" Hey, get that one !"
"Jeez, he's right behind you!, Get him !!"
" Oh no! That's not a power up!"
There was a thud. The game interface showed the words in bold
"YOU LOST!"
" Gosh, we lost!! I've never lost this game before!!"
"I'm never playing with you again!''
The young lad on a swivel chair forcefully removed his headpiece and threw it across the room in frustration, he groaned in annoyance and scoffed.
"He could have sat it out if he didn't know how to play, gosh my rates might have decreased".
He turned the chair to the left, then to the right before finally turning around, he looked not a day older than 18 with his strawberry-blonde hair and delicate brown eyes.
The frown on his face completed the arrogance his features displayed.
"Taylor!?, Is that you?"
Quickly, he dashed to the bed and fell on it, pretending to be asleep as the door opened revealing a petite woman with the same features who had a shriveled voice, After making sure he was asleep, she walked back out and shut the door carefully.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he sat up and checked his wristwatch, it was a few minutes after 3. Sighing, he leaned over to his left and set his alarm clock to 6:30am, then laid back down and closed his eyes.
After what felt like a few minutes, he felt a finger poke at his forehead and slowly opened his eyes, his mother stood firmly hands on her waist staring at him
" Gosh, look at you, what's the point of setting alarms if you can't even be woken up by one ?"
Realization dawned on him, and he hurriedly got out of bed, rushing into the bathroom to do his morning business.
A few minutes later be rushed back out, hair wet and soggy as he grabbed a pair of jeans and a blouse and slid into them then proceeded to dry his hair before grabbing his bag and dashing to the living room.
An odd-looking Mercedes pulled up in a school parking lot and Taylor hurriedly stepped out, he walked briskly into the building with an obvious destination in mind. As he entered the class, he was unnoticed by the others. Yes, that was the difference between his school life and that at home.
At school, he was the invisible lonely kid and at home he was a popular gaming guru, he had only one friend. Jacob, an emo who said little to no words per day, and together they made the perfect pair of physco's.
After the day's classes, he and Jacob headed to the parking lot and drove away without wasting time, that was their daily routine. They'd stop by a milkshake café before heading to Taylor's house for a whole evening of game playing and ululation. Occasionally, they crashed Jacob's whenever Taylor's mom had her book-loving friends over for the evening.
His favorite playing Character was Gina the Rogue , an Aarakocra PC (playable character) while Jacob's was Saphina ,a Kenku similar to an Aarakocra but has no wings and doesn't have wild shape ability.
As they were both playing, Jacob gave a scream of victory and somersaulted over the couches.
" And I won again" He did a few crazy dance moves .
Taylor sighed and grabbed a glass of orange juice, watching the victorious Jacob dance and prance around the room in excitement with a little smirk tugging at the end of his lips
"Don't be so excited, it's just a start" He muttered.
" Yeah, a start at beating you that is "He scoffed and sat up
"You better get going, it's already dark"
Jacob grinned as he grabbed his backpack and headed towards the door, he stepped out but then peeked back his head through the door and mumbled
"Loser"
Then slipped it out quickly enough to avoid the pillow thrown at him and chuckled.
A frustrated Taylor got up and made his way to the bathroom, as he walked out of the room, his system's interface suddenly went blank and codes started appearing in bulk, filling up the screen and acting all wonky. Then started decoding itself rapidly until all the codes were readable letters. On the interface was :
[New system upgrade installed]
[Would you like to access your new upgrade?]
[Accept/Reject]
A few minutes later, Taylor stepped out of the bathroom while drying his hair and his eyes caught the screen
"What's this?, I didn't request for an upgrade" He mumbled confused.
"Was it Jacob?"
He sighed confused and clicked on Accept before walking to his mirror table and continued to dry his hair.
Meanwhile, the system started acting up, the Morse codes appeared again and this time it was more complicated than the previous, but Taylor noticed nothing until the decrypting was complete then he proceeded to switch off the system before going off to bed.
In The Middle Of The Night
Words suddenly started appearing on the blank screen of Taylor's system while he was snoring away, the words were simple yet confusing
It went:
[System update installed successfully, prepare for input to Host]
[Host should attach the headpiece to its body for final process]
[Accept/Reject Input to Host].
Then a ray of blue light passed through the cables and into the headpiece like a spark.
In The Morning
The sun rays shone through the window into the room and fell directly on the bed. Taylor opened his eyes and was blinded by the sunlight, he moved towards the windows and pulled the curtains together. Then walked out of the room towards the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
On returning, with the coffee mug in his hands, he walked towards the system and sat on his swivel chair
"What's this?"
He read the words and scratched his head, confused
"Is this some kind of game or something?"
Then he clicked on Accept, but the screen went blank.
"Must have been a virus, how, though? McAfee is supposed to be top-notch"
He scoffed and sighed,then he proceeded to the bathroom for his usual routine and was on his way to school, on leaving the house, his mom called after him
"Taylor., I won't be home later on so make sure you take your keys, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, you got it".
After School
Jacob had turned up sick, so after leaving the hospital, Taylor headed home alone, it was unusual for him, but he intended to pacify himself with the new game he supposedly installed earlier on. On getting home, just like she predicted, his mom wasn't home, so he grabbed a glass of juice and went up to his room and had a change of clothes.
Sitting in front of the system, he couldn't help but be worried
"Was it really a virus ?"
"What if it ate deep into the system already?"
Then he went to his McAfee scan box but found nothing
"What's wrong with it then? I guess nothing?"
Then, with a sigh and double thoughts, he clicked on the system. He searched for the game and while he was on it, he put on his headpiece and like a zap, everything went blank, and he fell to the floor unconscious.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of his mind, words started appearing
[Attach onto Host successful]
[Download has begun]
[Downloading ••••]