointed that I couldn't beat Jeff. I can feel him and Sky Project watching me as the sliding doors open and I step out into the now raining city. A blonde woman in a white coat is waiting for me outside. "Are you Callum Johnson?" She asks me, looking me up and down. "Yes." I reply, wondering what she wants. "Well, it appears that Mrs. Johnson has collapsed during work, and Mr. Johnson has asked me to inform you to come home immediately." She tells me with a stone cold face.

I don't respond, just start walking home. I used to be worried, but now this almost happens every day. She stays home most of the time now and takes care of me. Anyways, after about an hour of walking I come across our small apartment building and walk inside. As I'm walking up the stairs, I notice that it's pretty quiet. Usually I'd hear my parents arguing, but now all I hear is... crying?" I press my hand to a pad on the side of the door, and it slides open. My dad's inside with his head in his hands. "Dad?" I ask him. He looks up and sees me. I notice that his eyes aren't wet, so he wasn't crying, but he has a serious expression. He nods to moms bedroom, and I walk inside. My mother looks more frail than usual and when she sees me, she sobs again. I walk to her side and hug her. "Mom, are you ok?" I ask her, holding back tears of my own. "No, I'm not. Sweetie, its getting worse, its.." She starts breathing quickly and I grab her and pull her into another hug. "Mom, it'll be fine." I say, pulling away again and wiping tears from her face. "And what makes you say that?" She asks, trying to hold her voice steady. "Because I'll win The Game mom." I tell her quietly, looking into her eyes. I stand up and go out the room and towards the door. "Where are you going?" My dad asks me quietly, looking at me. I stare back at him. "To the arcade to train." I say, opening the door and heading back to the arcade, more determined than ever.