|Your hour is up. Would you like to pay for another hour?| As the blue-green letters appeared in front of Zhou, he glanced at the timer ticking down in the top right corner of his vision. It seemed only a little while ago that it had displayed 59:59.99, but now it was a dull, static 0:00.00.
Once he had confirmed that there wasn't a bug in the system, he longingly glanced at the Yes button that fluttered holograph-like in his vision. But no, he had already indulged himself enough. Although the fee per hour wasn't particularly expensive, he had still felt guilty as he had inserted the coins into the payment slot earlier today. If it wasn't a necessity, it was a waste of money.
Zhou sighed a little as he reached toward the No button instead. Sensing his motion, the screen faded and was replaced with the words, "Thank you for visiting Oasis Gaming Cafe. Please come again soon!"
Once it went dark, he reached up and pulled off the Oasis headset, looking around at everything else in the internet cafe. It was a cozily situated area, with some comfortable furniture scattered throughout the room and tea and pastries available on trays nearby. And everywhere he looked there were headsets, either by themselves or on a player.
Together all the gamers made quite the curious collection, some frantically running in place, others circling their arms, still others dancing or doing jumping jacks or not moving at all. In addition, there was a raucous range of noise, players yelling various things or conversing with friends in the game.
A soft ding sounded, startling him from his observation, but it was just the machine confirming his log-out. Now out of his reverie, though, he made his way toward the exit.
Although he was a bit disappointed to have to stop playing, overall he was decently pleased with himself as he slipped out the door. After months of hard toil, he had finally gotten onto the leaderboard.
He had first started playing a little less than a year ago, when the internet cafe had been having a free promotional trial week. Curious about the game that had captured the attention of almost all, but not being able to afford the chance of trying it himself, he had excitedly gone inside upon seeing the poster in the window of the cafe.
Taking the nearest available headset, he'd quickly signed up and created a new avatar. He hadn't added much personalization at the time, more eager to get to the game. Besides, it wasn't likely that he would be playing it again, after this first time.
Upon prompting for a username, he'd looked around, and picked the first word that appealed to him: Sho, printed on the cover of a book placed on a nearby coffee table. Pleased at the similarity to his own name but still able to maintain some anonymity, he'd typed it into the box.
He'd then started playing, and as cliché as it sounded, the game finally allowed him to be whatever he wanted. Not the quiet, timid Zhou, alone and fending for himself, but someone else: Sho, strong and courageous. His own worries would momentarily dissipate as he became his avatar, which he supposed was why everyone else enjoyed the game too: for the brief, blissful escape from reality.
During that week, he'd gone to the cafe every day once it opened, leaving only when business hours ended. He'd always been a quick learner, and the Oasis was no exception. Within those seven days of extensive playing, he'd leveled up sixteen times. The average rate was two levels a week, although it did gradually decrease with higher levels.
But he couldn't just remain contentedly unburdened in the virtual world. The promotional week soon came to an end, meaning that he would have to pay to keep playing. Money that he didn't have.
Besides, there were also the questioning, almost suspicious looks from employees and other customers at seeing a kid in the morning to early mid-afternoon in the cafe, instead of being at school.
School was one of those other, many luxuries that he couldn't afford, due to all the form-filling it required. It was much harder to remain unnoticed when he had to create a whole fictional history for himself, one that would likely shatter if anyone bothered to investigate further.
Better not to risk it, although he still felt the pang of jealousy upon seeing other kids his age, laughing and chattering as they walked to school. And not only did he envy those social interactions that were quite a rarity for him, but also the chance to learn.
Having always been inquisitive, wanting to know about anything and everything that came to mind, Zhou still tried to learn what he could even without formal instruction, going to the library and devouring the information in the form of battered textbooks sitting in a lonesome bookshelf. From reading all of them, he probably actually knew more than the regular fourth-grader, but he still imagined how much more he could find out if there was someone there to answer his questions.
Nonetheless, however much he wanted to go to school, the cafe workers and customers didn't know it, perhaps thinking him some kind of truant or something. To avoid that, along with fixing the money issue, Zhou began to occupy his weekdays with running various errands for a few kind people who pitied him, generous enough to pay him more than what his meager services were worth.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to get him by, and the few dollars left over he allotted to use for playing an hour or two a week in the cafe. It was a frustratingly small amount of time compared to what he wanted it to be, watching his points creep up slowly when he knew that they would increase dramatically faster if he had the time to devote to raising his level, but even so, it was better than nothing.