Road To Courage
Prologue
David walked into the house and threw his backpack into the corner. Then he headed into the bathroom. He looked into the mirror and saw messed up black hair. His piercing green eyes were hidden behind glasses; however, the most eye-catching part of his appearance was a long gash and the assortment of bruises prominent on his face. He grabbed a towel and dabbed the blood on his cheek where it had split open when he was punched. He opened the cabinet and pulled out the band aids and patched up the cut.
This was a common occurrence for David; he was always being bullied and beaten up on his way home and at school. He was proclaimed a weakling and had very few friends. His parents traveled for work and were almost never home so he was usually home alone with his little sister.
After leaving the bathroom he headed up the stairs to his room. The moment he got into his room he headed to his computer. He immediately logged on to the internet and went straight to the website that never failed to bring him a rush of excitement. Unicorn Corporation, the creator of the website, was advertising a capsule that would become a gateway to Royal Road, the first virtual reality game. The capsule was coming out tomorrow, the first day of summer break.
He was so excited about the new VR world, he had played many games and had won many tournaments in the gaming world. He was usually in his room playing games, maxing out his character, or going over strategies on how to take down an enemy keep or protect some poor village from monsters.
He had been watching news on this game since the company had announced their workings on it. It was every gamer's dream for virtual reality to finally be entered into gaming and this new company had answered them. He could tell that if Royal Road gave them what it had promised it would crush all the other games out there, even the wildly popular in Korea Continent of Magic. But the virtual reality and the game weren’t the only things that were spiking the game community’s interest, there was also the challenge. Unicorn Corporation had issued a challenge that anyone who could conquer the continent the game was based in would be given the entire company's revenue for a month.
The amount of money in the reward would be astronomical if the game was a success. This all played at the back of David's mind while he searched the website for any new information before the game came out. Knowledge was power and he would find out everything he could before entering the game. Sadly he couldn't find anything new on the site except for a topic saying the game came out tomorrow. Turning off his computer screen, he got up just as he heard the door open.
"Oh no," he muttered.
He headed downstairs to encounter his little sister's glare when she saw him.
"They beat you up again," she said. He felt anger radiating from her in waves.
His sister looked cute and harmless with fiery red hair she got from their mother and the same green eyes as him, but don't let that fool you; she took four different martial arts classes and was captain of the junior varsity volleyball team. He sometimes wondered how she fit all her strength into that small body of hers.
"I am going to kill them," she said and turned her back on him as though preparing to leave.
"Sarah its ok. I'm fine, you don't have to do that," David panicked and rushed down the stairs towards her.
"They hurt you again", she said with an ocean of barely suppressed rage, "I am going to find them and pound them into dust!"
Sarah had always been like this, fiercely loyal. She always wanted to protect him, even back when we were young.
"Sis calm down! I'm fine. See it barely hurts," he patted the side of his face and smiled while suppressing the pain.
She glared at him, knowing he was obviously lying to her. "Fine," she said, "I'm hungry what are we having to eat."
Her rage seemingly disappeared as she headed into the kitchen. David was shocked into stillness and could only stare after her as she walked away. This had never happened before, he usually had to hold her back from breaking down the door and going off to find who had beaten him.
"Come on I'm starving!" he heard her call from the kitchen.
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Realizing he was still standing on the foyer, he quickly followed her to the kitchen. She was watching him from the counter as he came in.
"So," she said, "where's the food"
"Be patient," David said as he walked around the kitchen, grabbing things as he went, “I haven’t started it yet, so you don’t have to sit there watching me.”
“What you haven’t made anything?” she complained with a pout.
David did most of the household chores like cooking and cleaning while his sister was away at Volleyball or out with friends. It was rare that he didn’t get everything ready before Sarah got home. “I know you're hungry but you will just have to wait,” he said, “unless you want to cook it yourself.” He gave her a look that told her he didn’t want her to whine about it. She might boss him around anywhere else, but when it came to him cooking she would never talk back. He had learned to cook a lot from the food his parents brought home from all around the world. He had tried to recreate some of them in his spare time. Over several years of cooking for his sister he had become quite adept at it.
“Fine,” she said still pouting as she slipped off the counter, ”yell for me when you're done then.”
After he finished cooking the food, he called for his sister to come eat.
As they started eating she started talking about volleyball and how she wouldn’t be home much for the summer due to camp.
“What about you?” she asked. “I hope you don’t plan to spend your entire summer playing games in your room like last year.”
“Mmh,” he said something unintelligible.
She glared at him.
“What else am I supposed to do? I don’t have any friends,” he said.
She was still glaring.
Giving up on his gaming week he sighed “Fine, what do you want to do?”
Her glare turned into a brilliant smile, “Me and my friends were going to that new movie in 2 weeks why don’t you come with?”
Sarah's friends were a bit of a mix since Sarah got along with everyone. Since she was moved up to Junior Varsity in the 7th grade they were a combination of both girls in her grade and girls from her team. She spent time with both groups but usually not both at the same time.
“Who are you going with?” he asked.
“Oh, you know Cindy and Mary,” she said.
He did know them, they were his sister’s best friends and complete opposites of each other. Cindy was outgoing like his sister and also an amazing cook. She had even helped him out in the kitchen when she came over, and he could tell she was a better cook than him. Mary was a pretty quiet and very smart. She read a lot ,and recommended books to him when she was around. Both of them were also a year older than his sister and a year younger than him.
"Fine I'll go with you," he said resigning himself to the fact.
She smiled, obviously happy to have gotten him to socialize with people.
"Well I'm gonna go to sleep," he said standing up.
"So early?" she asked in surprise.
"I plan on getting up early to hook up the capsule," he said, smiling at the idea.
"Oh that thing you were talking about for months," she said looking a bit bored.
"You should get some sleep too you have Summer Training for volleyball starting tomorrow," he advised.
"O.K." she replied.
He headed up into his room and layed down. He looked up at the ceiling, smiled, and said, "Just one more day."
***
The next day two delivery men carried the large capsule up the stairs to his room, it barely fit through the door. They set it down and helped him set up the cables before leaving. By the time they were done, it was around 11 P.M. His sister had left earlier for her volleyball stuff, so he was alone. When he got into the capsule the top slid shut and a message popped up.
Do You Wish To Connect To Royal Road?
Full of excitement and without hesitation he shouted, "Yes!"