*Creak*

“I’m home!”

The girl smiled gaily as she took her shoes off and put them next to the welcome mat in front of her. A gust of cold air brushed against her back and she shivered, closing the door she had just opened to enter the house.

“Sweetie!”

Sarah’s head shot up and she smiled as she saw that at the entrance to the living room a few metres away was a man dressed in a suit, holding his arms out for her to run into them and hug him.

“Daddy!”

The man in front of her was named Joel Tour. Outside of the house he was known as the cold, calculating and genius Director of the OmniGame Corporation, a company that specialised in making virtual reality video games.

But she just knew him as daddy.

She ran and practically jumped into his arms, letting him spin her around in the air. Although she was eighteen, when they were in the household she always felt free to act like a child.

“Haha,” Joel put her down and she pressed her hands down on her school uniform to get rid of some of the wrinkles that had appeared. “Your mother is at Ines’ so I figured now was a good time to pop up and give you something.” He winked at her as he spoke and pressed something into her hands.

Because he was the Director of such a large corporation Joel often worked late hours and her mother took the time alone as a reason to visit their next door neighbour Ines and over the years Sarah had also come to view Ines as a close friend rather than just a next door neighbour. Sarah herself always popped over there to visit her childhood friend James, the boy she secretly had a crush on.

Joel took a step back and grinned, motioning for Sarah to look at what he had given her. She opened her clasped palm and found herself looking in confusion at what appeared to be a small, metal computer chip. As he saw the look of confusion cross her face Joel let out a little chuckle.

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“Gosh Sarah keep up with the times. It’s called a neural interface.”

Sarah looked up at him, “Like, for video games?”

“Yup,” Joel nodded his head, “Fresh off the company production line.”

“Oh… thanks dad.”

She had never been one for video games.

Joel frowned. Sarah had almost always called him daddy unless he failed to impress her somehow.

“Oh by the way,”

He casually lifted his hand into the air as he turned to walk into the living room.

“I personally gave one to our neighbour a few days ago. What was his name again? Oh right, James.”

At the mention of James’ name Sarah’s ears seemed to perk up and Joel grinned as he could feel her eyes boring into his back. A few seconds later he felt her hands grabbing the back of his suit and a small, subservient tone seemed to come from her voice.

“Please teach me how to play this game.”

Joel turned around and she saw a massive smile on his face.

“Who do you think I am? Of course I’ll teach you how to play.”

~~~~

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Sarah looked around her as she entered the game. Before anything she noticed the bright, shiny logo of three triangles interlocked and floating in the air. The OmniGame logo of the company her dad worked for. On the top of the logo was a single word, the name of the game she had just entered.

Eternity.