Morning of April 13th 2021, Soto hears his alarm go off as it’s that time to brush up for school. He slowly gets up and wondered if his mother got home last night. He walks through the apartment and notices nobody else around except for his existence. Thinking to himself that she probably stood the night at her office again. He then goes to the bathroom to get ready for school.
As he was brushing his teeth, he just remembered he was downloading the BattleCube app last night. He walks to his room to grab his phone to sees he received two messages, one from his mother and one from his childhood friend Chelsea. He opened his mother’s message first that read:
“Hey son, looks like I won’t be making it home tonight ☹. I have a deadline on a project I’m working on that’s due tomorrow. I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. Have a good day at school 😊.”
He then moves on to Chelsea’s text:
“Hey sleepyhead, just giving you a heads up I stood the night Ryli's house so I’ll be heading to school from her place. Make sure to get your ass to school. If I don’t see you, your getting a pounding from yours truly 😉. See ya at break.”
Thinking to himself how Chelsea’s charm can go from caring to being ruthless is a scary switch to flip. After reading both messages, he suddenly remembers the app and proceeds to check if it’s fully downloaded,
“Well time to see what this app is about after I’m done brushing my teeth.” Soto went to finish brushing his teeth and brushing his hair. After, he put on his school uniform, he went to make a bowl of cereal for breakfast. As he was eating, he sat down and opened the app.
As he opened the app, there was a black screen with a small cube going slowly in circles as it was starting up the app. Suddenly, the background changed to some blue type of screen with a technology theme background with a young girl suddenly popping up with blue hair saying excitingly,
“Hellooo new user!” As Soto was suddenly startled, “Whoa!”
“Wait?! Photos of myself?!” Soto said surprisingly. Once he said that, he had a strange feeling she understood what he said,
“Yep, naked photos of yourself…nope I’m just kidding about that silly. For this, I need you to take photos of yourself to make sure I can read your whole body so please keep your clothes on.”
As he agreed, he stood up and started to take photos of his whole body from his legs to his arms to his head doing weird embarrassing poses trying to get the best angles of himself. I’m glad I’m in the own privacy of my home taking these embarrassing poses. He clicked ‘done’ to move on the next step.
“Scanning all photos for parameters…” Unica responded, “Perfect! Now you shall pick your attire.” There was a wide range of equipment from armor to bottoms you can choose from that Abriel can sit forever if he wanted to to look through the whole library. In Abriel’s case, he typically likes to pick the most basic clothing and armor if he was starting out in a RPG game. He never picked anything fancy like heavy armor but just basic clothing that would have a balance of stats. “Next is the personality test, I will ask you questions that will help me determine the type of personality you have and you will type the answer. Judging how you answer, your class will be chosen and for that class I will present you different weapons to choose from that class. As you progress, there will be opportunities to get better weapons and armor.” explained Unica. The personality test was quite tedious like “Which scene best calms you?” and “What color would you say best fits you?” and even questions like, “To save a one person that’s going to be hit by a train, would you flip the switch where more people would be killed?” As Abriel continued to answer each question, the questions got more complex where he had to second guess himself. After completing the final question, Unica responds, “After reading your results, your class will be Sword. I shall present you with different types of swords you can use for now but it will be up to you, the user, how you shall wield it.” As Abriel went through the selection, the swords presented just looked like basic light and heavy swords for beginners and didn’t show any type of information about them such as durability or how strong the sword is. Abriel finally chose a sword and Unica says, “When you’re ready to proceed, just say the phrase ‘BattleCube Start!’ and I will explain and answer any questions you have about BattleCube that I’m allowed to answer. Whenever your ready user.”
Abriel showed a sigh of relief after the setup process was over that took over 50 minutes to complete. He then notices the time on the wall and seen he was going to be late for the bus to get to school. He then grabs his backpack and cell phone and dashes out the front door. As he was sprinting down the sidewalk, Abriel not noticing around the corner, he runs into a girl with a different school uniform on with brunette hair, wearing white headphones and BAM!. He collides with her and they both fall onto the sidewalk. Abriel urgently gets up to check if she’s not injured, “Oh my gosh are you okay?! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you.” The brunette girl with white headphones gets up rubbing her bottom, “No, no, I’m sorry. I was distracted while… I was listening to music.” She explained apologetically. After Abriel checked on her, “I’m sorry but I have to run before I’m late for my bus. I’m sorry random girl.” As Abriel shouted and sped off, she looks off at Abriel running away and checks to see if her phone is damaged, “Oh thank goodness.” As they both went their separate ways, Abriel manages to make it to the bus by a hair before it started to leave the bus stop.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As Abriel found a seat, his heart was pounding from the sprinting he just did, he realizes that’s the most cardio exercise he’s ever done in quite awhile since his first year of high school. He then remembers he wasn’t done with the tutorial yet. As he was gasping for air, he put his headphones on and connects them through Bluetooth. He reopened the app again and picked up where he left off with Unica that looked like she was patiently waiting. “Are you ready user?” Unica explains. As Abriel remembered the phrase, he started to wonder why an app would need someone to say a phrase out loud instead of typing it. Abriel then proceeds to say, “BattleCube Start.”
Suddenly, he had a strange feeling come over him and seen some type of AR cube come out his phone screen. The cube appeared to look like a light shade of blue and was transparent. “What the hell?” The cube suddenly got bigger in an instant and went through the bus and went through the bus walls and further. Suddenly, Abriel felt the bus suddenly stop and observed everyone on the bus just disappeared in a blink of an eye. As Abriel stood up from his seat, “Okay what’s going on?! Where’s everyone at?!” as Abriel’s heart started to pound. Abriel stood up in a panic wondering what just happened. A confused look came over him as he felt like time just stopped. He looked at the above electric sign and noticed it stopped moving. Abriel then went to the bus door and forced his way out to look outside as he was in the middle of an intersection. Looking around, Abriel noticed all the vehicles stopped moving and the people inside the vehicles vanished out of thin air. “Okay this is freaky? This has to be a joke, right?” Suddenly, he hears a light female voice behind him…”Nope, this is real user. Your inside the BattleCube.”
Abriel suddenly turns around and noticed it was the tutorial girl Unica in the flesh. As she waved her hands, “Don’t panic now user, I’m here to answer any questions you have.” She points, “Don’t have that panicky look on your face now. You won’t get any girlfriends with that scary look.” as Unica chuckles at her own joke. “Okay, what did you do?! What is all of this?!” Abriel expressed. “One question at a time please user.” as Unica responds. “I have a name you know. It’s Abrel and not just USER.” Abriel responded.
“Nice to formerly meet you user Abriel. And to answer your question this is BattleCube. BattleCube is an app created by my publisher which you are the lucky few who was chosen as a beta tester to test this new app. Once you said the phrase, you launched the app and opened up BattleCube. This cube expanded up too a radius of two miles on all sides and took the current surrounding area you’re in and turned it into a Battlefield zone. As you can see, the Battlefield zone was created due to the cube that came out of your phone. The cube created a void space that scans and copies the area as it expands and that copy from your reality is where time in your current reality doesn’t exist when you’re inside the cube. That’s why no other humans aren’t here besides you.” Unica then waves both her hands as in presenting something. Suddenly a standing mirror appears. “Look for yourself.”
Abriel approaches the mirror and suddenly the skeptical face he had turned red when he realized he was wearing the clothes he chose from the equipment selection screen. “What is all of this? I’m wearing the exact equipment that I selected from the equipment selection screen.” “That is correct user Abriel. Like I said though, everything you chose is up to you on how you want to use it.” Unica responded. Abriel then notices his sword is on the back side of his waist. He pulls it out to observe the weapon, “So what’s with all this blue glow around me?” “That’s what protects you from actually being injured in a battle when your inside the BattleCube. Think of it as your armor and hit points. Check the screen on your phone.” Unica explains.
Abriel observes his phone screen in his hand and noticed the screen change. The screen displayed his hit points (HP) and spell points (SP). He noticed his HP is at 500 and SP at 10. “All users as of now will start off with 500 HP but as for SP, it will vary for each user. But to see where your stats stand, I must give you a pretest.”
Abriel had a startled expression, “What do you mean by pretest…as in?” Suddenly, an electric current started to flow around her arms and suddenly, electricity started to come from Unica’s hands. The electricity not only look frightening, but the sparks looked unpredictable that it gave out ferocious aura coming from her hands. Suddenly, an HP gauge came over her head but the gauge didn’t show exactly how much HP she had. “I believe the Gauntlet class will be sufficient in this battle.” As she put her right foot forward, these flat circle shaped objects started to spin violently on her head as Abriel took a step back. “Don’t be afraid user Abriel. Think of this like a pretest to see what you will need to work on to become a better beta tester. So, make sure you get into a fighting stance as soon as the battle is about to begin. Your future opponents will sometimes be unpredictable that they won’t give you time to get into your fighting stance…Ready…”
As Unica was about to charge Abriel with her violent hands surrounded by electricity, “Wait, hold on a second! I don’t think this is a safe idea! Usually, I like to feel the controls out when I play a game…
Unica shouts, “Commence pretest for user Abriel. BATTLE START!!!” as the pretest begins…Abriel Vs Unica.