SAO Alternative:
Dead Blood Online
Chapter 1: To Find Escapism
The early afternoon sun shone brightly down upon the small metropolis below, shining the place with its heat, leaving a poor feeling for those not accustomed to handling such a season. It was early summer, but it already felt like something akin to the Sahara Desert to a couple of people who could not handle the heat, which there happened to be a few, most of whom were indoor people with nothing much to do with their lives. The others just happened to be highly asthmatic. On this certain day the early summer heat seemed to be more hotter than before, although most people wandering around the city appeared to put up with it, as if it was nothing to fuss over all that much.
This was far from the case for one young man, who looked like he was having some issues with the sudden heat wave. He breathed in and out heavily before wiping his forehead clean of sweat, then he took a huge swig out of his plastic and cheap water bottle, which got quickly finished off. The young man sighed with relief at first, but then proceeded to wish he had bought a spare bottle of water from the convenience store he left fifteen minutes ago, that and he wished he still had an energy bar to munch on as well. Overall, it was not a pleasant day thus far,. But that was going to change at some point, he knew it, or at the very least guessed that would be the case anyway. As for why, well, that was the objective of the day, and the entire reason why he was out and about in the first place.
I wasn't able to be a beta tester so I missed out on it early on, and I just managed to save up enough money. Today is the day I'm going to get it, I'm sure of it. The young man thought to himself as he threw the empty bottle into a nearby bin, then turned down a corner and continued on his humid, sweaty way to wherever he was aiming to head over to. He was sure as hell determined to reach his destination, even with the heat affecting him; the young man was never good at dealing with it in the first place.
The young man took a deep breath and let it out after a few seconds, not for the last time wishing he was already where he wanted to be. He brushed aside the grey coloured bangs that fluttered around the top of his dark blue eyes eyes and took another deep breath again, his eyes beginning to look around him as a source of distraction. As he gazed around him, his eyes passing from building to building and person to person, which did little to ease him, but it did make him wonder how nearly everybody managed to put up with the heat. Then it hit him after a few minutes. Hold up here, how're these people putting up with the heat wave? The hell is going on here? Is it just me here that's dealing with the worst effects? Ugh. Damn me.
It sounded like a petty thing to get grumpy about, but then again the young man was considered to be a bit of an oddball by most people who knew him, even his own family. Having a problem with some people in general, alongside an inability to understand other people's emotions properly and generally being quite a downer for one reason for another that he hated talking about, made the young man not the most pleasant nor bearable person to hang out with. It also explained why he did not hang out with many people, if he actually did hang around with people at all in the first place. The way he appeared to look at people with narrowed eyes of mistrust seemed to tell enough about that subject.
As the dark blue-eyed young man closed his eyes for a split second he bumped into someone and staggered backwards, just barely stopping himself from falling onto the ground and hurting his backside, although his forehead was feeling as if something hard had smacked into it at full force. The grey haired young man rubbed his forehead and muttered a few curses under his breath before opening his eyes to see what it was that he collided with. What the young man saw was mildly surprising, although it was not far from what he guessed it to be.
It was a young woman with natural light tanned skin sitting on the ground with a saddened expression upon her face, which had been caused by her dropping what she was carrying before getting bumped into. The long black coloured bangs covered parts of her forehead while the rest of her hair flowed down her back and sides of her head until they reached the middle of her spine, her eyes were a dark shade of purple, her dark blue short-sleeved shirt was ruffled up, and the black skirt she wore was somewhat dirtied by the ground she sat upon. The young woman did not appear to be hurt, just more shocked if anything, although she was rubbing her forehead due to bumping into the grey haired young man a moment ago.
As the pain receded away into almost nothing after a couple of seconds of constant rubbing and steady breathing, leaving only a minor migraine to deal with, the young man grumbled to himself before reassessing the situation before him. He took another look at the young woman on the ground before him and quickly realised something as he brushed his white shirt and black shorts. Huh, she's actually pretty cute now that I think about it. Ah damn it. Why is that the first thing I think about?
As the young man shook himself out his his current faze and focus on reality, the young woman's dark purple eyes darted back and forth from what was left of her dropped items - which consisted of two plastic bags filled with groceries - and the legs of the young man, which then caught her full attention just moments later as she stood up. She gasped and appeared shocked with what had happened, then proceeded to stutter nervously as her cheeks blushed bright red due to embarrassment. It was an awkward moment between the two, which only got worse over the next several seconds.
"Wh-wh-wha?! H-huh? Oh, uh, I'm uh… A-a-a-ah! S-s-s-sorry!" she exclaimed loudly before running away down the street, leaving the grey haired young man stunned with what had happened. Judging from the views he received from people that were passing by previously and those that had stood around to watch it all happen in front of them, it appeared as if the young man was the guilty party. It left a foul taste to be sure.
Why am I always the one that's being judged here? Tch. Just typical. Hmph. No sense in staying here just to get judged by a bunch of twats like them. The young man grumbled to himself in his mind before marching off again, this time more grumpier than he had been. Not even dropping his toast butter side down onto the ground or accidentally breaking a glass vase during the morning was as bad as everything happening around him, according to his mind anyway.
The rest of the dark blue-eyed young man's walk towards his destination was relatively peaceful, aside from the usual person smacking their car horn to hurry somebody along or the overly talkative group chattering to themselves loudly and without remorse for other strangers nearby, so when the grey haired young man arrived out the front of his destination he was greatly relieved to finally get where he wanted to be. He sighed with joy as he looked at the store's sign above the large glass automatic sliding doors - it read 'Old Joe's Game Store'. It was a relatively new shop in town, but already a successful one. After wiping his forehead to get rid of the sweat with his right arm, the young man took a deep breath and walked into the store as the doors slid out of his way.
The cool air of the store's air conditioner blew out through the door and collided with the young man who opened it, blasting his face with fresh, cool air. It took him by surprise by first, but it was very quickly accepted it - after all, it was mildly hot outside and the young man had no interest of staying out there to start hyperventilating. The young man sighed with some relief as the cool air was breathed in and out, his lungs calming down with every passing second, then a look of relief passed across his face.
"Ahh, that's better. Can't stand the heat sometimes. Damn weather. Why does California have to be the one that gets hit with this damn heat wave?" he muttered to himself before starting to wander the large store, passing by people as they walked around, eyeing the products on shelf and the posters all over the walls.
It was a mildly large store filled with dozens of shelves, glass cabinets dotted the walls near huge stacks of games and were filled with different types of controllers, a few counters for customer service and checkouts, a few doors in small locations at the back of the store lead to storage areas, the walls were a pristine white and the thin carpet covered ground was blue with a hint of dirt. It was certainly a place that the young man liked to come to often, even if he was not intending on buying anything. Not that he was always visiting the game store every day, or whenever he had a lot of spare time to use up when he was not doing anything.
The games were stacked into different areas of the store with signs indicating the rating that they had received, such as PG to MA 15+ and so forth, which made it a lot easier for parents and potential buyers which games were located and what was unsuitable for younger people. Not that it stopped some people from getting games that they should not, but little could be done about it. Matters like this were made worse with the latest VRMMO game that was claimed by many, especially the creators of it, to surpass all other virtual reality genres on the market. It was called Dead Blood Online, the most anticipated VRMMO after the success of Gun Gale Online. It was also the first game of it's genre to be sold worldwide outside Japan and the USA, letting people from many countries connect together and participate in a world where there was more to worry about than just the natural wildlife and other players.
The game was also quite unique with how it was created. Much like Gun Gale Online, it was developed by an American company, but it had a huge helping hand with another company from Japan and a mysterious contractor - nobody knew who he or she was and the companies that worked on the game had yet to say anything. Still, even with this air of mystery surrounding the circumstances of the creation of Dead Blood Online, it was already proving to be greatly popular. Despite its initial success worldwide the game was still in its infancy. Roughly there were around eight hundred thousand players the last time an online poll had been taken, but the number was still rising considerably with the latest major update, which no one had figured out what it was as of yet - not even the beta testers knew what it was, and they were the experts.
Still, it was exciting or those who played the game endlessly without hardly any breaks to get back to their lives. In fact the unknown update, coupled together with favourable reviews from critics and an excellent advertising campaign, had only increased sales worldwide, and especially in Old Joe's Game Store where the owner - a man with the same name - had run out of Dead Blood Online twice and had to keep restocking his supplies. Old Joe could proudly boast that he sold over a hundred copies of Dead Blood Online to people from all over town and the next one over. Whether or not he had actually had sold over a hundred copies of Dead Blood Online was unknown.
However, even with all the acclaim the game had from critics and players alike, there was one thing about it that made it somewhat controversial to many concerned families: it was a demonic zombie slaying virtual reality game. It was one thing to play it on the computer they said, but experiencing it in a virtual world that was too much like the real world was a step too far. Some were just overly conservative with firearms and undead demons in general, especially the religious oriented families, but then there were those who mistrusted any game that was linked to virtual reality thanks to the Sword Art Online Incident where around four thousand people were killed after being trapped in the game for two years
With all of that considered, one might think that virtual reality would become a thing of the past, but that was far from the case, in fact they were proliferating like a firestorm. Their popularity had only increased dramatically despite the dangers it presented, of which little remained now. Some people had even made a living out of these games, such as top players and veterans of Gun Gale Online, who sometimes earned more than some people who worked hard at good paying jobs in the real world. This was just some of the reasons why the young man could not get over his growing addiction to such games. To leave reality and venture in another world where he can do almost anything and everything - what could he not love about that form of escapism?
The grey haired young man glanced over at a poster as he walked past it, noticing that it was about Dead Blood Online. The poster consisted of a blood-red colour with black borders, in the centre were five in-game characters holding a selection of different guns ranging from energy weapons to ballistic firearms, a helmeted undead demon with bright glowing yellow eyes and decaying flesh took up the top of the poster while ruined buildings and flailing arms took up the sides of the poster near the borders. At the bottom of the poster were the words 'Dead Blood Online - Save the Post-Apocalypse from the Undead Hordes'. It certainly had a survival horror theme to it, which undoubtedly made it all the more popular.
The dark blue-eyed man grinned as he stopped to admire the poster for a couple of seconds, liking what he was seeing - he really wanted to play the game, and badly too. Never played a lot of zombie games before, or horror either. Hopefully it's as good as the reviews say it is. The grey haired young man thought to himself as he passed by a group of people looking over some fantasy PC game. Things like that used to greatly interest him, but now virtual reality had overtaken it top the point where he rarely used his computer for anything regarding games at all.
After passing by a few more groups of people wandering about, talking to each other about some obscure online game that the young man had not heard of before and others simply looking over some of the older installments of a popular role-playing game, the grey haired young man finally reached the section where Dead Blood Online was in stock, and little to his surprise there was hardly any left for sale, for there were only three copies left. It was as if the young man had struck a gold mine, judging from how he was staring at the games that were left.
Hell yeah, there's still some left. Guess they were more popular around here than I thought. What fun - more players to compete with, more opportunities to show what I'm worth, another chance to prove I'm not worthless when I become a top player. The young man thought as he reached out for the closest copy of Dead Blood Online on the near empty shelf. It was an odd thought to have upon reflection, but it was a state of mind that he had always had, which had only intensified over the last few weeks.
After grabbing one of the three remaining copies of the game the young man took a look at the front and back covers, seeing that they both shared a resemblance to the posters that littered the walls of the store, he grinned at the object in his right hand, heavily anticipating what it was going to be like to play such a new game. Suddenly he noticed a hand reach out from the corner of his right eye and grab one of the remaining two Dead Blood Online hard copies, taking the young man by surprise at first. He turned his head around to the right to see who it was, which proved to be a bit shocking, considering he recognised her. As his eyes met with the stranger standing next to him, whose eyes met with his, the grey haired young man saw that it was the same person he ran into back out on the street some time ago. Judging from they way she was looking at him it appeared that she remembered the incident.
"H-h-huh?! Um, I, uh… S-s-sorry!" was all she was able to exclaim before trying to back away, undoubtedly to try and make a run for it to the counter, only to be stopped by the young man grabbing her copy of the game.
"Hey, wait up a sec, miss. What's wrong? Did I offend you or something back out on the street when we bumped into each other?" he asked, somewhat hesitant at first. From someone else's perspective it looked as if he was harassing the apparently overly shy and sensitive black haired woman - anybody could think that was the case due to how he was grabbing hold of her game and the way his expression usually was grumpy nearly all of the time.
The young woman stared at the game in her hands for a moment, then looked towards the one who was also grabbing it and blushed as her eyes darted away to something else to stare at. It appeared that she was at the very least starting to calm down, somewhat anyway. "Uuuuuhhhh… I, uh… I-I-I didn't mean to bump into l-like that, I just, kinda, lost track of where I was going. S-sorry about that."
"Yeah, I figured that. But why did you run away? Couldn't have been all that bad. Were you just incredibly nervous or something? If so then it's definitely the first time I've seen a case like that," the young man asked out of curiosity as he let go of the young woman's copy of Dead Blood Online.
"Well, um, how do I put this?" the purple-eyed woman questioned herself, wondering how she was going to put her words in a less insulting way. After several seconds to nearly half a minute she found the right words, at least the young woman believed she did anyway. "I, uh, ran away because, well, you looked kind of s-scary."
The reply did not really confuse the young man, instead it merely made him groan and facepalm himself. He looked rather saddened and full of self pity if anything else, which then quickly turned into anger, but oddly against himself. "Ugh, damn it, damn it, damn it! Why do I always look like I'm about to beat somebody up? Why, why, why?! Tch. This is why… Ugh damn it, I'm going off about a bunch of crap again. Forget about that."
The black haired woman stared at the ranting young man in front of her as if he was an object of odd curiosity in a museum or a zoo; she did not seem to get turned off by what was going on with the odd and obviously troubled young man. Instead of wanting to run away and put some distance between them, she chose to remain and figure out what was going on with him. Damn, I'm too curious for my own good. It's always getting me in trouble with people. She thought to herself before speaking out loud. "Are you, um, w-well, okay? You seem sort of w-weirded out, like troubled or something."
The young man raised an eyebrow at the woman standing in front of him, utterly confused with why she was even asking him what was going on in his troubled mind? It was the first time some random stranger ever asked him anything such as that before, which struck him as completely peculiar. "Okay? Weirded out? Wh-what? No one has really asked me that before."
"Seriously? No one? Not even you, um, parents or s-somebody like them?" she asked, ever the more curious about just what was going on with the young man, even as she silently cursed herself for even being curious in the first place. Curiosity was not a completely bad thing to have, but it had gotten the young woman into some trouble before, which could have been learned from, but obviously not too well it would appear.
"Well to be honest, yeah, a few have asked me that. Not that I care to remember them though," the young man grumbled, his eyes darting from the woman standing before him to the ground below. He looked to be rather annoyed, angry to say the least. This change of mood died away after a moment, leaving only a mildly grumpy expression and a similar state of mind. Neither were sure as to how they could proceed any further with their conversation, if it was even possible. The two stood in awkward silence, not knowing what to say next until after almost a minute had passed, when the young man finally spoke again. "Ugh. Look, sorry about all that, I've just been dealing with a bunch of crap and I just want to vent."
"Yeah, I get that kind of feeling every now and then. Not l-like whatever is going on w-with y-you, it's just kinda, you know, with d-d-different reasons," the black haired young woman lamented, seemingly now knowing how the grey haired man thought or at the very least how he was feeling right at that moment.
"Different reasons, huh? Guess it isn't my place to know. Again, sorry for all that. Also I'm not scary, this is my natural look," the young man pointed out as he pointed towards his face, surprising the black haired woman.
"Th-that's your n-normal face? But you look like a, um, well, a th-thug. Only a b-bit, though!" the young woman said, although she seemed to regret it at first upon voicing her opinion, suddenly fearing what the response was going to be like.
To her surprise it was not all that bad, quite the opposite in fact. The grey haired man groaned to himself and rubbed his forehead, muttering something to himself in a weird and childish voice that ranged from anger to self pity and simple whiny grumpiness. It was difficult to tell if he was simply annoyed or something else entirely with either himself or the purple-eyed haired woman, but at the very least it amused the young woman to no end, causing her to giggle as a small smile appeared upon her face. It was all very confusing for the young man to witness.
"Huh? Did I accidentally do something funny?" he asked the young woman, genuinely confused with the situation at hand. "I didn't mean to be funny, never thought I actually could be funny at all. Am I funny? Meh."
"Heheheh. S-sorry about that. But yeah, th-that was kinda funny, how you were going on l-like that just before. Maybe you should try being a comedian," the young woman responded with a light chuckle, her shy persona starting to slip away with what was going on between her and the grey haired man.
"A comedian? No, god no, I couldn't be something like that. Doesn't sound like something I would be good at. Besides, I already have aspirations for something else," the young man responded, his tone becoming less grumpy and more upbeat, as if he was starting to truly become a lot more happier about something he had always envisioned. That, however, did not last long. Soon enough the monotone look on his face returned. "Oh well, that's not really going good for me anyway; no bloody talent. Ugh. Um, hey, what's up with your stammer? Is that natural, or are you still feeling a bit nervous."
The young woman easily noticed that the grey haired man was trying to push the conversation down a different path away from his personal life and ambitions, which was a misfortune for her deep curiosity but it could not be helped. The black haired young woman decided to go along with it for now, even if she felt somewhat uncomfortable saying too much about herself. "Both, kind of. L-look, I'm not comfortable talking about it r-right now. S-sorry."
"Meh, that's fine - private matters stay private," the the dark blue-eyed young man replied, not seeming to care all that much at all. "Oh, by the way, you like horror games or something? Didn't think shy people like you ever liked the genre."
The comment at the end of the question was a bit surprising to the young woman, but it did make her giggle slightly. "Well, not really, but I thought it would be a nice ch-change of pace. Actually I already have a copy; this is for a friend who was interested in it. I'm one of the beta testers so I got the game for free and tested it about a hundred others or s-so."
"Huh, that's actually pretty cool. Wasn't able to be a beta tester, so I had to buy the damn thing. Guess I'm not all that lucky," the dark blue-eyed young man said, feeling a mix of jealousy and genuine recognition. "You, um, play VR game all that much, or is it your first time? I play a lot of 'em, from Alfheim to GGO and a few obscure ones as well."
"Well I'm a pretty good p-player in GGO, so when I heard some aspects from GGO were going to be similar in DBO I just had to see wh-what it was like; can't stop playing it now. Although I noticed that buying the game would put a large dent in anyone's account, and that new VR headset - the ArmaRift - is even more expensive. Can't believe you n-need a separate headset to play a brand new game."
The dark blue-eyed young man shrugged and appeared nonchalant about the apparent high price for the game and the new virtual reality headset needed to play the game with. "Meh, I'll manage. Might have to play some GGO to get my ranking up so I can start earning some real cash later on."
The black haired woman seemed to agree with this idea, as was apparent with her ever growing smile and a nod of the head. It almost made the young man blush. Suddenly she gasped as if something terribly important had been forgotten. "Hey, um, since we're, you know, talking l-like this and all, sh-should we exchange n-names?"
"Hmm? Our names? Uh, sure, I suppose so. I'm Jake - Jake Moore," the grey haired young man responded with a monotone voice, although it did look as if he was secretly happy to exchange his name to somebody he only met not too long ago.
It also appeared that the young woman was happy to exchange names, although she did look more visible about it. Its was also apparent to the young man that she was blushing. "Jake Moore… That's a n-n-nice n-name. I-I'm called Samantha Florez. It's n-nice to meet y-y-you, Jake."
"Uh, yeah, nice to meet you too, Samantha. Say, what's your online name? If we're playing DBO we might meet up at some point," Jake asked the black haired young woman as she continued to blush, her eyes eyes darting back and forth from Jake to the ground. It was quite confusing for him to witness, but after a short moment of reflection he paid it little to no mind. However, the grey haired young man did wonder if he would actually meet Samantha in-game.
"Probably. I-I mean, we'd have to be in the same server to m-meet each other, and there are a lot of servers to choose from - American, Japanese, personal and public multinational servers are all abundant in DBO. I u-usually play on the American servers, but l-lately I've been on this new public multinational server filled with p-people from all over the globe. It's a bit chaotic, but fun overall," Samantha responded cheerfully with a bit of her natural stammer mixed into it, all while continuing to have a small smile upon her face. "Once you l-log into the game go to the public multinational server called DOB P-M Server 04, th-that's the chaotic one with all the u-unique people on it. I'm c-called Luthien in-game, if you were wondering."
"Luthien, eh? I call myself Killian, sometimes Cpt Killian in some RPGs on the computer, or Lord Killian and Killian the Slayer - all for RP stuff you know," Jake said as he scratched the side of his head, feeling a little embarrassed about his uncreative RP character names and titles. Much to his surprise, Samantha began to giggle again. "Oh c'mon, I didn't think it would be that bad."
"Heheheh. No, it isn't bad, just f-funny. At least I'll know who you are in-game at least, that's for sure," the young woman giggled while holding a hand in front of her mouth, stopping her from breaking out into a full-on laugh. Upon noticing the young man's gaze she had to calm herself down. "You're just, uh, f-funny, you know, I c-can't help it."
Jake sighed and shook his head, not taking well to the fact that he was 'funny', but at the very least he was glad that Samantha found him less scary and more amusing. "Ah well, whatever you say. Huh, funny, I never talk this much to anyone, not even my family. Feels… nice."
"Yeah, I get what you m-mean," Samantha said in an almost quiet voice as she gripped the game cover with both arms tightly. After a moment of awkward silence between the two of them, the young woman muttered something to herself as her cheeks blushed bright red. "Hey, I got to b-buy this game and g-get the headset for it so I can give it to my friend. I guess I'll see you around s-s-sometime?"
Jake nodded as a thin smile grew upon his face. "Yeah, alright, I'll see you around, hopefully in the game at some point. There's a few things I want to check out over at the collectable section so I guess, um, goodbye for now. See ya around, Samantha."
The purple-eyed young woman smiled at the young man in a way that made his heart flutter. "Okay then, see you around, Jake."
Jake hummed some country song to himself as he walked down the street, passing by several houses along what was essentially near the edge of town, carrying a white cardboard box with an image of the new virtual reality headset known as the ArmaRift printed all over the box, along with the company's logo on the side. It was still pretty hot all around him, but with the excitement about the new game growing within him the heat was becoming less of an issue, but a new problem was coming up: home. The young man eyed a house further up the street near a tall lamp post where he saw a badly overgrown hedge creeping over the fence, its jagged branches and green leaves stuck out all over the place. Anyone would have thought that no one actually lived in the house, but that was far from the case.
As Jake got closer to the house he began to hear the sound of a young kid crying loudly, making the grey haired man groan in annoyance. It was an utterly whiny sound - in his opinion - that irritated the young man greatly on just about every day in the week, although since the kid usually cried all the time everyday Jake happened to get pretty fed up everyday of the month whenever the whinging ever broke out. Upon reaching the front yard gate and opening it the young man noticed that the crying was getting louder as he neared the front door, then heard the sound of raised voices - adult voices to be exact.
Ugh. They're at it again. What's the reason for their arguing this time? Too much wine? Too much smoking? Too much of anything that doesn't involve boning each other all night? Whatever it is it's gotten my sister all riled up - the little brat that she is. The young man thought to himself as he sighed in a grumpy manner and wiped the sweat off his forehead, his annoyance growing exponentially as he finally reached the front door to his family's house.
While Jake reached into the left pocket of his black shorts he heard the adult voices getting louder while the young girl was continuing to cry for some reason or another, all of which seemed to echo around the house. The words also started to make some sense too, so after a short moment of listening to the argument Jake heard the words 'Why don't you just give her what she wants for crying out loud?', 'I'm busy for shit's sake', 'You never help out around here!' and 'You're a bloody horny drunkard!'. It was no wonder the young girl inside the house was crying, although the grey haired young man guessed that it was only one reason why she was whining about.
"Ah buggering hell, not again with the bullshit arguing. Next thing you know they continue arguing until they have hate sex, fall back in love, do some weird shit, drink a lot and begin the cycle yet again - a treadmill. Hell, it ain't even four in the afternoon and the arguing is pretty damn loud - that's a new record for 'em," Jake mumbled to himself before unlocking the door and entering the house, whereupon the scent of smoke from a cigarette entered his nostrils, which sent him into a small coughing fit. "Gah! Tch, bloody smoking asshole. The hell is he even smoking inside? Does he want my lungs to die or something?"
"Huh? Who's there?" a gruff male voice called out over the sound of a young girl crying about not getting the right amount of crayons that she wanted and was practically yelling for more bright coloured crayons. It was a tall man with a black wispy beard and a short haircut with a cigarette in his mouth, his brown and steel-grey checkered shirt had some old stains covering some small areas here and there, same with his light brown shorts. Upon seeing Jake he looked surprised. "Huh? Oh, it's you. Didn't realise you even left your room."
"Of course you didn't - you never do," Jake grumbled as he passed the tall man, his eyes narrowed to the point he was glaring at him. The black haired man sighed with frustration and mumbled something to himself before returning to the large living room, where he sat down on a blue-covered couch and returned to smoking heavily while writing away at some forms, for what though mattered little to the grey haired young man.
After passing through the living room upon leaving the small dull-white corridor the young man arrived in the kitchen, which was located next to the living room. In the kitchen was a long grey haired woman with an extremely worn out and grumpy expression leaning over a counter with an almost empty bottle of wine nearby, her blue eyes darting from the bottle to the young black haired girl who was looking rather pleased now that she had some more crayons and a large scoop of ice cream alongside a creamy soda. Jake glared at her and continued onward into the kitchen and headed over to the fridge, where he took a water bottle out of it and looked over towards the grey haired woman.
"Hey mum, how're you?" he asked the worn out and obviously near-drunk woman standing nearby over the counter, who merely replied back with a groan that sounded like 'hello dear'. A disappointed stare from Jake said it all about what he felt. Why mum, just why? It isn't even night yet.
As he was about to leave the kitchen with his water, copy of DBO and the ArmaRift, Jake was intercepted by the young black haired girl, who looked up at him with a wide grin on her ice cream-covered face. "Whatcha doing, big bro?"
"Trying to move past you. Now move," Jake replied in a harsh tone, which did not seem to faze the young girl in the slightest. It really confused the young man, and made him rather unsettled too.
"Ha! You're a weirdo. Whatcha do in that room of yours?" the young black haired girl asked, but soon cast that question aside a short moment later to ask something else. "Oh, oh! Guess what mamma and dadda got for me?"
"Am I supposed to care about what you get? You get just about anything you want from them, meanwhile I work to get what I want. Now stay away from me," the dark blue-eyed young man responded as he bypassed his little sister and strode past her, only to be stopped by the black haired man's stern words.
"For crying out loud, can't you just get along with your little sister for once without picking on her? Would also be nice if you just listened to me as well," the tall checkered shirt-wearing man said as he glanced over at Jake, who stopped in his tracks to look over at him. "Maybe it's better if you stop wasting your time with all those fancy games you play for hours on end."
The young man sighed depressingly and shook his head. "I don't have to listen to this, you're not my father. Besides, you no nothing about trying to find some escapism." And with that he marched off down the corridor towards his room, leaving only rising tempers in his wake. The grey haired woman sighed deeply and continued to drink heavily from what was left of the tall wine bottle as she listened to the young man close the door to his room.
Jake's room was small, but to him it was homey enough to live in. A messy bed took up one corner of the room with a set of electrical equipment that hooked him up to virtual games lying next to the bed between the bed and the desk, where a computer screen could be seen covered in sticky notes and sketches of some fantasy characters, a closed wardrobe took up another corner of the bedroom. The walls were covered in old crude drawings to sketches that looked like the start of some comic book, or even a manga in some cases.
The grey haired man smiled briefly at his drawings, then proceeded to unbox the ArmaRift and plug it into the computer beside his bed, then loaded up Dead Blood Online. The brand new virtual reality headset was similar in appearance to the AmuSphere in almost every look and aspect, except the front looked more like a pair of hardware goggles and that it was all connected to a round metallic headband that was worn around the head. Apparently is was all for extra protection and safety, as was the marketing explanation anyway, but it supposedly had some electronic hardware in it that helped with the virtual reality simulation. It was good enough for Jake anyway, who never thought out much thoroughly anyway. Still, all reviews stated that it was a well done piece of equipment.
"Well, it's not like I'm gonna miss out on anything in this world. Time to see what Dead Blood Online has to offer me," the young man said to himself as he finished setting everything up and placed the ArmaRift on his head, then flopped down onto the bed as his headset became fully powered up. It was time. Jake breathed in and out deeply, then closed his eyes after his nerves settled, then his view of the world around him began to darken. "All right, let's do this. Link start!"
A/N: Hello readers and thank you for reading my first ever SAO fanfic. Never thought I would ever write something like this, considering I'm not a big fan of Sword Art Online, although I did enjoy Fatal Bullet and a story that a cool guy hasn't updated since April. Now then, this story is based on ideas my demented mind over the last couple of days and other franchises such as the Black Ops series, Fallout, Sword Art Online season 2, hell, even a tiny bit of the original Starcraft for some future stuff - gotta see how it'll all play together the more I write it later down the road. Who knows, I might throw in some other references as well - just expect horror and dark themes as well.
Anyway that should wrap up my ranting for this chapter, have a second chapter to write and some other projects to get a move on with as well. For now, have a good day if you can and thanks again for reading.
