When he woke up, Gary was at first confused. Then, upon seeing Mario and Kooper, Gary realized he must have fallen asleep playing Paper Mario.

Gary looked at his phone as was dismayed to see it was 10:12! He had slept in and missed his first few classes.

Fuming, Gary threw his school supplies in his backpack and was on his bike in an instant.

Pedaling down the road, he didn’t even see the pothole coming.

He flew, head over handlebars, and tumbled over the blacktop, scraping his arms and legs, but thankfully avoiding a blow to the head. His bike awkwardly came down on his back, adding insult to injury.

For a second, Gary just sat there, assessing the damage. After a few moments, he realized he was fine and got up. He was scratched up and a bit bloody, but nothing was broken or anything. A car swerved out of the way, and Gary stood up and dragged his bike off the road.

Gary took a few deep breaths, and then started laughing. He had totally forgot about even being late! Today is just not my day, he thought as he got back on his bike.

Showing up late to school, Gary got slapped with a Saturday detention. Some kids would get super mad about it, but Gary just knew it was protocol. He showed up late with no excuse, so that’s the standard punishment.

Gary went to Trig class, just trying to settle in to a normal day. He sat in his assigned seat, trying not to draw any attention to himself.

Flick. A paper ball whizzed past Gary’s head. He heard somebody snicker from behind him. Tommy, Gary thought with a groan. I’ll just ignore him.

A paper ball smacked him in the cheek, stinging. He heard a few more kids laugh, and he felt his face glow red. Practicing his uttermost self control, Gary did his best not to turn around. He looked helplessly at the teacher, Mrs. Quill. She was looking at her computer, probably grading or something. Completely out of it.

Smack! This one hit him right in the ear, right before a few kids chortled with laughter. Gary couldn’t help himself, he turned around and glared.

Sure enough, Tommy was choking back laughter and crumpling up another paper ball. Next to Tommy was Barcel, who was leaning back in his chair like he was the king of the classroom.

Gary was angry, really angry. He felt like storming out of his desk and punching Tommy right in the face. In fact, he almost did.

But he thought about the detention he already had, and the fact that 2v1 Tommy and Barcel would probably destroy him. Instead, Gary glared at him for a couple seconds, then pulled on his hoodie and put his head on the desk. To just completely ignore them is probably the best solution, Gary reasoned.

Twenty minutes and countless paper balls later, and the class was over. Mrs. Quill finally looked up and said, “Who threw all these paper balls! Clean it up, this instant!” But nobody said anything, and the bell had already rang, so everybody just left.

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Gary cooled down over the next few class periods, and everything went back to semi-normal. Instead of fuming over stupid stuff like paper ball throwing, Gary decided to take this as fuel he could use to take ForeverQuest more seriously. He had to beat Tommy in the arena, he decided.

After school, Gary biked home, listening to electronic music mix as he biked. As soon as he got home, he made himself a quick grilled cheese, and entered ForeverQuest.

Last time he was on, he had been grinding Archery on Goblin Welps. Gary picked out a target, a goblin prowling about 20 meters away. The creature was pasty green, had mossy yellow teeth, and a nasty, permanent scowl. If Gary got too close, he would pull aggro.

Careful to line up his shot, Gary fired an arrow. The wooden shaft ripped through the air and embedded itself in the Goblin’s upper thigh. A satisfying number 7.2 appeared above the creature. Squelching in pain, the Goblin rushed at Gary, but not before he had fired off another arrow. Again, Gary scored a hit.

As soon as the Goblin was in melee range, Gary rolled backward. This was an Acrobatics trick that he was working on--the classic dodge roll.

Another arrow landed, and Gary now changed weapons to his dagger. He didn’t have the Stamina to keep rolling away, unfortunately.

They traded a few blows, Gary taking 24 points of damage, but Gary soon won the fight.

Picking up a few copper coins as loot, Gary prepared for the next battle.

A few fights later, Gary was low on health points and had to retreat to Lomberg castle.

Gary realized his health was low and it was going to take an hour or so to regenerate. He checked his Archery skill: “In Game: 7, Real Life: 1: AVG 4”.

Of course, Gary though. I need to get my real life archery skill up. He logged out, grabbed his wallet, and headed out to Walmart.

A half an hour later, he came back with a cheap bow and a few fiberglass arrows with dull heads. His yard was really small, way to small to practice archery, but there was a field a few blocks away with a bunch of hay bales that he was sure would be a good place to practice.

He had never shot a bow before in real life. However, he somewhat knew how to hold the bow from using one in ForeverQuest.

Standing about 10 meters away from the bale, he lined up his shot. Twang! The string slapped his forearm, but not directly, more like slid off it. The arrow, however, hit the bale, though not really where Gary was aiming. He shrugged. That was a start.

The sun had already started to slip down over the flat horizon after Gary had gotten a few shots in. Meaning, he didn’t have too much time to practice, but he still had enough time to get some legitimate practice in.

His next shot hit, almost exactly where he intended it too. He blinked in surprise--wow, maybe he was actually good at this.

His next shot, however, was a complete miss, confirming the fact that he was still not that good.

He wandered down the field to retrieve his arrow. In the dull light of the setting sun, everything glowed pink and soft-red. If he had stopped to think about it, it would probably seem magical, but Gary was too busy searching for his stray arrow to really appreciate the scenery.

Gary found his arrow sprouting out of crusted lump of cow poop. He almost laughed, there was something funny about this. Only, he actually had to remove the arrow manually which he was less than pleased about.

After thoroughly cleaning the arrow, Gary wandered home, getting back just as it got dark.

His mom was home. She was quietly drinking a glass of wine and watching some old sitcom that Gary didn’t recognize on the television.

As he came in, she seemed surprised, “Gary!” she almost shouted. “What are you doing back so late?”

“Relax mom, I was just practicing archery.”

“Oh,” she said. “Ok, that’s fine. Want me to make you dinner?”

“Sure,” Gary said.