CHAPTER 3
After a night of very little sleep, I get out of bed to discover that
school was closed because of a heavy amount of snow from last night.
I was ecstatic, jubilant, happy beyond words. No torment for me
today. I was free of beatings, being stuffed in lockers, and of name
calling. Well, at least for today. I ran downstairs to find that my
parents were staying home from work. I was hoping they would leave so
I could have the house and day to myself, but my parents being home
was a minor detail. I opened the kitchen cupboards to pick out my
favorite cereal, but none was to be found. I, instead, ate a lesser
brand of cereal which, at least, wasn't as bad as the oatmeal crap I
had eaten last week.
After breakfast, I took a peek outside the front door to make sure
that there was no one outside that would bother me as my neighbours
were quite disapproving of my computer-dork lifestyle. They always
mentioned to my parents to make me take up a sport to keep fit. I
appreciated the fact that they were concerned about my mental and
physical health, but I was quite content with playing computer games
most of my days, so I also appreciated it when they didn't talk about
me at all.
I made sure that the coast was clear and I made a dash for my family's
mailbox. I opened the hatch and poked in my fingers to haul out any
mail we were sent. Today, however, there was no mail for us. We
usually received a lot of mail from relatives and my parents were
business oriented people, so they usually received mail from clients
everyday.
I closed the hatch and looked around at the quiet street and the
unactive line of houses. The streets were oddly empty. It's a snow
day and there are no children playing outside, no adults shovelling,
and the strangest thing of all is that I saw a kite fly by twice. The
exact same kite, floating in the sky. This was odd because most sane
people don't fly kites in winter and people usually don't see that
same kite fly by right after the other. I thought it to be weird and
rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't going cross-eyed and seeing
doubles. I just shrugged it off and went back inside. I didn't give
any thought to it for the rest of the day.
**********
I booted-up my computer, watching all the lines of text confirming the
proper performance of my computer scroll by. I put the VR headgear on
and moved the cursor over to a nicely designed icon called "Matrix
Warrior V.4 Start". I clicked it and let my computer go into standby
mode and watched as my VR screen filled up with the usual title
screen. I pressed the enter key on my computer and let the matrix
adventure begin. I was relieved to find that "DataAngel" was online
today. I opened a private chat with him and asked him why he was not
online last time. All he said was:
"Computer games are not the only important things in my life. I have
more important business to take care of every so often."
I didn't ask him any more questions for the rest of the day as I felt
embarassed about asking such a stupid question. I should have thought
that he had other things to do in his life as well. I just kept my
character close to him if I ever needed help.
After a few hours of playing, I logged-off to be plagued by that
annoying error screen that asks me if I want to take the blue pill or
red pill. I figured that if I chose a pill, it would stop asking me.
I chose the red pill before the time limit ran out and another screen
appeared saying:
"Prepare to go down the rabbit hole..."
Suddenly, I felt a heaviness come over me like a 200 pound person
jumped on me. I felt weak and almost lost my breakfast. I drifted in
and out of consiousness until I couldn't keep myself together. I feel
onto the floor and everything went black.
**********
I awoke with a jolt and suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of
sickness. I felt mal-nutritioned, as if I had been fed something dead
or something I normally wouldn't eat that my body couldn't handle. I
tried to move my head only to be caught by what felt like thick Jell-
O. It hurt to open my eyes, but I used what strength I had to open
them, and what I saw made my blood cold. Appearing in front of me was
a creature I had never seen before. I looked mechanical, but I
couldn't tell with the purple goo all around me. The creature seemed
to have spider-like legs and it made beeps and clicks, and other
robotic sounds. I thought I was in a bad dream. It was just like
what happened to Neo. I thought I was having crazy dreams from
watching the movie too much. This, however, felt too real to be a
dream. I opened my mouth to let out what would have been a blood
curdiling scream, but the goo blocked the noise. I felt another rush
of sickness and I lost consiousness again. As I fell back into
darkness, I remembered having a strange feeling that I was finally
where I was supposed to
be................................................in the real world.
After a night of very little sleep, I get out of bed to discover that
school was closed because of a heavy amount of snow from last night.
I was ecstatic, jubilant, happy beyond words. No torment for me
today. I was free of beatings, being stuffed in lockers, and of name
calling. Well, at least for today. I ran downstairs to find that my
parents were staying home from work. I was hoping they would leave so
I could have the house and day to myself, but my parents being home
was a minor detail. I opened the kitchen cupboards to pick out my
favorite cereal, but none was to be found. I, instead, ate a lesser
brand of cereal which, at least, wasn't as bad as the oatmeal crap I
had eaten last week.
After breakfast, I took a peek outside the front door to make sure
that there was no one outside that would bother me as my neighbours
were quite disapproving of my computer-dork lifestyle. They always
mentioned to my parents to make me take up a sport to keep fit. I
appreciated the fact that they were concerned about my mental and
physical health, but I was quite content with playing computer games
most of my days, so I also appreciated it when they didn't talk about
me at all.
I made sure that the coast was clear and I made a dash for my family's
mailbox. I opened the hatch and poked in my fingers to haul out any
mail we were sent. Today, however, there was no mail for us. We
usually received a lot of mail from relatives and my parents were
business oriented people, so they usually received mail from clients
everyday.
I closed the hatch and looked around at the quiet street and the
unactive line of houses. The streets were oddly empty. It's a snow
day and there are no children playing outside, no adults shovelling,
and the strangest thing of all is that I saw a kite fly by twice. The
exact same kite, floating in the sky. This was odd because most sane
people don't fly kites in winter and people usually don't see that
same kite fly by right after the other. I thought it to be weird and
rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't going cross-eyed and seeing
doubles. I just shrugged it off and went back inside. I didn't give
any thought to it for the rest of the day.
**********
I booted-up my computer, watching all the lines of text confirming the
proper performance of my computer scroll by. I put the VR headgear on
and moved the cursor over to a nicely designed icon called "Matrix
Warrior V.4 Start". I clicked it and let my computer go into standby
mode and watched as my VR screen filled up with the usual title
screen. I pressed the enter key on my computer and let the matrix
adventure begin. I was relieved to find that "DataAngel" was online
today. I opened a private chat with him and asked him why he was not
online last time. All he said was:
"Computer games are not the only important things in my life. I have
more important business to take care of every so often."
I didn't ask him any more questions for the rest of the day as I felt
embarassed about asking such a stupid question. I should have thought
that he had other things to do in his life as well. I just kept my
character close to him if I ever needed help.
After a few hours of playing, I logged-off to be plagued by that
annoying error screen that asks me if I want to take the blue pill or
red pill. I figured that if I chose a pill, it would stop asking me.
I chose the red pill before the time limit ran out and another screen
appeared saying:
"Prepare to go down the rabbit hole..."
Suddenly, I felt a heaviness come over me like a 200 pound person
jumped on me. I felt weak and almost lost my breakfast. I drifted in
and out of consiousness until I couldn't keep myself together. I feel
onto the floor and everything went black.
**********
I awoke with a jolt and suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of
sickness. I felt mal-nutritioned, as if I had been fed something dead
or something I normally wouldn't eat that my body couldn't handle. I
tried to move my head only to be caught by what felt like thick Jell-
O. It hurt to open my eyes, but I used what strength I had to open
them, and what I saw made my blood cold. Appearing in front of me was
a creature I had never seen before. I looked mechanical, but I
couldn't tell with the purple goo all around me. The creature seemed
to have spider-like legs and it made beeps and clicks, and other
robotic sounds. I thought I was in a bad dream. It was just like
what happened to Neo. I thought I was having crazy dreams from
watching the movie too much. This, however, felt too real to be a
dream. I opened my mouth to let out what would have been a blood
curdiling scream, but the goo blocked the noise. I felt another rush
of sickness and I lost consiousness again. As I fell back into
darkness, I remembered having a strange feeling that I was finally
where I was supposed to
be................................................in the real world.