The full moon was shining a bright white in the star filled night sky which hung above me as I walked through the dusty dirt footpath which trailed through the forest of gargantuan pine trees which hid the sky and its many lights from reaching the shadowed ground. My boots kicked up a small puff of dust as they fell silently along the bone dry and silhouetted ground and snapped the occasional twig which seemed to be as loud as a falling branch in this dark silence that had enveloped the forest around me. However I soon came to the opening out of the forest which was illuminated by the glowing full moon above and with the dark green pine canopy now behind me the thousands of shining stars were now visible in all their ancient and grand glory, however even the beauty of the night sky was spoiled by the thought that none of it existed and was nothing but a computer generated texture created to fool us.
Ahead of me up a slight hill I could see the soft glow of lights shining through the drawn curtains of my house, at first this worried me that the lights were on, but I quickly remembered that Sky was now living with me in the house and the lights must mean that she was home, not surprising considering the late hour. As I began walking towards the house and up the small hill I opened my inventory and took out a small silver key which I quickly opened the door with as I reached the house. As I opened the door I could hear the sound of a guitar playing a slow and soft melody coming from the front room. I quietly closed the front door and walked down the dark hallway towards the front room with the sound of my footsteps absorbed by the carpet.
When I reached the door I looked in and saw Sky sitting down on the dark red fabric sofa facing away from the door playing a light brown acoustic guitar and humming out a slow tune in time with her guitar chords, she did this with a lone lamp lighting the room. I stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall, as she skilfully played out the song which strangely echoed through the house. However not long after I started listening she stopped playing mid note and turned around to see me standing in the doorway, she had a look of someone caught breaking the rules by a teacher.
"How long have you been home and why were you out so late?" She asks me quickly as she swiftly puts her guitar down on the floor, leaning it up against the sofa.
"I've been in for a couple of minutes and I was out late working on some important stuff down at the forge. And I never knew you could play guitar that well." I answer her questions in an indifferent tone but then went on to praise her skills with admiration. As I spoke I walked over and around the sofa to sit down next to Sky.
"Yer, I used to play guitar back in the real world and its literally the same in this world except for a dammed music skill which seems intent on stopping me playing well or anything like how I used to play." She said slowly but with annoyance clear in her voice.
"Honestly what I just heard of you sounded amazing, much better than anything that I could do at least." I say sincerely remembering my track record with instruments and musical programs from my time back in school.
At that she gave a small laugh and said. "Yer, I Aurora told me about your attempts at playing a guitar a while ago."
"I can play better in the real world, but yes that attempt was... yer pretty shocking I must say." I say with a smile as I thought of the time where Aurora had thrown the guitar out of the upstairs window of Andrew's house due to the shocking noise that I was creating while trying to play a simple song. That's when I realised that I knew nothing of Sky's past, yet I lived with her, fought with her, shared experiences with her yet knew nothing of her. "So were you a musician of some sort back in the real world?"
She looked down at her guitar and began speaking. "Back in the real world I was a normal person really, still at school with a good amount of friends and with music and design technology being my favourite and best subjects. I had been learning to play guitar since like 7 years old, so I was one of the best in the year when it came to practical music grades. Back then my family wasn't very rich so when they first announced the nerve gear I knew that there was no way that my parents could get it for me. So I took up a job at friend's parent's garage where I worked fixing cars and the odd bike, then in my spare time I was out with my guitar busking. I saved up all of this money that I had been earning solely to buy a nerve gear system and to get one of the 10,000 copies of Sword Art Online. I had the game pre-ordered, so when it came out it was waiting at home in a parcel after I had got home from school. I pushed it in logged in and that's my story for coming into this world." She ended her short recount of her time before Aincrad in a sad voice, obviously missing her life outside of the virtual world. "But what about you then? Knowing you its got to be interesting or dead boring." she asked with interest.
Knowing that I would have to eventually recall my life before the game so without much hesitation I began. "My life was pretty boring back then, nothing out of the usual happened and nothing particularly special happened in my life, until the game. I met Oliver and Andrew B all the way back in the first year of primary school but only really became friends in the 5th year due to our interests and knowledge of Pokemon, a game which we could all contribute our knowledge to and talk in depth about that brought us together. Then when secondary school came around Oliver went to a different school to me but Andrew B was coming to the same school, however we were in different forms and only saw each other in break and lunchtimes. In this year I met Andrew, yet another Pokemon fan and a person which I could easily talk to. I considered me, him and the rest of our friends as part of an outcast group away from the rest of the chavs and poofs that plagued our form and year due to our personalities and interests, but this didn't really bother me too much. Then when they announced that a fully integrated VR system was coming out both of instantly vowed to own one of the systems alongside with Sword Art Online. So we went home from school and entered this world, but at this point I had no idea that Oliver or Andrew B owned SAO, so it started off as just me and Andrew."
"Wow that really wasn't particularly interesting was it." Sky commented with a laugh after I had finished my recounting of my time in the real world, although I had not mentioned much about my personal life which I believed to be to trivial and unimportant to recount.
"Yer, a good bit of my life was on computers and the other half was inside of stories and books." I say with a smile at my old life.
"Hey, why don't we go out tomorrow, meet up with Aurora and Andrew by the lake have a picnic or something. Get away from life for a while and relax." She said abruptly changing the subject, obviously not wanting to remember the life she previously owned and had lost to this game.
"Sure, sounds like a good idea." I say at the thought of relaxing outside in the sun for a day.
"Just no weapons." She says as she gets up and walks over to the door and up the stairs off to bed. I soon follow her, allowing the fatigue of the day to get to me.