Now was it, everything I had been planning for, was for this moment. Sure, this game started out as a distraction—a distraction from the cruelty in the world, but I had come to love and depend on it. It never lied to me, or publicly humiliated me. This game was reliable, predictable, and wholesome.

  “You guys ready?” I said.

  “Yeah! Start the cutscene!” Everyone shouted at once. We were ready to start the mission. My heart thumped hard inside my chest.

  The world faded in, as the cutscene began. The camera circled the dark open-air altar atop the Demon Castle. King Tyrannus, the Queen, and the Prince stood around the altar chanting, black miasmic smoke billowing around them. Then, Princess Victoriya, followed by our avatars, rose out of the stairwell from the lower levels.

  King Tyrannus turned his wicked eyes toward Princess Victoriya, smiling a twisted grin. His voice boomed across the sky.

  "Welcome back, precious daughter."

  "I am not your daughter!" She bellowed back through gritted teeth. Her arms shaking with anger. "You murdered my family in cold blood."

  He laughed wickedly.

  "Oh, don't be so cold dearest sister," Prince Ivannis chastised, an evil smile plastered on his face. "Besides, we have you to thank for getting us this far. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have acquired the Ancient Dragon Blood, and the Dragon Egg, and it's thanks to that that we are able to finally summon the Dark Lord."

  The Queen grinned even more sinisterly than he did. She then looked down at the Dragon Sceptre she held in her hands, turning her gaze upon King Tyrannus.

  "Bring him forth," she commanded in a dark whisper.

  "Noooo! You doom us all!" Princess Victoriya shrieked desperately.

  The dark smokey plumes grew and coalesced into a central mass, forming a body of black energy. A tall shadowy figure materialized in the middle of the chamber, its features shrouded in darkness, and its silhouette lit only by the moonlight shining from the sky. It stretched out its clawed hand towards the party. Its lips curled upwards slightly, showing sharp white fangs, as it began laughing loudly.

  "Die," the Dark Lord said slowly with a deep voice that reverberated throughout the rooftop.

  "Quickly, you must defeat the Dark Lord before he regains his full strength!" Princess Victoria pleaded.

  The cutscene ended, and we began the boss battle.

  ? ? ?

  “Thank you for that, Mr Thornwell, but please, let’s start with what happened today.”

  “Oh, right, yeah sure.”

  ? ? ?

  The steamy bowl of microwaved gruel bubbled at me. “Porridge again, Dad? Really?”

  “That other stuff will rot your teeth,” he replied defiantly.

  Sure, the sugar-coated cereal would probably have a mouth-decaying party in my face-hole if I let it… but. “What about bacon? Eggs? Avocado?!”

  “You want it? You buy it.” He poked that one in below the ribs—

  ? ? ?

  “Ahem. Let’s start with when you and your class arrived at Astor Corp.” Miss Watson said, interrupting my rehash.

  “Umm, yeah sure, I guess… when we got here… I was, well I was thinking that—”

  ? ? ?

  ? ? ?

  “Focus, Mr Thornwell,” the lady said, pinching her brow.

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t need to know the inner workings of your…” she coughed, “…online community.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry—”

  ? ? ?

  Can these people really not see the VR headset under my hat? No one had seemed to have noticed all morning. I had started to get a little more brazen with my somatic actions, flicking the air not so subtly. Luckily, though, Matthew had split off from the main class, and I was happy enough to follow from behind where my actions were hidden. I occasionally threw him the odd ‘Mhmm’ or ‘Ahuh’ just so he’d think I was listening to his mumbo-jamble.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Matthew whipped his giant blonde head round at me. “What was that sound?”

  Crap-a-doodle-doo. Did he catch me? Shh, shh, play it cool. “Huh? Oh, just some music I’m listening to…” Better turn this shiz down.

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Oh, umm, you wouldn’t like it, it’s rap.”

  “I see,” Matthew said, looking down at the hands I quickly stuffed into my pockets.

  He was always annoyed I played FTR instead of Carbine Footprint, but I preferred traditional fantasy games with swords and shields to games with guns and war.

  Stupid system warnings! I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!

  The VR visor opacity reduced as I moved the AR dial, and the world of Final Tales Reborn came into view. My avatar stood inside the Royal Hall of Elizabeth, in front of Princess Victoriya.

  We gave her an awkward roleplayed bow emote.

  The princess continued with her game dialogue:

  Victoriya handed me a dragon egg. She looked at us intently, smiling warmly.

  Victoria looked me directly in my eyes and smiled warmly.

  The VR experience receded, as about as immediately as I whacked into the door frame. Oww!

  “What are you doing?” Matthew asked snobbishly.

  “The wall pushed me, so I pushed back,” I said, rubbing my shoulder.

  He chuckled. “Weirdo.”

  We entered another room, an office with a bunch of fossils working at desktop computers. A project room of sorts. What was Matthew looking for anyways? He had stopped behind some nerd-berger geezer and watched over his shoulder. The old grey-haired man clattered away on his archaic keyboard and flick-clicked on his outdated mouse. Matthew was about to announce himself, but the old man started muttering aloud. “These ignoramuses have no idea,” he harrumphed and spun on his chair. “If we don’t pull this off, our planet doesn’t stand a chan…”

  Matthew proceeded to talk as if we hadn’t just caught entirely everything the old man had just said.

  “You spelt ‘Absconphoton’ incorrectly…” he said, pointing to the computer screen.

  The professor stared at him for a long awkward moment, studying him, glancing at me for but a second, before finally he drew his lips in tightly and then smiled. “Ahh yes, unfortunately that word isn’t in the software’s dictionary.” He leant back and took a big sip of his coffee, staring over the top of it at Matthew.

  Matthew looked down his nose at him. “You shouldn’t rely on autocorrect. And I wasn’t finished yet, I can also see you used ‘hypospace’ instead of ‘hyperspace’, and you have misinterpreted the principle of quantum entanglement.”

  “Excuse me?” The professor’s nostrils flared, and his jaw tensed. “I have a PhD in Quantum Mechanics, with a cumulative fifteen years of study and experience. What do you have?! You’ve barely exited your mother’s amniotic sac! Why are you two even here? Shouldn’t you go wait for the next demonstra—”

  Matthew quickly cut him off: “You have fifteen years of Quantum Mechanics to your name, yet you still don’t understand the basics of quantum entanglement?”

  “The basics…? Hmph. You should probably make your way to the next demonstration; you might learn something…” He squinted at him, before sighing and unceremoniously spinning back to his computer only to find his session had timed out and would have to re-login.

  ? ? ?

  “Hmm, you have a very good memory, please go on.” Miss Watson gave me a half-arse attempt at a good-humoured smile, but she was blinking a little more, she probably just had something in her eye.

  “Err, thanks, I guess, umm yeah, so, the teach was herding the sheep…”

  ? ? ?

  “Come on, everybody, squeeze in. If the tall kids could please stand in the back, it’ll make it easier for everyone to have a view!”

  “Yes, Mr Harding,” some of the well-groomed but plainly dressed kids said, as they all piled into the viewing room. The room looked into a white-on-white-chequered room with two tables and two unique paintings on the wall. On one table sat a video recorder, whilst the other held nothing but a pile of dust. Higher up in the room loomed another viewing room full of scientists.

  “Oh, you two. And where did you go?” Daniel asked the big lumbering Matthew and me, as we entered the auditorium after everybody else.

  Matthew scoffed. “I was speaking with the researchers about quantum mechanics. It’s really interesting reading. Did you know that it’s now possible to deconstruct the information that defines us as humans, send it in the form of photons to a receiver, then re-build our bodies?”

  “What of course I have heard of that, but it has been disproven.”

  “No, no it hasn’t.”

  “Well, only a fool would think otherwise,” Daniel said, looking down his nose.

  “But isn’t that what they’re demonstrating now?” I said, trying to peer over the nugget that was Blake, but his shoulders were too broad.

  “Yes, and no. They think they’ve found a new energy type, which they aptly named Absconphoton, meaning the hidden photon in Latin. It’s an energy type they believe exists everywhere all at once, which is impossible,” Matthew said expressionlessly.

  I looked him curiously. “How do you know all this stuff?” To which he shrugged smugly.

  One of the chequered white squares opened into the demonstration room, and a lab assistant in a one-piece white condom suit shakily turned the video camera on, making sure it’s flip-out screen was facing the curious crowd. He left the demonstration room, and moments later a frizzly grey-haired man in a large white lab coat entered the viewing room.

  “Kids, make room for the professor!”

  “Thank you, Mr Harding. Good morning, everyone. My name is Professor Herring.”

  “Haha! Your first name’s Professor?!”

  “Blake, that’s lunch detention for a week!”

  “Aww man! Are you serious?!”

  “You want another week?”

  Blake glared at Mr Harding but remained quiet, but his eyes were seething.

  The professor cleared his throat. “You are all really very lucky to be the first school to receive an organised tour of Astor Corp. We are making ground-breaking discoveries here in the realms of teleportation, and we’re hoping to inspire our youngest and brightest to follow us into the future…” the professor said, then looked towards Matthew. “…That could be you.”

  He gestured to room behind the protective window. “You will notice there isn’t very much in the demonstration room, and I won’t speak too much to it and instead let the experiment speak for itself; however, please pay close attention to the flip-out screen of the video recorder. Before we though, I will need everyone to turn off any electrical devices. Once you’re done, please raise up your phones so that I can verify.”

  “That includes you, too!” Mr Harding called out.

  “Mark, Mark?” Matthew nudged me.

  “Huh? What?”

  “Did you bring a phone? Mr Harding’s looking at you.”

  “Who me?” Mr Harding’s stare was boring into my skull. “Oh, ahh, sorry, I didn’t bring a phone today…” My hand was still in my pocket.

  Now is not a good to time to sweat! Will you stop staring at me already?!

  Mr Harding rolled his eyes then nodded to the professor.

  “Okay, thank you everyone.” He signalled to the scientists above.