You really thought I was gonna post 13? HA NOT TODAY

Also, no song this time, but I'm giving you heavy advice: this chapter and the near-end of chapter 12 are key to understanding 13, which will be posted up next week.

I don't own anything but my characters and the plot.

Don't forget to review!

FINAL ENTRY OF THORFRID LARSSON I'S DIARY
I've done the best I can to fill these pages. But I have a dark feeling that this may be my last time in here. So I've stolen their tape recorder and transcripted the entire conversation as if it were a film. I guess it's a sort of tributt to my old friends, in a sense.
I'll hide these pages in the photo frames when I'm done, but I don't think I'll have enough time to hide myself. Mine venner, I'm sorry.
I couldn't save you.

RECORDING FOUND:

Unknown Date, Unknown Month, 2030.

27, Durdum Lane's basement, London, UK.

(The sounds of a supercomputer starting up are heard with the classic whines of the machinery, the muttering of some men somehow heard above the noise)

Voice1: Come on, you stupid thing, show the damn tutorial already!

Voice2: Look, are you sure we need the tutorial on how we use the Cryo-Virt pods? We can figure this out on our own, you know.

Voice3: He's got all the reason to pull up the tutorial. We'd be idiots with those things and probably make them explode if we don't. Plus, with a kitchen-shelf-for-brains like you, you're going to need it more than we do.

Voice1: Thank you. Now let's see if this thing will show us how to use it…

Tania: (slightly computerized accent, cheery tone) Welcome to the tutorial of the Cryo-Virt, a member of McCoy Industries! I am Tania, your personal guide on making sure that you are comfortable in your personal fantasy world, while also retaining your beautiful looks for the future you are to awake in!

(Voice1, Voice2, Voice3, Voice4 and Voice5 groan with disgust and annoyance)

Voice4: (cringingly) This loser video is way too cheesy for words. Can't we skip parts of it?

Voice5: (impatiently) Hold kjeft B, we don't want to miss anything important.

Tania: What is Cryo-Virt? Well, I'm very sure you already know, (she chuckles) but just to make sure, it is a hybrid combination of cryogenic stasis and a virtual reality simulator, all in one! The Cryo-Virt can sustain a living human being for over thousands of years with the vitamins, fluids and supplements while also retaining the youth you have now and will have in the future!

Voice2: Are you sure we can't skip the tutorial?

Voice1: Shut up, rock-chin. We need this.

Tania: The 'Virt' part of Cryo-Virt doesn't have to entirely be a virtual reality, either! If you're confident that your real home can withstand the test of time, then you can have hard-light-holograms of yourself roaming around, socialising and enjoying the best of the present, while your real self is safely stored away, ready to be awakened in the future!

Voice3: …using this place as the grounds for their virtual reality could save us a lot of time, actually…

Tania: Feel like your face is too old for the future? Not to worry, we can restore your youth as you rest! You can set how many years you want off your body, and we can peel them away within a matter of years! When you wake up, it'll be as if you had fallen asleep at the bright age of 21, not 81!

(lame TV audience laughter, exaggerated gagging noises similar to a pug from Voice4 are heard)

Voice1: …I think we just watched the introduction video of the tutorial.

Voice2: Oh, so now we skip it?

Voice5: Hold kjeft, it was a mistake. Once we're done with that tute, we should be able to have the coding up for certain memories not to be found and the boarders up so that they don't touch this thing.

Voice2: What if they manage to get through those?

Voice5: With our retaliation coding they won't. They'll hit, ah, a very large blank in their mind, if they do. Very pixelated and painful, I can unfortunately assure that. Also, someone turn off that idiotic tape recorder. I feel like someone's watching…

END TAPE

NEXT TIME, ON THE MYSTERY OF EAGLE'S CROSS:

"PLEASE!"

It's too late.

"All or nothing now, Em."