"So how did you do on the math test, Alex?"
"I mean, what do you expect? She barely teaches, then gives us a packet to do for homework, and the tests are just multiplied by ten," I replied.
"Yeah, fair enough, but you still did not answer my question, Alex."
"I got an 80, what do you expect? I can't teach myself math for half a semester and expect to do well anyway," I said in an annoyed tone.
"Better than me, I got a 57."
The annoying guy next to me who won't shut his trap is my friend Branden. We have been friends since the year started, and we got along quite well, almost as if we were best friends. However, knowing his demeanor, that will never happen.
"Sheesh, I wonder what your overall grade is, since this is not the first time you have flunked a test," I responded.
I should probably introduce myself a little. My name is Alex, as you probably know from the annoying bickering of my friend. I'm currently a 17-year-old male student in high school, and while I may have good grades, I'm not exactly the smartest when choosing friends.
"It's not that bad, if I can just ace the next two tests, then my grade will be passing for the semester," Branden arrogantly responded.
"Maybe if you actually studied even a little, you wouldn't even need to worry about passing or failing," I coldly remarked.
"Listen here, I want to study, but whenever I'm about to, you know who calls me to get on the game," he snapped back.
"You can just decline his call, you know," I said in a monotone voice.
"But I don't want to come off as the bad guy, you know?" he replied.
As you can probably tell, Branden is a people-pleaser. You can tell him to do something, and he will do it. You can tell him to buy you something, and he will buy it. It has gotten to the point where half the time I have to make sure he does not get himself into trouble with the hall monitors.
"Hey Alex, hey Branden," a more lively voice said.
"Heya Tyler, how have you been?" I asked.
"Same old, same old. Some boy keeps texting me about wanting to date. While I thought ignoring him would make him stop, he left me a love letter in my locker. How cheesy can it get?" She responded.
Tyler is a girl with a history, for better or worse. While I may be the more reserved kind of person, I never expected myself to become friends—no, that's a bit much—more like an acquaintance with Tyler.
She always has some boy chasing after her, she may not be the best-looking, but she was a decent 5/10 for me at least, so I guess I can see the appeal. She would always get into drama every once in a while, which was usually whenever I laid low to not become the target of some boy she dumped.
"Maybe it's because you decide to make yourself appear like an easy person," Branden remarked.
"Maybe it's because you decided to be easy, that's why you are out of money from buying the cheerleading team drinks every single day," she snapped back in a mocking voice.
Oh boy, I guess they will now yell and argue at each other for a while. I guess I'll give a little more information about myself. Currently, I'm living in the U.S., but I'm planning on maybe moving to Germany or maybe Japan once I get older. That and I'm not exactly the best money saver, while I do have a small stash of savings, it's only for emergencies and such anyway.
It seems like their bickering is calming down, as they are both walking away now, not even saying goodbye. How annoying, but what can you do? Those two have never gotten along since I met them. Maybe I would consider them closer if they actually cooperated.
The day bogged on like it always does—every single week, every single month, for the whole year. Luckily, gaslighting myself until Friday seems to work wonders. If I just tell myself that I'm X days away from Friday, it seems a little more bearable, if anything.
But it's not like it works every week, after all, the teachers' pop quizzes always do seem to be super effective at killing my mood for the day no matter what. Well that and seeing people eat whatever slop they feed people that they call food during lunch. This is why I started bringing my own lunches after the first few days of school.
Enough brooding over the school, I have English class next, and that's not any better than math.
I head to my locker to put in my math material and take out my English textbook, then I head to class.
As always, we are going to be reading those extremely long stories in the textbooks—you know, the annoying ones with questions on the side that either the teacher will ask while reading, after we finish reading to be due after class, or as homework if they are feeling especially evil that day.
I'm not saying I hate school since I need it to get a good education and a decent-paying job. After all, I would not like to hear that my surgeon failed half his classes before I get put to sleep.
That would be my worst nightmare, then again if they failed English then who really cares, not like it has to do that much with surgery anyways.
The rest of the day went along like it normally does: more homework and little breaks. Luckily for today, we don't have soccer (football) practice since every Wednesday we decide not to have it.
While normally I would not mind it, today, for some reason, I just feel worse than normal. Either due to me sleeping at midnight every single day. Or maybe because I found out from rumors that we are having a pop quiz in Economics class, either way, I just want to go home.
...
Finally, the end of the school day arrives, and I begin walking home. Another day, another day in hell.
"2 more days till Friday...," I whisper to myself.
I was enjoying the pleasant view as I could see the sun beginning to dip below the horizon. I always forget how beautiful nature is. I should really take my friend Jorge's advice and take those nature walks he regularly does. Maybe that's the key to his calm and chill demeanor.
I was thinking of many things: the coming soccer (football) game, the approaching test in English on Friday, and just how I'm only halfway done with school. I was lost in my thoughts and pondering.
That is until I got a call on my phone.
The phone plays a tune from one of my favorite OSTs on loop, well, it did until it got annoying. I'm just too lazy to change it.
"I guess I should change that eventually," I grumbled to myself before picking up the phone.
"Hey Alex, you want to hop on the game today?" Branden asked on the other side of the phone.
"No, I can't do it, you know I'm on that grind right now," I said rather arrogantly.
I hear an exasperated sigh from the phone.
"Again, will you ever get tired of that stupid war game?" Branden said on the phone, rather annoyed.
"Nope, I've almost finished mastering my AK-S, if I do, then I'll get the emerald skin!" I cheerfully remarked.
"I only need to get a couple more kills and a few more daily challenges!" I said it with excitement in my voice as I continued.
"Don't care, I didn't ask, whenever you feel like playing real games, call me back, okay?" Branden said before hanging up the phone.
"I don't think hearing e-girls meow on the mic is playing real games," I said to myself before putting my phone in my pocket.
I was in a pretty annoyed mood now, so I decided to run back to my house. I guess soccer conditioning actually does help you in life sometimes. Especially considering my house is a few miles away, so running is needed if I want to go home before nightfall.
I arrived at my house—well, my parent's house, but you get the gist—and opened the door to hear the sounds of cooking in the kitchen.
"Honey, is that you?" A voice from the kitchen said
"Yes, it's me, Mom. How have you been today?" I said this while moving my bag to the side.
"It's been good today, I'm cooking some soup for you to eat later," she responded.
"Thanks, Mom, you know where I'll be," I said, before quickly moving up the stairs into my room.
I opened the door to my room to find it just like it always is—a little messy but not enough for someone to call me out on it.
I went and powered on my PC like I always do after school to prepare for the game.
While it was powering on, I decided to look at my walls of posters and my model plane collection.
I forgot to mention it, but I'm a bit of a history nerd. I like reading about historical battles and people, mostly around the World Wars, but I dabble in some other stuff as well.
The posters on my walls were imprinted with pictures of tanks and planes from World War Two, and they never seemed to get boring to look at.
Eventually, my PC powered on, and it was time to game. I logged in to my computer with the same password I always use.
"Freedom7820," I whispered to myself as I inserted the code.
My desktop was unlocked, and I was able to see my large array of apps. I had them organized so that all my games would be on the right side and all my normal apps on the left.
That way I can look at my cool background of a tank in battle that I found online.
However, something seemed off, that was it, it seemed like one of the apps was, for some reason, in the middle of the screen.
Did I move it there? It does not seem like it, though I can understand why I could not notice it as the app had the same color as the armor of the tank.
I had to squint to see what game it was, it was called "The Hero's Mission to Stop the Sky Cracking."
"That is the lamest name I heard for a game," I said out loud.
But seriously, if you want to name your game something cool, name it something like "The Duty that Calls," "Watch Over," or my favorite game, "Thunder War."
Nobody likes long names for games, so I got my cursor out and dragged the game into the garbage.
Enough of that, it's time to play my favorite game, or so I thought. It turns out the system that all my games run on, "ICE," is having server maintenance for the rest of the day. Now I was pissed. I went through a whole day of boring classes, just to be slapped right in the face when I reached my reward.
I looked at the ceiling and closed my eyes.
I really should not be playing as many games as I do, I'm almost 18, and I should start thinking about where I want to go to college and my major so I can get a diploma and then work a 9-5 for the rest of my life.
I gave a heavy sigh.
"Mom, how much longer till the food is ready?" I yelled to my mom downstairs
"30 more minutes, Alex," she responded.
Now I had to find something to do for 30 minutes. I could read, but I'm not really in the mood to read after reading a textbook for half a day.
I gave another sigh.
I got up from my seat and looked around my room for anything to do in the meantime.
Do homework? I've already finished it at lunch. I got in the habit of eating while working since then I get more free time to do whatever I want later, which helped a lot considering most days I can go home and relax instead of worrying about homework.
I went to my bookshelf to see if anything was interesting to read. Of course, there were titles I was all too familiar with, but I was looking for something new.
My younger brother recently went to the bookstore and got me a few novels I can read. I never really liked the whole fantasy aspect, I mostly stuck to historical fiction and sci-fi, but recently I have started to warm up to it.
I picked up the first book I saw, "UnderKing."
"Nope," I whispered under my breath as I looked at the cover. From the looks of the cover, I can already tell it would be weird considering it was a picture of a mage surrounded by multiple different women.
I picked up the next book, "1984." "Looks too dark," I said as I dropped the book where the other one was.
I saw one more book in the bag he left me. I picked it up.
"The Cooking of the Hunting Hero," from what it looks like on the cover, seems to be detailing the story of the hunting hero cooking in another world.
"Looks boring," I mumbled as I dropped the book on the floor.
I went back and plopped back into my seat in front of my computer.
With ICE down and nothing to entertain myself with, I guess I should just take a nap.
I threw myself onto the bed and landed on my back. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down after the day's activities.
Tyler and Branden arguing, the coming test on Friday, the next half of the school year coming—the thoughts came back, but now that I had nothing to distract me, my mind wandered from topic to topic.
That also reminds me that midterms are coming in two weeks, so I'm going to be studying 24/7 after school next week.
"Fun times are incoming..." I quietly said to myself as I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling.
I got up from my bed and decided to instead just sit on the patio, maybe the night sky could at least distract me from looming events.
I headed back downstairs, and I opened the door to the outside.
"Are you going anywhere, Alex?" My mother asked.
I responded, "No, I just need to relax my mind, any more hard thinking, and my head will explode."
"Alright then, I'll call you back once the food is ready," she said.
"Got it," I responded.
I went outside and sat in one of those rocking chairs that, for some reason, lots of people have on their patios. I mean, I'm not complaining considering that they are pretty comfy.
I looked up into the sky, only to see it was cloudy today, so I can't even look at the stars.
"How annoying," I grumbled to myself.
I could see down the street, and I saw a couple of guys playing basketball in their driveway. They seemed to be a little older than me by maybe a year or so, and judging from their looks, which I recognized, they seemed to be from the neighborhood.
I watched them play their little match, but still, my mind wandered, as I'm not exactly the biggest fan of basketball, I'm more of a soccer person.
I mean, I do consider myself lazy compared to other people, to be completely honest. I like reading and playing video games while playing soccer. But even so, I could be doing plenty of productive things instead of sitting outside and looking at people playing basketball.
I mean, every day I come home with at least 5 hours of free time. I could be working or helping my mom with chores, but I rarely do. It's not that I don't want to, it's more of a feeling of laziness that suddenly comes whenever I get the opportunity, so to speak.
My parents, while they do say I am pretty lazy, never really push the issue, mostly due to the fact that they pushed my brother a little too much.
I should probably give a little context, but the rundown is basically this: My older brother got arrested. The reason? Doing drugs—how or why was he there? I'm not sure myself. This was a couple of years ago, it mostly came down to my brother coming home from work only to be berated by things, which at first I could understand, like not cleaning his room and such.
But then it got really petty, like whenever he would clean the dishes, he would leave and then get yelled at for not cleaning. But the reason there would be more dirty dishes is because my dad would return home and put some that he took to work.
Whenever confronted, my dad just shrugged it off or said something along the lines of, "My house, my rules." That's probably why I'm such a debater, or so my friends say. I won't say I enjoy getting into arguments per se, more so, I'm ready to defend myself and bring up points effectively.
However, I still can't exactly complain, considering I know my dad works hard every day to keep us afloat, especially with my mom being a stay-at-home mom. So while I can't really force the issue, I can more or less assert it to him. I feel like I sound a little spoiled saying that. I am a little, maybe...
But either way, once my parents got the news, they stopped putting tons of pressure on me. They probably don't want to repeat what has happened to him, not that I would. Me and him were not exactly brothers, well, we were, but we looked and acted almost the exact opposite, even though we were 2 years apart in age.
Some examples would be when he goes out almost every week for parties with friends, on the other hand, I only go to family ones. He would have multiple girlfriends, for me, I have not even had a close relationship with a girl. My mom does not count, by the way.
But yeah, I have a year and a half. Then what? More school? More work? It sort of dreads me looking at the future and what it entails. I want to live a good life, but considering the social order and especially the politics in government, I would not be surprised to hear that a civil war is imminent.
That's another thing I really don't like about today's society, we have become so desensitized to bad stuff happening that we just ignore it at this point. Maybe someone at school will mention an explosion in some warehouse that killed 100 people, most people would say something along the lines of "rest in peace," then leave it at that. It really irks me that we are not more united as a society. Especially considering how free we are to do whatever we want.
But still, will I amount to anything? Will I just be another piece in the puzzle in a larger picture? Not saying it's bad to just be content with just living your life. It's just that I have a really big fear of just being forgotten after I die.
I don't want to fade into the background in the world's larger story. Especially in this day and age where we stand divided on many things, leaving it as it is when you die, well the thought of it at least leaves a bad aftertaste in my brain if you get what I mean.
"I come outside to relax and instead have a rant with my inner monologue. Great job Alex, you are getting crazier by the day," I chuckled to myself.
I headed back inside to find my mom still cooking.
"I assume it's not ready yet?"
"Yes, Alex, just wait another five to ten minutes, and then it will be right out," my mom responded.
I sighed to myself as I went back to my room upstairs.
I went back to my PC and laid back on the chair, still bored out of my mind.
Then, the memory of the game I moved into the garbage flashed into my head, maybe it was one of those indie games that do not run on ICE. If so, I should be able to play it without issue.
I opened the garbage app on my computer and moved the game I deleted onto my desktop again.
I clicked on its properties, and it turns out it runs off of its own independent system, not from ICE, as I guessed. Looking at how small the file is, it looks like a game I can easily and quickly complete.
I double-clicked the game to open, and an opening cutscene straight out of "Light Spirits" played.
From what the narrator was telling me, the world was plunged into a global war, but now, with a looming cataclysm approaching, the world has decided to summon three heroes to unite the world against the coming disaster.
"A bit generic, but whatever," I mumbled to myself.
I was apparently going to play the role of the Ranged Weapons Hero, and at first, I was a bit bored since I expected something along the lines of being limited to using bows and arrows. However, I was surprised to see that they had muskets and cannons, maybe this world was in the middle of a Renaissance of some sort.
Judging from the character that I'm controlling, he can use some cool-looking weapons, lots of them looking like guns, so maybe it won't be as bad as I thought.
Either way, I could see a mix of what seems like medieval Europe mixed with some Asian and Renaissance locations. So at least the environment won't be too bland. I saw some scenes with some volcanoes with spires and some underground citadels, but I was not as interested in them considering it showed them from a distance.
Finally, the cutscene ends with a prompt asking me to accept my responsibility as the Ranged Weapons Hero.
I guess it was one of those things where I would select yes and it would load into the game, so I clicked yes and gave no thought to it.
However, as soon as I did, my screen flashed a bright light out of it, almost blinding me.
"What the-"
Before I could finish my sentence, I felt like I was being thrown in the air as the light enveloped me from my screen and covered my whole view.
For a few moments It felt like I was being lifted off where I used to feel my chair, I felt what can only be explained as a rushing wind to my face. With my arms flailing around aimlessly in a panic.
It then turned into falling, like when you are going down a steep drop on a roller coaster. I landed on my arm as I finally hit the ground. The light seemed to dissipate, but my eyes were still adjusting.
I could not really see well, but I could make out the feeling of grass under my feet. I could also hear the distant call of a faraway animal as well as a humming noise that seemed to get louder.
I quickly blinked a couple more times until I felt an unfamiliar metal object on my right hand. I focused a little, and while I could feel the glare and heat of the sun, the object in my hand felt cold. I was holding its handle.
I finally pulled it closer to my face and was able to make out the shape of a pistol, which, upon closer inspection, has a gem built into it where you would normally load new magazines.
It also finally occurred to me that I was no longer in my room but instead outside. I looked up to see myself in a large field of grass. I looked into the distance only to see what seemed to be a castle and a few villages some distance away.
Before I could fully process what was going on, I heard two voices scream out behind me.
End of Prologue
Author's Notes:
I'm not an expert at writing or anything so expect mistakes and some issues. Hope you enjoyed reading my story, be sure to correct me, and give suggestions if you could, it's a learning experience after all. Be sure to have a great day, expect chapter 1 with Alex in another world coming in a couple of days!