Pineyard spent half an hour stumbling around his house to find the emergency flashlight, but once he did he immediately strapped it onto his forehead and sighed a breathe of relief.
"Seeing that there's no explosions... we can rule out a terrorist attack.'" He mumbled, while carefully moving around the trashed furniture from his earlier endeavour. "BUT... Just in case..."
He slowly took out a Glock-17 under his desk, holding it in front of his face. "This should do." Then proceeded to stash it between his stomach and shorts.
"Anyway..." He mumbled, "it was probably a power maintenance..."
Usually, the local electrical company would send notifications, but this time it seemed to Pineyard that their competence was quickly deteriorating.
Pineyard took out his trusty pen attached to a small notebook, flipped it open, and started jotting things down.
'Note to self: Buy solar panels'
Afterwards, he settled it down neatly on his desk, made his way to the kitchen, and quickly snatched the tray of cheese cubes out of the refrigerator.
'All things considered, it might just be a problem with the breaker downstairs.' He thought while downing the cheese cubes. 'I guess I should check it out in a bit...'
----------------------------------------
After filling his belly, Pineyard proceeded to head downstairs.
It was odd. He couldn't get rid of this weird feeling, like how he felt as a kid when first discovered the Boltzmann brain theory. He just felt afloat, in easier terms.
The temperature, since the heater was turned off, was cooler than usual. But it was almost chilly, and logically it shouldn't have dropped so low even if the heater was off, as it was probably hotter outside..
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
'Now, where was that..' Pineyard slowly felt his way around, 'It should be inside the laund...ry'
Blue. Translucent. Ghost.
There was something floating in front of Pineyard, and he could feel anxiety rising, but quickly pulled himself together and pulled out his glock, aiming right at it.
Perhaps, it was a distraction device by house intruders, so they could catch him off guard and then attack him.
But, it wouldn't work with him because he already prepared himself when the power went out. And he didn't believe in ghosts.
"Come out! Before I randomly shoot through the walls" He threatened. He kept his gun pointed, but was still curious as to what that blue thing was, so he shot a glance towards it.
[★★☆☆☆☆]
HIGH QUALITY GRINE SOUL
LOW 2 STAR, OBTAINABLE
A High Quality Grine Soul. Can be obtained. Put into ꁲꂵ꒐ꃔ ꊿꈜ꒒ꑀ for more info...
[★★☆☆☆☆]
Despite Pineyards wariness, this mysterious block of text hovering in the air had astounded him. He slowly moved towards it, still wary of his surroundings, and slowly reached out to it. The translucency of it was hypnotizing, and he had a feeling that if he touched it something amazing would happen.
So he did.
'WOULD YOU LIKE TO STORE 'HIGH QUALITY GRINE SOUL?'
[YES] [NO]
His hand had passed through the blue block, and somehow the screen had changed. 'This is a Hologram!' he thought. To Pineyard, who was somewhat a tech-geek, this was mind-blowing. He'd done intensive research on them when he was a younger, more idealistic person, and that this type of technology was stated to be almost impossible.
But right now, in front of him, was that very thing. He felt that maybe he was hallucinating somehow, or this was all part of a show, but regardless it was still astonishing to be able to pull something off like this.
He then slowly tapped onto the [Yes] button, and another screen had popped up.
'THE USERS FIRST SOUL HAS BEEN ACQUIRED! AN ACHIEVEMENT HAS BEEN MADE, AND A REWARD CAN BE DISTRIBUTED. PLEASE CHECK THE ꁲꂵ꒐ꃔ ꊿꈜ꒒ꑀ, OR IN HUMAN LANGUAGE, THE COMPUTER, FOR MORE INFORMATION.'