Chapter 2 : And I Saw

Yokohama, Japan

Sunday, November 6, 2002, 12:05 AM

Yumi pushed her way through the front door, trying not to knock it down. She ran up the steps into her room, looking for the annoying pipsqueak, Takayuki. Who also happens to be her little brother. Who knows what'll happen if he got his grubby little hands on her NerveGear...

Yumi closed the door behind her. She walked to the closet and slowly opened the slide door. She only saw her wardrobe. Yumi sighed in relief.

Okay, the coast's clear.

Yumi shrugged off her backpack and put it on her bed. She looked around her room. Yumi was in art class, so she often painted the walls. She'd painted the ceiling with a picture of the night sky. Her PC was softly humming across the bedroom, in the corner. Along the wide side of the wall on the other side, a 24" flat screen was off, reflecting the room. And just outside her window was her grand Hanging Garden. She'd planted some bamboo and orchids when she was nine, and they always set the mood.

A yawn slipped her lips, and she realized she was drifting to sleep. She patted both sides of her cheeks. Not yet! Not until I setup my NerveGear and try out the game!

Yumi lopped off to the bathroom and turned on the faucet. She washed her face and hair, working fast but making sure not to rush too fast. She wrapped her hair in a towel and looked at herself. She was average height. Yumi had light, purple hair with sunlit streaks in it and golden brown eyes. She also had a faint spotting of freckles across her nose.

A lavender lock drooped onto the middle of her face. She blew it to the side.

She pulled off the towl, hung it, went back into her room and to her backpack. She fumbled, pulling out the box. She stared at the cover. A giant castle hung in the sky. She'd done some researching on it on her PC. The castle was called Aincrad. Sword Art Online was created by Akihiko Kayaba, a big shot in the gaming industry. He'd designed the Cardinal System, the program that ran Sword Art Online, and NerveGear, fulldive technology.

Yumi ran to her PC and opened the box, opening the CD drive and putting the game in. She quickly set up the game and made an account. Then she put on the NerveGear. Then she saw a tutorial. She followed the instructions, touching herself on specific parts of her body. When she was done, Yumi yelled out, "Link, START!"

Yumi saw colors shoot past her and she felt, for a moment, as if she were falling into the center of those colors. Then a language configuration appeared. She selected Japanese. Then after another window disappeared, something came up.

Would you like to create a new character?

She looked over the options and found the yes button. She was startled when a character popped up with options. Yumi saw the Name Character button. Yumi thought of it for a while, then put in Akira. Yumi's mother had a sister who died three months after she was born. She had been called Akira, which meant "bright", or "clear".

Yumi found the Done button and tried that eye thing she did earlier. A soft blue light flooded the screen and she felt the ground lurch beneath her.