Things to know before reading:
1) New name. New story. All that cool renewal stuff, my former alias is TacoSwimmer.
2) Credits to Janice Chu (churon on Tumblr) For the cover art!
3) Special thanks once again to my readers for putting up with my crap. You guys are, as always, amazing.
4) I am not ditching The Alternative: Part II! This is just running parallel to it :)
Enjoy reading!
CHAPTER ONE
WALLFLOWER
RILEY
It's official.
Triple Phoenix is a goner.
The machine has gone kaput. One of the wires freaked out and short circuited the whole system. Now the screen glitches and the bottom base of the machine starts to overheat whenever someone tries to play. Riley's told Henry about it, so he scribbled some words on a piece of paper and tacked it to the game's screen.
OUT OF ORDER.
The words have been written in a fat, sloppy font. Typical Henry fashion. Riley frowned at the paper and shot a glance at Henry, who could only shrug.
"I'd lose all my fingers, and I'd still have better handwriting than you." she said dryly.
But he ignored her. "I called the technicians," and Henry patted the arcade machine twice. "They'll wheel it out by the end of the week."
And that was that.
Riley's not sure if anyone would miss the game. As far as she knows, it'll be wheeled out for good. Like, it'll-end-up-in-the-junkyard good. She should feel sad, but there isn't any emotion in her for a game that hasn't grabbed anyone's attention. Seriously. The only loyal audience it has are those who were obsessed with the television series, and that was directed to children.
It had some hype during its release (which was a year ago) but now it's faded out. Grayed. Kind of like Pacman.
She's just kidding herself.
Everybody loves Pacman.
The damn machine is still sitting there at the edge of the arcade. It's the eighties model, and Henry says that it's only been repaired once. Riley's positive that it'll outlive her. Even with all the new releases, the game remains a classic. A retro challenge. Sometimes she even gives it a shot or two, but leaves it for the younger kids.
Not like it matters that she plays it. She's got the highest score in almost all the game systems.
Even Contra.
Even that battle with Mike Tyson in goddamn Punch Out.
Most of the scoreboards have her username at the top, and it's always a treat for her when she sees people trying to take the crown. (She watches them, as creepy as it sounds, and gets the satisfaction whenever they fail.) The only games she doesn't bother with are those huge, expensive App Stores. Literally. They've already wheeled in the physical, life-sized models of Candy Crush and Temple Run two weeks ago. God. Riley could just play the games on her phone for free if she wanted to.
On the bright side, they've got The Turning.
It's probably the only game she doesn't mind wasting her coins on.
It's probably the only game ever that she doesn't mind playing over and over again.
To her, The Turning is an art. And it doesn't matter if she's unlocked all the characters and executed all the finishing moves and gotten all the achievements. She keeps on playing. She sticks to her favorite fighter, Angel Knives, always. Because she's her world. Her spirit-something. It's quite an obsession, because Riley has three different posters of her, a figurine of her, a phone case . . . She's even got a pair of slippers from her fifteenth birthday.
She's attached, but she doesn't care. The game is what Riley lives on. On the scoreboards, her username is ranked first.
In the world.
She doesn't play it as much as she's used to. Nowadays she just checks to see if anyone has overtaken her spot (which is highly unlikely, because the second placer is twelve thousand points behind.)
She frequents the arcade here. Mostly because it's the nearest one, and her cousin—Henry—works there for spring break so now she shamelessly freeloads from him whenever she visits. Sometimes Sam comes along with her, but he's got his own I'm-a-thirteen-year-old-boy priorities. Apparently.
Today it's just her.
Henry's gone for a thirty-minute break and he's assigned her to keep watch. The store's security cameras do most of the job anyway, so Riley decides to lean on the wall, listening to some mainstream music that plays out of the speakers of the arcade. Riley lets her shoes tap to the beat as she watches the assortment of kids bustling in and out of the doors.
And then she comes in.
She's the girl who tries to open the entrance doors — then realizes that they're automatic and now her hand is awkwardly reaching out at some pockets of air. She retracts the arm, walks in coyly, and places her hands in her pockets.
Riley subconsciously tilts her head.
The girl's position is from her right side, a few paces away, and Riley's only gotten a quarter view of her face. She has a green army coat that's irrevocably too big, and a pink hoodie's donned on her from the inside. The girl's young. Pale-skinned. And due to the distance, the only thing Riley can properly examine is the girl's slightly copper hair, tied casually to a ponytail.
Riley realizes that it's becoming socially unacceptable to be staring this long and shakes her head lightly. She pulls out her phone, tries to not look at her, but takes glances anyway.
The next time Riley looks up, the girl walks ahead, shuffling past the other folks with her eyes cast completely on the floor. Like she doesn't want to be noticed. Riley observes that the girl's heading over to her far left where Triple Phoenix should be, and that grabs her attention. By the time the girl reaches the arcade machine her eyes are still glued on the floor—does she even know that it's off?—and she fishes out some coins from her jacket's pocket before looking up.
She then notices the paper with Henry's poorly-written letters.
OUT OF ORDER.
Riley can feel the scowl creeping unto the girl's lips. She could sense the seething air that pushes out of her nose. The toes that curl up bitterly within her shoes. Riley's tempted to smirk in amusement, but her lips form a straight line instead, because get your shit together, Riley, and focuses back on watching the store like she's supposed to—
Thump.
The noise isn't even that loud or head-turning, but it's enough to make Riley snap her attention back at the girl, her brown eyes layered with curiosity and mild annoyance.
So. She just kicked the machine with her foot.
Kicked is more of an overstatement — she aggressively nudged it, which sounds almost adorable.
Well. Anyway. The girl's looking at the machine like it stole her cat or something.
Unsatisfied by the nudge, she tries to do it again.
And it makes a much louder thump. Like a pan-dropping-on-hard-concrete thump. Some pairs of eyes fly to her direction, and she sheepishly looks away, her gaze worryingly heading to the counter to check if she's been caught.
Riley scoffs under her breath and lowers her eyes to her phone.
Dork.
ELLIE
Maybe she could take the cab back home.
Ha, Ellie thinks. Like I'll use my cash on that.
She might as well.
It's the only time she has enough money for anything, and she can't even spend it.
The coins sit inside her pocket disappointingly. Like they've been let down. There's four of them — all quarters, and she was planning to use them up for Triple Phoenix.
That stupid, unavailable game.
Of course it wouldn't be working. Of course it had to be down the day she visits the damn arcade. Of course.
As far as she knows, there isn't any other place that has the game in Boston. She could just Google the locations — then remembers that she's one of those endangered species who have old Nokias as phones.
Crap.
Public libraries have public computers, right?
It's Sunday, she realized. The library's closed on Sundays.
Double crap.
She doesn't even recall ending up on the ground floor, maybe she was too crabbed to remember going down the escalator.
Whatever.
She doesn't care, because all she feels like doing is clenching her fists, her jaw, her eyes, her everything. She clenches them so hard until it hurts. She wants to scream.
But she doesn't want to scream over some stupid video game.
That stupid.
Stupid.
Video game.
She shouldn't have bothered with it in the first place.
It's not a big deal, she tries to tell herself. But convincing only makes it worse. She relaxes the tensed muscles and opens her eyes, and she isn't even given time to brace herself when a group of younger kids barrel past her with toy airplanes. Ellie lets them knock her around and accepts their rushed apologies, watching as they climb back up the escalator as if it were a boulder.
Ellie sighs.
She's got an hour left before her flimsy phone rings. An hour before the car arrives at the mall's entrance to pick her up. An hour of wandering around aimlessly inside a human-infested labyrinth.
Ellie sighs again and eyes the escalator. Raja's Arcade is just upstairs to the right of it. She remembers seeing countless other video games that were there — games that were probably a hundred times better than stupid, out-of-order Triple Phoenix.
She's got an hour left, she might as well put it to good use.
Before she even begins riding up the escalator, Ellie writes a mental note to herself for the tenth time that the arcade's doors are automatic.
RILEY
Above the music, she can hear feet padding against the floor. It's nearing her, but she doesn't bother looking up.
"Are you sexting over there?"
She lowers the phone and rolls her eyes.
"I wish,"
Henry walks closer, smiling because he's holding two cups of smoothies. "Any shootouts while I was gone?" he asks.
Riley puts the phone in her jeans' pockets. "None, unfortunately."
"Damn," Henry shakes his head in mock-disappointment and hands her one of the smoothies. As soon as she drinks, her face contorts to a grimace. She shoots Henry a cold look.
He tries to be oblivious. "What?"
"This isn't mango-banana."
"It's chocolate-banana," he says. "Get over yourself, kid. Everybody loves chocolate."
She rolls her eyes again and continues drinking from the straw. They settle for a while until Henry stands apart from her and asks, "How long've you been leaning there?"
"Dunno. A while, maybe?"
"I'm surprised that you aren't glued to the wall yet."
"I'm surprised that your boss hasn't fired you for slacking on your ass."
That gets him good.
They continue to bicker, and Henry heads back to the counter before he actually gets fired, leaving Riley alone with her unappreciated chocolate shake. The usual routine starts to sink in, and she's about to continue on sulking when the automatic doors slide open for the nth time this afternoon.
Only it's different.
Because the same girl from before steps inside.
ELLIE
She feels so out-of-place.
Again.
Like she's the wrong color a kid would put on a tree.
Like everything else is bolder. Formed. Tangible.
Like everything else makes her feel flat and bland.
She wants to turn back.
Don't be stupid, Ellie thinks. She silently breathes in the air and takes some steps forward. I can do this.
Then the music enters her ears.
Then the heater above radiates.
There are noises everywhere. She didn't even know it could be this loud.
Ellie fishes out the Walkman from her pocket and puts the earphones on. She presses play, and all the members of The Smiths give her a welcoming embrace. The music helps soothe her.
But the song's still not enough to drown out her reality.
It's warm inside. Too warm for that huge coat of hers — yet she insists on keeping it on. She's too abashed to care either way, and while the music glides across the walls, Ellie resumes exploring the arcade because her feet're going to places she hasn't permitted them to. From one place to the next, she shyly eyes posters and examines video game rentals near the counter where an employee stands, sipping on a shake.
Jesus, she wonders, after a while of observing. It's stranger the second time.
There's apparently a small replica of the solar system hanging from the ceiling, just below the ice hockey table where two girls are found playing. Ellie can vaguely hear the rolling bells of a game's jingle and the gunshots of a shooter. She moves again and rows of racing simulators are to her far right, where she can see teenagers competing for ranks.
Ellie heads to another column of arcade cabinets and considers her options.
Racing simulators. Claw machines with stuffed toys or candies. Donkey Kong and Dance Dance Revolution. There's an abundance of options, Ellie realizes, all of which are either unappealing or too difficult for her. The innumerable amount of games leads her to wonder on how she didn't notice any of them the first time she arrived. It's not like it matters anyway, the coins in her pockets won't even allow her to try more than four.
Whatever. She could pity her underprivileged situation later. Ellie takes a turn to another row, eyeing the games from left to right until she stops in her tracks.
Because there it is.
The arcade machine is just across.
Her eyes trail to it timorously. The blueish glow of its bezel lures her in.
Ellie slowly walks over and stands in front of it.
RILEY
The Turning.
Of all the games, she has to pick that one.
The girl's standing in front of it now, and Riley has a side view of her. The expression on the redhead's face is equivalent to someone finding the holy grail.
God, Riley thinks, she's so weird.
She's not even exaggerating it — the girl's looking at a video game as if she's never seen one before.
And it seems to annoy Riley rather than amuse her, because she doesn't understand how the girl's presence is distracting. She looks relatively plain—except for that heavy coat and outdated Walkman she's carrying—and Riley's seen prettier girls on the front of magazine covers and billboards. (Not like she's into them. God.)
Her concentration grows, and she doesn't realize that there are mild drops of sweat collecting on her forehead. Riley subconsciously wipes them away with a hand. If she's perspiring in just her light layers of clothing, then Riley didn't want to know how the redhead still manages to keep that huge coat of hers on.
Maybe she's just begging for a heatstroke, she speculates. Maybe she's just too timid to hand it over to Henry at the counter. Maybe . . .
Riley should stop.
Whatever she's doing, it's getting unhealthy.
ELLIE
A sharp, bloodied font is plastered at the top of the marquee in white.
The Turning.
The screen and side art implies that it's a one-on-one brawler, but the title sounds more of like a zombie game.
There's a coin slot in front of her, and Ellie warily takes out a quarter from her pocket. When she slides the coin in, the screen starts to glow fervently, and music from the cabinet's speakers enter her ear cavities with a tribal-like drum sound.
Ellie pulls out her earphones and sets aside the Walkman. Her heartbeat begins to match with the rhythm.
Suddenly she's gripping onto the buttons and joystick, and the screen glows in white and whirls her into a wide jungle. She's seeing it at an eagle's view, and Ellie's eyes engulf the environment around her, nonplussed at the artistry of her surroundings. The drums grow louder that even the music of the arcade store seems to fade away. The game takes her higher in the air, and Ellie feels like a bird, flying above the jungle.
And then another flash of white passes Ellie's vision that she becomes temporarily blinded. When she reacquires her sight, a gigantic, ancient, mystical building looms over her as the drums continue to crescendo. Her eyes look up and notice the virtual sky, stunning as it is. Stretching endlessly across, it is blotched with blue and orange colors. Dusky clouds with faded red linings watch as the cinematic view pans around the large superstructure. Ellie can hardly blink, her eyes are too busy soaking in the game's beauty. She didn't realize how advanced the graphics are now, there are even times where she forgets the reality she's in.
Then some words in sharp font hurriedly slam themselves onto the screen. It vibrates the overlay, where her hands are gripping onto the buttons.
A deep, rumbling voice appears and reads the text out loud:
WELCOME TO THE SHADOW TEMPLE.
RILEY
Well.
It's been an hour.
Riley went to do other things earlier, and has come back to find that the girl's still been playing the damn game with fervor.
She's pretty sure that the amount of sweat the redhead's producing due to that coat of hers is enough to fill a glass pitcher. Riley would be glad to take it off herself — then remembers that she doesn't even know the girl and that it would be rude to meddle with the choices of someone else's attire.
Then again . . .
She was certainly sweating, which made it clear that she wasn't very used to the warmth of the store. (The fact that she easily perspires makes her even weirder.) Riley tries to get a better view of her as inconspicuously as she can, and ends up ten feet away from the redhead, gaining a frontal view close enough to see her but still too far to make any solid descriptions.
There's one thing she notices, though.
A scar.
On her right eyebrow.
ELLIE
Ellie's about to play another round when she reaches into her pocket and finds balls of lint instead of quarters.
Crap.
She's all out.
Ellie notices how clammy her hands have gotten and wipes them on the sides of her pants. She doesn't acknowledge the skin below her collarbone, however, which is practically layered with thin sweat. Her lips are dry when she licks them and her eyes are all shaky. (She still sees bright flashes of colors from the game if she closes them.) The music starts to dig into her ears again now that the game's sounds have disappeared, and Ellie suddenly realizes how parched she is.
How long has she been playing?
She takes two steps back to try and regain more fragments of her conscience — but bumps into someone else instead.
Ellie whirls around.
A girl stands in front of her.
RILEY
The redhead mutters out some words.
"I'm sorry,"
She doesn't recall approaching the girl, but her voice is what Riley expected it to be: Young and uncertain and shy and tired.
Suddenly she's looking at her.
So Riley's looking right back.
She sees green eyes that are dark and soft. There's a faint scar that dashes her right eyebrow, and she's got this rosy complexion with light freckles across the cheekbones. Riley blinks for a moment — then hides the look of fascination and feigns neutrality, taking a small step away from the redhead and arching a brow.
ELLIE
Dark, she observes. Dark skin and dark hair and dark clothes and dark eyes.
"I'm sorry," Ellie mutters, after realizing her position. Her back faces the arcade machine while she sheepishly scratches her head, timid due to the girl's pair of brown, deepened eyes curiously watching her.
"No, it's all good," she replies.
It takes a second for Ellie to speak back, but it feels like an hour.
"Oh, alright . . . "
Then there's a silence.
There shouldn't be one.
They're standing apart now, and Ellie can't find the courage to move away nicely. Jesus.
"Are you . . . okay?" the girl asks.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
"You sure?"
She nodded faintly. "Yeah, of course."
But the girl notices how much Ellie's been sweating (as peculiar as it sounds) and thinks otherwise.
"You know," she tells her, "if you want a drink, I could just lend you my canteen—"
"No, God." Ellie realizes how irritated she sounds (she's just abashed) and quickly apologizes. "Sorry, I'm just . . . I . . . "
And then her phone rings. Loud enough for both of them to hear.
Ellie takes in a breath.
Oh, thank God.
She pulls out her cellphone to check — which was a stupid move on her part because now the girl knows that she uses a goddamned Nokia.
"I have to go." she says hurriedly, and Ellie walks past the girl before she even gets the chance to say anything.
Jesus.
She should have just taken the cab back home.
RILEY
Well.
That happened.
She feels irritated — both at herself for even initiating a conversation and at the redhead for just generally bothering her. She was even weirder up close, she thinks. How Riley managed to walk up to the girl is beyond her.
Riley's still staring at the entrance doors, her trance interrupted when a boy politely asks her to move so he can play a round of The Turning. Riley allows it and sighs quietly to herself. She pulls out her smartphone and starts to head out for some snacks when the boy from before suddenly calls for her attention.
She turns around.
"Sorry, but . . . " He holds his palm out. "I saw this lying on the front panel. Do you own it?"
Riley looks at the item in the boy's hand and widens her eyes.
Shit.
The Walkman.
...
The girl left it behind.
So!
First of all I'd just like to say that I'll be out of town this week so you won't be seeing me for a good five days or so. (Not that it matters since I'm pretty much dead in between updates.) But anyway, that was the first chapter of Game Over! Woo! I really enjoyed working on this, it was fun!
Also, many of you have asked if there was any way you could contact me and ask me general questions. I actually have a Tumblr blog that I regularly use, so you can check that out in my profile page if you want :)
Leave your thoughts in a review, I would love to hear them! And thanks for reading, I'll see you all again soon :)