Kharina D. Lin was seen as a weird girl in her high school, mostly because of her weird name and quiet, shy way of life. Most people who Knew her called her either Kk, Lin, or Cari, no one could spell her name or pronounce it either when they first come across it either. She didn't care though, she found that everyone at school was annoying and mean for the most part. There was only a handful of people she could even talk to, they were all outcasts like her but not in the same way either.
She was still the quietest in the group but everyone accepted her for who she was and some who knew her out of school knew more about her than most, she was almost the opposite when out of school, she loved to have fun, liked to be noisy, dance, and play games. Where as when in school she was quiet, calm, serious, and never smiled unless around her friends outside of class. They were very close to each other and loved to play games outside of school.
One day they found out about a new game system that came specifically with a game, called the 'Forever, or Never'. The description of the game was rather hazy but what she gathered was that it was a virtual reality game, which was a first, and that you could play with others. They were excited to say the least, not that Kharina showed it while in school, so at lunch they began to talk about what they knew about the game. What they told her added even more fuel to the fire, not that anyone could tell still. The game made you actually feel like you were there, by what they were told, and what the main point of the game was to live as long as possible while fighting, alone or with others, against zombies, dragons, witches, werewolves, and vampires. She loved those kinds of games more than she liked sweets, which was saying something.
All of her friends knew this to be the case as they sat there talking about what they knew about it and what they could try to do. That's when Steven, Kharina's crush, came by asking what was up. They began to explain about the new game that was coming out soon and it turned out he was going to buy it too. With that they all decided that they should find each other while in the game and join together to last longer. Steven then gave an extra tidbit he had found out as well, it turned out if you were defeated by anything you would eventually turn into it and would continue playing as that.
"Cool." Kharina said quickly "Wow! She finally said something!" Sherice joked for a moment. Kharina just smiled back at her before finishing her food. Sherice loved to draw, she was really good too, everyone thought that her art was beautiful but she often had a habit of eating lots of food. It got to the point she would sleep eat, which made many people feel freaked out over her consumption of food. There was also Marisa and Alex, they were sisters about two and a half years apart. Alex was slightly into magic, and was always trying to find real magic tricks rather than fake ones. Marisa loved animals, a lot, to the point some people found her walking up and down stairs on all fours and mimicking animals. Then there was Rachel who was the number one in girls track beating the record time, and loved to garden, but her obsession with weapons, war, and history was really able to make people go mad from arguing class lessons with personal research.
Well it took a while but they were eventually able to all get one of the new games. With that they began to play it, course like most games it had an introduction, so it said in a semi creepy voice "Welcome to Forever, or Never. Here you will get a look into your futures. Will you live? Will you die? Or will you choose suicide to escape being changed? The rules are simple, live. You of course can kill yourself and it will restart you somewhere else." with that they began looking around trying to find places to clear out of, mainly, zombies and resources. They were all started off with only one safe house that had kitchen knives, things you could turn into blunt weapons, and if you were lucky a hand rifle.
Sherice started the game off by using a chair leg as a weapon, Steven took his chances and ran to a tool shed in his back yard and was lucky to find it intact (which was rare) finding a chain saw with fuel, Rachel found a hand rifle, Marisa and Alex both chose kitchen knives, but Kharina was unlucky because while she was looking for a good weapon she could use her house was broke into by the zombies and she had to leave empty-handed.
She was able to out run them easily but had to search around aimlessly for anything she could use for a weapon while defenseless. She kept having close calls with the zombies and had to keep running till finally she ran into one of her friends who happened to have the rifle. While Kharina continued to look for a weapon Rachel watched her back till finally she found the perfect weapon for herself. It was a sword, they found it in a display case still in its sheath and in perfect condition. Kharina had taken lessons in using a sword and was pretty good at it really, and she was capable to slice the zombies clean in half with it.
They continued to look around till they finally found the rest in a, recently, cleaned out restaurant. They fixed it up using the tables to make it hard for the undead to get in and looked the place over for anything they could use. They were able to find a lighter, a few matches, knives, some caned food along with a hand can opener, and some cooking utensils. They took what they could carry and began to head back out fighting down the zombies as they went to the next place to search it. By the end of the day they had found a back pack which they used to carry more in, some first aid kits, medicine, more food, ammo, a few more guns and a sledge-hammer. At this point Rachel, Alex, and Marisa all had guns, Kharina had a sword, Sherice had discarded her broken chair leg after it broke in half and grabbed the knifes, and Steven had the sledge-hammer.
They then left the game after fortifying the K-Mart they were in and called it a night. The next few days there was no school, for it was winter break, so they all played the game non stop together. Each had a different schedule for sleeping but they were still able to do things while the others were sleeping. These things included guarding, scouting out terrain, fighting anything that got close, building a more fortified protection, and if you got tired of waiting you could move on ahead of the rest.
Well several of days they went in and their defenses had been broken so they would have to protect the others, some there was no activity, and others they found that they had been saved by other players that had woke up and went into the place they had on accident.
When Kharina stayed up all night playing even after everyone else had gone to sleep she got to finally see something other then a zombie. It was a full moon that night in the game, with occurs once every week real world time, and she had to fight off a huge werewolf on her own because everyone else was asleep. It tore her up quite a bit but she was able to defeat it without letting it get the others or biting her. When everyone else joined back in the next day they found the corps of said wolf as well as a sleeping character who left a note that she would be back in a few hours.
After that things began really heating up in the game as they found themselves moving into more dangerous places were other things were located. They were often attacked by werewolves, witches, and dragons but had yet to ever see a vampire after a week of staying in the 'danger zone'. At this point they had become quite used to the game and were able to get a reputation among the other players.
They were practically walking power houses and were only attacked by computers anymore. They were also getting bord of the game till finally they found a vampire, he was a computer of course and had every form of charm they have on TV. "If you give up now some of you might live." he bargened not that they listened, then with a snap of his fingers a light came on in the building they were in and they found themselves surrounded by a swarm.
The swarm had everything and to most it would be hopeless but seeing as how they were in a game they still tried. Not only that but they got rid of most of the creatures, however they were still got in the end. Everyone was taken down differently, Sherice was torched by a dragon she had went to slay, Marisa was hit by a surprise attack from a werewolf, Alex was killed by a high level warlock, Rachel was separated from the rest and was surrounded by zombies that eventually got her, Steven feeling slightly desperate committed suicide, and Kharina, angered, went to attack the one that looked to be the leader. The leader being the vampire. She went for a head on battle but he would just move out of the way and she would have to fight other things to try to get him. In the end she had to take out the remaining monsters, about twenty zombies, two witches and a warlock, a dragon, and three werewolves, to finally get to him. However, she was exhausted and could hardly move. He began to walk over to her only for her to lunge at him and try to take him out still. He was impressed at her tenacious way as she was able to grab him and put him on the ground. She shot him several times in the face and chest till she felt he was not going to get up before she dropped the gun and just sat there on his body.
"You done already?" he asked making her jump slightly and look down at him again as his body healed before her eyes. "Well I must say two things before anything else happens. First you have impressed me in your will. Second-" he said flipping their positions to where he was above her and she was pined on the ground. He then bent down closer to her as she struggled poorly "Happy birthday." he said making her freeze, he then sank his fangs into her neck as she passed out.
At that second the game suddenly stopped working all together. Kharina was confused about what she had just heard I must have been hearing things, how would he know that after all? she thought and called her friends to ask if their systems were like hers was now. It turned out all of them couldn't get it to turn on either, it was like something broke in them at the same time. They were not sure what to do, but they decided it was a good time to go to bed anyway since their break was over and they had school again the next day. Kharina on the other hand couldn't sleep at all, not with how things were. She couldn't get what he said out of her head, How did it know? How? she kept thinking. She decided to sneak out of the house while her parents thought she was asleep and go down to the corn field edge and sat on the stump she would sit at when she needed a calm place to think.
She looked up at the sky and saw the beautiful full moon as her mind eased. She had always loved looking at the night sky when there was a full moon, it was always so lovely. However, as she sat there she got an eerie feeling, like something bad was going to happen. Just as she was about to get up to walk back home she heard something. When she looked she saw a dark figure of a man she didn't know. She quickly stood up ready to run when the man looked at her calmly and smiled. Then these words echoed from his mouth "Happy eighteenth birthday." after that everything went black. In the morning she found herself in her bed room and saw she was going to be late for school if she didn't hurry. She then quickly threw on some clothes, looked in the mirror as she fixed up her hair slightly and ran out the door to just hardly catch the bus. As things were she couldn't stand to miss school, her parents would kill her, even though she did feel slightly off. Most likely nothing though, so she just shook it off and waited for the bus to get to the school.