Everyone has a set routine they like to follow. You wake up, you get ready, and then you go to school.
You see the same people with the same faces and same attitudes they have every day. The same boy is still the class clown, that super popular beautiful girl is still as bitchy as ever, and finally those best friends you have had since childhood are still sitting with you at lunch.
It gets sort of repetitive.
I guess what I am trying to say is, we complain and complain about repetition but what if it changed? What if all that stability was gone in a few hours? What if those people no longer…existed?
Well, that's where our story begins.
I am a light sleeper; I wake up at virtually every sound that happens while I am asleep and I will not lie, it really sucks. I was having a fantastic dream about some mystery man sweeping me off my feet but before the 'big kiss' my mom opened my door.
"Nicole, it is noon and you need to get up!" She beamed brightly. She was always a bright morning person and I could never understand why. I did not jump or even blink, instead I snuggled deeper into the sheets. She knew I was awake. She always did. So she just laughed and walked away.
With a heavy groan I pulled myself up, my cat hissing in protest as she was thrown from my side that she had been curled against. I laughed a little as I reached out and stroked her behind the ears. She instantly calmed down. "I know Bella-kitty... I don't want to wake up either." I told her with a smile and she only purred in response.
Eventually, I realized that I did have things to accomplish today. I was almost Bryson's birthday so we decided to have a nice little get together before because his ACTUAL birthday fell on the day of prom. We had planned a little sleepover as usual and had made other plans to have a small party beforehand, because who doesn't like parties? Boring people. That's who.
I got up finally, my toes scratching lightly against my soft carpet. I could feel my hair sticking in different directions. Oh well. I stumbled into the bathroom and looked at myself.
I was not unattractive, but I was no goddess. My hair was long and platinum blonde, my bangs had long grown out so it all just kind of fell straight around my head. My eyes are a whole different story. They were blue most of the time, but sometimes they were green or gray. My face was long and oval with wide doe eyes and a small nose. My chin was kind of pudgy with lingering baby fat. My body had a pretty nice shape. Not super skinny at all, but nice curves and enough weight were it counted. Average through and through!
I quickly showered and enjoyed the nice warm flow. When I got out I did up my makeup with nice tones and got dressed. I wore a pair of faded jeans and a black blouse that hung loosely with puffy sleeves and a gold necklace. I also had my best friend necklace on that I NEVER took off.
That is way enough about me though... It's not like I'm the main character in our tale!
A few hours later I am driving to my friend Brittany's home. We would have had the party at Bryson's but it was a bit too far away. So let me tell you about Brittany. I promise this will be fast! She is kinda rude but has a good heart, she loves cute things... but also cursing. She was not the thinnest but she was very pretty and was a very, very loyal friend. She had insanely long brown hair with deep dark brown eyes. When I arrived she just yelled some instructions and we got to work.
Skipping a lot of random filler stuff, we'd had a nice set up going. There was food and drinks and the guests all arrived on time.
The first of course being the man of the hour, Bryson. Don't worry, he's not a main character either or anything! He was pretty average in height; he was a little skinny but was working on trying to buff up. He had swoopy dark hair that he kept up with nicely. He had pretty brown eyes and a very angular face. Bits of teenage stubble scattered across his super sharp jawline. Bryson and I were a lot alike; we both were studious and geeky in a dorky way. We cared too much about others but also snapped easily. Bryson was a bit better at expression than I was. He was also a bit more pessimistic, but not everyone sees rainbows all the time.
Bryson laughed at Brittany and I but thanked us for our effort. In time, everyone else got there. Cade, Lofton, Drew, Jason, Kailee, Mimi, and Brandon. A nice little crew I do believe, and we all knew how to have a good time.
About two hours into the party a black Lincoln rolled up, and out stepped Mark and some unknown guy. Upon seeing his friend, Bryson quickly stood up from his seat and gave a big hug to the taller boy. You see, we all saw it and I am pretty sure they did as well, but they had what I best can describe as a flirtationship. The way they looked at each other was filled with this almost knowing look and they were insanely coy with one another. It was cute and all of us agreed that the relationship was inevitable.
With Mark, was who we later learned was his cousin, Rylan. Rylan on first glance, was dark. He had dark brown almost black hair that just barely swooped down to his almost white, grey eyes. They were intense and could make anyone's skin crawl. He almost never spoke, but he had a sort of aura around him that made you not want him to because you were sort of scared of the things he might say. In short, he was creepy and made everyone slightly uncomfortable. All of us except Mark of course, who treated him like the rest of us and earned an annoyed grin from the mystery kid with each joke that was sputtered out.
The party was nothing crazy by any means; just a nice little get together with your basic party games, but it was mostly just a bunch of lame dirty jokes and genuine smiles from us all. When time for presents came down we all gave Bryson our gifts and he opened them with a lot of enthusiasm.
When all the gifts were delivered, only one was left. It was in a neatly wrapped box covered in red wrapping paper and a decorative green bow all tied around it. There was no name other than Bryson's. We all looked at the little box confused out of our minds but thought nothing of it really, and then he opened it.
Inside there was a game, the picture was a little house made of squares and a big title splashed across, saying SBURB. I looked closely, and so did Cade and Lofton. We were all kind of video game enthusiasts and we had never heard of this title. Ever. Bryson looked at the game just as awestruck. What in the world? I decided to speak up, "Umm, okay then... Free video games I guess." I laughed a little tensely and everyone joined an at some degree.
Upon closer examination, we learned that the game was strictly multiplayer, and that meant we were about to get dragged into this as well. With a deep sigh, Lofton exclaimed, "If it is some kind of platformer I am NOT playing it!"
I shook my head. "No. If it is some ridiculous shooter I refuse to play," I said sternly, and Cade looked at me and rolled his eyes.
"You guys are such prissy gamers! As long as it is sort of challenging I will be happy." He joked and the topic dropped.
We did a little more research on the game and it was crazy inexpensive, about five dollars, but for some reason all copies were sold out except for the ones left at our Walmart. All of us promised to go and pick one up within the next week and soon, talk of said game pretty much fizzled out.
The rest of the night went about without a hitch and we all ended on a happy note. No one knew how much our lives were really changed.
About a week later everyone had a copy of the game. I had picked mine up the day after the party. I kept it all nice and wrapped up and waited not so patiently for everyone to slowly get their copies, and soon, the day finally arrived. It was Sunday morning and I had just woken up when Bryson shot me a text.
Everyone is a go, hurry up and sign on! There's like a test and stuff you have to take before you can actually play! Btw, wanna be my client player? We have to like, do this weird thing where you will control my environment, and I am sure that Lofton will be yours. ~Bryson
I looked at the text carefully, considering the implications. I wasn't quite sure what that meant but oh well, it was Bryson.
Sure! I will ask Lofton right away. I'm getting kinda excited! ~Nikki
I did not get a text back but I sort of expected that. I flipped my laptop open and looked at the disk. I'd already sent Lofton the question but I would not have to worry about her for a while.
I stared at the reflective surface of the disk… It made me feel uneasy, and if I was honest, this whole thing did. It was like something within me was yelling, no screaming! Screaming that this was a bad idea and that we should just stop now, but what sense would that make? It was just a game.
I shook my head, clearing the internal monologue and pushed my tray in, listening as my slightly outdated laptop hummed to life with the new disk. This game better be good, I had to uninstall all of my Sims content to play! As Bryson said, there was a quiz upon opening. I answered the questions as honestly as possible; they were all about me and how I acted and treated others... Things like that, and when I finished a few little red letters popped onto my screen.
Seer of Time
I stared in confusion. What was that? I didn't get much more explanation before my phone began ringing.
"Ugh, Nikki! Pick up your phone," I said to myself, rolling my eyes and waiting on her to answer. I had been waiting this entire week for all of this to finally go down. My 17th birthday was a short while behind me and I was rearing to go on whatever adventure this seemed to be!
Finally the rings stopped and I heard the phone connect.
"Hey, what's up?" she answers after at least five rings. I let out a groan of relief and I could hear her nervous laughter over the phone.
"I'm ready to start! Come on, let's do this!" I exclaimed, almost yelling at her. She was so slow sometimes but I loved her all the same.
"Impatient as always... Great. By the way, what did your quiz say?" She asked with the weirdest tone in her voice. What was wrong with her today?
"Prince of Mind... I guess even a videogame knows I'm a prince!" I said with a smug laugh, eliciting a half laugh from Nikki.
"If that's so, then this game might be dumber than we thought it was going to be." She said with another half-baked laugh. I knew she'd eventually tell me what was wrong, so I dropped the subject.
"Yes. You are such a comedian Nicole. Now, there should be a little button you can use to connect to me!" I told her, simply repeating the information I had gotten offline. I could hear her shift around for a moment and move away from the phone before returning.
"Okay, sorry! Went to get myself a Dr. Pepper. Now, I can see the button but, Bryson, do you really want to do this? I am getting a really bad feeling from all of this…" She paused for a moment. "I can't explain it, but I don't think we should do this," Nikki finished with a sigh.
I just laughed over the phone. "Look hun, I know you have some paranoia problems sometimes… but isn't that sort of taking it a bit far? It's just a game." I told her. Is this what she was so worked up over?
I could practically hear her hesitation over the line. "Yeah…yeah you're right! Sorry about that. I'm stupid. Now, I'm going to click this!" She said cheerfully.
"You do that, and if you are right and all of this goes south, you can punch me as hard as you want. Okay?" I told her, just for some reassurance.
A few moments passed before I heard her gasp. "Bryson! I can see you! Oh my gosh!" She said in an overly excited voice.
I looked around. What the hell? There aren't any cameras here. How does she see me? Was this the game!? "Can you do anything?" I asked her.
She was silent; probably browsing the options she had. "This is just like Sims… I wonder..." She muttered to herself, when suddenly my dresser was gone… like, just poof! Gone.
I just stared in shock, before slowly putting my mouth up to my phone. "Nicole Corrine. Did you just delete my fucking dresser?" I asked her as calmly as I could. I was stuck between feeling mad and feeling horrified.
"I did! I really just did! Oh my god... This is exactly like the Sims! I wonder if the same cheat codes work..." She was pretty much ignoring me at this point. I found myself just staring at the empty space at the end of my bed. Where did the dresser even go? This was some crazy stuff... I must have eaten something bad.
I was about to say something else when a little notification, yes, a NOTIFICATION, popped up in front of my face saying "+50,000 Boondollars". At this point I stopped even trying to comprehend what was going on. I gave up… So, I opened my Sylladex (my inventory), and watched as the money grew and grew, which I assumed was Nikki's fault. I guess cheat codes were nice.
"Bryson. This is the best game ever! It's Sims with real people. Now, I cannot directly interact with you or anything you are touching, but I can move everything else around… Also, there is some free stuff in my little build panel, so I'm gonna deploy it all." I didn't hear Nikki, unfortunately, once I had finally caught a glance of my T.V. Apparently, some crazy accident happened in Tampa. There was a meteor that took out half of the city! I shook my head in sadness, and a bit of a chill ran up my spine. No. There's no way this has anything to do with us. That is impossible! This is just a game.
Right?
I shook my head and finally grasped what Nikki said. I ran into my living room, which was not far down our small hallway, to find my mom watching the news. She looked sad as she saw the reports and such, so I decided now was not the time to bother her with all this. I'll just have to make sure that Nikki doesn't mess anything up.
I got a text from Drew, my lovely, sweet sister, telling me that she and Jason (her boyfriend) had also started playing the game. She was over at our grandmother's house because we decided it would be best if we were on two separate networks.
Drew was a trip. She was absolutely beautiful with long, wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes like mine. Her face was soft and she had large doe eyes that made you want to hug her. She was an eternal optimist and could argue with a brick wall. She was loud and aggressive, but really, cared for others. Even though we fought like cats and dogs, I would not trade her for the world.
This is all really trippy and we're trying to figure everything out! Just letting you know. ~Drew
I let out a sigh of relief. At least she was taking all of this well. Nikki was now yelling at me through the phone, trying to get my attention, I'm sure.
"What?" I asked, and she let out a groan.
"Have you not heard a thing I've been saying? You need to get back into your room and don't freak out... I got rid of some stuff to fit some other stuff… I also built a few new rooms to put some of the bigger machines in. There's one thing in particular called a Cruxtruder…Apparently, according to this walkthrough, you are going to have to throw something into it and then that thing will come to life." She told me very quickly.
I walked into my room and looked around. There was, of course, no more dresser, or bookcase, or T.V...but there was a new door.
I had a feeling big decisions were about to be made.
With a deep breath I stepped through the door cautiously and found a large machine with a pipe sticking out of it. A floating ball of light sat over the pipe. Across the room was another wicked looking piece of metal that looked almost like a desk with a little keyboard. Beside the keyboard was a place to insert something and then a whole bunch of hole punchers.
Walking further into the room there were two more devices; a big piece where it looked like a contraption you'd use to carve wood or something. Maybe it had something to do with the Cruxtruder… Last, but not least, was the largest of the new objects in my house.
It had the game logo on a large circle like platform, it was at least 10 feet in diameter and it looked like there was a place to insert something, like on the other weird thing. This was all crazy. What was this stuff and what was going on any more!? I wanted to throw something, but Nikki's steady voice brought me back to reality.
"Bryson. I know things are weird and none of this makes any sense, but if I see you again... I get to punch you." She said quietly. Her voice chilling me to the bone.
"Nikki… What are you talking about?" I asked steadily, but I was almost afraid to find out.
"I think we just started the end of the world…"
Before I could reply, a tiny countdown started on the Cruxtruder. We had three hours.