Game Over, a virtual families fanfic

Wow, another Virtual Families story? Seriously?

Well, I thought I was done, but I was in the middle of checking on my game, just moping around.

Then I got one more idea...

This story is based off my game, and the characters were actually in my game. As for the events, they are mostly true...

Well, enough of my author's note. Read on!

PROLOGUE

The Player looked over the little house. To her it was little, but to the little people who lived inside the house, it was huge.

In the corner of the screen sat the number 787915, the number of coins the family amassed after many months. Some generations lived through the house. The Player watched all of them live and die.

It was quiet in the house. It was early evening. The grey parents of the current generation lay exhausted in bed. A seventeen year old girl in a white dress with black hair pushed back by a red headband twirled and laughed in the room that use to belong to her brothers. The girl gas many brothers and one sister, who were all adopted into her family at the same time. They were all the same age except her, since they were all adopted at age three at the same time she was just born. So they all moved to college before her.

The Player watched the girl, whose name was Franie. As Franie prepared dinner for her sleeping parents, the Player began to think.

Recently, the player kept forgetting about the tiny family. Before she used to check on them everyday, but then days turned to weeks, and soon the Player forgot. But sometimes the Player would come across the house when she remembered, which did not happen often. The Player began to neglect the family and the player's visits were short. Usually they consisted of the Player arriving the house, finding the family starving, buying them eight bags of groceries, watching them all eat, and then the Player would leave.

The Player was getting bored. At first, the Player played with the family all day, but now everything was slow. The family accomplished everything they needed to do, so what now?

The Player looked at Franie again. The Player decided that she liked her.

When the parents of that generation died, Franie moved into the house and inherited everything.

The Player wanted the next generation to be different. The Player wanted the generation to be memorable. Sure, the Player remembered some names of people from generations in the past. She only remembered names like Ping, Fabila, Margina, Rusty, and Kristola but that was it.

The Player wanted the new generation to be special. Interesting. Exciting.

Fun...

The Player wanted to try something new.

The house was always busy and loud during the day and peaceful and quiet at night. A new happy generation filled the house.

Besides the family, there was the usual maid and gardener that came to help in the house. They just rang the doorbell and let themselves in, the family use to them showing up. As for the maid and gardener, they enjoyed working for the family but each maid and each gardener did not know much about the family.

Among the family lived the six pets. (The family consisted of animal lovers.) There were three dogs, two cats, and one large igauna that lived in the house.

As for the members of the family, there was Franie, who had green eyes and wore her black hair lose with a red head band still. She usually wore a grey dress and black shoes. Franie was also very cheerful and sometimes acted like the child at heart she was. She married a man names Lagos, who had brown eyes, black shaggy hair, and usually wore black pants with a black jacket. Lagos loved his family but was also a distant and cold-hearted man.

Lagos and Franie were not able to agree on having children themselves, so they decided to adopt.

Their first child was named Hacker. He had disheveled blond hair and bushy eyebrows. Instead of having the usual boys bedroom in the house, Hacker was given the computer room as his bedroom since neither Lagos or Franie had an office job. Hacker's room had two computers and he knew how to use them well, which coincidentally matched with his name. Hacker was clever and bold, and was for some reason he was the favorite by the Player.

The second adopted child was named Trishette. She had red hair, and loved happiness, butterflies, flowers, and everything all peaceful and joyful. She always had flowers in her hair and wore floral print dresses.

Burisco was the third adopted child and was only a year younger than Trishette. Burisco had curly blonde hair and wore simple clothes. He seemed to want to be like an average dad, always having a liking to tools and driving his toy car. He wanted to be a tough guy with a caring family one day.

The next adopted children were Crisolo and Vesta. Everyone else in the house thought of them as twins, even though they were probably not twins. But since they were adopted at the same time, everyone always thought of them as a pair. Crisolo had curly brown hair and glasses while Vesta had long straight brown hair. Vesta always wore a red dress while Crisolo wore a red corresponding vest. They did everything together like building a sand kingdom in the sand box, playing in the playhouse, and having their own giggle parties. Whatever one did, the other did the same. They were like mirror images of each other.

The family lived in peace and harmony for years, but it was all just a couple of days in real-time.

When everything went wrong, Hacker was thirteen, Trishette was ten, Bingor nine, and the twins were six. As for Franie and Lagos, there were in their thirties.

But no matter how long the period of time was, it was all about to end.

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Connection: Fair
Transmission Active
Begin typing message.

TRISHETTE: AGE 15

I was always happy. With my red hair held in a bun with flowers, I was never sad. Never.

One day, when I was ten, I was just skipping around like I always did. As for the rest of the family, they were up to their own activities. The twins were playing the kitchen while Franie and Lagos worked or cooked. Hacker was stretched out across his bed while Bingor drove the toy car in the same room.

Suddenly, something slapped me. Red smoke surrounded me. A feeling of pain, guilt, and hurt filled me for a second. I hated it.

I realized I got hit with the red glove, the thing the Player used to punish us. I did not know what she did wrong, but I shrugged and kept skipping.

Then I got hit again. And again. And again. I was engulfed in red smoke. The red glove hurt. It hurt me about eighty times. And every time the feeling of pain and guilt came inside me.

I stayed happy the first twenty times. She was strong. At least I thought I was. I had to be hard to break.

Then I started to frown. The glove kept hitting her, and I felt worse and worse. What was I doing wrong? I tried to go read a book but I got slapped as soon as the thought entered my mind. I tried to go to the sandbox but I got hit before I could even move. Everything I tried to do was punished. Was I doing everything wrong?

I shrieked and jumped in pain. I realized what was wrong. I was wrong. Everything about me was wrong. That must be why. That was why I kept getting slapped. The glove made me realize I was a curse. I was bad.

Run. I wanted to run. I screamed and wailed. Various family members stepped into the hall to see what was going on. The glove stopped me from running. I could not move. Tears burst from my eyes.

I collapsed unto my knees and put my shaking heads up to my head. The red smoke finally cleared away. The red glove finally stopped. But the feeling it brought remained.

My entire family looked at me. Mom took a step forward.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

My entire family looked at me. They hate me. I know it. They must think off me as a curse, a mistake that could have never been brought into that house.

The twins hugged each other, Bingor put his hands on his hips like dad was doing, mom shook rapidly, and my older brother Hacker stood still and silent. They seemed all seemed scared. They were scared off me. I was a plague to this family.

I finally found the strength to stand up. When I did, I ran out of the house screaming. Voices called after me but I ignored them. Tears splattered down my face for what seemed like the first time.

I stopped running when I got to the backyard. I got down on my knees again and cried. I cried for what seemed like years.

After that, I remember a couple years actually did went by. My family comforted me and I got happier again. But then the red glove would hit me again and I would feel bad all over again.

When I was eleven and twelve, I just felt like being in a blur of insanity. I was losing my sanity every time the red glove hit, which was often. I did not do much. I remember most of the time I was wandering around the large house we all lived in, looking for my mom and dad frantically, and getting a glass of water now and then. I do not remember why I was looking for them, but I just felt lonely. Anything else I tried to do resulted in another round of the red glove. I got randomly hit by the red glove daily. I never got totally use to it. Everytime it hits me, I got closer and closer to the edge of my sanity.

One day it will take just one more slap and I think I will snap. Its just like that.

My family got worried for me. I remember Hacker being worried the most, as stiff as he can seem sometimes. He might now something I do not.

I admit I am depressed. I still wear flowers, but I always imagine them to wither in my hair.

I am dying. I feel it. I do not know if the Player even cares.

I do not remember what happened after that. Everything in my mind was distorted. As for my family, I do not know what happened to them either. I remember seeing a lot of them lie in bed a lot but I never figured out why.

The Player did this to me. The Player made me insane. I am not the same person I was before. I never will be. The Player hurts me so much I feel as if she wants to kill me.

When I turned fifteen, I was happy again. Somehow the Player seemed to forget to punish me and I got happy again.

When I regained some of my happiness, I realized something bad happened to my family while my mind was gone. Not only did I finally realize how much older everyone was after the past five years, but something seemed off. Dad and Bingor looked weaker, mom looked worried, and the twins were pale. Hacker was smiling at the sky, his bushy eyebrows that I always laughed at curved in triumph.

What happened when I was gone?

Before I could ask, I heard my mom scream. Then I felt something stab me, like a needle. It did not feel like the red glove but it still hurt. I did not feel guilty and sad, but I felt weak and tired.

I collapsed to the floor and everything got dark.

BINGOR: AGE 12

Most of the people in my family seem a little scared of Dad. Dad seems grumpy most of the time. He is just tough.

I want to be like Dad when I grow up. I want to have a family I can protect and be strong for. Unlike Dad, I want to be more open and caring.

I was adopted into my family when I was three like the rest of my siblings. Everything seemed fine. We were rich and healthy and the Player took good care of us. At least, she use to.

I remember one day when I was nine, my older sister Trishette started acting wierd. She kept muttering to herself about being guilty and was always trashing about wildly around the house. I was worried. Sometime before that I saw her get hit by the red glove many many times. Maybe that was why.

One day, my older brother Hacker gathered our twin younger siblings, Vesta and Crisolo, into one of our rooms for a meeting. Trishette lay asleep on her bed. The rest of us sat on Vesta's bed.

"We are in trouble," Hacker said, crossing his arms.

"Why?" the twins asked at the same time.

"Did you see what happened to Trishette?" Hacker asked.

"We all did," I replied.

"Well, there's something wrong. Mom told me the Player rarely visited when she and earlier generations were here. Now the Player is here all the time. Then the Player began to punish Trishette a lot, which made her depressed," Hacker said.

"But why are we in trouble?" Crisolo asked.

"We could be. I don't know. I feel like the Player wants to harm us," Hacker said, shrugging.

"I think we are fine," Vesta said.

"Yeah," Crisolo agreed like usual.

"Well, if anything goes wrong, I want to fight against it," I said toughly.

Hacker ruffled my hair with a stiff hand, his facial expression remaining the same. Hacker was an interesting older brother. He is sixteen, and acts really smart but mysterious. It's like he knows something we do not.

"Hey, if the Player gives you something, just be careful. I know we have no choice but to use it...we wil find a way out of this," Hacker said.

"I don't think anything is wrong," Crisolo said.

"Maybe you're just imagining things," Vesta followed. Then both six year- olds nodded.

Hacker sighed and put one hand up to his face, his bushy eyebrows twisting. "Fine. Don't believe me. But that's not going to stop me from doing something." Then Hacker got up and walked out the door.

Trishette began to murmur in her sleep while the twins began to play with stuffed animals that lay on the floor. I got up and watched Hacker walk down the hallway and down the stairs, disappearing.

Sometime after that happened, I remember walking around the house when suddenly the Player dropped something into my hands. It was a light green bottle. I instantly drank from it.

I did not get to read the bottle, but after I drank it I felt a little tired. My eyes got droopy and I felt like I lost some of my energy. So I began to go up to my room.

When I got into my bed, the Player game me something else: an orange bottle with a white cap. Inside the bottle were pills. I took the pills and felt more tired. I was about to close my eyes when the Player gave me another one of those orange bottles. I took the pills and the Player gave me even another one. After taking all the pills, I felt exhausted.

I then realized the Player was making me tired on purpose. Why else would she be making me eat and drink stuff that made me sleepy?

When this happened, I began to think back to when Hacker told us to be careful with what the Player made us use. But what could be so wrong with the Player wanting me to fall asleep?

I was about to drift off in sleep when the Player hit me with the red glove. I was being punished, but for what? I began to get worried that I would end up like Trishette.

I instantly jumped up. I tried to go back asleep but the Player hit me again. Did the Player not want me to fall asleep?

I began to do other stuff like walk around or heat up some food, but I did not get punished. If I tried sleeping, however, I did get punished.

I still felt tired but I was not allowed to sleep. I tried to figure out what the Player wanted me to do.

I tried to restate what was happening to me to try to get a clue to what was happening. The Player made me exhausted but did not let me sleep. In fact, the Player praised me for doing work and running on the treadmill. Because of that, my energy was low. Because of that, I was...weak.

The Player was making me weak.

All I wanted was to be strong like my Dad. Now I was weak. All I could do now was sit on a couch but not be able to sleep.

Years passed by, and this continued. I figured out the Player would not not let me sleep at all to drain me of my energy, down to the very last amount. Then the Player would let me sleep, but I would be asleep for a really long time. When I would finally wake up, the short period I spent with my eyes open was when the Player fed me more pills from the orange bottle and made me sleep again. I was rarely awake, as if I did not exist anymore.

As I got older, I remember terrible things happened to my family. I could not move as much since I was too tired or was fast asleep, but I would hear screaming from around the house. They were painful screams. It then that I realized Hacker was right all along. My family was dying. Trishette was first, then I was second. I felt like I was going to die off sleep depravity or get so tired I would be asleep for eternity.

I remember one day crawling inside my bedroom I shared with Crisolo to see both our beds were gone. I tried to act strong but I actually began to cry as if I loved my bed that much.

The reason why I began to cry was because the Player took the beds away. That meant the Player really was trying to weaken me until I somehow died. I was not sure if I could really die if I never slept, but I sure felt like it. And when I do fall asleep for a long time, I would have to sleep on the floor. It would almost look like I really did die.

I was also sad because Crisolo's bed was gone too. From that, I had the idea that the Player would be after the twins too. But why?

Somehow I managed to stay alive. I heard everyone else in our family got chased around by the Player but I never really learned how because I was weak and always sleeping. Also because of that, I was not able to help my family liked I wanted to.

For a couple of years, the Player seemed to go easy on us. If fact, the Player seemed to forget us. I was able to sleep for once without being disturbed.

When I woke up, I felt like one of those guys who wake up and realize the apocalypse just happened. Everyone looked weak, sick, and tired. Something happened, but I was not so sure what.

When I was fourteen and finally strong again, the Player came back. Suddenly, out of the sky fell these narrow blue things. They hit everyone in my family and made whoever they hit fall over. I only saw one hit my dad before I got hit. It hurt so much.

I fell over and felt weak and powerless all over again. As my eyes closed again, all I could think was that the Player never wanted me to be strong again.

CRISOLO AND VESTA: AGE 12

(CRISOLO'S POV)

Vesta was like my second half. We were a pair that should never be separated. Even though we not actually twins, it sure felt like it. Whatever she did I would do and vice versa.

I loved Vesta and she loved me. We were happy we both got adopted at the same time into a rich happy family.

When we turned six, our family started acting weird. Trishette acted scary and Bingor was too tired to play with us. Hacker was hard at work on the computers in his room. Vesta said she once asked him what he was looking at but Hacker would just say, "It's nothing." I felt like he was hiding something. It was like he knew something we did not.

Hacker told us once that something was wrong. Vesta told me afterward that Hacker was acting crazy like Trishette began to. I agreed, but for the first time in my life I did not actually mean the same thing as Vesta. I actually felt afraid. When Bingor began to feel very tired, I was even more scared. Hacker blamed the Player. I had no idea how to protect myself or Vesta against the Player because the Player seemed to control everything in our tiny world.

Since Trishette was too "mentally ill" as Hacker would say and Bingor was "locked in sleep," as Hacker would also say, and Hacker was paranoid, as Vests would say, it was just Vesta and I. We spent most of our time together building sand castles and having our own giggle parties.

One day Vesta and I were sitting in our living room on one of our big comfy couches. Then the Player handed something to both of us. We each got a piece of candy wrapped in a red, white, and green wrapper.

I quickly looked down at mine. The wrapper had some weird writing on it I could not understand. I looked at Vesta and saw that hers was covered in dirt.

Despite the weird appearances of our candy, we quickly unwrapped them.

"Wait! Stop!" I heard Hacker's voice call out. He ran into the living room the same time Vesta and I dropped the candy into our mouths.

I was worried mine would be terrible, but when I tasted it, I liked it. It tasted really good.

I looked at Vesta to see if she liked hers too. But when I saw her, she yelled in pain and collapsed on the couch. She was crying.

I began crying too. What happened to Vesta, my pretend twin, my best friend, my other half?

"No!" Hacker yelled. He grabbed on to Vesta, who was crying in pain along with me.

"Why them? They are only little kids! Why?!" Hacker yelled at the roof. Was he yelling the Player? The Player could not hear us though.

Hacker was relieved to find out I was not sick.

"I feel fine. Really," I said to him.

Hacker stared at me and back at Vesta, then back up. He did this over and over.

"What's wrong with Vesta?" I asked to make him stop.

"She's...a bit sick," he replied.

"She'll be ok," I said quietly, "The Player will see that she is sick and buy her medicine.

Hacker stared at me again. I will never forget what he said.

"The Player will not help her. The Player was the one who did this to her. To all of us."

After that, Hacker lay Vesta in bed. I never left her side.

Hacker was right. The Player never brought Vesta help. For a year, she lay very sick in bed. I was afraid she was going to die.

I was always with Vesta. I sat by her bed, reading her books, organizing her things, whispering to her. And she would quietly whisper back. I always felt like one of those whispers would end up being her last.

We barely left Vesta's room. The only times we did was when I was helping Vesta get a glass of water or that one time I played Vesta music on one of our family's big pianos in our fireplace room. I remember tapping the keys on our grand piano while Vesta smiled and sat on a large, pink chair. That was the one time we felt like nothing was wrong with us, our family, or the world itself.

We both turned seven together. I think that was the time when I got sick too. I spent so much time with Vesta that I caught her illness.

We both felt sick and in pain. At least we both had something that was the same again.

I slept in Trishette's bed next to Vesta. I did not think Trishette minded since I do not think she even noticed what was happening. She was too insane.

Years went by, and Vesta and I were both sick. We never left our beds. Everything was distorted and blurry. Our minds were messed up from the illness, so we sometimes forgot stuff or could not pay attention well. Our mom cried for us, and both our parents would watch us from our doorway.

One day, mom began to visit us alone. She kept wailing about how she was all alone and stuff. Vesta and I did not know what happened to dad, but we barely remembered what happened to Hacker. Something happened, but our high fevers made our memories blurry. I just remembered something about a couch and Hacker's room.

"What happened to dad?" I asked our mom.

"He's...sick too," she replied.

"Did the Player make him eat bad candy too?" Vesta asked.

"No...it was something else," she said.

"What was it?" Vesta asked.

"Something terrible," mom replied.

"What happened to Hacker?" I asked.

"Why, you don't remember? We all saw it," mom said, surprised.

"It hurts to remember," Vesta said. This made mom cry again.

"Will we all be better," Vesta asked again. Mom cried harder.

I glared at Vesta. Why did she have to ask that? It was like Hacker said to her once. "You ask too many questions."

During a couple of years later, our family healed after all. I think it was because the Player left us alone for once. Vesta and I were twelve years old. Trishette seemed to gain some sanity back, Bingor was no longer sleeping so much, and Vesta actually felt better. The illness still lasted on me, but I felt like if everyone else felt better, I would feel better soon. As for dad, mom eventually told us what happened to him. We were sad about it but when I saw dad walk around the house I felt better to see him. I also finally remembered what happened to Hacker. I was glad when I saw him walk around too.

One day, I was in bed, still fighting off the illness when Vesta told me she was going to swim in our pool outside.

I sat peacefully in my bed alone. Suddenly, I heard screaming. I sat up to see people run pass the door of room. Trishette ran into the room and collapsed unto the floor. I saw mom's body collapse outside in the hallway.

Something was happening again, and I did not like it. I looked up to see something fall from the sky. It stabbed me.

I fell back in the bed in pain. I immediately felt sleepy. I decided to close my eyes and go to sleep. It was the only thing I could do to block out the pain and the screams of everyone in my family. The Player was after everyone again. In felt like Vesta was in trouble too.

I immediately jumped out of bed and started to run through our house. I had to get to Vesta.

I ran through the eerie and silent hallways, running past still bodies of my family members. Whatever hit me made me get more sleepy as I ran. I was not going to make it.

I collapsed in the hallway in front of Hacker's room. There was a pile of furniture in his doorway. One of those things was a couch. I weakly and dizzily climbed on to the couch. I felt so light-headed and disoriented.

"Good night, Hacker," I randomly called out.

"Good night," Hacker's voice called out from behind the couch, sounding far away and dizzy as well. Wierd..

My last thought was that Vesta was in trouble and pain like I was. I actually murmured Vesta before I fell unconscious. I fell asleep with a smile though.

Because I just knew that Vesta was doing the same as me, thinking about me and her last word being my name too.

FRANIE: AGE 40

Where do I begin?

I always had a big family, from the time was a kid to when I was a mother.

When I was born, my parents adopted five other children, all older than me. We all lived good lived and all, but the Player never visited. That was all. We had all the food, money, and furniture we wanted, but we just missed the carefulness of the Player. When the Player visited, which was rare, one of us would hurry to the computer to send the Player a message before she left about how we feel like she was abandoning us. We missed her.

When the Player choose me to inherit the house and the money, she actually visited more. In fact, she was always there. She helped us raise a good family.

I married Lagos and had five children. We adopted them since we could not agree on having kids. I loved our children but Lagos seemed to ignore them a little. I held a grudge against him for that.

Everything seemed fine to me, and I felt like it was always like that in this house. I thought every generation before us had happy kids and normal lives in a huge beautiful house. Our oldest son Hacker would shake his head at this and say it was not always like this. Then he would ask me if I knew any history about our family. I honestly do not know much, only back to the past three generations, where it was the same, rich and merry. Then Hacker would get frustrated and say there was so much more to that. It was like he knew something we did not.

As for our other children, Trishette was such a delight. She was just so happy. She was always running around, flowers in hand, smile on her face.

Bingor made me feel safe. He almost became the man of the family since he did more work than Lagos. While Lagos would indulge himself with his own interests, Bingor would become the family guy and help out.

The pretend twins were so adorable. They were so lively. I would imagine them as a little couple if they were not brother and sister. I loved to seem them play together and bring us all joy.

All that ended soon after.

I thought I was finally getting that wish my siblings and I asked for before, when we wanted the Player to be around more. But now things were the opposite. I did not want the Player to be around us anymore. She was killing our children.

Trishette was no longer happy, Bingor could no longer help, the twins were never playing together but lying sick in bed together, and Hacker just disappeared. He was gone. He was still around but at the same time, gone.

The only people unharmed were Lagos and I. Lagos actually was concerned for his family for once.

One night, Lagos and I were sitting on a couch in our room. We were silent because we were worried for our children.

Suddenly, Lagos cried out in pain. I looked at him. He collapsed on the floor.

"What happened?!" I screamed.

"The Player," he murmured, "The Player is killing me."

"How?!"

Lagos cried out in pain again. This time I saw something hit him. It was a syringe with a blue liquid inside it. Suddenly, more of these things came out of nowhere, stabbing Lagos with their needless and injecting the strange blue liquid into him.

Lagos was hit by at least twenty of these. All I could do was watch. I was glad none of our kids had to see this.

When the syringes stopped hitting Lagos, he lay on the floor unconscious. I cried and hugged him. He was still breathing at least.

I lay Lagos' still body on the bed and I lay next to him. I came to the conclusion that the blue liquid was like poison. The Player was poisoning my husband.

I hugged Lagos. He slowly opened his eyes in he dark and whispered, "I'm sorry."

I began to cry again. "Why are you sorry?! You're the one dying here!"

"I'm sorry. Maybe the Player is killing me for being a bad dad," Lagos whimpered.

"You were a bad dad," I retorted at the weak man. Then I pulled him closer and wiped some of my tears away. "But you were not a bad husband. I love you."

The next days went by, and Lagos did not die. He was just extremely weak and lay in bed all day like the twins. I could not break the news to anyone, mostly because I was not able to. Trishette's mind was long gone, Bingor was always asleep, Hacker was missing, and the twins were just to fragile for this stuff.

As the years went by, I began to prepare myself for the Player to get to me. But that never happened. Maybe the Player forgot about me or decided not to hurt me for some reason. Perhaps I will never know.

I was surprised so much bad things were happening to my family and to my life. I did not even have grey hair yet.

As the years went by, the Player seemed to take a break from tormenting us. We had peace for three years. We all almost healed, and I mean "we" because even though I did not get hurt, I was still hurt emotionally.

I remember how the house was that day. Lagos was excersing some of the strength he got back after the poison incident and was actually helping out around the house. Trishette was smiling and Bingor was no longer tired. I saw Hacker again. Even though Crisolo was not better yet, Vesta was swimming laps in the pool. I though everything was fine again.

Suddenly, everyone began screaming. I saw everyone fall down in pain. I thought everyone was dropping dead at first. I saw Lagos fall down the stairs, Crisolo fall back in his bed, and Trishette fell limp at my feet. I imagined the same for Vesta and Hacker, who were not near us at that time.

I also fell to the ground. Something stabbed me in the back. When I fell down, that was before I saw Lagos fall. I actually saw what happened.

Those same blue syringes hit all of us. For Lagos, he already knew how this felt, but this was knew for the rest of us. I saw one hit poor Crisolo and I breifly saw one sticking out of Trishette's neck.

I knew we were all falling unconscious. As my eyes closed, I wondered if the Player was always like this to the other generations before us. For some reason, my parents did not know much about the previous generations either.

I felt bad we did not know much about our history anymore. My last thought was of Hacker shaking his head at me in shame.

Seriously, there was something different about that kid. Maybe giving him a bedroom with two computers messed with his head or something...

HACKER: AGE 18

I always felt like there was something weird going on in our house.

My first memory was when I got adopted into the family. I was the first child.

My family must have been planning to have more kids since they already had two sets of beds in two bedrooms, but none of them were for me apparently. My parents decided that my bedroom should be the computer room of our house.

It was not that bad. In the computer room was a weird ugly rug with a gothic black table on top of it in the middle of the room. There were a couple of paintings on the wall and a old box tv that I was surprised to find working. My bed was pushed into one corner. The most important things in my room where the two computers in each side of the room.

None of my parents had office jobs, so this room was free for me to use. At an early age of three, I began to use the computers. I began to use them a lot actually. But it was all for a good cause.

My mom says that our family has lived in the giant house for over twenty generations, all in the care of the Player. I once asked my mom about the previous generations, about the very first ones. My mom just laughed and said no one can remember those.

I felt shocked. How can someone simply forget the very first generations of the family that moved into the house in the first place?

When I was not playing with my younger siblings, I would use the computers to try research the past. When I was thirteen, I actually found something.

My name, Hacker, seemed like a weird coincidence. My name is Hacker, and back then I found out how to hack into the core of our very world.

Everyone in my family knows we all live in a house somewhere in a tiny world, and there just so happens to be the Player who takes care of us. Those computers that sit in my room all day held more information than we thought.

It seemed being near computers trained me to become a true hacker. I was able to override codes and somehow go behind the scenes in our digital virtual world.

I did not find much, but what I did find was really important. It was what I could not get out of my own mother. I found a chart of our family tree.

There were many people who lived in this house before us. I knew that they all knew the Player at one point. I scrolled through the chart, looking at every person. The list was very specific, even listing everyone's likes and dislikes. Some of the people in the past generations had similar faces to some of the people in my family, even though we did not have blood connection to the first generations due to our family having a history of adopting many children. I even found a couple of people in the past who looked like me.

It was at this time that my ten year old sister Trishette became insane. She got depressed and everything. This continued for three more years.

When Trishette went crazy, we all knew that the Player suddenly decided to punish her for everything. But why?

I tried to convince my siblings something was wrong, but they never believed me.

Then I remembered Bingor sleeping all the time, and the twins getting sick. They stayed in bed so much you might as well have thought they died.

It was because of this that I realized that the Player was not only trying ti hurt us; she wanted to kill us.

We were special people. We depended on the Player alone, and if one aspect of our lives were depleted, like our health or hunger, it could bring us closer to death.

Why the Player wanted to kill us? We will never know.

Yet I wanted to fight against the Player. She could not do this to our family. Everytime the Player failed to harm us, like if when she gave Crisolo foreign candy, probably hoping it was poisonous, or when she would forget to give Bingor drugs that made him drowsy, I would feel triumphant. I wanted to yell, "Take that Player!"

I did not want to be like the pieces of the Player's own little game. But the reality is that we are. There was nothing wrong with it before. We use to love it. But now, when we get messed around like this, we hate it. Its like the Player forgot we are alive. But we have minds of our own.

One day I was walking around the house when I felt the Player tapping me. I tried to run away from it. This was probably never done before, but I tried to escape. I failed.

I found myself in my room. All the furniture was gone except the two computers, still working. But since everything was stripped from my room, I had a bad feeling about this. I immedieatly turned around to escape my room, but I came to a halt. My doorway was being blocked with furniture. A couch, a table, a drawer, and other furniture from around the house sealed my doorway shut. I was trapped.

I pounded on the furniture. I tried to push it away, but nothing worked. I could hear my family on the other side of the furniture. The insane muttering of Trishette, the yawns and crawling footsteps of Bingor, the coughing of the sick twins, the brushing of a firm hand, probably of my grim dad, and the sobbing of my mother.

I gave up and sat against the bare wall of my room. I was stuck here. I could not get up to use the bathroom and I had no food. My bed was gone, so I would probably sleep on the floor. The only things left were my computers.

We had to get out of here. We needed help. I sat at one of the computers and began to hack into the mainframe of our tiny world. Those computers were so powerful. How come no one else in my family ever realized what we can really do? I was just...different.

I ended up locked in my room for years. I slept at my computer desk, the glow of the computer screen giving me peace. Somehow I did not starve because someone in my family passed a small portion of food under the couch that sat under the rest on the furniture in my doorway. The Player was never around when that happen, so I bet when the Player came back and saw that I was still healthy, she was frustrated. But my living conditions were still terrible, with the only sunlight I ever saw came from one window, and unfortunately one corner of my room became like a bathroom. But I survived my lockdown.

During the whole time I was locked up, I was always on the computer. I was trying to find a way for all of us to escape. There had to be a way for my family to leave this tiny world. One way or another, we had to get out. Where we would end up, I did not know. I just hacked and typed and clicked and researched on the computer. We lived inside some sort of computer, and another computer surely must hold the exit.

But after a while of no progress, I began to realize how hopeless this was. Perhaps we were stuck here after all.

I remember I heard screams outside of my room. They belonged to every member of my family, and I could not reach them.

One night, my mom's sobbing could be heard outside my doorway.

"Hacker? Hacker? Are you still there? Can you hear me?" she cried out.

"Yes," I said, my voice cracking. I was still alive but I was also weak.

"Your father," she continued to cry, "He...he..."

"What happened?"

"He got stabbed. Many times. The Player, she injected this blue liquid into him many times with a needle. Now he's dieing."

I was silent. I sat at the computer and put my legs up on the chair, wrapping my arms around them and putting my head down in despair.

"Hacker? Are you still there?" I had no strength to answer. My mom kept calling my name since I was worrying her sick. Soon she just cried and her voice faded away as I heard her footsteps leave my doorway.

I figured out we could not leave after all.

When I was eighteen, I woke up one morning and found my bedroom open again. The furniture was gone. I was free.

I ran out of my prison and hurried around my house, looking for any of my surviving family members. To my surprise, everything seemed normal again. Mom and dad were in the kitchen cooking, a healthy Vesta ran outside, a not as sick Crisolo smiled in bed, Bingor ran around, full of energy, and Trishette was smiling for once.

For about a month, we all lived happy. We were still healing, but we were alive still.

I could imagine the Player banging her fists in stress. She failed at killing us. Ha!

But one night, some time before I would be leaving for college soon, our peace ended again. I actually watched it happen. Syringes full of blue liquid practically rained from the sky. When someone got hit by one, they fell unconscious. One by one, everyone in my family was hit.

I ran back to my room to my computers, to try to find another way to stop this. Before I could touch the keyboard, a syringe hit my outstretched arm, injecting the blue liquid and pain into my body.

I collapsed to the floor. I felt weak tired all of a sudden. When I looked up from my floor, I saw my door was once again blocked with furniture.

Outside my doorway I heard Crisolo's voice, full of delirium, say, "Good night, Hacker."

Also full of dizziness, I replied, "Good night." Then everything went dark.

That was it. The Player's last attempt to kill us all was using the blue syringes. The Player must have used this method after seeing what happened to dad, whose results were the worst.

I do not know how much time passed by, but I remember waking up on the floor. I felt weak still and my hand groped around until it reached the top of my computer desk. I pulled myself up and listened. I could hear my family's voices too in low volumes. They were ok after all.

I looked around the house and found each member of my family. They seemed all weak like me, but overall they were fine. The Player failed.

Most of our furniture was missing at this point, mostly our couches, beds, our musical instruments, televisions, and any other electrical form of entertainment. We all guessed the Player was so upset that we did not die that she was punishing us by taking away our furniture like a a parent taking a toy from a child.

A week later, I moved away to college. I remember turning to face my parents standing in the doorway. After all that happened, they still looked young. Trishette, Bingor, Vesta,and Crisolo were also there on the porch, waving. Mom was smiling like crazy and trying so hard to not let tears fly out. I smiled back at all of them and pushed the gate to my family's home open. I waved goodbye and then left the house and the Player.

While I was at college, my parents would use my old computers to send me emails. My parents seemed to be ok, but they say the Player abandoned them again. Better than her killing them.

Years later after I was finishing college, my parents also went on to say how each of my siblings moved out, leaving them. Even though they still owned the large amounts of pets and then there were the maids and gardeners, who appeared to come more often then, it was usually just my parents. They mostly lived alone, but content.

I remember the last few emails I got from my parents were during Christmas time. They explained that they got Christmas tree and set it up along with buying many plates of food, including a giant turkey. They went on saying how they wished we were all back there to celebrate as a family. I would wish the same after, but then I would remember the Player. The Player had no idea where I lived now and what I did. The Player's field of knowledge only was as far as the house and the yard surrounding it. Beyond the gate I walked through and left, the Player does not see anything else that goes on.

While the Player does not know what becomes of those who leave the house, my entire family and I are unaware of what the Player thinks. Even though her actions made us all think she was trying to kill us, in the end we will probably never know.

But we can guess. Yet it did not really matter much when you leave the house. I was happy with the fact that I was free from the Player. I am not so sure if I really hate the Player, but whenever I wondered that, my next thought was, "Who cares? You are free of the Player, so why does it matter if you hate her or not? You won't have to see her ever again!"

That was true. Until I returned to the house.

The last email from the house was from my dad. He seemed a bit odd. He told me time was passing by too fast in the house, like every second three years went by. I just thought it was wierd my dad never really talked like that, saying that everything happened to fast. He just did not seem like that kind of deep, thoughtful man. Anyway, my dad also told me that food was scarce in the house, but the Player seemed to be there. Dad went on saying that my mom was very weak. As time went on fast, everything got blurry to him. He just remembered suddenly getting older and slower. He said he would freeze at what he was doing and then it seemed as if three years went by.

I received news that my mom died of bad health several years after I moved out and my dad was going to give the house to one of his children, but it was up to the Player to decided who.

The Player chose me.

The next thing I knew was that I was checking out the house I grew up in, the same house were years of horror and terror took place.

When I returned to the house, the furniture seemed to be back in place. I assumed everything was normal at first until I walked into the kitchen. There, a plethora of dishes rich with delicious food covered the table my family sat at for meals. I looked over each one. There were many types of food, from cranberry sauce to mashed potatoes to one giant turkey. The giant turkey set my mind back to the Christmas email my parents sent me, but that was years ago.

I walked into another room and saw that it contained a Christmas tree, looking clean and fresh. But when I stepped closer to it, I discovered that there was a thin layer of dust on the branches and on the angel that sat on top of the tree.

I stared at the angel hard as I felt confused. My parents sent me the Christmas email nine years before they left the house. Yet all the Christmas stuff they had back then was still here.

I then remembered that the day I moved into the house was actually Christmas day. But why would the tree have so much dust? I went back to look at the food in the kitchen. They looked fresh. There was even steam rising from some of the dishes.

Any ordinary person would never notice this. And if they did, they would never think anything was weird about it. But I already realized I was no ordinary person. My family members from before would seem so oblivious, not knowing about the past or the present until it was too late. But I always knew there was something hidden, and I went to find it.

At that moment, I started to list everything I knew in my mind.

Christmas.

Nine years.

Dust.

Fresh food.

Mom's death.

Bad health.

Every three years went by in a seemingly in second.

Food was scarce.

The Player was present.

The Player.

The Player...

The Player did something. I was sure of it. Something happened. Perhaps my dad was really serious when he said time went by too fast. Maybe he really meant that literally. Maybe mom began to feel weak and starved after there being no food. Maybe the Player was there, but only to make time go fast. My mom must have been neglected the whole time and died.

Was the Player really trying to kill us the whole time after all?

I had so many questions besides about the Player. I wondered about my past family, why I was different, why the Player seemed to favor me in a way, or what happened to my parents. Then I realized I usually tried to solve this riddles with a computer. My name was Hacker after all.

I ran to my old bedroom. I had to get my hands on my keyboard and my mouse. I had to find the answers to my questions. I wanted to know everything that was going on in the tiny world under the Player. I will do it if I want to survive living here in this house. In fact, I felt if I did not know the answers, I would not survive the Player, the house, or the tiny world at all.

When I got to my room, I halted to a stop. On a table in the middle of the room sat a couple of candy canes, a gingerbread cookie, and some sort of holiday dish I could not recognize. Their tempting aromas filled the air. But what grabbed my attention the most was a big red ribbon on one of my computers.

I came to the computer and glared at the ribbon. The Player put it there for sure. At that moment, I felt the Player watching me.

I sat down at my computer and began to work, the ribbon still in front of me on the bottom of the computer screen.

I kept it there to encourage me to keep going, to somehow use my special technology skills and find my answers. I then remembered that message I sent the outside world once when I was sixteen, a long time ago. I still do not know where that ended up, but someone will read it, I am sure.

I realized how small I really was, just a part of the game belonging to the Player. But I was also more than that. Because of that, I could find access to secrets unheard of, maybe even to the Player.

If I do find them or if I do not, it will be game over, for me or the Player.

Or maybe, in the most twisted ending, it could be for both of us. I will find out soon. I am looking for answers after all, right?

Alert: Weak Connection!

During this time, while I was alone in the house, my hacking skills proved worthy. I eventually hacked deep into the core of our tiny virtual world. I hacked so deep that I found I could read the thoughts of my family members. I looked for each member of my family and soon found their thoughts of the time when the Player was harming us. I found all of them and copied and pasted bits of them together into one story. I took this story made up of my family's thoughts and typed up my own, and put them all together into one message.

Alert: Weak Connection!

Before I started looking through my family's minds, I opened a connection to the outside world. It was a weak connection, but it still worked, linking my computer to somewhere outside. So I took the story I typed up and am sending it out on a very weak transmission I set up myself.

Alert: Weak Connection!

If you are reading this, you are reading that very message.

Alert: Weak Connection!

#
The reason#$ why£_° I did€÷~=€ not _¢add ×my×¢= dad's or÷£= Vesta's thoughts were =|=£=because by the time I found theirs after¢_¢_` adding _¢¢¢my own |_`=€thoughts, I realized _|_¢_€the|`_€ window×| to the outside _¢_`=®world¢^¢` was beginning to collapse.|_`=€\¶¶

Alert: Losing Connection.

I ®€••am €¢=®=|=|=¢®}`}~]£€now|=`×¢[¢[€ typing rapdily[¢[¢=©=€ as the window ¢¢¢=©_€begins to close even faster. =¢=|I have to hurry.=€=`¢¢

Alert: Losing Connection.
Time Left Until Connection is Lost: 30 Sec

My ¢=••€¢final |÷© $($9%word _|÷°=¢[¶is this: =¢=¶€my family and I exist ===¢=¢=©in a small |÷€=€€virtual world. The€=•€€ Player¢_€©€_ seems =€=|=¢=€to either€=€_•_• neglect €_|¶¶£us¢=®=¶]^€€© completely or at one point was©=©_€€©© always there to abuse us. Whether she€_©€|£ intended that to happen, €_¢_¢_©_¢=£we will never |_€know. But we =€=¢exist_€_¢_¢. I ¢_|=€=©just _want someone€ €¢=©=€=¢ to know that we all, as part of|=¢=©=© this game,=€¢=¢=¢ have =minds=€=|=¢= of |÷©our¢=€ own.

Alert: Losing Connection.
Time Left Until Connection is Lost: 17 Sec

With €€€the window |_¢©€rapidly closing, I just hope my£=~}•©_~=€ message will get out in one piece._¢_`=® It might be disorted©_©_~×¢[ a little as it_€= gets sent towards the end, but =€_`©I only€=`¢{ hope €=¢=¢not =¢=€=too much to¢=©=° the ©=|=©√point of elligible.¢_`€_¢_¢

Alert: Losing Connection.
Time Left Until Connection is Lost: 9

My®=£|[~}|√ name ©[¢[£[¢[is[€[|[[`[ Hacker. ¢=¢=°=My family ¢¢`=¢=and I®=¢=¢= exist.¢=¢= We =®=¢=€do=¢ not2+%& know +'+2+%of the dangers+3+%+4 ahead +$+2+%or the+%+2+ reason%+$,% for those+++3+% of the $+2+%past.-$-$-

Alert: Losing Connection.
Time Left Until Connection is Lost: 1 Sec

*/66End of Transmission';*;5:4
+'+$-&-$+$0294-X(( X((

…€{~}•×√_°_`}°×¢{~[€_¶|_~¢}=€=€_`_~{¢{°√€_|^|_¢_¢_`{√{€=_¶_`+#-3+:-3+(%+&-029%/
¥[€=¶=`[`£{¶_£=©]£[€`{€¢{~[€`{©=£=©|{~}¢=€£[¢¢=¢=¢=|=¢€€¢€=¢¢¥`=°_•{`

Well that's it. Sorry for it being too long, and possibly confusing. Well, to sum it up, Hacker was sending a message to the outside world, our world, that held most of his other family member's thoughts to help find a way to escape from the unknown dangers or to tell others that they all exist.

About the Player, who is me, out of the story I did kinda wanted to mess around with the tiny people and see if I was able to kill them. I failed.

As for Vesta's and Lagos' POVS, I didn't include them since their stories would be similar to Bingor or Franie's

Hacker really was my favorite, and I had him move into the house. I may or may not do a sequel to this story, focusing on Hacker as a dad and still living in the house under the Player. If you go to my bio, you might see the sequel there. Or not if I did not make one.

Anyway, I don't own Virtual Families 2.

Well, if you liked this story, check out my other stories. (I have a couple other Virtual Families themed and one Virtual Villagers!)

If I don't post a sequel to this story, this would be my last Virtual Families story and last Last Day of Work fanfic in all. (Sorry!)

Also, that link above after Hacker says "Someone save us!" actually works. Just copy it into the address bar, remove the () and spaces, change dot com to what dot com really looks like (FF does not let you post links in the document unless it's broken up like I did to it) If you open that link, there's this special thing there I made. Hehe if you saw it tell me in a review!

Well, that should be it. Bye!