A loner, an outsider, a scab, and a stranger. That was how everyone at his high school thought of him. He knew it. And they knew it. Eugene embraced, rather than dismissed, the misnomers. He considered himself different, unique, apart from the herd. Reveling in loneliness, in being different, in everything about himself being displayed as strange and mysterious. The other students couldn’t see who he really was, or what he was, and so labelled him an undesirable, a delinquent-a scab on the skin of high school society. They were all afraid of him, or of what he represented: the constant stranger.

Eugene had taken it upon himself to accept the role, painting his face white and black with costume makeup he’d found tucked away in the corner of the local drug mart. The black trench coat he wore at all times-including while he slept-was a hand-me-down from his father’s closet and so was a little too wide in the shoulders, but thankfully didn’t drag on the ground. He had recently bleached his hair nearly white, in preparation for hair-dye he couldn’t yet afford.

He had been saving every penny for a far more important item-a game. Thee Game. He could hardly think of anything else. It was his obsession, a game that went beyond all other games, above them. He worked all last summer, mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning gutters, just about anything he could do to scrounge up the necessary funds. And he had done it. Six months ago, he contributed three thousand dollars to the crowd funding project and finally the game was being released, tonight, exclusively to those contributors who donated the full amount. A multi-million dollar project launched by a group of university geniuses, whose company went from zero to superhero overnight, and Eugene had been a part of making it happen. He only owed his mom a little more money, before he was out of the red, and then he could dye his hair any colour he wanted too. The prospect was nearly enough to force out a smile.

Eugene stood in front of his bathroom mirror, applying the final touches on his black eyeliner, before going to the kitchen to grab something for breakfast. The small two bedroom apartment always felt empty, despite being cluttered with half empty moving boxes, and furniture that was meant for a much larger space. Eugene and his mom had lived in the city for almost a year. Yet, they hadn’t really unpacked. His mom travelled for work, and rarely came home these days, but she sent him money for food and whatever else . . .

It was better this way. Every time his mom looked at him, Eugene could see the pain behind her eyes. He reminded her too much of dad. She was still young, too young when she got pregnant, and definitely too young to be a widow with a kid. And years later, now that he was a teenager, she still couldn’t handle it, or maybe running away was how she handled it. Eugene understood. He was her burden, the anchor that pulled her down and held her back from her own dreams. Anyway . . . It was easier when she was gone, to deal with everything-preferable even.

After pouring lumpy milk on his cereal, he tossed the whole thing, bowl and all, in the trash. ‘What does it matter, anyway?’ Eugene tugged on the chrome chain that connected his wallet to his trenchy, and cracked open the Velcro. He had enough money left to pick up something to eat from the gas station, and maybe a drink tonight, and then that was it. No more money for a week. He checked the freezer before leaving for school, pocketing one of the frozen burritos that were all that was left of his sustenance for the month.

The walk to school gave him time to think about his classes for the day: math, science, career planning . . . Not that he cared much about any of his classes. Thinking about them took his mind away from the other parts of school, the harder parts. He rubbed his hand over his heart, where he kept the mail delivery ticket, in the inside pocket of his trenchy. A tracking update on his phone indicated the game would be ready for pickup after school. He only had to survive one more school day and he’d finally have it.

“My own. My precious . . .”

***

School was about what he’d expected. It was hard, not the educational parts, just everything else. If he thought about it too much, it would only make him angry, and sad, and scared. So he didn’t think about it. It was over for now, and with his new game at the post office, he wouldn’t even bother going to school for the next few days. If his mom asked, he’d just tell her he’d been sick or something . . . It wasn’t like she was around to care anyway.

Two tiny bells rung as he opened the door. “Wassup?” Eugene asked

“Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?” replied the elderly gentleman who ran the tiny post office.

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“Oh come on, Charlie. You know why I’m here.”

“We’ere at the postal service are’ere to serve,” said Charlie, who bent down behind the counter and popped back up bearing a large rectangular package, wrapped in brown paper and riddled with clever stamps.

Eugene reached for his treasure chest-

“Can I see some ID?” piped Charlie, pulling the box back a nugget.

“Charlie, you know who I am.”

“Just teasing you, Eugene. No need to get riled. Ere ye go. What’s so important-like, you been round near on every day anyhow?”

The question nearly missed the excited Eugene, who was already scrambling toward the door with his saving grace tucked under his arm. “It’s freedom Charlie. It’s my freedom,” he answered in sudden goodbye.

“Nice boy that. Nice boy . . .” Charlie shrugged, picking up his newspaper from its hiding place under the counter. “In my day, make-up was fer girls. Boy’s gonna be queer as a three dollar bill. Ha, good for’im.”

Eugene dropped to his knees in the living room, worshipping the cardboard box, giving it a holy place upon the coffee table, pushing a heap of junk and garbage on the floor in the process, before tearing the brown paper wrapping apart with his fingernails, and then his teeth. Agonisingly, he was forced to search for a knife in the messy kitchen to thwart the dreaded packing tape. The two bedroom apartment he shared with his absentee mother wasn’t much to look at, but it was home. A home with no clean knives. So he used a dirty one.

“O-oh yeah,” he exclaimed with a grin. Atop his open treasure chest lay a plastic covered motorcycle helmet gleaning with the black shine of newness. Styrofoam pebbles flew in all directions as he emptied the box’s contents, a sized wet-suit with plastic parts all over it, a half hundred cables of varying colours, and a stack of manuals in twelve languages, none of which appeared to be his language.

The VR-01 was the world's first advanced home virtual reality simulator. It promised not only perfect digital visual quality, but also the capacity to tap into the user's nervous system, stimulating and simulating every feeling imaginable through electrodes that ran throughout the VR suit. Eugene was among the first owners, having purchased and registered for early access. Normally, he’d never have been able to afford a VR-01. They were going to sell for the price of a new car on the website, once the bugs were worked out. But he’d been lucky, or savvy. Eugene was among the first donors to sponsor the VR-01 through the crowd funding site, and as such, his suit had only cost him months of work and months of the ‘food and stuff’ allowance his mom left for him. And after a full three months of eating nothing but ramen noodles-not even burritos, it was his.

Eugene tugged off the plastic wrappers and sticky films attached to the helmet, plunking it onto his head. It was pitch black, and the dark visor portion didn’t open or close. A mouthpiece, attached to the inside of the helmet, pressed against his cheek, and it took a minute of struggling to get the thing in his mouth. It tasted like metal and plastic. “So worth it,” he garbled.

He ripped off the sensory deprevator, and reverently cleared a place for it on the garbage ridden coffee table. Stepping forward, he shrugged off his trench coat, letting it fall to the floor like discarded armour. It would have looked extremely cool in the centre of an urban battlefield surrounded by enemies and fans, and not alone in a tiny apartment surrounded by garbage. He snapped up the users manual like drawing Excalibur from the stone. “Okay, let’s do this.”

The number of disclaimers and useless, cover their own asses, safety nonsense was insurmountable, and so he skipped to the good stuff. Which, thankfully, unfolded into a map of quick start directions, filled with tab A’s, slot B’s and manageable steps. The first of which let him know that ‘commando’ was the only way to wear the black suit, which itself was lined with dozens of wires and clusters of connections. It had been a hot day, and his black trench-coat wasn’t exactly meant for t-shirt weather. Eugene stunk, could practically feel the grime under his black t-shirt. There was no way he was befouling his new prize.

He practically sprinted into the bathroom, tearing off his sweaty clothes. Every second he wasted was one more second he had to wait. He hardly even glanced at the horizontal scars tallied down his left arm, the remnant of a sharp knife and a bad night. Lately he couldn’t stop looking at them, running his hands across those familiar thoughts . . .

But today was different.

Today, he was escaping to a whole new world.