AN: Hi there. This is a story inspired by my friend and roommate-AlloraStar217-'s "Is this Reality". It's a fantastic Transformer's fan fiction. You should all check it out. This one is obviously for Naruto, and is based on the concept of a virtual reality Naruto game in which players portray characters from the series. All will be explained later.
Now, a little bit about Ashlee Rickazzard, my main character. She is based on myself and some of my quirks, but is ultimately a different person than I am. Ashlee and I both have a history of mental illness-and her symptoms are based on mine-as well as struggle with feeling apatheic. I was NOT apathetic when I wrote this, although her feelings are based off of those I have felt in the past, so no need to worry about my state of mind at the moment. I'm in a fairly stable place right now. Ashlee is also a teen mom, just like I am. Her son is based off of mine. And Karen is somewhat based on my roommate-AlloraStar217. My son adores her, just like Tommy adores Karen.
If anyone has any questions about mental illness or my struggle with depression, feel free to ask. If you are struggling with your own battle and just want to talk or need someone to listen, I'm here for you. I do encourage you to seek professional help though. I may aspire to study psychology, but that does not make me anywhere near a licensed psychiologist.
Also wanted to add that I'm not abandoning "Regrets and Goodbyes". I'm still working on it, but I really needed to work on this. Allora's story just grabbed my soul and made me write this. I haven't choose pairings for this one yet, mostly because I have yet to develop the other characters, but there will probably be an AshleeXMaleCharacter in here somewhere.
Anyway, on to the story!
Life had been dull for a long time for Ashlee Rickazzard. Her depression had been acting up and she had been acting apathetic for weeks. Nothing seemed to make her happy. Not reading. Not drawing. Not school. Not even spending time with her 4 year old son, Tommy. To put it plainly, Ashlee was board. She was board with her life. She craved adventure and excitement, but being a broke 20 year old college student with a small child, she had little time or resources to go on any adventures. The most excitement she got was when Tommy would play make-believe, dragging Ashlee into his world of imagination and pretend.
Today, Ashlee was sitting on the couch in her small two-bedroom townhouse, pretending to pay attention to the TV. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon and there was nothing interesting on TV right now. She'd choosen a show on HGTV as it seemed the least boaring at the moment. The townhouse she lived in was part of her school's housing department; the development's main residences were college students and their families. The small two-story unit was long and narrow. The lower level had white brick walls and linolium floors. All of the counters and appliances were white. There was little color in the room except for the brown wood of the table and chairs and the ugly green fabric of the couch. When Ashlee and her roommate, Karen, picked the couch up from the guy on Craigslist, Ashlee had compared the color to that of a monkey's vomit. But when you're broke, free is sometimes all you can afford. Ashlee and Karen had had a good laugh about the color at the time. The two roommates had done what they could to spruce the place up a bit, but their budget hadn't allowed for them to do too much yet, as they'd only moved in a month ago in July and their financial aid checks for the semester would not be coming until September, leaving little budget for the month rather tight. This was especially true considering they paid for their own air conditioning and Minnesota's summers were drastically warmmer than their winters. 80+ degrees and 80% humidity was the hellish norm they lived in. The winters there were no better. It gets well below zero some days and above feezing on other days. Minnesota was basically a the home of bipolar weather. They say there's two seasons in Minnesota: road construction and snow.
Ashlee sighed and turned off the TV, giving up on trying to focus on her show. Her brain was foggy today, as it was most days. She begged and prayed that her psychiatrist would be changing her medications at their next session. They'd been weaning Ashlee off of her current anti-depressant for months in preperation for starting a new one that didn't cause her to have such a foggy brain. Hopefully, this new one wouldn't make her so apathetic and uncaring. Of course, feeling little to nothing was better then feeling out of control and sometimes even suicidal. She would always choose to feel nothing over feeling that. But she still would like to feel something. Just not that.
Ashlee turned her thoughts away from that period of her life. She was different now. That was behind her. She was a full time mother to her son now. She was mostly stable mentally, although not quite so financially. She did have a job, just a low paying one. Having Karen around made things easier for her, both coping wise and financially. Tommy adored her. They shared a love for transformers and he would always refer to her as "Optimus Prime" when she wore her necklace with the autobot symbol on it.
Karen and Tommy weren't here right now. Ashlee was alone in her small, bland townhouse. Tommy was at preschool now and Karen was at work. Karen had offered to pick up Tommy on her way home from work, since it was on the way, so Ashlee had little to do for the next hour.
'I could make dinner...' Ashlee thought to herself. 'There's some ground beef in the freezer. I could make meatballs...'
Ashlee got up. She wondered into the kitchen, pulled the meat from the freezer, and started to fill the sink with hot water. She submerged the frozen meat in the steaming water and let it sit. It would need to thaw before she could make her meatballs.
'Well...now what...?'
The fogginess in her brain was starting to overwhelm her. She could feel her anxiety rising, her heartbeat and breath quickening ever so slightly.
'Ok, Ashlee...You are safe. You are here in this room. You are here in this house. You are safe.'
Ashlee took a deep breath and went up to the room she shared with Tommy. The paused in her room, trying to remember where she'd put what she was looking for. She looked under her bed, the scratchy blue carpet rubbing against her cheek. No, not there. Perhaps in the nightstand. Ashlee dug through her drawers, passing bras and socks as she did. No, not there either. Where did she put it? Oh! That's right!. She pulled back her pillow and revealed a small book. It was essentially a small photo album that she had filled with coping skills and postive quotes. She'd made it while in treatment. It was called a coping book. She turned to an orange page that read "What to do when I feel overwhelmed". There were little pictures of coping skills that Ashlee had learned when she was in treatment. Her gaze fell on a picture of an ice cube.
'OK, that will work.'
Returning to the kitchen, Ashlee set her phone down on the counter. She pulled up a youtube video of meditation music. The gentle sound of a breeze blowing through windchimes filled her ears as she pulled the ice tray out of the freezer. She put a few cubes in a plastic baggy. She sat down on the fllor in a meditative position. She closed her eyes and squeezed on the ice. The frozen cube was cold enough to make her hand sting a little bit before going numb. She took deep breaths repeating the words "I am here in this place. I am safe." in her head. By the time the ice had completely melted, she no longer felt overwhelmed.
As she cleaned up her small mess, she heard the sound of footsteps and giggles approaching her door.
"Mommy! Mommy! Optimus Prime picked me up from school today!" Tommy declared as he entered the door and rushed over to hug Ashlee.
"She did? Oh I bet that made you so happy!" Ashlee looked up at Karen and gave her a smile, which the younger woman returned. "What did you do at school today?"
Tommy quickly began telling his mother all about his day, who he had played with, what he had learned. Both of the boy's parents had both been rather gifted in school, although Ashee's ex had abandoned his pursuit of knowledge after their break up in favor of a life of raves and partying. They both had dealt with their break up and mental health struggles in different ways. Ashlee had choosen to seek treatment while Tommy's father had choosen to self medicate. Tommy was the only good thing that had come from their relationship. The boy was incredibly intuitive and was intelligent beyond his years. Ashlee had attempted to get him into preschool this year, but the charter school that Ashlee had in mind for him would not budge on their age policy. So Ashlee had elected to send Tommy to a highly ranked preschool rather than a mediocre elementry school.
After Ashlee and Tommy had their talk about his day, Ashlee sent Tommy to go play in their room for a little while so she and Karen could talk. Karen had a burning look in her eyes, as if she were dying to tell Ashlee something.
"What's with you? Did your fanfiction get an increidble review again? You look like you're about to burst with excietment."
"So you know how you always put yourself into your fandoms when you watch or read something?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, what if you could really do it?"
"Like Virtual Reality? Come on, Karen, that stuff only happens in movies and your transformers fan fic."
"Not anymore. Nintendo's been keeping some secrets from the media. They announced today that they're beta testing a new Virtual Reality game."
"What? There's no way they've kept something like this a secret! This would have taken years to develop!"
"Apparently the staff has been paid really well to keep quiet. They've asked a manga author to help create the universe for their game."
"You mean it's not mario or yoshi or something?"
"Nope. And you'll never guess who it is?"
Ashlee thought for a moment. "It's not a Dragon Ball Z game is it? Because it would kind of suck if I can't play the first Virtual Realtiy game ever just because I don't know the fandom at all."
"Nope, guess again. Think: who are you always saying is a perfect human being?"
"Itachi Uchiha, but I don't see how that's relavent...Wait! You're not saying..."
"Yep! Sure is! Look!"
Karen held up her phone and Ashlee let out a squeal of excitement. On her phone was the poster for the world's first virutal reality game. It was entitled "Naruto Destiny-the Infinate Tsukuyomi".
Ashlee held the phone as if it were a devine gift from God Above. She scrolled through the article attached to the poster.
"After years of dedicated research, Nintendo is proud to announce the world's first Virtual Reality game. We have partnered with Masashi Kishimoto to bring the characters of Naruto into a fully interactive virtual reality simulation game where players will portray characters from the series to the best of their ability to defeat Madara's Infinate Tsukuyomi and return to the real world. As this is based in the Infinate Tsukuyomi world, the plot of the game is unique and does not follow the series. Characters and abilities will be somewhat the same, but offer room for player inturpritation and developement. Before this game and it's system will be made available to the public, the game must first be beta tested. We are in the process of selecting beta testers to finish developing the game. The beta testers will be selected through a contest in which potential players make their case for why they would be the best fit to become one of our beta testers. There will be a personality test and a general series knowledge test to help determine not only if a person is worthy of becoming a beta tester, but who they would potentially play as. To enter the competition, please click the link at the bottom of the screen."
She scrolled down to the bottom of the page. There was the url, just like the article said. Boy did Ashlee find it tempting to push it. But she knew she couldn't.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Karen asked. "I thought you'd be more excited for this."
"I am excited, but there's no way I can be a beta tester. I'll just have to wait until three years after the game comes out and I can afford to buy whatever fancy system Nintendo's going to use for this thing."
Ashlee sighed heavily and laid down on the couch. She was excited, yes, but also bummed. She wanted so badly to go and be a beta tester, but she knew she had responsiblities to attend to. She couldn't just up and leave her life. Tommy needed her. She had work and school. As much as she wanted adventure, as much as she wanted to go, she could not justify even thinking about joining such a contest. Not that she'd ever get choosen, but to even hope for such a thing...it seemed like it was more than Ashlee deserved.
"Ash...I talked to your mom on the way here. We both agree that you haven't been your best lately. You're becoming more and more apathetic. You need to find something to be excited about. Why not this?"
"On the off chance I get in, what then? It's not as if I can just leave. I have responsibliities."
"Patty and I talked about that. She said that if you do get in, she'll take care of Tommy and logistics. She really wants to help you, Ash, but you've got to stop pushing her away."
Ashlee paused for a second before finally saying, "I'll think about it."
Karen gave her a soft smile and a hug before ascending the stairs to her room.
She looked back at the phone in her hand. Could she do this? Was it selfish to even think about wanting something like this? What would happen if she did win?
"Kar, you forgot your phone!"
AN: So what do you guys think? Let me know what I can improve on and what you liked. Again, check out AlloraStar217's story "Is this Reality".
