It was Friday afternoon, and Cindy Vortex had just arrived home from school, feeling particularly exhausted, as today had been the host to a "Show and Tell" session, in which Jimmy had managed to set their classroom on fire.
She traipsed up the stairs to her bedroom, dropped her bag to the floor, and fell down onto her bed, happily breathing in the weekend air, smiling.
This weekend, she thought, was going to be particularly fun, as tomorrow night, she, Libby, Jimmy, Sheen and Carl were going to a concert together. Libby had won five tickets for a dance routine she had choreographed, and had begged and pleaded until her parents agreed to let her take four friends, instead of three and an adult.
"But Libby," Cindy protested, "Why Nerdtron and his Merry Band of Dweebs? We could have asked ANYONE!" she threw her arms out in despair.
"Look girl, these are MY tickets, I'll chose who I want to come with me. Jimmy's gotten us out of a lot of tight corners-"
"That he got us into!" Cindy interjected angrily.
"He's gotten us out of tight corners all the same though. He's saved our lives so many times! This is a good way to pay him back!" Libby explained. "Plus, I think you and Jimmy make a cute couple." She added in an undertone.
"What was that?" Cindy asked, glaring at Libby.
"Nothing, nothing…But they're going."
"Okay, I can see why you asked Jimmy, and I can see why you asked Sheen, but I still don't see why you asked Carl! You could have asked Nick, or anybo-"
"Seriously girl, aren't you through trying to make Jimmy jealous yet?" Libby asked, raising an eyebrow teasingly.
"What? I'm not trying to make Jimmy jealous," Cindy began, flustered, "As IF I'd ever want to do anything like that, honestly Libby, I have no idea what you're talking about!" Cindy finished with a nervous giggle, as Libby smirked.
"Well whatever. Those guys are coming, like it or not." Libby said firmly.
Cindy smiled again, feeling a slight blush rise on her cheeks.
She leapt to her feet in one motion, and walked over to the computer, in the corner of her room, by the window. She hit the power switch, and the screen flickered on, as the computer began to load up.
Across the street, she could see Jimmy doing a similar thing- he even looked out the window, and when he caught her gaze, he pulled a face, and turned away.
Cindy was brought back out of her daze by the computer beeping loudly, to show that it had loaded.
She opened an internet frame, and logged into her favourite website. It was relatively new- only a few months old- and it was a role playing adventure game site.
Her character's name was Harmonica, and she had long, metallic-purple hair, emerald green eyes, shiny, tight-fitting cat suit, and always carried a mandolin and a samurai sword with her.
She was rather proud of her character- she had taken a lot of programming and scripting, and because of that, a lot of newer characters thought that she was one of the site administrators, as she didn't have the basic mould of the characters.
She had been a member of the site for the past month or so, and throughout that time she had made several friends, but the best of which was another well scripted character, 976/J. She knew that 976/J was a male character, but not much else about him.
Cindy checked the list of other players online, and she felt her heart judder slightly. He wasn't there.
Ah well, she thought to herself, I'll talk to him when he gets on.
In the meantime, she decided to trek through the forest, and try to find some dark creatures to slay. She only needed seven more points before she would become a "Dragon Tamer" player, the next level up in the game, and one that very few people had achieved.
As she delved deeper into the forest, she heard something up ahead. It sounded like… Crying.
She walked on, advancing towards the source, until she found a small, plain person crying on the ground. In this game, whenever you were defeated by a creature, your character would cry on the spot where they were defeated, until somebody else came along to ask what was wrong.
Harmonica pulled the new character to their feet. Cindy checked the screen name of the character- Darryn.
"What's wrong?" Cindy typed into the chat box, speaking aloud as she did so.
"A dragon. It tried to kill me, and I don't have a weapon!" Darryn replied after an infuriatingly long wait for Cindy. Darryn was obviously a slow typist.
"Okay, you're new, you shouldn't come into these forests alone, especially without a weapon." Cindy replied, "Which way did the dragon go?" She asked.
"I don't know. Thank you." And with that, Darryn ran off.
Cindy sighed audibly- new players were often very annoying.
She heard a stirring up ahead, and an all-too-familiar snort that Darryn obviously wasn't used to.
Harmonica gripped her sword tighter, and ambled forwards to the source of the snort, and found herself facing a Texan Longjaw. Texan Longjaws were created by one of the administrators in Texas, and had particularly big mouths, with extra sharp and pointy teeth, that hurt a heck of a lot if they pierced you.
Texan Longjaws could not be called nice dragons, or easy dragons to deal with, but Harmonica had faced several of these before, and had defeated all of them to date, and Cindy knew that there were bigger challenges out there.
Cindy flexed her fingers, before placing them lightly on top of all the keys on her keyboard that gave the command for Harmonica to attack.
The dragon saw Harmonica, and Cindy could see the purple hair reflected in it's big, red eye. It snorted again, and this time, a lot of fire accompanied the snort, but Cindy was ready.
She hit the "up" button, and Harmonica jumped gracefully into the air.
She hit another button, and Harmonica changed position in midair- she had originally been the right way up, feet landing first- but Cindy wanted her the other way, sword first, down on the Longjaw's neck. Harmonica's sword made contact with the Longjaw's neck with a sickening squelch that made Cindy's stomach squirm, and silver blood flew everywhere, even on Harmonica herself.
The dragon lay still, beaten, and Cindy couldn't help but smile, as three points were added to her total.
Only four more points to go.
As Harmonica rolled in the grass, to try to wipe off the blood splattered across herself and her clothes, Cindy heard another rustling noise, which stopped promptly as Cindy made Harmonica jump to her feet, sword held high.
A text box appeared on the screen…
