It turns out that I have nothing better to do, so I've written this early. This is a story following up on the Terry waking up thing from .hackVIRUS. It will bridge the events of the first story to its sequel. So, have fun reading! Also, based in the real world. Not the game.And I can't get the line insert to work, so wherever the word SPACE is, just know that it counts as that line.
Rain
She was falling, falling down a tunnel of darkness. She screamed, but it seemed to go unanswered. Her eyes were pinched shut, but if they weren't, she wouldn't have known the difference.
A cruel voice laughed somewhere, and she was suddenly surrounded by a harsh blue light. The light encased her, and she began to forget. She forgot everything, her friends, who she was, and only one dark name was burned into her head. A name for evil. Varuchio. She screamed and-
REALITY
-And she sat up in her bed. She was soaked in sweat, and it made her bangs stick to her forehead. It was only a nightmare.
The same nightmare I've had for two weeks, now, she thought.
Rain splattered wildly on the window to the left of her bed. Her room was full of dolls and cute little trinkets. All of it was foreign to her. A small cat sleeping on top of her dark blue blanket opened one tired eye as it sensed the hurried footsteps on the plush carpeting of the outside hall.
"Terry!" cried a woman in a pink fuzzy bathrobe. She had long dark hair like hers and was young. She looked so old, though. She was only thirty-two, but seemed ancient. The man standing next to her claimed that she had been under a lot of stress lately. The woman's name was Kate.
"Are you alright?" asked the man next to Kate. He had equally dark hair that was short and spiked up. He wore a short sleeve shirt and under-shorts. He claimed his name was Dave. Both claimed to be her parents, but she had no way to know. One week ago, she awoke from a coma in the hospital with no memory; that is, except for her name. She knew that it was Terry. "What made you scream?"
Did I scream? She couldn't remember. That didn't seem to be her strong suit, remembering. "I'm not sure," was all she managed to mumble.
"Was it another nightmare?" asked Kate in a soothing voice.
"Yeah, must've been," Terry said dismissively. She tried to avoid these conversations because she knew where they would lead. To her relief, her "mother" dropped the topic to get her "daughter" a glass of water. She wasn't so lucky, however, with Dave. Once he heard the soft treading of Kate's feet going down stairs, he walked over to her bed and stared deep into her eyes.
"Do you…" he began. He was definitely feeling awkward asking the same question again, but definitely not as much as Terry. "Remember…anything else?"
Terry sighed. "No, I really don't, Dave." she said flatly. She didn't really like the conversation they were having. "Actually, I'm kind of tired, so…"
"Oh," said Dave in an understanding way. "I'll let you get some sleep." Before she could say anything along the lines of "Thanks," he had left the room, and closed the door. Terry soon drifted into a dreamless sleep, and the cat let its head fall onto the soft bed. Terry never heard the boom of thunder, or the squeal of breaks as a CC Corp. van slowed to look at her home.
SPACE
The cat raised its head about five minutes after the man had left. It was hungry, and although it was past midnight, it didn't care. It had no sleep pattern. After licking its paw for a while, it leaped off the bed.
It quietly stalked across the floor, until it reached a closed door. It pawed at the bottom, trying to find a way to reach its food. It stopped to sniff the door, and recoiled its head as it felt the door begin to open. It was the woman, the big one, and it ran out behind her.
The carpeting was soft on its paws. It reached the smooth tile kitchen floor, and searched for its food. It was found in the corner, and it began to crunch the hard kibbles with its jaw.
By the time the cat finished, the big woman had gone back into her room, and closed the door. It stopped to lick its paws in front of the door, and began to hear that strange language again that they used to talk to it.
"Why can't she remember?" asked a male voice.
"We just have to give her time," responded a female voice.
"Two weeks isn't enough to at least remember that we're her parents?"
"It all depends on the mind-!" the female was cut off.
"Don't go pulling your psychiatrist stuff! Not even you can know what made her go into that damn coma! Don't you dare even try to tell me it was that game?!"
"No one knows what really happened except for her, and she can't remember anything."
"She called me by my name!"
"Huh?"
"She doesn't even call me 'daddy' anymore! We used to be so close…then all this happened! Now its like she's drifting further and further away from us,"
"We have only one choice, and that is to give her time."
The conversation seemed to have ended around the time the cat finished cleaning itself. It was getting bored anyway. Time to go to sleep again. It jumped up the stairs, and saw that the girl's door was closed again. It decided to sleep out on the carpet of the second floor.
SPACE
The next day seemed to match Terry's mood. The rain still hadn't let up. She pushed herself out of bed, aware that it was around the time that most of the kids her age were to go to school. She stood by the window, and watched the teenagers go to the high school down the street. She herself had been a freshman before this whole thing started.
Great, just what I need. More attention focused at me. I was already left alone. They all thought I was weird, except for Claire.
She clapped her hand over her mouth. She was actually starting to remember. But who was Claire?
After deciding that Claire must have been a friend, she showered and got dressed before heading down to breakfast. Dave asked the same question he always did when she reached the table. She could guarantee that he wasn't expecting the answer he got this morning.
"Do you remember anything…at all?" he asked gently.
"Actually, yes." At her words, Dave jumped up from the table and ran over to her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently.
"What?!" he demanded. "What do you remember?!"
"Dave!" scolded Kate. "Stop shaking her so hard, you'll make her forget it!"
Kate stood up and walked over to Dave. She pried him off of Terry, and began to talk to her gently. "What is it you remember, sweetie?" Terry stared uneasily for a few minutes, trying to recover herself from the violent shaking. "It's okay, whenever you want to tell us,"
Dave looked like he was about to explode with anger. He wanted the facts now! He wasn't as patient as Kate. Terry saw this, and slowly began to speak. "I remember school," her parents were waiting for the rest. "And…Claire."
Again, her "father" jumped up. "You remember her? The girl you were friends with? Want me to call her over?"
"Wait!" pleaded Terry as he reached for the phone. "Only what her name was, and that she was my friend. I don't remember who she is."
"Dave," said Karen in a commanding tone. "She isn't ready for all this pressure, give her some time and she'll remember."
"Excuse me, Karen?" began Terry. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to go for a walk."
"But it's raining!" gasped Karen.
"I'll bring a coat," she responded tonelessly.
"All…all right." she responded after a while. Terry grabbed her coat off the coat rack, and walked out of the house silently, leaving her breakfast.
SPACE
The park she finally stopped walking in was gloomy, and depressing, much like her mood. Why couldn't she remember anything? Why was it so hard? There was a soft tinkle to her left.
When she turned her head, she saw a young man pushing an old-fashioned hot dog cart down a sidewalk off in the distance. It looked like he was depressed that it had rained on a day he wanted to sell on. The tinkle had come from the bell fastened on the handle bar to attract customers. It was stupid really, to have believed that sales would be any better if it wasn't raining. Those hot dogs were disgusting.
I remembered something else. He mood lifted, and sank again all to quickly like a roller coaster. Another useless piece of info.
She sighed heavily, and slumped her shoulders. Why couldn't she just have woken up knowing everything?
A twig snapped.
Terry did a sharp one-eighty and caught sight of a young man only a few feet behind her. She felt herself go numb, and immediately screamed.
"Wha? No, wait-uf…" The man started to speak, but Terry quickly kicked him in the stomach. The wind was most likely knocked out of him. She ran.
She ran up the steps of the damp park, and made a quick right towards he house. She ran as fast as she could, and didn't stop to see if the man was actually chasing her. She eventually made it to he house, and slammed the front door when she was in.
What had that mans intensions been? Was he a friend, or an enemy? The worst part of it all was that he had a familiar feel around him. Like he had done something evil once. Terry felt her brown eyes begin to water, and she fell onto the floor with her knees curled up to her head, and her back resting against the door. She hugged her knees, and began to sob heavily.
"Why can't I remember?" she asked no one, and cried even harder.
SPACE
When she finally was feeling better, she went to get some food. Just a little something to eat while she tried to make heads or tails of the guy she saw in the park. As she reached the fridge, she found a note that also answered why no one had come to see who was crying uncontrollably in Kate and Dave's front hall.
Dear Terry,
Dave and I are going to buy some things for the house. We should be back by five or so. I left some food in the fridge for you to eat (it's clearly labeled). Just be sure to clean up any mess you might make. I made your bed for you and put your old TV back in your room in case you wanted to watch something while you were lying down. I haven't gotten the cable set up again yet. That'll take some time. Just wait a little while, okay? I wasn't to sure about leaving you all alone, but Dave insisted that you'd be fine. If you want, you and I could go to the mall a little later and buy some cloths or something. I know you used to love doing that. Do you still? I'm just not sure. Oh! Look at me! I'm rambling on and on. You just relax for a little while. Hope you feel better soon.
Love,
Mom.
"She means Kate," Terry said quietly. She pried open the steel fridge, and stared blankly at a pretty much empty fridge. The only contents were a few packages of lunchmeat and ketchup with a slip of paper that read 'Terry' on it. These people really waited till the last second to buy their stuff.
Terry pulled the cold meat out of the fridge with the ketchup and a pack of sliced cheese that she found under the meat. She sprawled her ingredients across the island counter in the middle of her kitchen where she ate. A quick inspection of the cabinets gave her bread.
As she began to pile the meat onto the bread, she heard a noise that made her freeze. It was the front door opening. Were Kate and Dave back already? No, they couldn't be, it was only three. Was it that man she'd seen in the park? Had he really followed her to her home and waited a while to enter it? She began to panic. She slowly rounded the corner into the living room. Through another wall and she was in the front hall. She peered around the staircase-
"Meow!"
-And sighed with relief as she saw the cat working its way through the pet door that was installed for it. The rain most have caused the pet door to make a quieter version of the front door open. She must've mistaken it for the front door. She took a deep breath, and returned to her sandwich.
SPACE
Kate had been right. The TV didn't have cable, and it was incredibly boring without it. Terry flipped from channel to channel, taking bite after bite of her sandwich, and, after finding that nothing was on, she settled on news. The newscaster began talking about boring stock drops, and Terry thought she was going to fall asleep.
Suddenly another newscaster came on, declaring he had breaking news.
"-And as we investigated the CC Corporation's shocking declaration of a staff member committing suicide, which has nothing to do with a 'foolish game', in their words, we discovered something terrible. The staff member died of unknown circumstances, and as we've been trying to figure out why, we discovered that a strange virus had actually taken over his body, and caused it to shutdown. This virus is believed to be the same one that caused the players of "The World", a massively popular game, to slip into comas.
"The workers name was Varuchio Zespugo-,"
Terry screamed, and fell on the floor. She didn't know why, but that name hurt. It caused her to collapse on the floor of her room with her head in her hands. The name was like a lost dream; or more like a lost nightmare. She began to cry again, out of agony. Who was this man?
She finally regained control of herself, and saw that her cat was eating her sandwich, which she had knocked off her bed. She pushed herself off the ground, and heard a sound like the door closing again; but the cat was with her and it was only three-fifty.
She shook her head. It wasn't the man from the park. Kate and Dave were just home early. She pushed open her door, and hiked down the steps to greet her parents after wiping away the last of the tears.
"Welcome ba-!" Her mouth opened in horror. It was the man from the park. He had followed her to her house. He had just waited for the right time to come in. He caught sight of her, and Terry felt like he was going to kill her.
SPACE
Steve pushed open the front door to the house, and heard a soft voice.
"Welcome ba-!"
The voice stopped, and Steve looked up to see a young girl of around fourteen standing on top of the staircase right in front of him. She looked terrified to see him. The man gave a small laugh under his breath. If anyone should've been terrified, it should be him! That kick to the gut left a nasty bruise on his abdomen.
The girl turned and ran down the upstairs hall. Steve knew he had to talk to her. After what he'd done, the least he could do was have the girl hear him out. He hiked calmly up the carpeted steps, and looked for the door to her room. They were all closed. He pushed open the one in front of him, and found a bathroom.
Chuckling to himself, and moved to the second door, and pushed it open. It was definitely the girl's room. He looked around for a place that she could've hid, and settled on the closet. He walked over to it, and pushed open the finished oak doors.
SPACE
Terry ran into her room, and slammed the door. She had to find a place to hide from him. She heard his calm footsteps echo through the door of her room. They were as creepy as a serial killer's in a movie.
She ran into her closet, and softly closed the door, when she heard laughing. Maybe it was just her imagination, but it sounded psychotic. A little later, she heard the door of her room open.
"Oh please don't look in the closet," she whispered to herself. Wasn't it her luck that the closet door opened only seconds later? As she cursed herself for not finding a better hiding spot, he caught sight of her. She hid her head, and waited for him to kill her.
"Wait a second. You don't have a reason to be scared. I'm harmless," said the man. Terry wanted to laugh at him.
"Do harmless people sneak up on people in the park?" Terry asked with anger in her voice.
"I was on the other side of the park, saw you, and just walked up to you. I had to talk to you," he responded coolly.
"Do they burst into other peoples houses and try to 'talk' to little girls they don't know?" Terry blurted out.
"Alright. You have me on the house thing, but I do know you. I worked for your uncle," he said.
"My uncle?" asked Terry.
"Yeah, and all I came her to do was ask you a few questions, and explain some stuff to you. I know you don't remember anything, but can you at least give me a chance to explain myself?" said the man.
"Harmless people usually introduce themselves first,"
"My name's Steve."
"Alright," said Terry reluctantly. He did seem nice, and he didn't seem to hostile, but Terry would still be cautious. She climbed out of the closet. "One Chance."
FLASHBACK
A man reached out to Terry and clasped her shoulder. He had a cold voice, and looked like he was trying his hardest to be nice.
"Would you like that? Would you like to play "The World" at my work place? CC Corp.?" asked the man.
"Well" began Terry. "Alright. Just for a little while,"
"Perfect," said the man. "See you in a little while, Dave,"
Dave nodded, and they began to leave, but Dave grabbed on to the man's arm. "Be careful," began Dave. "I've heard something's happening on that game."
"Oh, we will," said the man, and then smiled.
"Just be careful, Varuchio."
END
There's the first chapter! This book isn't that long, so it'll only be a little while before I start the true sequel. Please Review! And sorry if you don't like the type of story it is. You can always wait until the actual sequel comes out and read that.
