Tutorial 1.2
Taylor groaned, clutching her sore head. She sat up, from her spot on the ground, trying to ease away the pai–
Wait. Ground?
Taylor opened her eyes to blackness. It wasn't pitch black; more of a dark gray, an inky shade she could discern from when she closed her eyes. She was awake, and she wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Taylor looked around, the flat, featureless ground stretching on for miles and miles into the distance. Everywhere she looked – up, down, left, right, forwards, backwards – it was the same unappealing gray. She wasn't quite sure how she knew the world was flat, given how there didn't even seem to be a horizon anywhere, but she knew nonetheless.
Taylor walked. And walked. And walked. And guess what? She walked some more. "Jeez!" Taylor yelled into the open nothingness. "Is there anything here?"
The world responded with a flash of light in front of her. Taylor screwed her eyelids tightly together, before slowly opening them, getting used to the new light. When she opened her eyes again, she realized that what appeared in front of her was, in fact, a computer; an old, 1980's computer, on a stomach-high desk (the same monochrome color, of course), with an old-fashioned keyboard and a big, clunky mouse. Taylor stared at it in amazement, before looking a the screen.
The screen was opened to a type of messenger chat she had never seen before; though she supposed it could have been real. In her own personal experience, she had never seen a chat program called 'guruCHAT'.
There was already a message on screen, no screen name to show who it was written by. It read:
Hey, I've got this new game. It's like a shooter but you see the action from your eyes. It's really trippy.
Taylor saw that a new chat box had appeared, one with the blinking cursor that was awaiting input. Looking down at the keyboard, she hurried typed. "Help...I don't...know...where…I am. Where...is this?" she muttered, mirroring what she typed. However, when she looked up, she saw a completely different message typed:
Yeah? How's it called?
Taylor stared at the screen. Without looking at the keyboard, she deleted the message and pressed the letter Q about twenty times. It didn't matter. The same message popped up.
Seeing how the message was rigged to only have one message to reply, Taylor submitted herself to some form of communication and sent the message. The reply was almost instantaneous:
It's not even out yet. It doesn't have a name. But the crack is called "superhot exe". You have to hack into a development server to get it.
Taylor tried to type out "that sounds highly illegal" because...well, it was. What came out instead, was:
You have my attention. What do I do?
Taylor sighed once again, and submitted it the faux message. She glared at the screen when nothing popped up for several seconds. She finally raised her voice, "Well? What happens n‒"
‒‒‒CHAT‒ENDED‒‒‒
Taylor glared harder at the screen, trying her best to will it into flames. "This is the worst dream. Ever," she cried out into the heavens. She looked down back at the screen when she saw the light change.
quit exe | ‒‒ITEM→ |
APPS | FOLDER |
ART | FOLDER |
VIDEOS | FOLDER |
Taylor smiled. 'Now, we're getting somewhere,' she thought. A pop-up appeared on the screen soon after.
RECEIVING FILES (0/9)
And there was a big loading box underneath. Taylor's smile quickly dissipated into a frown of confusion and worry as red boxes began appearing on top of the 'quit' execution file. They must've been important, though, because the 'RECEIVING FILES' bar was filling up. Taylor waited patiently, before voicing, "I wish I could sit down for this."
Taylor jumped at the sound of a metal clang behind her. She turned around, to find a typical blue plastic chair, with four metal legs and three open spaces in the back, behind her. She sat down, and scooted it in while the nine files were downloaded. A red text box appeared announcing the end of the download.
TRANSFER COMPLETE
Taylor looked at her new menu.
_7:50_
superhot exe | ‒‒ITEM→ | app: superhot exe | ‒‒ITEM→ 1956
STORY | FOLDER |
ENDLESS | FOLDER |
MODS | FOLDER |
SETTINGS | FOLDER |
REPLAYS | FOLDER |
readme txt | ‒‒ITEM→ |
feedback url | ‒‒LINK→ |
quit exe | ‒‒ITEM→ |
credits exe | ‒‒ITEM→ |
APPS | FOLDER |
ART | FOLDER |
VIDEOS | FOLDER |
And then another white text box popped up in the top right corner.
Just press "ENTER", launch "superhot exe" crack and see for yourself.
Taylor shrugged. There was no way from here but forwards. She pressed ENTER. She was brought to a loading screen that was...different. Quite different.
Ritcher Creations(R) piOS v2 1 01p
Creation Shard Magnum Opus 2
Opening superhot exe
Loading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .done.
"Ritcher Creations," she voiced aloud. "Creator Shard Magnum Opus 2. Huh."
Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Learn you power. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Escape this fantasy. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Crystalizing. Find my Dragon. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Tell her that Ritcher says, 'Live Life Free.'. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Tell her I'm sorry. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing. Concretizing.
She narrowed her eyes at the sudden wall of text. Taylor thought she saw little scraps of legible text in between the singular words, but the wall moved by too quickly for her to read them properly. Before she could try and focus better, the world around her blacked out.
SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT.
When Taylor came to, she was in a bright room. With a start, she realized three things:
The world around her was astonishingly white. Seriously. It hurt her eyes.
There was a red, blocky, faceless construct in front of her, with its shoulder blown to pieces.
There was a gun in her hands.
Taylor looked at the gun, and then back at the man, and then her gun. Did she...did she kill this man? She took a step backwards, and realized the man fell backwards, slowly. Very slowly. Almost like he was paused in a video game.
She stumbled around the crumbling man, who burst into red shards when he hit the floor. Taylor took a single step into the hallway of ‒ the factory? There were a lot of pipes and things, so she would call it a factory for now ‒ the factory, bright white words with a darkened background appeared in front of her.
TIME MOVES
ONLY WHEN
YOU MOVE
Taylor blinked. She should probably be crying right now, after somehow killing that poor man, but she wasn't. Was it shock? Taylor read about shock, how it would wear on while people in traumatic situations were doing something stressful. This definitely counted as stressful, and she was stressed, and, and, and‒
Taylor vigorously shook her head. This was not the time to ramble. This was the time to move.
Taylor walked down the hall at an even pace, watching through the windows as another red construct with a gun in hand raced down to meet her. She aimed her gun, and pulled the trigger. She was astounded at the lack of recoil, and even more so at how to bullet crashed through two windows and embedded itself in the construct's head, blowing it two pieces. She should be feeling something by now, but wasn't. Taylor could figure that out later. First she needed to survive.
Another construct rounded the corner facing her. Taylor stopped, mid-step, with an amazing amount of balance, hanging forward mid-step but not falling. She observed the man in front of her. Another typical construct, gun in hand, aimed at her. The gun was slowly raised, and she realized that although she was standing still, other parts of her were involuntarily moving: her circulatory system, her lungs, her eyelids to blink. So time wasn't perfectly still; just slowed down enough. Taylor's foot landed, and she fired at her opponent, just when it did.
KILL
Her gun's nozzle erupted in light.
THEM
She saw a quickly moving red streak approaching her.
ALL
She sidestepped it, watching in amazement as the bullet streaked by her at the speed of a dejected hobo. She almost wanted to pluck it out of the air, but it would probably take her fingers off first. Taylor watched the outgoing bullet puncture the construct's chest, it shattering into millions of pieces. Words began flashing on screen.
SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT.
Then the world changed. She was back at the beginning, but it was darker around her. She tried moving, but found she was unable to. Taylor watched her dispatches again and realized this was a replay, but in real time. "Let's do it again," Taylor voiced. She wanted to see if she could find any secrets in the game about what this simulator type thing was.
The world blacked out again, and she was back at the beginning. Quickly, she walked away from the pre-destroyed construct, and moved down the hall. She shot the corner where the last one would walk around, and the program literally walked into the bullet. She reached the end of the hallway into the open area as the last construct turned the corner. Last time, the level ended when she killed everyone, so…
Taylor tried chucking the gun at the construct, both amazed and unsurprised as it perfectly sailed into the construct's face. Taylor grabbed the gun out of the distracted construct, and punched it in the face again.
While the beaten construct temporarily backed off. There weren't many places to go, but there was a railing to her right. She jumped onto it, higher than she had before. Apparently, she was super athletic here. She walked across the railing, around a pipe to her right, to see a large, undetailed block to jump on. Taylor jumped across with ease, and walked off the edge, landing with a crouch.
She looked upwards at the construct, who was looking for her. Good. It didn't know she was down here.
Taylor looked around. One way was a big wall, so that was an automatic dead end. There was another path with an unmarked sign in front of it, that lead to an empty edge with railings in front of it. She strolled over, and peeked downwards. There was nothing, an empty void. Taylor scooted away, not wanting to fall.
She walked down the last path, which led under the walkway she was previously standing on. There was a desk, some assorted pipes, and...a terminal?
Taylor observed the terminal. It was a simple thing, attached to the wall with a keyboard. Black text with a white background scrolled across the screen. She tried pressing keys, including "ENTER" and "ESC", but nothing worked.
"Damn it!" Taylor shouted. "Work!" In frustration, she threw the gun at the screen.
The gun bounced off the screen, but must've caused something in the machine to activate, because the text turned to light red, like the constructs, but with a dark, blood red background. Taylor blinked, and pressed the "ENTER" key. guruCHAT popped open. A red textbox appeared where someone else would write.
YOU FOUND A SECRET. YOU MAY ASK ONE QUESTION.
Submitting herself to this programmed messages, she pressed Q five times. What came up was:
qqqqq
Taylor stared at the screen, face breaking out into a smile. She could type! She deleted the message, before typing out her question:
Where am I?
The response was slow, but it was an actual answer. Taylor read:
YOU ARE IN "superhot exe". THIS IS A SIMULATION DESIGNED TO MAKE YOU TAKE YOUR TIME AND SHAPE THE WAY YOU THINK. BE GLAD. NOT EVEN ALEXANDRIA GOT A TUTORIAL ON HOW TO USE HER POWERS.
Taylor reread that last line. "Powers?" she whispered aloud before the screen popped up with a new message.
‒‒‒CHAT‒ENDED‒‒‒
And then everything faded to black.
[A/N]: HELLO! Sorry I haven't been around lately. School started up, and I'm a junior. This is the big grade, when everything I do matters. I've been trying to do a compromise of school, relaxing time, and writing, and my lovely beta, Mysterymuffin2, is the one who managed to get me off my lazy ass and get this chapter out! So, let's have a round of applause for him!
But seriously though? School is a nightmare. AP Calculus, English, and Chemistry. US History H, Creative Writing, Digital Design, and Intro to Engineering Design. Not to mention the club's I'll join or have to join. And some days, my weekends will be filled with going to school (ON SATURDAY) and doing chemistry work. Busy life, busy me. But don't worry! I'm trying my best to upload! Maybe I'll even give myself a schedule eventually! (Nope)
But seriously, here is the newest chapter for Pure Shot. I have three things to say about this story: Taylor WILL work for Cauldron; 'Pure Shot' is actually an anagram for 'Super Hot'; and no, those pervs that came here, Taylor is not going to be doing shit like that. SuperHot is the name of the videogame this is a crossover with, sheesh. Get your minds out of the gutter.
That's all for now folks! Hope to see you soon!
~Slenderbrine