Gray didn’t bother to stretch his arms over his head when the clock hit 5’o clock. He said a quick goodbye to everyone within 10 feet and rushed over to the elevator. He nearly bumped into the software engineer that worked on the backend.
The same one that always carried her hamster to work.
“Sorry,”
“Seems like you’re in a rush,” The woman blinked at him. Her hamster snuck out of her shirt pocket. There he was. Gray wondered if management knew that she brought her pet to work. He wasn’t going to snitch. He was starting to like the little guy. He knew that it was little guy rather than a little girl because it had come once before.
“Yeah, I just want to get home.”
“Don’t we all,” The woman sighed, but then her eyes widened as if she remembered something. “Actually, no…Damn, I have to stay an hour late today. I’m on code review duty today.”
“That sucks,” Gray glanced at the elevator. Harry was already there. He pressed the button a few times.
“Anyways. I see you eyeing the elevator. I’ll see you next week.”
“See ya,” Gray waited a few seconds before it was acceptable in his mind to run to the elevator. Then a few seconds passed. He didn’t exactly run, but he certainly jogged. He reached the elevator and the doors were closing. In between the metal doors, he saw Harry laughing.
“Don’t be talking to girls next time,” The door closed as Harry laughed as Gray was left in the lobby waiting for the next one.
***
Patch day. What a glorious day indeed. The day when everyone’s hunger for new content would be satiated. The queue times were what surprised Gray. He didn’t experience any delay when he started playing or when the Sax’zo update came. Though it made sense. He started comparatively late to hop on Elrin. The game had already been out for 2 weeks. Most of the fervor to play the games, MMOs especially, was the first 2 weeks.
The Sax’zo update was a smaller scale update that added a type of content that only brought one thing. If you weren’t a PVP hound like Kelsy, then there wasn’t much for you.
So he had to wait in his empty room. Waiting in line to play Elrin Online version 1.12. The version that brought balance changes to classes, new encounter, the new raid, and the guild house update.
Gray would be excited. If he wasn’t number 81,000 on the list. He couldn’t take off his visor. There was the risk that he would get in and then be kicked out for inactivity.
He sat cross-legged in his empty room and chuckled. He remembered that Harry visited his room once. He was partly shocked that the GECKO II room was so small, but even more shocked that it was absolutely barren.
It wasn’t just an empty room. It was an untextured gray box. Sure Gray could decorate it, but he was spending more time idling in the guild house. It was the main platform that he was using. Only visiting the City Platform when he needed to buy things online for his apartment.
Hey!
Gray saw a message from Melody.
Hi
Gray considered putting a period at the end of hi, but he felt that was too formal. Maybe he should have put extra i at the end. Did Hii seem too much?
Why was he thinking so much about a salutation?
Stuck in queue? The update seemed to bring a lot of people back.
Yeah. It’s the first major update. I think everyone is trying to play today.
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Yeah. I’m 80,091 right now. How about you?
79,924. Every minute, I’m jumping about 200 or 400 in line.
Same. Kelsy and Cheddar said they’re getting on later. The two of them seemed busy. Akira’s already in.
Wait, really?
He took the day off.
Oh.
Want to wait together? We could chill in one of our rooms.
Gray took a look at the untextured walls around him.
My room is kinda bland. Mind waiting in yours? But, I mean I get if you don’t want to cause we’ve never visited each other rooms before and-
Gray received an invitation to her room before he could send his message.
***
The whole place was decorated like a basement hangout. The walls were textured out of a homely wood and there was a gray carpet on the floor. All were stacks of old video games. One could tell that they were old because they were on actual discs. Such things weren’t used since his dad’s generation. There were old video games consoles and a large red coach that had the plushie of a giant round cat.
There was an acoustic guitar that was upheld by a stand in the corner of the room and neon signs along the wall that had video game titles written in cursive. Some of them were Devil’s Tears or Innocent Machine. The whole place felt like a basement that was created for the sake of hanging out and having LAN parties. Back when everything was hooked up to a T.V. Screen rather than on a visor. Gray liked it. It felt homely and comfortable.
“So do you like it?” She held one of the plush cats in her lap while Gray was looking around.
“Yeah, it’s old school and homely. Honestly, my dad used to talk about these types of hangout spots back in the day,” Gray explained.
“I just wanted to replicate that kind of old style. I mean I know some people make their rooms look like something fantastical or sci-fiy. I just wanted to make a place that I felt comfortable in,” She said.
“I think you did a great job,” Graty responded. “He sat on the sofa. In the corner of his peripheral, there was a tracking window that showed his placement in line. He was now up to the 60,000 spot. Good progress made in just a few minutes between talking to Melody and joining her room. They would actually be able to sooner than they thought.
Gray was just glad that she agreed to wait in her room. He didn’t want to consider how weirded out she would have been if they went to his room. He needed to decorate it.
“You look the same,”. She leaned closer to him with the cat still in her hands and took in his features. “I guess you know now.”
“Know? Oh your name,” It was right next to a corner that said he was a guest, he saw the room’s name. That was her name. Her real name. It was simply called Alice’s room.“My real name is Gray.”
It was only fair.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m kinda bad with names, so I just went with my first and made up a fantasy sounding last name,” Gray looked at her. For some reason, Alice didn’t look much different to him. She had black hair and she was missing the elf ears, but to him she looked about the same. As best as she could with Elrin’s character creator.
“I’m just glad you liked the room,” She spoke absentmindedly.
Some people made versions of real life selfs with small adjustments to fit the settings. Some people had original characters that they recreated. Some people made hideous abominations because it was funny.
The thing that felt different was her energy.
She wasn’t the Melody that would come up with sudden plans that would take up the whole day to accomplish. The same paladin that swore to become the best fisher. The paladin that stole a golden dragon egg. She seemed tired.
Every time Gray looked at himself in the mirror last year, he noticed a vacant look in his eyes. Alice had something like that. Like the light was gone.
Maybe he was overthinking it.
“Where did the name, Melody come from?” Gray asked.
“I just like the name, Melody.” She looked away and turned to a pile of CDs that were on the coffee table in front of the couch. She flicked on some ambient music for the room. It was the main battle theme from the Devil’s Tear game. Some thrashing guitar aided by a keyboard. A classic OST.
“Have you taken the patch notes?” Alice asked.
“Yeah, I saw that there were a bunch of new additions…”
And so they spent the rest of the hour talking about new adventures that they would get into as the Daybreak Guild. As Alice talked about the new additions to the guild house, Gray saw her come to life as she was turning into Melody for a second.
He was overthinking it. She might have just been tired after work. They did get online as soon as they got home.
That was when their queue popped. The small little box in the corner suddenly took up all of Gray’s visions. The game automatically logged him and he appeared in the guild house. Melody appeared right next to them.
Gray looked towards the dining room table and saw two members of their guild. It was Akira talking to a member who had the name Dawn Pickles.