.hack/Polarized/Prologue
by
Chad 'Graeystone' Harger
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The biggest online game today is The World. Boasting 100 million players the game keeps growing . . .and so do the adventures and the mysteries.
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My name is Chad Watanabe and I'm fourteen years old. My name seems odd because, well, Chad isn't exactly a Japanese name. My father is from Japan. He worked for the US branch of a Japanese company. He met my American mother and they fell in love.
Dad chose to immigrate to the US. After a few years I was born. It seemed my family lived the American dream until they died. I was five when it happened so I don't remember the details very well. My father's sister in Japan adopted me. She says very little about their deaths and I dwell on that time as little as possible except for one thing. It was about that time I started to dislike computers.
I use computers as little as possible. The computer I do have is an old model with a word processing program. I use for schoolwork. Other than that one and the ones I have to use at school, computers make up less than one percent of my life.
The day the computer made me more angry than happy. CC Corporation ran a publicity stunt where a random person in each country in the world would win a new top of the line computer with a free one year subscription for the online game The World. It was part of CC Corp's 100 million player celebration.
I argued with my aunt about it. I said I had no need for the computer or the game. She said I was being childish. After ten minutes of arguing we came to an agreement where I would keep the computer and use the free one year subscription. After the free subscription was up I could choose the to keep the computer or I could give the whole thing up no questions asked.
A lot of people would have said it would have been better if I had flat out refused to keep the computer. At the time I didn't know the reason behind me receiving the computer and game. I did discover one thing, in order to save a world I had to help destroy a world.
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Author's note: Yeah, yeah, I know. I used my own first name. I have a good reason though which will be revealed near the end of the story.