Chapter 1
I raced across the prairie, panting as I did. The sounds of the feet of rampaging rhinos behind me was nearly deafening, they were hot on my tail. Why had I even gone so near to their nest anyway!? I shook those thoughts and abruptly turned to the right, heading for the woods nearby. Those beasts couldn't follow me through woods...
Most of the rhinos overshot from momentum when I turned, causing some of them to fall on their sides after failing to brake. Some saw me turning early and changed course accordingly. Still, I had lost a good portion of the previously 100-rhino herd. There were only about 40 chasing me now. But 40 is enough to trample me flat, heck even just 1 could do it, I reminded myself. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought.
It took me a few minutes to reach the woods, but by then, the rhinos were only a hair's length behind me. The moment I entered the cover of the woods, the rhinos slowed down and started walking slowly. As I suspected, they couldn't just charge into the woods. I quickly ducked behind a bush and closed my eyes, beginning the logout procedure. There was no way I was going to sit around here and let the rhinos kill my character.
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"Logout successful." the computer-generated voice rang around in my head as I took the V-band off my head and laid it on the table beside my bed. It was a good thing there were no side-effects to health from frequent usage of it, otherwise my parents wouldn't even let me play Infinence. The wall clock in my room read 11 p.m, usually the time I went to sleep. I couldn't afford to be late for school, or the teacher would scold me again......
I found myself getting up just a few minutes later for a little walk around the room. My parents would be sleeping by now, giving me a chance to put on the V-band again... just that I didn't want to, otherwise I'd probably get up late the next morning. My room was big enough to fit in a desk, a closet and a bed, with enough space for me to move around in. A few books were scattered about the desk; I hadn't bothered tidying it up since I didn't read much nowadays.
My eyes turned towards the mirror hanging on the wall between the door and the closet; it was one of my most prized possessions. I walked up to it and looked into it.
Staring back, was the face of a 16-year old girl with neck-length black hair. She had rather large blue eyes and a small nose, with a simple pink-lipped mouth. Her pajamas clung loosely to her relatively short body with an ample bust. It left much to be desired, but at least some boys found it attractive. Sighing, I threw a glance at the V-band lying on the side table. My Infinence character was so much more attractive than I was; I had created it as such. To myself, my outward appearance was just that of an average girl, but I actually wanted... more. The game world could fulfill that desire as long as I stayed in, which wasn't really that long each session. Plus, I had stuff to do sometimes.
I went back to my bed and laid down on it, stretching my legs one last time before closing my eyes and falling asleep. At least, I wanted to fall asleep, but something kept me awake. What, I wasn't sure, but it didn't keep me awake for long. I dozed off several minutes of sheep counting later.
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"DIIIIIIIIIIING!!!"
"DIIIIIIIIIIING!!!"
"Oh, just shut up!" I reached out towards the side table and slammed down on the alarm clock, at which point it stopped ringing. There was nothing like serene peace......
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... Except that it sometimes came at the cost of valuable time. By the time I got up again, it was 7:45 a.m; School started at 8. "Waaaah!" I wasted no time jumping out of my bed and flinging open the closet door. In just a little under 3 minutes, I was rushing down the stairs clad in my school uniform. A minute later, I hopped onto my hoverbike outside the house and sped off down the road.
The speedometer on the bike read 40 km/h, faster than the 33 I usually did on normal exercise routines. Then again, this case was different. I was pedaling as fast as I could, so fast that I felt my legs shaking violently. Was this my limit...? I took the corner of a T-junction fast enough that I nearly slammed into the wall on the other side of the road; Hoverbikes had no friction problems compared to normal bikes, although hoverbikes were faster because of that. No friction problems equaled wide turning arcs, but I had gotten used to it. It wasn't exactly the first time I had been late after all.
I slid the bike into a slot in the bike shed just as the bell rang. Dashing into the block with my classroom, I pushed past a few students just heading out for physical education lessons. "Watch it!" one of them yelled. "Sorry!" I hurriedly apologized and turned the corner, nearly bumping into a teacher. "You're late!" he noted. "Sorry!" I repeated the previous word as I reached the door leading to my classroom and turned the doorknob, rushing in.
At least, I nearly turned the doorknob, only my fingers slipped. I ended up crashing into the door. "OWWW!" I cried out, rubbing my forehead. It felt like that same time I accidentally walked into a tree in Infinence. Painful.
The door swung open, revealing my homeroom teacher, a middle-aged lady that wore her hair in a bun behind her head. She was just slightly taller than me. "Miss Traya Wilson! You are late for class!" she nearly yelled, face as red as a beetroot. One of the reasons my classmates liked to call her Beety. She only did it when she was mad, which was an especially bad sign to me right now.
"SORRY I'M LATE, TEACH!!!"
I barely had time to turn around before a guy came rushing into the class, crashing into me in the process. His head knocked against mine, sending me falling to the ground. Before I blacked out, I felt my head hit the floor face-down and a heavy weight landing on my back.
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"My head..." I moaned, rubbing it. What happened just now? I got up to look around. Greeting me was a completely white room with several cabinets arranged around it. The cabinets were filled with bottles of medicine, suggesting that I was in the infirmary. The room wasn't the only thing greeting me; there was a smirking short-haired guy with a marker in hand standing beside the bed I was lying on.
"Julian. I wonder what you're gonna do with that marker......" I stared at the marker. It was a black one. "Just don't move for a while. I'm gonna show you REAL art!" he grinned, uncapping the marker. Wait. Was he going to do what I thought he was? Paint me...? Seriously... that was dumb... and childish. I tried reaching out to grab the marker, but he just grabbed them with his free hand and held them together, restricting my arms' movement. "Let go!" I started kicking and shaking my head, denying him a chance to paint my face. Not that shaking my head was going to help much, if that marker touched my face; it was still going to paint me.
"I don't think the person on the receiving end of that marker will think its fun."
That voice... I knew that voice! "Hey Traya. Long time no see," he waved at me from the doorway. "Scotty!" I smiled. The same age as me, Leon Scott Kennedy, or Scotty as his friends liked to call him, was the only childhood friend I could remember. Mainly because he kept screwing things up when I was around. He was wearing his usual leather jacket over his school uniform; luckily the school allowed it. I was surprised that he was in my school......
Julian seemed to get a little annoyed, and left me alone to walk over to Scotty. "So what if I wanna paint her? I'm a little bored right now, you wanna fight, tough guy?" Julian walked around the distinctively thinner Scotty. My friend was tall and thin, with eyes as green as grass in a meadow. I knew challenging him was a bad idea, he could kill a person in at least 30 ways. Martial arts was one of his strong points; he had sworn to protect his mother from ever being mugged again, training himself with that resolve.
The two ended up in a staring match with each other. There were a few tense moments of silence. but Julian broke off first. "Bah. Just you wait," he walked out the door. "I expected him to hold his ground," I smiled at Scotty as he walked over. "Yeah, well, I gave him the look," he stared into my eyes. I stared back. His green eyes definitely showed his prowess at martial arts... somehow. I didn't know how, but Julian probably ran off because of that. "By the way, how did I end up here?" I asked.
"Ehm... Sorry. I kinda ran into class in a panic because I was late, and by the time I saw that you were standing there, it was too late to brake. You fainted when your head hit the ground," he sighed. I reached my hand up to my forehead, feeling a strip of soft material. "Bandaged. You're lucky you're not dead, or even scolded. Mrs. Beety grilled me bad when I got up..." he rubbed his ears. Got up...? "Wait. Did you fall on me?" I whispered. His red face was enough of an answer to the question. I found myself blushing as well, and turned away to hide it; it would be bad if someone saw this.
"Let's change the subject. What are you doing in this school?" I turned back towards him.
He replied, "I was about to ask the same thing. I transferred here from my middle school. You know, the one I went to after we split up after grade school."
"How long has it been? Three years?"
"Yeah. Quite a long time," Scotty stared out the window, "Oh yeah. The school bell rang a few minutes before I walked in on that guy trying to paint you. School's over for today. Teach asked me to pass on your homework by the way. And she also advised you not to black out before even starting class."
"I'll ride home with you, just in case he tries to pick on you again," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder out the window, pointing in the direction of the bike shed. "You got a bike?" I blinked in surprise. "I never told you I didn't have one. I'll wait for you at the front gate," he smiled and walked off as I got out of bed.
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I calmly walked over to the bike shed with my hoverbike and rode it out. This hoverbike, in particular, was equipped with fingerprint scanners on the handlebars. It was coded to my fingerprints, so no one else would be able to ride my bike. The moment I got onto it and closed my hand around the handlebars, the hoverbike's engine activated and I cycled backwards to exit the shed. The engine of hoverbikes powered only the hover part of the engines. To conserve power and maintain the exercise effects of bicycles, the pedals powered the frontwards/backwards movement fan at the back of the bike. It was pretty much a mini-hovercraft.
"Yo," I could see Scotty waving at me from the gate, sitting on a hoverbike of his own. His hoverbike was one with gears, typical for him since he was the type to like exercising. "So where's your house?" he asked as I got closer to him. "56, Carew Street. It's not exactly a big house... hehe," I smiled, taking off abruptly. As expected, he caught up in no time. "Mind if I pop in for a visit sometime?"
I replied, "Nope. Normally, my parents aren't that fond of people coming to visit me, but seeing as they know you, it shouldn't be much of a problem." He gazed at me for a few seconds. I could see that he was trying to ask another question, but he shut his mouth and put his gaze back on the road. What had he been trying to ask...? "I'll just drop you off, then head back home. I'll come some other day."