The morning of April 12th, 2021, it’s been about a week since the start of the new school year. It’s about 6:30am as my iphone alarm is telling me to wake up with its annoying beeping sound. As I slowly woke up, the air in my room seems so hot and humid even though I have the fan beating on me at its highest setting. I hear a knock on my bedroom door which was more of a pound,
“Soto, wake up! It’s time for school. I made you breakfast. It'll be on the table okay. I might be a little late tonight from the office so don’t wait up okay. Have a good day at school.” As my mother went to start her day.
I decided to sluggishly get up from my bed and go wash up and fix my brown bed hair. As usual, I leave my bed messy since my mom doesn’t really care if its made or not. However, I’m glad she still makes me breakfast in the morning knowing how busy her work schedule is now. With her busy schedule, I’m usually just by myself here. After putting on my school uniform, I ate my over easy eggs with bacon and toast for breakfast and got ready to meet Chelsea at the corner of the street.
I first met Chelsea when I moved here to Tatachi City when I was 12. My mother was offered a lead position here in Tatachi for a multimillion dollar corporation that handles technology. My father was okay with it since he moves around country to country for business, so we moved here with my mother’s company providing our new apartment and covering the moving expenses. I didn’t have a single friend until I met Chelsea that also lived in the same complex.
We met each other in the same class and noticed each other walking in the same direction until we both arrived at the same complex. Ever since then we walked home together and went to school together while her mom didn't mind. Chelsea’s mom would also let me come over to play with Chelsea on the weekends. Though sometimes she gets on my nerves since she was more of an extrovert but that's what I like that about her. When we used to play outside, if I would’ve got one scratch or bruise, she would always be there to bandage me and of course lecture me to be careful. Of course, we would get teased a lot by our class because they would think we would be dating since how close we were. More likely, I see her like a nagging sister.
As I was walking, I noticed her with her black hair and hazel black eyes focused on me:
“Hey, would you hurry? Were going to be late for the bus and it’s only been a week already.”
If she was so worried so much about being late, she can just go on ahead.“You know, you don’t always have to wait for me. You can just go on ahead without me and I’ll catch up or just see you at school.”
Saying that just got me on her bad side already,
“And if I do that, I feel like you wouldn’t go to school. I do this because I already know the kind of person you are. You’ll feel like you’re not obligated to go and you’ll just skip class and join some rebellious gang. We’ve been going to school together for a long time and I’m not going to let that happened. Were friends! Friends don’t let friends slack off. Plus, who else can I do this too?”.
I look at her while were walking, “Isn’t that why they’re called boyfriends or other friends, ever heard of it?”
Soon as I said that, I felt a menacing aura just oozing out of her with her smug expression, “Why don’t you just shut up already before you dig yourself deeper into your own grave idiot!”.
***
As we got to our bus stop, I took out my iphone to start up a game I was playing last night. It takes awhile to get to our school where we live so I pass the time just playing Knight’s Kingdom. Chelsea can’t help but observe what I do:
“How rude! Is that all you do? Ever since we were little you would always play your game on your Nintendo DS while I’m right in front of you trying to conversate like friends do. But nooooo…When we both got our own phones, you still insisted on play video games. You know this is our 2nd year right, so we have to make the most of it instead of just wasting your time on your stupid cell phone games.”
Saying that just triggered me:
“Hey this isn’t just a waste of time! For your information, other people play this game and it’s popular right now".
Chelsea responds, “But playing video games isn’t going to put food on your table after high school. Have you thought about what university your going to go to? You know they have been making us fill out surveys and assessments to help us determine what we want to do after high school. Before you know it, it’ll be too late and you’ll just be working some part-time job while other people go on with their lives. For me as an example, I won’t be here forever walking beside you and making sure you go to school. I just want what’s best for my friend.”
Hearing her lecture me is annoying as ever but she does have a point. This is our 2nd year in high school and the only friend I have is Chelsea ever since grade school. While she goes off to some university in another city, it’s possible I might just be here in the same place without making any improvements on myself. It’s just I don’t know what career path to choose. I see other adults going to work everyday on the bus but looking at their expression's just makes me feel sad. It’s like every adult I see aren’t happy with the lives they made for themselves like the color in their lives have just vanished since they graduated. What I’m trying to convey is I want my life to be different and interesting. I just don’t want to be another person that’s going to blend into society and just go to work and get old. I guess just playing video games helps me escape reality and puts me into the shoes of the main character or like anime I watch.
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As we get to our stop, me and Chelsea continue to walk as she sees her friends Ryli and Idol,
“Hey I’m going to go with them, I’ll come visit you during break.” As she waved bye, I continued walking with my face in my phone, “Yes! I just unlocked a new quest.”
***
As any normal day, I stroll on not saying a word to anyone as I can feel the atmosphere of the school. I never fitted in here in the first place. I could easily just quit school and just find a part-time job but I just couldn’t find it in my heart to let my mother down or Chelsea. As for my father, he’s always out on business and out of the country. But sometimes I wish I had more friends then just Chelsea. During my first year, I thought I made some friends but in the end they were just using me to copy the answers I had for my homework assigments.
It was a rough day when I finally stood up to them and told them I'm not giving to help them anymore. Afterwards, they given me a real beating after school. I took some days off which of course worried Chelsea but I just told her I got the flu and stood home. I returned to school and found out those bullies of mine dropped out but things didn’t change after that. People just looked at me with a strange look as if I was an outsider. Soon, I just decided I don’t need no one else since I have Chelsea as a friend. I started to just go off on my own to lunch like the track bleachers or some random bench to eat by myself.
Ever since, things have stayed the same and I just have my face in my phone playing phone games. I know it’s easy for anyone to say I’ll go into creating video games since that’s all I do but things are more complicated for me than that. Maybe its fear since there’s so much competition in that field that it’s not a solid job career choice. I just don’t want to be normal like everyone else. Sometimes I wish reality just wasn’t like this but like how things are in video games or anime, that would make everything exciting.
***
As school was wrapping up, I seen Chelsea enter my homeroom with her friends Ryli and Idol.
“Oh hey and Chelsea’s entourage". Let’s just say Ryli and Idol don’t like me one bit since they think I’m holding Chelsea back somehow.
Chelsea says, “Hey I’m going to go with Ryli and Idol to hang out. Are you okay going home on your own?”
I look at Chelsea puzzled, “What am I your boyfriend? You don’t always have to come and tell me your going to go do something, just go.”
Ryli says, “I told you Chelsea, he didn’t need you to come all the way here just to notify him. But still at least she came to let you know jerk off.”
I automatically stood up, “What the hell, no need for name calling".
Chelsea got in the middle, “Hey you two don’t start arguing. Anyways, Soto I just wanted to let you know so you won’t wait up for me. I’ll see you tomorrow okay. Get home safe".
Sarcastically I said, “Yes mom, have fun and Chelsea’s groupies.” Her friends looked back me disgusted, “Yep it’s official, they hate my guts.”
***
I entered my house and noticed no one was home. Usually this means my mother was working late and even sometimes stays the night at her workplace if she's working on a project. I go up to my room and power on my computer to start working on my homework. But before that, I always check my e-mail since I’m on reddit boards talking about the latest games that are out right now. I go down stairs to make a sandwich since I skipped lunch at school due to leveling up in Knight’s Kingdom. As I came upstairs, I noticed a notification in my e-mail.
As I clicked on the e-mail, I noticed it wasn’t from a sender I’m familiar with or a username on the reddit board I post on. All it said was “CONGRATULATIONS BEING SELECTED”.
As I got curious, I opened the e-mail and read:
Hello Sot0,
Congratulations! You have been chosen as a tester to test a new app we have just developed called BattleCube. Out of the population in your region, we have chosen you due to statistical research on some of the games users play within the region We hope you accept this offer to improve our app and we will gladly compensate you for your time to report any glitches or bugs to us. If you would like to participate in this test, just go down to the link and fill out the form. Once filled out, just ‘agree’ and sign with a digital signature and we will send you the link to your phone to download the BattleCube app. All other instructions will be provided in the start up of the app. We hope you take advantage of this opportunity given.
Thank you username Sot0.
***
After I read the e-mail, I was thinking this must be a spam but for some reason didn't go into the spam folder. Hoping no virus is attached to the e-mail, I crossed my fingers and followed the blue link to download the app. At first, I was thinking this was a scam since it’s so sketchy they went through all this trouble to find testers. The app name sounded it will be fun to play and also be compensated just by testing the app.
I filled out the form with my full name, phone number, e-mail address, and just skimmed the legal information. Once I was finished, I clicked ‘agree’ and signed the formed. Soon as I sent the form, I immediately got a link sent to my phone. As I checked my phone to get to the download link, the number that showed as a sender was just dashes. That creeped me out but I overlooked it and proceeded to click the link.
After clicking, I noticed something was a little off about the download as it didn't display the amount of memory it needed to download but just a download bar. Since I didn't know how much space was needed to download Battlecube, I didn't think much of it and let it install onto my phone. I plugged my phone into the charger and proceeded to study for tomorrow's classes.
After finishing my studies, I turned off my desk lamp and viewed my phone, “Wow, its still taking this long to download. Well I hope its finished by the time I wake up tomorrow morning for school". I slowly crawled to my bed and closed my eyes as I was hoping my phone is not infected by a virus.