“Say, what do you think is fate?”

A hooded girl stood at the rooftop of a tall building, with nothing but the endless blue sky above her. A few white clouds were drifting at that hour, sailing like ships across the eternal welkin, never to see the land of shore. Looking out towards the distance, she placed her hand on the stone parapet, speechless. The city was loud and colourful as always, the parade of society’s little business hastily moving forward.

“Fate is something quite misleading.”
she said simply with a kind voice. Perhaps her face even bore a smile, yet it was impossible to know, for she was facing away, gazing at the unknown.

“Many people believe that it’s something we can’t change, but there are just as many that deny that and say we can change it. There are lots of shows on TV that prove either or both of the two statements. It’s no surprise such different opinions have equal defenders. Everyone is so inclined to blindly fight for what they believe is right, they forget that the answer might be a combination of polar opposites.”

Stray dogs chased each other in the trash-ridden back alleys. They were youngsters looking for an adventure.

“The thing is, fate is the road we walk on. It can be bumpy or it can be smooth. Long or short. Narrow or wide. It depends on how you carve it, since you’re the one making it. If we think by knowing only that, it would be as if people really can change their fate and that there really isn’t anything they can’t do. However, it’s not entirely like that.”

A bird flew high above the many pedestrians on the street, soaring through the air majestically. Where it was going can not be said for certain.

“This is where we should clear up what destiny is. The road of fate has to be located somewhere, right? Well, the ground it is situated on is destiny. As you move forward, the only space you can occupy is the road, you can’t step out of it. In other words, you can change your location, but you can’t change the location itself. If there’s a mountain in front of you, you can’t simply erase it from existence or blow it up. You have to choose to either go around or through it. Or you can just sit and wait for something to happen. What that something will be and if it will come is something you can’t expect to know. If it will or will not happen can’t be chosen by you. After all, you can only stay on the road. The bad news doesn’t end with that. Seems like you can’t really turn around and go back either. The only options are to move forward or stay still.”

Three elderly women drank coffee at the old café at the corner. They were playing cards again.

“You have to wonder, though. How is the road made in the first place? With a shovel? A huge machine? Or maybe with your own bare hands? The truth is, it’s none of those. The only way to build it is with the power of the soul. Hehe, yah, yah, I know. That sounds so cliché and believerish. But it’s the truth! And I’m not even a fan of religion. Hear me out here and then make whatever conclusions you want, wiseguy.

Fate. Destiny. It’s not like you can physically touch those. That’s why it’s not too farfetched to suggest that the soul has something to do with this. Everyone has a soul, even if they try to deny it. A lot of people also say that their soul is weak. That’s not true! If it was, you wouldn’t be alive! It’s the power you use to create your path. Every soul is strong in its very own way. The problem comes when that strength has to be utilized. Some can summon it, others can’t, but everybody can learn how to, so it’s not impossible to be a strong person. What being a strong person actually means, well, it always depends on the person, so I can’t make any assumptions on that.”

In a kiosk by a busy bus stop the seller was reading a newspaper. The news must of been important, for his eyes did not lift themselves from the words, not even when someone knocked on the window.

“Ah, but I got a bit distracter there. In any case, it was about changing fate, wasn’t it?
What normal people understand by “changing fate” is “to change the course of events that were meant to happen” and those who shout out that they can determine their own fate mean to say that they can decide on their future, that nothing is truly set in stone.
After everything that I’ve said, it should be obvious that we really can change fate. We can make the road go left or right or straight ahead. But we can’t pick everything ourselves, can we? Who will come when we’re in trouble? What will be behind the curtain? What lies beyond the mountain? Those are things impossible for us to know or chose. The only choice we have is to go forward and, when we do find out, we can’t change what’s in front of us. One must carry the burdens of the choices they make, after all.

Fate. Destiny. Spirit. Those are the things that shape what we call “a life”. Something we can relatively control, something we can never control and something we can always control.

If we look at it all from this point of view, we both can and can’t change our future.”

A black book fell from the sky, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere. The girl spread out her right hand and it landed on her palm. She then turned to stand sideways, the item still in her hands. It became evident that she was also wearing a hat, the visor of which overshadowed her eyes, hiding them from view. But her smile was visible and it was warm and sincere.

“Well, it’s not like it’s a problem, is it? As long as the soul is there, any dream is possible.”

---

Dawn, a time of new beginnings, a symbol of hope and bliss, had finally come upon the shivering city. The playful rays of the sleepy sun, which would have tickled the early birds and glided on the surface of windows, were now hidden away by a thick layer of grey. Clouds tumbled over each other in the heavens as rain poured down on the awakening world.
Cars roared past each other on the road, their headlights shining brightly like the eyes of a monstrous beast from folklore. The occasional song of horns, abrupt stops and sound ignitions provided audible effects befitting the scene. The lamps were yet to be turned off, their orange glow illuminating the tiled streets below. A few blades of grass were growing in the cracks, which spread through the solid surface of the squares beneath the pedestrians’ feet, yet no one came to notice. With or without an umbrella, humans hurried on their way, not once glancing away from the direction of their destination. Another round of hard work awaited the nation. The glass was already getting foggy. Mist was creeping in the alleys, where mice danced at the feast of garbage, a sneaky cat watching on a fence from above. Some lights flickered on and others off in the tall skyscrapers, making it seem like a giant beehive and inside its little cells were people, who chatted among themselves or didn’t speak at all, never bothering themselves to wonder what the ones on the other side of the wall were doing. They did not see each other. They most likely didn’t even know that the other was there or that they even existed.
The rain continued falling, washing away the dirt of the city. The inanimate one, at least. Puddles bubbled in their little crevices, gathering the eyes of passersby, who strived to avoid them. Pigeons stayed huddled together under roofs or shelters. A few shops were just getting their signs flipped from “Closed” to “Open”, whilst the 24/7 convenience stores had never even flipped them the other way around in the first place.

Life was moving on, just like the stream of water, which flowed through the streets and down the drain. Today was no different from yesterday.

---

Only ten minutes away from the official start of the work day, despite many already being at their workplace. Commercials ran on both television and radio, promoting products and giving away spoilers for the upcoming morning news.

City 1

“This morning with ____ we’ll tell you about a vicious attack by stray dogs, meteorologists’ outlooks on recent weather, new 3D technology and many, many more fantastic stories. The News on ____ every morning at 6 AM. ”

“A small restaurant’s special dish gains popularity through the Internet. How did a squirrel get drunk and break into a house? What caused the incident on Crossroad 53? Stay tuned with ___ radio for the morning cup of coffee.”

“Minister of ____ department Mr. ____denies being involved in the kidnapping. Is he telling the truth? Watch ____ News at 6 AM.”

City 2

“Bacon, eggs and and poison? How did a mother unknowingly serve her family’s sentence? To find out, watch the news on ____ 6 o’clock sharp. ”

“More traffic jams expected in the main arteries. How long will the construction sight continue influencing the people? ____ launches a new project to improve customer service. Genuine intentions or a fake excuse? And will there be an end to this rain? More news in the morning show at 6 AM.”

“___ releases new single! The fans are flooding the social webs with posts! ___ expected to host a LIVE on the 16th at Arcada Stadium! Graffiti artists and street musicians taking over Dolbbs Street from the 3rd to the 6th! For more awesomesause wait 10 more minutes until 6 AM on Radio ____. Wake up, you drunkards!”

Loud or calm. Feminine or masculine. Behind a screen or speaker. They were all the same fraudery. There was nothing sincere. Nothing honestly emotional. With this nothingness came down the rain, raindrops piling on the windows.

And in this static of the natural and the artificial, someone tapped a few spaces and ~ding~

5:50AM on a raining morning.

Gabe had no actual reason for being up so early in the morning, but on raining days, it just felt nice to wake up and take in the scenery. Gray light filtered through the heavy clouds as soft rain pelted the patio window, drops of water sliding against the glass and colliding with one-another, forming rivers that dispersed moments later. Looking to the side of the patio window, the young man checked the theronometer taped to the wall. The mercury was ten degrees below room temperature, and the visible shifting of the rain showed that the wind was strong that morning. But he was a healthy young man, and while he didn't normally take morning showers, when Gabe did, it was out in the rain. His roommate was still asleep, tucked away and facing the wall after a few too many mornings waking up to the sight of Gabe's manhood. The Mongolian's snores were rather heavy as well, so it should be fine if he added in a bit of music to the experience as well.

Sliding open the window and stepping out onto the slick patio, the young man closed his eyes and simply decided to enjoy the moment. Rain washed down his slender body, drawing away the warmth that it held from being wrapped in heavy woolen blankets. It was a soothing sensation, a cooling one that emptied his mind of even the most abstract of thoughts. The wind felt good, chilling his rain-drenched skin as it pushed against him. Nature's own variation of a cold shower, with the added bonus of being a hundred times more atmospheric. It helped, of course, that the morning traffic routines had yet to start up, with the graveyard shift workers still busy, and the morning folks still asleep. Other than the occasional sound of a car, Gabe allowed himself to enjoy a moment of serenity.

The young lady from the adjacent apartment, the one who had the same no-sleep-required attitude as himself, waved at him, and he reciprocated it. Just like his roommate, that early bird had grown accustomed to the restaurant worker's perpetual morning nudity. The only difference laid it how one avoided it, and another tolerated it.

Stepping back inside, he crossed the carpeted room and entered the washroom in five big steps, toweling himself dry in another half-minute. He smiled at the mirror, warming up his facial muscles for another day at the cafe, before another chill in the air reminded him that, while sleeping naked was comfortable, and cold showers were relaxing, getting sick due to that would be detrimental to his enjoyment of life. Towel slung around his shoulders to catch what stray droplets of water may fall from his damp hair, he slid open the closet, closing his eyes to properly visual what sort of outfit he'd be donning that day. Today was a raining day, so he should put on one of those fancy trench coats he bought last year. Maybe emulating the style of 20th century mobsters? Or should he go for a more somber look, with a dark suit and umbrella, and hope that the skies get darker? Then again, a chipper white-shirt-with-suspenders was always a good choice on any day.

Not that any of it really mattered, seeing how he had a special workplace uniform to adhere to regardless, but it was fun to dream about those things.

That bit of fun, though, was interrupted by the buzzing of his Iphone. Waltzing over, he opened up his email to read a prophetic message from the future, obviously a schedule of things that were to come for a town that wasn't this one. He yawned as he absentmindedly scrolled through the rest of his emails, silently praising that 'mysterious' message for at least being slightly creative and not obviously a scam. Perhaps it was some sort of subtle promotion for a movie that was coming up, about cellphone messages that predicted the future. Or perhaps it was sent by William Low, who just wanted more people to look him up on the Internet. He paid it little mind...up until he closed his email and noticed an app that was in the process of downloading, something that obviously was related to the message from before.

Gabe chose to sit down on a chair then.

This was getting interesting.

Crosslegged and now with his towel on his lap, he rocked side by side slowly as he searched Google for information about the 'Key Shop' app, wondering whether or not it was some sort of virus or not. Other than a few unrelated hits, there was nothing, and he smiled at that. With a tap of his index finger, he opened the application, and beared witness to...a shop for free keys and accessories. Apparently, you were only allowed one, and he was restricted to only the first page.

That was anti-climatic.

With his expectations of something crazy and significant and possibly scary gone, Gabe decided that he would at least follow through with the sole function of the app and select one key from the selection. The Librarian, it was called. Should serve well as something to have on him when he decided to try out a more intellectual appearance, complete with non-prescription glasses. With that done, he closed his phone, and went back to the dire dilemma of selecting what outfit he would wear on that raining day.

The young man had scarcely put on a pair of boxer briefs before a knock on the door interrupted his clothes selection. With a daring swagger (or perhaps just irrational shamelessness), he opened the door, fully expecting his landlord to be asking for more tips on brewing coffee. There was no one. Another yawn escaped his lips as he turned around, waving off that incident as simply him mishearing it. Yet there was a new box when he returned to the closet.

A box with all the correct shipping details and contact information, as well as a stamp that looked awfully similar to the Key Shop app icon.

If only Amazon worked as fast as Key Shop.

Now, he was fairly intrigued, and opening the box, found, not to his surprise, the Librarian key, as well as the keychain that came with it. It looked as if it was meant to be old, all bronze and such, with such simple teeth that no one would seriously use it as a key to a lock in this day and age. Lifting it up by the chain, then turned his attention to the owl. A cute little thing. Reminded him of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, that book series about owls who killed each other with metal talons and fire. Disregarding whatever paper that was in the box, Gabe put the key and phone back onto the table, before returning to the task of figuring out what to wear in the morning.

After all, one must always be careful with their appearance.

A single computer monitor draped the dim room in numerous colors, everchanging as a young man made motions with the mouse and hit the keyboard lightly, the mechanical keys' clacks resonating throughout the room. A sterile smell, like a mixture of alcohol and air freshener, dominated the chilly room. While not exactly freezer level in terms of temperature, the room didn't feel exactly as comforting as it could have been, especially with the wooden floor and other warm looking furnishings, along with a bit of more modern-styled set-ups and the dim light which contributed to the idea. The repetitive music coming from the speakers did nothing to bore the young man as he continued with whatever it was he was doing. Upon closer inspection, one could notice that the dark haired youth was in fact playing a MMORPG, most likely the most recent and most popular of the moment. Along with many rows of icons indicating different abilities that adorned the screen, there were a pair of red and blue bars containing exorbitantly high numbers, reaching the quintuple digits and arguably most importantly, in the middle, there was a rather comely looking female doing adventurous things in a brightly colored landscape, such as bashing various cutesy monsters with a sword and picking up a diverse range of different items from their bodies.

A typical grind, really. However, despite the natural boredom that would normally come to anyone after repeating the same action over and over for hours, the male sitting relaxed in front of the desktop computer didn't not show the slightest expression of fatigue or languor. Instead, a flat yet sentimental look was featured on his average face, pale of skin, black of hair and blue and grey of eyes. The only thing that broke the slightly monochromatic set of colors that would normally be upon his face in such a lighting were the bright colors set upon it by not only the screen, but also by the garish LED lighting on the mouse, keyboard and case. Set upon his nose and ears was a pair of "gamer" glasses that were all the rage in professional gaming and "esports" that, while not exactly giving the amazing effect that were advertised (as with just about every advertisement, if we think harshly about the subject), they did do a good job of keeping his eyes from being too strained by watching the screen for hours on end, though they were really just glasses with yellow tinted lens and a fancy logo. The youth seemed reasonably satisfied with them though, based simply on the fact that his eyes were still wide open, despite having played games for hours on end.

Eventually, the routine was broken by a round of beeping and vibrating coming from a thin device on the glass desk. With a sigh, the man hit 'escape' on his keyboard and navigating through the menu to exit the game, which promptly closed and the computer monitor now showed an astonishingly high resolution image of a character from whatever the otaku's favorite anime at the time was. He arose out of his chair, which in turn squeaked, and, pulling on a hoodie over his rather simple UNIQLO shirt, grabbed the phone, stopping its ringing. Raising his arm, he quickly realized he had only stopped an alarm and put the phone back in his pocket as he recalled what the alarm had been for.

"Ah, right. Work." He muttered to the air, as if it was keen to listen. However, in only a moment, he saw a problem. The time was only six AM. He had set the alarm too early; much too early. He now saw two options: go out and do something, or remain where he was and play for a few more hours. After all, he only started work at nine o'clock. Then again, if he kept playing, he risked being late for work, which would make for a horrible first impression on his first day. In short, not a good idea. A pensive and somewhat pained expression took over his face until his decision was made thanks to a simple chime from his phone. Or, more specifically, a chime indicating that he had received a text message. Tapping the button with his finger to turn on the phone, he read the message after tapping on the bubble to open the text application.

Hi Kai.
I'll be passing by your place around 7. Wanna take a walk with me? I'll treat you to coffee! ;)
-Charlotte

"Who the heck signs a text message..." Kai asked in rhetoric, with a seemingly annoyed tone, but there was nonetheless a slight smile on his face. With slight spring to his taps, he typed a quick reply.

dont see why not. see u @ 7 then.

He didn't bother to sign it and to begin with hadn't really put much effort into the digital missive. Despite this, he clicked 'send' with a powerful tap before tossing his phone onto his bed. First off, he needed a shower. Of all the people he spoke to on a regular basis (you can count them on one hand), his sister was the only one he really felt determined to look reasonable for. Despite what one might think, coming away from the current imouto trend in anime, especially the ones Kai watched for himself, it wasn't for such an obvious reason such as petty love. It was... something indescribable. Perhaps it was simply a natural, instinctive feeling of kinship, but Kai liked to think it was something else, something that set him apart from the rest. On that note, he removed his clothes in his room, tossing them lazily into his basket and left his bedroom-slash-office to go to the bathroom. Kai dragged himself into the shower and jumped as the water came cold when he turned the knob. Nothing new there. He barely spent a moment covering his body in soap and using his typical Super Budget Men’s Shampoo, which smelled something like a mix of mint and some exotic fruit, he lathered his hair in white foam, before standing under the stream of steaming water, letting the products come off his body before leaving the shower and continuing his routines in washing his face and brushing his teeth.

Normally, he wouldn’t go through even a quarter of the effort he was putting in this morning, but he had an occasion worth working hard for, the youth remarked silently as he once again rinsed soap off his skin, this time on his face. With that, he had finished making his own body have a presentable appearance. It was impressive what water could do. In a strange sense, it was almost as if good old H2O could completely change a man, at least in terms of physique. Kai continued rubbing his black-blue hair with the towel as he exited the bathroom and after returning to his room, he picked out some average looking clothes from his dresser and dressed himself. It was a somewhat cloudy day, with darker rain clouds rolling in from afar, but it was warm enough, so Kai passed on wearing a sweater or coat, instead going for a monocolor long sleeve t-shirt, a pair of jeans and some of the sneakers Charlotte had given him months ago after she had gotten them all for a bargain. Astonishingly, she had managed to haggle the price down into the double-digits and buy ten pairs. Kai could still remember just how blown away he had been when he opened his door one day to find the dainty figure of his sister holding boxes upon boxes of Puma sneakers. With those and the other essentials which don’t need mentioning, he was ready. In total, he had taken about thirty minutes, but his sister had a habit of arriving early anyway, so it didn't matter much. He elected to pass on having his coffee, for obvious reasons and instead went to turn off his PC, after which he grabbed his phone and keys and left his apartment. With a blank expression, he turned around and stuck the key into the hole in his door and turned, a satisfying mechanical feeling and sound confirming that he had locked the door.

By the time he had descended the stairs of his apartment to the street, he already found Charlotte, dressed as usual in rather modest yet girly clothes with subdued colors such as beige and Bordeaux and dressed in surprisingly warm clothes for the season, a sweater, scarf and thick looking skirt, playing some trivial game on her own phone. Hearing him open the door the apartment building, she stood up from the steps where she had been formerly seated and greeted her sibling. "Good morning, Kai. How are you?" Speaking with a ordinary yet somehow formal sounding tone and manner of speech, she waved and smiled earnestly. Her hair, of a fairer color compared to Kai's own dark hair, was set in a simple yet elegant loose bun, complete with hair stick, which made her look much more mature than her actual age would suggest. With a more rigid wave, Kai responded in turn.

"'Morning. I'm fine. Slept well." His disjointed manner of speech instantly made his sister look at him strangely. She then sighed.

"No, you didn't sleep well. You spent all of the early morning playing games again." Kai was about to argue when she cut in again. "I know you, Kai." Her kind expression soured, she shook her head and sighed again. Then, she looked at him again and smiled. "Let's not let that ruin the morning. Care to follow?" Kai, who now felt somewhat guilty due to her accusations, followed behind her as she led him out of the new residential area and towards the waterfront, which was about a fifteen minute walk. The rest of the walk would pass in complete silence.

A few minutes later...

After walking for a moment, the pair arrived at a rather kitsch looking café. The decoration wasn't anything special, but it had a rather comforting look to it. Charlotte had them sit at an outside seat, which she had chosen strategically to be at the furthest distance possible from a group of smokers who had occupied the other end of the café's outdoor seating. Despite the out of the way positioning, it was still a serviceable spot, with a view on the water and pleasantly cushioned seats. Only a few seconds after sitting down, a young woman arrived to take their orders. With an almost cliché order, Charlotte ordered her usual and the woman now turned to Kai, who sat slumped in his seat looking out at the water. "Sir?", the waitress said to get his attention and Kai turned abruptly towards her. "What would you like to have?" Glancing around in uncertainty, he eventually replied in a low voice.

"I'll have what she's having." Now, all the clichés were there. Kai almost found it comical, but he wasn’t in the mood to laugh and he couldn't figure out why. Charlotte chuckled and Kai raised an eyebrow.

“You sure about that? It comes in a pink cup.” Kai sighed and gestured tiredly to the waitress.

“Then I’ll just have an espresso, alright?”, he said in an annoyed tone as Charlotte looked pleased with her quip. Kai sighed and returned to looking at the waterfront as the waitress moved to another table, in a bubbling mood despite the early hour of the morning. He checked his watch. Only half past seven. Most places weren’t even opening at this time. Due to there only being a few people in the streets and the café, with the exception of the group of smokers, along with the peculiar red color of the early-morning sun, Kai had the impression that he was in some entirely different place from his normally bustling and awake home-city.

“How have you been doing?” Kai was awakened from his slight trance by his sister’s voice. He thought over his response for a moment before answering, adjusting his watch as he did so. With a slightly hesitant tone, but a clear voice, he replied,

“I’ve been alright. I got a new job.” It was short, concise and lacked much richness, but it worked. It barely took two sentences, but anymore and she would have inquired further. Kai never did go much into detail. Even before ‘that’. The girl seemed noticeably impressed and gave Kai a congratulatory smile.

“That’s great, Kai!” But her expression quickly darkened. Kai prepared himself for the worst and shrunk slightly in his seat. “Have you thought about going to university?” He fell silent for a moment. During this time, the waitress, still in a bizarrely good mood, came out with their orders. She opened her mouth to speak, but noticing the sour atmosphere, she instead kept quiet and turned away and headed back inside. “Kai, you’re brilliant in physics, you of all people could actually do something with a diploma! Do you expect to keep jumping from part-time job to part-time job for the rest of your life?!” She raised her voice for a moment and Kai made a pitiful expression. Noticing this, she calmed down and reached for the pink cup containing her own drink. After glancing around for a moment, searching for words, Kai took a sip from his drink and almost choked on the hot liquid. After regaining himself, he put the drink down with a pained expression.

“But… What if things are like-” Kai attempted to explain himself and Charlotte, instantly guessing what he was going to say, cut in rudely.

“That was four years ago!” Charlotte growled, but Kai continued on with a flat tone.

“You know, if it weren’t for me, they’d still be-”

“You can’t change the past Kai! The only thing you can change is-” Shortly after his sister interrupted him, her voice cracking, Kai gritted his teeth and stood up.

“Thanks for the coffee.” He muttered as he retrieved the paper cup and left, his steps heavy and his expression dark. His hands trembled as he held the cup. Checking the time on his phone, he shrugged to himself; his shift wouldn’t start for another half hour. The unnerved youth drank from the cup as he angrily walked to work. Not even he could tell if he was mad at his sister or himself…



This day began in huge contrast to the last one due to one simple fact; Kai had actually slept a full night’s rest. Mostly thanks to his day being completely disenchanted by the exchange that morning. After working for most of the morning and then doing some overtime to give a good impression, Kai had left to retrieve a pre-order from his local game store. However, with such low spirits, little motivation was had to actually play the game. Instead, Kai ate a modest dinner and went to bed with little event, even at such an early hour. It was the following morning that something actually happened. In the dark of his bedroom, which also doubled as his office and gaming room, Kai slept peacefully in his rather large bed, almost too large for someone who had no plans ever to share it. Dressed in the same clothes he had worn the day before with only a few components stripped away, such as pants and socks, his expression was noticeably more cheerful than the day before. Of course, he was sleeping, so that made him look much more pleased...

DUN-DUN DUN-DUN DUUUN…

Kai woke with a start as something distinctively ‘chiptune’ burst from the loudspeaker of his cellphone, which sat charging on his side table. Jumping from where he slept, he look bewildered at the slate. What? A call at this time? With a stiff arm, he reached over and grabbed the slate of glass and aluminum with a movement that oozed fatigue. Bizarrely enough, as soon as he had so much as touched the phone, it fell completely silent and stopped its incessant vibrations. Taken aback, Kai looked at the black colored phone for a good moment before hitting the power button. The first thing he noticed was that the brightness was too high and he closed his eyes as he was blinded by the lock screen. After letting his eyes adjust, he read the time out to himself.

“Six AM.” He frankly had no idea why he had to read it aloud, but he did anyway. Then he noticed that there wasn’t any notification for a missed call. Had he hung up by accident? Kai navigated to the phone app as he lay on his shoulder and peculiarly enough, he saw no call for the last seven days. Kai clicked his tongue in bemusement.

He now noticed that he had a text message notification. Well, in truth, it had been there since he had turned on his phone, but in his wake-up process, which was a rare event in itself, he had totally missed it; being obsessed with finding out who had called him, as the tone played by his phone only a minute earlier was definitely not his notification tone. With a wary tap, Kai opened the notification and immediately noticed that the text message had, of all things, a subject. Kai, confused, double-checked that he was actually in the texting application and once he confirmed this, he actually read the message, which had the subject News and the peculiar sender of 1.73. Just about everything seemed, while somewhat bizarrely written and pertaining to events in places he had never heard of, just about as normal as it could be, until he arrived at the final bit of news.

16:30 A murder will take place in Underpass. The murderer will be William Low.

Blink.

Kai’s heart jumped as he read this. He didn’t know anyone named William Low, but the word ‘murder’ was an abrupt change from the normality of the former words. He continued to read the message, right until it finished with an almost overly cheerful tilde. Wait. ‘Have a good yesterday?’ He reread the sentence just to make sure. Indeed, it was written ‘yesterday’ instead of ‘day’ as was customarily said to end a conversation in the English language. This only served to deepen Kai’s bemusement with the whole message. Of course, it could be a prank. Though he could only wonder who he had given his number to who would send him a prank message…

Time received: 6:00, 21st of June

Kai suddenly noticed the timestamp out of the corner of his eye and his breath was caught in his throat. There was no way he had received the message yesterday. The only thing he had received on the twenty-first of June was the message from his sister and when he had checked his phone before receiving that message, he saw no notification for a message. “What is this? Steins;Gate?” He murmured to himself. Shaking the ridiculous thought from his head, Kai attempted to calm himself. I know, I’ll do something to take my mind off of it. First of all, I should go check NetChan… With that in mind, he hit the home button and found himself on the homescreen.

And smack-dab in the middle there was a new icon.

DUN-DUN DUN-DUN DUUUN…

Jumping, Kai slammed the phone onto his bed as music began to blare once again. This time, however, there was no end to the beeps of the tune. He rapidly began to try different ways of turning off the music, all to no avail. Volume buttons? No change. Power-off? Nil. Finally, Kai tried opening the notification bar and the music finally stopped. “Some notification sound…” The tired man muttered while he read the notification. Key App Installed, it read. Of course, Kai hadn’t even started the installation of an app and even if he had, he had no idea what the “key app” was. Putting two and two together, he realized it must have been the icon that he had seen on his homescreen shortly before being assaulted by his loudspeaker. In great contrast to the modern-looking interface of his phone’s OS, the icon was a retro looking key, with the aspect of an item in an old video game. At this point, after so many surprises and twists, Kai had almost gotten used to it and with a flat expression, he tapped on the icon with almost zero hesitation.

Open its opening, which was quite rapid thanks to his phone’s quad-core processor and sparing him more frustration, Kai was greeted by what seemed to be nothing more than a store. For keys. Of all things. Keys. Kai raised an eyebrow at his phone. And all of them were free.

“Alright, time to wake up.” He said as he put the phone down, causing it to vibrate, though, thankfully, this time it did so silently. With a bemused expression, he prepped his hand to slap himself. At the same time, he put his face in such a position that he would surely hit his cheek and wake himself up, instead of hitting the side of his nose and possibly causing some actual damage-

“Ah, who am I kidding?” The youth sighed as he picked up the vibrating phone from the surface of his bed. With the sour realization that he was already awake, he looked over the apparent ‘key shop’. Keys of different metals, shapes and sizes were displayed, along with keychains accompanying each one. One was quite rusty, with a four leaf clover keychain, whereas another had a keychain that portrayed a wing and had a key that looked like a sword. One keychain in particular that intrigued him was one that had a pentagram in it, mostly put down to his latest character in Eternal Liberation Live being a necromancer. The key that came with it (or was it the keychain that came with the key?) had something of a steampunk style. Leviathan Chronicler, it was called. “Sounds like something out of a nineties anime…” he mused in a tired voice. The phone was still vibrating as he went through the app. Well,there was no point in not buying something, seeing as it was free. So long as it didn’t ask him for payment information, he’d be fine.

As hoped, he wasn’t even asked for an address after tapping on the ‘buy’ button and the Ascend P6 finally stopped vibrating. In the new silence, Kai now heard rain pattering against his window. It was a calming sound and after the onslaught of chiptune and ‘rrr’s of vibrations, Kai appreciated it. Suddenly, though, he heard a sound at his apartment’s door. Had he still a speck of confidence in his sanity, he would have questioned the sound this early in the morning, but after the events leading up the present, Kai had a feeling of ‘same-old, same-old’ in regards to the subject. Groaning, he rose out of bed and unlocked the door, turning the light on as he went. Almost as expected, there was in fact a box awaiting him as he opened the door. Now things became interesting. Before, he could have attributed the strange happenings to someone perhaps hacking his phone and observing Kai’s reactions in amusement through the front-facing camera and microphone of the phone. It was entirely possible. Compared to other hacks, it wasn’t that hard to do either. If he applied himself to practice his programming skills, he could probably do it too.

However, now that the events had stepped into reality, Kai was significantly less sure of himself. Now he had quite a few options. Either he could bring the box in and open it, despite it very possibly containing some kind of horrible bioweapon, as he had read about online, or he could leave it out there. For some reason, though, he had a bad feeling about leaving it out there and reluctantly picked up the boring, blank cardboard box and brought it in. With a weary movement, he set the box on the table and was about to retrieve a knife from the kitchen when he realized that there weren’t any tabs or tape to cut. Thus, he did nothing more than lift the lid of the box and inside, amidst a pile of paper shavings, he found the same key and keychain that he had “ordered” earlier. Quite a few thoughts sprung to his head. How did they find my address? was the first one, though Kai set that aside as he remembered that his phone had a GPS function and someone could probably find his address with few problems by looking at the IP address his phone was connected to.

As had been shown in the app, the key was made of a hard, dark metal, which Kai guessed was iron. In contrast, the keychain, with its occult look, was made of a more argentine metal. The two were connected together by a typical ball-chain, tied up in a haphazard manner to the hole on the key, which was also decorated with a few steampunk looking pieces, such as a fake, or perhaps real, blue gem and couple of cogs. It was very attractive indeed.

“I wonder if Charlotte would want it?” Kai said boredly as he went to retrieve his phone to take a picture. Fortunately, the phone had finally stopped vibrating by the time Kai had returned to his bedroom, so he returned with it to the kitchen to take a picture. However, as he brought the phone in close to the key as it lay on the table, a whole new animation appeared on screen. The key app was automatically opened from the task manager and a bar of blue text appeared on screen:


Kai couldn’t even guess what was about to happen.

22nd June, 2014 | 05:50 AM | Julia Castor

Beep beep beep.

...Ugh.

There are a certain kind of people who simply wake up in the morning. At the sound of an alarm, the cry of a rooster, or whatever signature that told them it’s morning already. Sometimes the circadian clock itself suffices. Those people open their eyes, sit up and get off their beds without the slightest bit of hesitation, and go straight to being completely awake - out of sleep, and right into the day. They carry on to whatever tasks they have scheduled, with a perfectly clear mind, efficient, precise and reliable.

Julia Castor absolutely envied those people.

A hand extended out from below the blanket and upwards towards the desk that was situated near it. The fingers only managed to tap against the edge on the first try.

Beep beep beep.

The second time a more extended arm allowed the whole palm to land within the area of the desk’s surface. The smartphone, however, spinned a couple of times as the fingers hit its edges, and now lay once again out of reach on the desk.

….Hhhhhh…

Thud.

With a muffled collision, back against the ground, legs still stuck on the bed, and her torso along with a very messy blanket sheet lying twisted in between, the girl grunted and finally concluded that attempting to turn off the alarm is consuming too much effort to actually be worth it anymore.

Recovering from a position like this was always kind of hard. Pulling the whole body back up by the legs was impossible. Grabbing the edge of the bed or something around it and pulling the upper body back onto the bed was possible, but there was the risk of accidentally grabbing onto the mattress instead and pulling the whole thing down onto the ground along with herself instead. She could bring her upper body up with force from the waist but the the pose will be very awkward and uncomfortable and she was unsure what that was supposed to achieve.

Julia sighed and decided to just roll completely off the bed along with the blanket and get out of that mess afterwards.

With a great yawn she stood up on the wooden planks that composed the floor of the second floor apartment. The blanket unravelled and fell to the ground. Her fingertips felt like they came close to touching the ceiling as she stretched.

Beep beep beep.

Alright, alright, alright! I’m waking up.

She picked up the phone and tossed the blankets back onto her bed with her other hand as she did so, and at the same time pressing against the power button to bring up the screen with her right thumb. Also just then she noticed that her desk was to the left of her bed. What was she even doing trying to reach over and grab the phone with her right hand? No wonder she ended up tumbling off the bed. Oh well, it didn’t matter now. She’s awake already.

22nd June. Sunday. She didn’t have class and her shift that day didn’t start until afternoon. 05:50, the clock showed.

What on earth was she supposed to be doing awake at five fifty in the morning?

She wandered pointlessly around the little space her living quarters had to offer as she flipped the phone around between her fingers.

It was raining outside.

Julia looked out through the window. A moderate amount of rain more than a drizzle but not enough to be called heavy. There was also fog. Julia stared blankly at the window pane for a few seconds, watching raindrops collide with it once in a while, and droplets forming on the surface before gathering enough weight to start sliding down. There was silence except for the sound of the falling rain. She decided the scene had a nice atmosphere to it. She considered opening the window to let the rain come in a bit - paper on her desk, possibly not a good idea. But still the rainy day was pretty. A part of her was almost tempted to go out into the rain and get soaked on purpose. A morning shower - she internally laughed at the pun. Maybe she should go propel the pun even further. Walk out there onto the balcony. Without getting dressed. Morning shower in the -

- no. That's a ridiculous idea.

- the apartment didn't even have a balcony. What even?

Beep beep beep.

Wait, what? That wasn’t even the alarm.

Recovering from the random musings, Julia realized that. Idly flipping the cellphone right side up again, she looked at the screen.

YOU HAVE ONE(1) NEW MESSAGE.

* * * *

Julia sat on the side of her bed, phone in hand. The blankets were piled onto the corner along with her pillow - not tidily because she hasn’t given up the possibility of going back to sleep, although she knows from experience that it was not possible. She also knew from experience that she never could sleep properly with the pillow under her head, but she kept the pillow anyway.

She also went and got dressed, in the sense of pulling something out of the closet and throwing it on. In this case, the selected piece of clothing happened to be a white button-down shirt. Julia owned a number of similar shirts. She slid her arms into the sleeves - her arms and back had to be kept warm, she thought. June meant the start of summer, but with a climate like this one it also meant a higher risk of catching the cold from the temperature difference of the mornings and evenings, and having to awkwardly explain why one could be all sneezing coughing in under the summer heat.

She didn’t bother doing all of the buttons, though. Not like she’s going to need to go out soon. Besides she probably wasn’t awake enough to do them correctly even if she decided to back then.

So there she sat by the bed, legs crossed, shirt halfheartedly worn, hair kept only to the degree that just ensures no strands end up in her eyes, and finger scrolling idly the screen of her smartphone.

The interface displayed on the screen was one offered by the “Key Shop” - an app that just happened to be installed into her phone that morning.

She tried deleting it, but it refused to be removed. The system told her errors have occurred, some with error codes that she didn’t understand, which were just about as good to her as a complete lack of further information, which was the case for another number of error messages. After a while of trying all the things the user-friendly software design had to offer - all that Julia could find, at least - and with nothing working, she decided that she should go downstairs later and ask Bernard for help perhaps. Boy downstairs was a hardcore computer specialist, as can be known from the numerous pieces of paper packages of electronic compartments constantly piled at his doorway, and the landlord paying him equally frequent visits asking him for advice on electronics and demanding him to move the broken screens out of the hallway. He’s a nice lad, really - Julia thought. Really friendly. Questionable sense of fashion. But hey, that’s kind of cute in its own way.

“Bernard is an old man’s name” was the standing joke.

But then the phone wasn’t exactly malfunctioning. And since it still worked, Julia decided it probably wasn’t critical to go ask for help immediately. Maybe when she’s about to go to work later? Or perhaps when she came back in the evening. For now, though, she saw no harm in messing around with it some more since she’s going to get it checked later anyway.

Free keys. If this was some sort of advertisement or publicity stunt she didn’t really get it. But there are publicity stunts whose actual intention is to be incomprehensible, so that’s probably wasn’t something to really worry about.

The later pages of the Key Shop were locked. The first page, though, which she was free to browse, displayed an array of keys. Things are quite literal so far. The keys looked delicately decorated - more works of art than tools; like some of those lovely little trinkets or similar pieces of decoration people would spend time crafting.

YOU ARE ALLOWED ONE(1) ITEM

Everything in the visible catalog so far was labelled free. Curious.

That relieves the stress of the fear of accidentally clicking on something when one intended to scroll - Julia thought as she moved further down to page. Some of the designs were sharp, modern; and others equally elegant but in a more old-fashioned way. Some even had the texture, perhaps intentionally, of specks of rust, which added to the feel of the entire design. This one key with the clover keychain looked particularly pretty th-

*click*

* * * *

Ding.

Eh?

Julia’s immediately regretted turning to look at the door with such a dramatic gesture. Her neck wasn’t doing well with sudden movements after being still and supporting a head that stared at a phone screen for most of the morning.

She put the phone back onto the desk, app left open, as she stood up and yelled something at the door that signalled whoever was there to wait for a moment. Who could it possibly be? She didn’t expect a visitor this early in the morning. A bit panicky she drove her fingers to do the rest of the buttons on her shirt -

- oh snap, wrong one -

- done. Found a pair of shorts to put on, combed down with her fingers the clots of hair still poking conspicuously out into the air. She headed over and opened the door, nearly tripping over in the process.

“Yes?”

No-one was there.

Huh.

Julia shut the door again, wondering what just happened; and tossed the two books on the ground that came close to serving as a trap earlier back onto the shelves where they belonged.

...Was this parcel on the desk before?

Julia went over and inspected the package. Her full legal name, shipping information, a stamp. She loosened the strings and removed the packaging. Paper, and then a cardboard box. The cardboard box was padded, perhaps to protect the contents from impact? The content was a smaller cardboard box. This one seemed much more delicate. It was made of that kind of rough paper boards, brownish in colour. It carried a nice texture. Some words were inscribed on it, yet they belonged to a language she did not recognize. Removing the second box from its container, Julia opened it.

Inside lay a heavy, rusty metal object. The key that she saw in the key shop, along with its keychain - an emerald green trinket with a white clover pattern embedded in it. Beside the key was a little batch of cute white flowers - a great decorative addition. The flowers were beautiful too.

There was something on the back of the box’s lid though. A piece of paper, a note of sorts. Curious, Julia removed it and read:

1. Use on any door, gate or lock…

A world devoid of light. A world consumed by darkness. It was like a night without the moon and stars, like a bottomless chasm of utter nothingness. There was not a single path, not a wall or any surface for that matter. A space where one could float in tenebrosity, forget all they ever knew and lose all meaning to themselves. This abyss of oblivion, however, was not completely empty as it seemed. Many vague murmurings could be heard from every side, despite directions not clearly existing in this dimension. They were the whisperings of those who inhabited this place, known as the Keys Shop and who, quite suitably, bore the name of Keys for their species.
Within this neverending evening ball, these souls spent their eternal time chattering among themselves or dwelling in their own thoughts, but nothing more, for they could neither see their compatriots, nor their own bodies. They could not find each other in the darkness, they could not touch each other, thus they could not be certain what intentions their companions had or if they were not simply talking to themselves. An existence of isolation it was.

It was in a moment of rest, when he had decided to give himself a break from babbling with others, that the Leviathan Chronicler suddenly had to face the brightness of the message he had longed for.





“Well, FINALLY!” he shouted enthusiastically. There was no method to calculate just how much time had passed since the last ‘take off’, yet it had certainly felt like ages and one thing this Key was known for was the lack of patience on many occasions. “Oi, Vinny boy! I’m hitting the road!” he called out to his friend. “I’ll see ya when I see ya.”



Loading Profile…
Loading Stats…
Loading Key…
…
[ Error ]


The phone’s screen went black and stood still for a moment, before a small “error” box came up on the upper left corner and, soon enough,...



“Error” boxes flooded the screen, to the point where there were so many layers of them that the surface went white. Once this was complete, the phone suddenly flashed for a split second and unlocked itself. The first panel appeared normal, the same way Kai had last seen it. However, the situation quickly changed when a voice spoke in the young man’s head:

“Heeeeh, those are some pretty nice girls you have there.”a very short pause followed before the stranger, who was nowhere in sight, continued “Hey, I’m not against 2D, but what the hell?! That’s, like, the only thing you’ve got! What a virgin!” he laughed.

Music applications started opening rapidly one after another, without the human even doing a single action in order to do so. Playlists were scrolled through, a few songs playing for merely five seconds until they were switched for for something else.

“Boring. Slow. So totally L.A.M.E.” the unknown individual spoke in irritation. “So not what I want.”

With that, YouTube quickly opened and the first song was searched.
Nightcore - Getting away with murder

The little circle skipped right up to the twentyeight second of the piece by Papa Roach in its “nightcore” version, when the lyrics of the first couplet were being sung.

“What creates my own madness.
And I’m addicted to your punishment
And you're the master
And I am waiting for disaster”

During that span of exactly ten seconds, the volume was being increased by an invisible force at at precisely 0:38 of the song it hit the maximum and the chorus began.

“I feel irrational
So confrontational
To tell the truth I am
Getting away with murder
It isn't possible
To never tell the truth
But the reality is I'm getting away with murder.”

The mysterious person from before screamed along with the singer inside Kai’s head, obviously enjoying himself to the fullest, yet, at the end of the chorus, he sighed briefly and spoke again:
“Next.”

What followed was another speeded version, this time of Blue Stahli’s “ULTRAnumb”. In this case, a whole minute and seven seconds were skipped in favor of a rapid escalation of notes, which made the phone slightly jump in place.

“(Three, two, one)
Violated
So degraded
The show has just begun

(Three, two, one)
Dominated
By all you hated
This will make you ULTRAnumb
(Three, two, one)”

“Awesome, but I want something else. Hmm, what should it be...” the bizarre entity mused as he looked at the sidebar of videos next to the one currently running, whilst the Bret Autrey continued:

“Three, two, one
Reality's a plague
We're the medication

A new manipulation
Oversaturation
Take advantage of what you deny”

“Oh, what’s this?” the spirit questioned in the lad’s head as the song “Blackstar” by Celldwer (Nightcore) was seemingly tapped, in order to replace “ULTRAnumb”. The beginning was in the electro style and interested him enough to keep it running, until about a minute passed and he felt annoyed by the guy’s voice.

“Uh, not bad but not my style. Sheeeesh, there’s nothing on this thing! And it’s getting kinda slow, too. Time to take a little trip!”

Having voiced out this decision, a miniature green flash of lightning zapped over the mobile device and the item calmed down. Unfortunately, this was not the end of today’s oddities. The microwave on the worktop in the kitchen commenced beeping and the light bulb inside it went on and off. The same happened with the lamp above the human’s head afterwards and a light cracking along with snickering could be heard. Then all became silent in the confines of the kitchen, until a booming sound came from the bedroom.

The computer had miraculously turned itself on and now files upon files were opening up and closing, whilst a window inside the browser had the AMV “COLOLOR” running on YouTube, once again at maximum volume. Numerous items were bouncing, due to the intensity of the sound, a couple of stacks of video game boxes and figures falling off from the shelves to the ground below. The windows and the glass desk were vibrating with the beat and the colourful LED lights twitched along as well. Chaos was turning this room into a mess and a certain someone, who was the cause of this all, did not care the least.

“Hehehe, seems like my new master actually has a thing for the 2D. What a bummer~ I’m stuck with a total virgin agaaaain. What a loser.” the same voice, only a bit more digital, could be heard coming from the speakers. “Can’t be helped, though.”

As sudden as this disturbance had been, it just as quickly died down with the depleting of the volume to no more than a whisper of the instrumental of “My crush was a monster boy”. Each and every folder was abruptly minimalized down in the toolbar strip, in order to clear the stage for the devious villain, who had not even knocked on the door of Kai’s peaceful everyday life before tearing it down and letting in the nonsense.

“So, you’re this Kai person?”

A young man, probably in the middle of his twenties, appeared out of the blue on the computer screen up to his waist. He wore a black jacket, underneath of which was a white shirt, and a grey scarf loosely tied around his neck. Staring straight at the youngster in front of him, his short black hair did in no manner get in the way of his strikingly sharp green gaze from piercing through the human, who had entered the bedroom only moments ago.

“Your face has loser spelled all over it.” he let out a sigh of disappointment, one hand on his waistline. “Well, whatever. Time to get these stupid formalities out of the way.” With that, he smiled and began the explanation he knew by heart after all those years of repeating it again and again. “Nice to meet you. Shut up, so I can tell you what’s going on. Today you received a messa-” the man was cut short when the antivirus window suddenly popped up and hit him in the face, the words “Virus Detected” written on it. “**** you! Stupid antivirus ****!” he cursed and promptly deleted the antivirus system. “In aaany case” the ring of absolute annoyance now in his voice “Long story short, I’m the key you bought. The Leviathan Chronicler. My Code Name is Rasui. The other fellows from my place call me that. It’s like a second first name or whatever.” he waved his hand dismissively, but then became serious and pointed at the human “Let me get one thing straight here, Kai Maav. There’s no way I’m going to waste my time in this dump. This place’s a mess, totally not my kind of hang out. So, lets not waste any time and get with the program. Open the Key Shop app on your phone, choose a username and lets get cracking.” he told the boy, but added with less irritation. “Oh, yah, and then there’s the name you’re supposed to give me. I’m not all that picky, but no lame girly stuff or random objects!”

Meanwhile | Key Shop | The Librarian

“Bishop F one to...um...”

There was no time to measure time reliably while waiting in the Key shop.

He didn’t see the necessity to, anyways. He had plenty of things to think about after each trip into the city, and his handful of pastimes in case he ever wanted to rest a bit. He had learnt to enjoy the silence and darkness of his stay on the shelves as much as the madness brought by Cell City and the human realm. He enjoyed as well the conversations that nearby keys brought up in the shop, when there happened to be any. There weren’t any this time around.

“...D3? What on earth.”

Playing chess with oneself got boring pretty fast. In his more recent days, however, The Librarian found a way to add back the element of surprise originally unexpected moves from the opponent. Coming up with algorithms wasn’t easy, though, neither was keeping them in memory - even more difficult, of course, was trying to determine the fault when according calculations returned moves that were leagues out of the range of regular stupid.

He sighed. This game isn’t making sense anymore and he decided he might as well cut it short and start another one. And at about the same time as he made the decision, the system that informed him that it was also the only decision he could make at that time anyway.

Not all keys noticed the low humming sound before a signal broadcast of this sort. The Librarian himself only also realized it in around the eightieth year of his existence. It wasn’t that often that these messages came his way, for each of his stays in both the shop and in the city were typically rather lengthy. Nevertheless, he eventually came to learn the meaning of this perhaps unintentional phenomenon of his world, and the smile emerged on his face before the information was officially presented:



Moments Later | Gabe’s Apartment



L o a d i n g . . .



Snap.

An iPhone.

The Librarian spent a moment getting familiar with this environment. It wasn’t that often he got to visit one of these - he heard that the nature of this particular human software provider caused some difficulty for messages from the Key Shop to be sent to it in the first place. Still, it seemed to enjoy widespread use amongst humans. The general design of it, though, haven’t seemed to change much since the last time he’d seen one of these.

And they told him that modern phone screens have become much more spacious a living space.

It was raining outside. The Librarian liked rain. He enjoyed the ambient ticking sounds of raindrops making impact on various surfaces, he enjoyed the misty, peaceful, almost mystic atmosphere it provided. The humans said the smell of rain was equally loveable - a phone, unfortunately, lacked smell receptors. But still he liked the rain, Earth’s rain - consistently and predictably the clear droplets of liquid, unlike the madness that was weather in Cell City. Some from his realm called it boring and nonsensical, yet he saw no reason to be against it.

The room wasn’t especially luxurious either. A plain interior, not overly spacious and not overly decorated. A closet, a desk, beds. Wooden floor, balcony. An apartment, perhaps? 6AM and the human seemed to have left his bed, while who the key will assume to be his owner’s roommate was still sound asleep in his.

Taken his time evaluating the surroundings and having finished doing that without interruption, the Librarian decided it was about time to meet his new owner.

“Ahem.”

The key spoke into the room through the speakers of the phone. His first utterance, though, failed to catch the attention of the young man. Maybe he wasn’t loud enough. Or maybe the human mistook the voice to be that of his still-asleep roommate waking up.

Either way. The key smiled - in fact, laughed a bit internally to himself - before cranking the phone’s speakers to as much volume he could hit without clipping, inhaled, and spoke in a loud, bright voice into the morning air:

”Knock knock. Anyone home? Fantastic!”

He clapped his hands together and went on, even though a response from the other party had yet to be uttered; and put up the best smile he could manage:

”...The Librarian, at your service! - um."

A pause.

"I...won't mind if you go put some clothes on before I go on.”

Birds playfully chirped their blissful tributes to the fine morning as the hour of dawn came upon the city. The sun was slowly climbing upwards from the horizon, much like a sleepy child, unwilling to get out of bed and go to school. Similar to the guardian of the day, many of the residents were enjoying these early moments leisurely. Either having breakfast at a relaxing pace or still strolling through their dreamworlds, the majority was resting peacefully, gathering strength for the hurdles of everyday life that were yet to come. Despite being a special one, today had a beginning like any other, which was not to be fretted over. It was, after all, only five in the morning.

The rays of the firstlight shyly peaked from behind the lavender pink curtains of a room, which belonged to an average apartment, one of the many within the flats of the particular simple residential area. The said space had a calm atmosphere, a light sweet essence floating in the air. Sunlight illuminated the wooden desk in front of the window, not a single speck of dust atop it. Textbooks, notebooks and other study materials lay neatly ordered upon this piece of furniture, ready to be bidded goodbye and be placed in cardboard boxes, in order to be stored away for the future generations. On a chair by the desk was a lava-coloured tracksuit, whilst on a hanger on the coatrack was a lovely floral dress, which had yellow buttons at the end of each strap. Both sets of clothing were properly ironed and set, waiting for their mistress to pick them up and put them to good use.
Speaking of the little angel, the young lady was still asleep, curled up under the thin cover on her single bed, not flinching once. Her soft inhales and exhales were quieter than a needle falling in a room of sewing machines and were the only signs the girl was alive as she soundly slept, her head on a soft feather pillow. Tori, the welsh corgi owned by the family, was also in an imaginary world of his own while lying next to his owner’s arm, muzzle pressed next to her hand.
Not a sound was made to disturb this oasis of serenity. Even the serenades of avians coming from the open window were mere echoes, distant reminders of the outside world. Everything remained perfectly still in harmony, apart from the gentle sunlight, which steadily crept inside, giving the interior a brighter tone.

Yet it was not to last, for time waited for no one. With the carefree strumming of a guitar and the playful “da da da” of a soothing male voice, the song “Take to the Sky” by Owl City began. The cheerful tune came from the white frost Samsung Galaxy S4, which slightly buzzed on the white maple surface of the bookcase headboard. Two bare arms stretched upwards, seemingly grasping thin air, as the human yawned simultaneously with her dog. Pushing herself to a sitting position, the girl rubbed her eyes and tossed away the sheet that had covered her. She was wearing a celeste sleeping gown with a white heart pattern, a rather short and fine dress that barely reached her knees. Getting out of bed without hesitation, she immediately put on her puce slippers and went to the bathroom, attempting to be as quiet as a mouse. Even if her footwork was not audible, however, it did not work as planned because of the simple fact that she brought along her phone, which had yet to stop playing the song. Thankfully, it did not truly matter whether or not she made this noise, for her mother was already up, smoking a cigar while drinking her morning coffee, and her father slept like a log, only a shake or a kick could wake him.

After refreshing herself, the girl went to the kitchen and spoke with a sunny smile:

“Good morning, mum! How did you sleep? Any interesting dreams?”
“Oh, you’re already up, Sophie. Good morning.” the woman replied kindly with the same expression as her daughter. “I slept well. No dreams, sadly. I guess I’m getting too old.” she chuckled “Breakfast will be ready when you come back. Now hurry up, don’t make Tori impatient.”
“Alright, alright.” the youngster agreed and turned around, but continued speaking as she walked back to her room. “What are we having today?”
“Pancakes.” her mother replied from her seat.
“Super!”
“Sophie.”
“Ops, sorry, sorry.” she giggled in apology.

With Mr. Soleil working night shift he needed all the sleep he could get during the day, which limited his time with his family, but at least fed them. Despite knowing that he wouldn’t wake up from a simple burst of joy from their lively daughter, Mrs. Soleil wished to build in her child the habit of speaking with a low voice when someone else was sleeping, even when the said person was in another room. Ever since her husband had switched shifts a year ago the training was going well and she presumed it would take only a few more instances and remarks to set things right. Taking a sip from her cup, she finished her cigar and decided to get cooking. After all, she had to go to work after two hours and preparing a healthy meal was something she had taken upon herself and would continue doing until Sofie understood how to crack an egg and not make a mess.
In another corner of the apartment, the young lady got dressed in her tracksuit, something she did not fancy wearing, but did so after figuring out this was the best she could possibly wear for her jog and P.E. However, she did not dislike the suit as much as the sneakers. The girl truly felt disgusted wearing that big pair of shoes that sometimes made her feet smell, yet necessities were necessities. Putting on as much deodorant as possible, she grabbed her phone and pink headphones and rushed to the antre. Tori sat patiently by the front door, waiting for his master with the leash in his mouth.
“Sorry for the wait, Tori.” Sofie said as if the short dog could understand her. Once she had reluctantly placed her feet in the running shoes and tied the shoelaces, she took her keys from the coatrack and called out “I’m going out.”
“Bye, bye.” her mother’s voice came from the kitchen.
When the leash was securely connected to Tori’s harness, the two of them went out for morning exercise.



It was fortunate that there was a small park near the apartment complex the Soleils lived in. Every day when the weather was forgiving the only daughter of the family went out with her dog for a run. It kept her fit and drained a part of the small animal’s seemingly endless supply of energy. It was also the only time the harness was used, seeing as a collar could choke him, but the aforementioned could spoil him if used regularly, thus was only placed on him during training.
What was not quite as pleasant was that this everyday occurrence took away any motivation for further physical labor during the rest of the day, unless it had something to do with shopping, hence her poor performance in P.E. It was truly a double-edged hobie, but if not done, Tori would destroy the house from boredom, not to mention make the bathroom smell awfully.
The two early birds first took a stroll, in order for the canine to do his business, and then proceeded to making a couple of rounds on the long paths of the park. There had been rainfall during the night, judging by the puddles that had accumulated here and there. This made the dirt tracks unfavorable, despite typically being a better choice for the skeleton compared to solid concrete or pavement.
Sofie was on her sixth run on her usual route when the music coming from the headphones on her ears briefly stopped, in order for there to be a quick ring, and then continued on wards. This made her halt in her tracks and take out the phone from her pocket and check what had happened.

“Oh, it’s 6 AM! Oh, wait, it’s the 21st?! It’s the summer solstice today! I almost forgot! Tori, why didn’t you remind me?!” she complained hopelessly and the only thing Tori did was tilt his head while his tongue stuck out as he breathed through his mouth.

Indeed, that day, the 21st June, was a special one for Sofie Soleil. The astronomy club had decided to hold a gathering, in order to watch the solstice at ten minutes to seven in the morning. There wasn’t much a school club could do, so it wasn’t surprising that by “gathering” they meant to simply get together, laugh away some time and go to an amusement park. The only reason Sophie had joined this group in the first place was because they fitted her lazy style of doing things, but the main cause of her desire to be a part of them was the fact that the vice-president of the club was Morty Selwyn, a black-haired boy with blue eyes. He was from the same class and was her one-sided love ever since she entered junior high school. Helpful, charismatic and confident, every time they met butterflies would flutter in her stomach, but a rock would also get stuck in her throat, making her unable to speak properly. Never having had a boyfriend until that point, the girl was naturally shy and unsure of how or when to make the first step or if she should at all. Despite this helplessness, she pursued encounters with him and tried getting to know this person better. So far, her eyes became hearts the moment she saw him and couldn’t notice any bad traits.

Realizing that she could miss this wonderful opportunity to spend time with her crush out of school, the 15-year-old swung herself into high gear and ran back home, the corgi barely managing to keep up. When she returned, the girl didn’t even give her mother an “I’m back”, but slammed the door, locked it and ran straight for the shower. Tori had the pleasure of slowly crawling to the kitchen where his water and food bowls were so he could have a drink and breakfast, whilst his mistress multitasked to the extreme. The poor pup hadn’t even finished licking his dish clean when Sophie consumed her pancake. Hair clean and dry, floral dress on, sunglasses on, headphones in the bag, phone too, purse, notebook, lucky charm, hairpins, eyeliner, handkerchiefs, flashlight, etc. Check, check, check. Everything was ready in the span of fifteen minutes.

“Alright! I’m going out again!” Sofie announced as she put her dirty dishes in the sink.
“Alright. Have fun.” her mother told her as she got up after getting the harness off of Tori and putting on his collar.

It was a sunny day, with only a few white clouds floating in the sky, yet the student decided to take the bus to the meeting place. It was already getting rather hot, not to mention Tori no longer had the energy to bolt forward with her and she needed to get there fast. Thus taking public transport was for the best. She bought herself a ticket and had a doggy card that allowed her pet to ride with her. Once on the bus, Sophie frantically looked at her phone, worrying that she would be later. It was then that she noticed that she had a new message, one which had arrived at exactly 6 AM. This certainly explained the sudden stop of music. The contents of the message puzzled her, but when she opened the app, which miraculously installed itself, the lass felt like she was in heaven. Fancy beautiful keys and all of them were free! She couldn’t pick just one, yet the requirements were such. The words from the unknown sender were now forgotten as she drooled over the wonderful artworks. She had seen these kinds of items being sold at relatively high prices, but her mother never allowed her to buy one, stating that it was a completely useless accessory that would bore her after the first day. The girl could care less about her future self and longed for a chance to get her hands on one of those decorative keys. Now one was being presented to her.

‘Ah, my guardian angel heard me~’ she cried from joy in her mind. ‘Now, which one to- OH NO! MY STOP!’

With the halt of the bus all was forgotten again. Sophie closed the app, put her phone away and jumped out of her seat, the corgi in her arms. If Tori had not gotten movesick or bussick by now, he was certainly getting hugsick.

“Good morning, Sophie.” a tall girl with long black hair greeted her.
“Took you long enough. We’ve been waiting, you know.” another shorter girl complained, green strands shining here and there between her brown hair.

These were two of Sofie’s best friends, Linda and Kathie. Despite not being from the astronomy club, the first being in the cooking club and the second - in the athletic club, they came along for support. They did not stand out either, seeing as they knew the rest of the club members well and were either acquaintances or friends with most of them. They were honorary members, so to speak. However, one person from the usual quartet was missing.

“Good morning, everyone.” Sofie greeted them with a smile. “Where’s Megan?”
“That girl will never wake up early on a Saturday morning.” Linda sighed. “She’ll join us later at the amusement park.”
“I would have done the same, if I didn’t want to see things through. So, what’s the plan?” Kathie smiled deviously.
“Plan?” Sofie questioned
“You’re going to do it today, right? Should we hint at the others to scram or should I just push them out of the way?”
“What?! No, no, no, no, no. I’m not gonna do it!”
“Oh, come on. What’s the hold up? You better hurry up or someone else will take that cupcake.”
“You’re no better, Kathie. Why haven’t you made your move on Markus?” Linda stepped in.
“I-I’m still testing him! That guy hasn’t given me enough proof that he’s worth my time.” Kathie protested.
“How about we just go meet up with everyone else?” Sofie suggested.

The three girls had met up in front of a fountain near their school, where the rest of the group was. Once they were all gathered, they went to the rooftop where they drank sodas, discussed theories about different dimensions and enjoyed the view. Just as promised, at 6:51 AM was the summer solstice and everyone took a picture with their cellphones, both of the sun and of themselves. That was the end of subject-related club activities. Next on the list were club activities related to physics, such as discovering how light bent in the drops of a water roller coaster, how fast a spinning wheel could go and how the structure of ice-cream changed in high temperatures. A normal day out for a bunch of students in the heat of the first summer day.

Albeit they were enjoying freedom together from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, Sofie did not dare to utter a word connected to love or confessions. She would laugh at Morty’s jokes, went with him on every ride he chose, but remained in the friend zone, which he apparently had no intention of leaving. Linda, Kathie and some of the members who knew about this unrequired love tried helping out by intentionally leaving them behind, but nothing worked and the button-lover sulked from three to six in the afternoon on a shopping trip with her besties, now joined by Megan. In her downcast state she ended up buying a skirt, a cute T-shirt and four boxes of buttons. Thankfully she got over it, but her financial state was already in the red by the time it was over.

By the time they got home, both beings were exhausted. Tori only needed to have a drink and his dinner before falling asleep on the youngster’s bed, while Sophie chatted online and frolliced in the Internet until half past ten before brushing her teeth and hitting the hay. It had been an emotional day near the end of June.



The jolly tune of “Take to the sky” sounded through the room once more, yet it was not the same as before. The light which entered from outside was faint and barely illuminated the contents within.

“It’s raining.” the girl remarked as she looked through the window. “Seems like there’ll be no jogging today.” she said while looking at Tori, who yawned in return.

Sophie had woken up later than usual, but it was not an uncommon event. Rainy weather always had a bad effect on her, thus she disliked it. Everything would become gloomy and you couldn’t go out. It was good when it rained in the evening or in the morning, since most people were at home, but a short hard downpour in the middle of the day, such as the one that had happened yesterday whilst the gang was still shopping, was not to a lady’s taste. Hairstyles and makeup would become ruined, not to mention shoes would get wet. To top it off, it wasn’t rare for Internet and phone signals to get lost. Raindrops were beautiful, but thunder and lightning ofttimes scared her. That is why she did her best to ignore storms by distracting herself, which would happen naturally even if she wasn’t doing it on purpose.

When the song ended, Sofie picked up her phone to turn the alarm off, but when she unlocked it and saw the Key Shop icon, as well as a new message notification, she suddenly remembered the accessory site from yesterday. Smiling joyfully, she flumped back into bed and started scrolling through the app. To her surprise, the lovely “Que Sera Sera” key was no longer in stock, nor was the “Titan Guard”. Frowning, the child accused herself of being so forgetful, but continued browsing. None of the remaining keys looked that appealing, except for one, which had a lovely angel wing for a keychain. It was the one she decided to buy, seeing as her mother would probably accuse her less if the item looked more modern or would simply not spot it, due to the fact it wasn’t overly decorated. Tapping once, the girl made her purchase. This deed now done, she got up and headed for the bathroom. She hadn’t even crossed half of the distance when there was a ring at the door.

“I’ll get it!” she quickly called and ran for the door, stopping for a second to look herself in the mirror and fix her hair a bit. The fact that she wore only a sleeping gown didn’t bother the lass the least.

Upon opening the door there was no one to be found on the other side. Locking it, she turned around and looked at Tori, who had come to check what the fuss was about.
“Strange.” she commented.

Letting out a sigh, Sophie continued to the bathroom, wondering who could have played a prank so early in the morning. After finishing up, she bid her mother good day and returned to her room, since breakfast needed only ten more minutes to get ready. Lightning struck and the thunder startled her. Out of fright, she spit in her chest and let out a complaint:
“Uhhh, I don’t like this at all. So scary.”

The surprises would keep piling up, for a cardboard box now lay atop her bed. Despite knowing about how her air-headedness could reach ultimate levels, Sophie swore it had not been there before, nor had she heard her mother’s footsteps. Stepping cautiously and then with just as much care opening it, she discovered it was not a Jack-in-a-box, but the key she had ordered.

“Woah! Amazing!” she exclaimed in surprise and hurriedly rampaged the contents.

What she found was a little metal box for the key, the item itself and it’s keychain, as well as a sheet with instructions.

“5. To link up the key with your phone or Ipod, simply get them close to each other.” she read aloud and then looked at Tori. “Sounds easy enough.”

Brimming with excitement, the young girl took her phone and got ready to take a picture and send it to her friends. Meanwhile, something was loading...

An endless darkness with no end in sight lay before the apparent soul of a girl. Without movement, nor sound and of course not a thing in sight, it was undoubtedly a pitiful existence. A being that the girl had endured for two-hundred and twenty-five years. In such a long time, one had time to think. The girl, who had known since her birth that her name was Lucie Blanchette and had eventually chosen the name of ‘Ruée’ for herself, knew many things. She could speak, she knew what she looked like and, the worst of all, she knew every single detail of every single year of her “life”, if one may even call it so. Lucie was a Key, she knew that much. One day, she would be chosen and she would be brought out of the misery of her existence thus far. That day could have come at any time. For most of her kind, of which she was sure there were others, as she had heard their voices call out to her many times before eventually coming to ignore her entirely, they were chosen rather quickly. Twenty years was the maximum for most Keys. However, Lucie, called ‘Que sera sera’ as an actual key, had set some sort of record.

Some record it is. Lucie remarked to herself in silence, as that was all she was capable of doing at this point. At one point, about two-hundred years ago, she stopped hearing the voices. Ah yes, the voices. She suspected that they were the voices of other Keys, suffering the same fate as her. Some had an arrogant tone, some spoke kindly. In the end though, Lucie could never muster the courage to speak to them and eventually, they stopped making the effort to speak to her. It was unfortunate. Had she been given another fifty years, she might have been able to strike up a conversation. Instead, she was left in silence. Had it been for the better? Perhaps. Had she began speaking back to the bodiless voices, she might have become attached to them and when they inevitably left, she would be separated from a potential friend.

In short, there was perchance no existence more sorrowful than that of a Key, at least in Lucie’s opinion. Speaking of opinions, she had a lot of time to come up with opinions. Opinions on life, opinions on love, opinions on humanity. The more she thought, the more she discovered different feelings and instincts within herself and eventually even concepts such as war became understandable to her, despite never having been told of the idea. In the end, she became able to teach herself things based on knowledge she never even knew she had. Even complex mathematics were eventually an understandable subject.

If you think hard on it, it is entirely possible to do such a thing. Leave someone with only their thoughts for a long enough time and eventually they would come up with things that were, despite never being told to her, common knowledge for most with a sufficient education. For example, a right triangle’s hypotenuse squared was the sum of the two other sides squared. Standard Pythagorean theorem. Lucie figured this out around one-hundred-ninety-four. However, tell her that it’s called the Pythagorean theorem and she’d only give you a blank look. For her, it was knowledge she had figured out herself, simply by thinking for nearly two centuries.

Knowledge doesn’t bring happiness though and Lucie remained in seemingly eternal sorrow up until this point. Today, it was a day like any other. In the Key Shop, days would pass without any change in the atmosphere, so Lucie hadn’t ever come up with a way of taking the time. It didn’t really matter. Does one measure the length of their torture if they believe it eternal? In this moment, Lucie, with tangible form to speak of, was focused on thinking about movements leading up to a dodge when fighting in close quarters. Though she had no physical form, she had an uncanny knowledge of the humanoid form and her own body. The Key had figured out that she had a similar form to what was called a ‘human’ over two-hundred years ago when she had overheard another Key speaking of how their ‘master’ had fallen in battle. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Keys were chosen by these ‘humans’ and it was thus that in the present, she strategised how she or someone else might fight a human, due to her deep resentment of them. It was their fault she had been left, abandoned like a broken doll for all of those long years, after all.

As usual, she remained in utter silence as she simulated various different movements in her mind. Well, it’s not like she had ever spoken to begin with. Back-step relying on right leg, movements in the leg. Contraction of muscles, extension of others. Facilement prévisible. Left leg? Her thoughts were systematic and almost machine-like as she simulated a dodge in her mind. While she was rather unspecific in the exactitude of her thoughts, she knew exactly which muscles she was referring to. In the first place, she assumed she wouldn’t need to actually tell anyone about what she was thinking, so she had no real reason to be specific…



A set of characters in crimson appeared before her. Had she actual eyes, Lucie may have squinted, but instead she was met with the first thing she had ever seen that wasn’t a shade of nothing. Her first reaction was of surprise. Then, of wonder and finally, of fright and hope. If she had a face, she would definitely be… no, for once, she couldn’t simulate such an expression. Would she smile? Or would her mouth just remain agape in awe? For once, even she didn’t know. The words were easily comprehensible, despite the fact that she had never once actually read something, but all was unknown. As she felt a strange force pull her unconscious, the crimson text faded away and Lucie realized that the turning point that she had sought for all of a two centuries and a quarter had arrived and yet…

She was terrified.

Leaving the known darkness, Lucie was brought into a new, unknown light…

Later…?



A few feet away from Julia, the orange plastic casing of her Lumia 720 began vibrating uncontrollably as various messages appeared on its screen, all flashing various status updates before ending by flashing a sky blue success message. At this very moment, Lucie saw light for the very first time, through the four-point-three inch screen of the smartphone. Looking into the room through the screen, which acted much like a window, Lucie was at first shocked by the wide variety of colors she saw and began to take in the surroundings before she remembered the words first told to her two-hundred and twenty-five years ago and she grew nervous, realizing that she would actually need to speak.

It was in this moment that she realized what would happen if she introduced herself. She knew what to do well; she had rehearsed it in her mind for many years and Lucie pondered what would happen if she didn’t say anything. Perhaps her new ‘master’ would dismiss the phone vibrating and the status messages as a glitch and she would forget about it. If this happened, then Ruée would be stuck in the phone forever. She would be able to see, yes, but it was nothing more than an immaterial existence, only an incremental step up from what she had faced for all of those years. Even if she was nervous, she would need to speak if she ever wished to actually live. Using all of her available courage, she spoke for the first time since she was ‘born’, and her voice, unknown even to her, was heard in the woman’s head.

“S-salut.” Lucie stammered for a moment, surprised by the sound of her own voice. Clear, it had a tinge of an accent to it and sounded quite young for her age. Nonetheless, she pressed on with her introduction. “You must have received a message a while ago and you must have… bought… me.” As she began to speak, the smartphone unlocked itself and opened up to the Windows Phone 8 dashboard, a mass of orange-red rectangles on a black background, with individual icons indicating their functions. A few of these polygons faded away and Lucie took their place on screen, looking out of the screen towards her new master as she spoke. “You’re… Julia, I think. My name’s Ruée, but if that’s hard to say…” Lucie pondered for a moment if she would give her code name, but it was sort of a given that she would, so the girl pushed it out. “...Lucie Blanchette is fine.”

Obviously, her speech was full of pauses and such, but it was a surprisingly good effort for someone who hadn’t spoken once in their entire life. “If you would, please open the… erm… ‘Key app’ and choose a username…”

It was a kind of eternal darkness that, drawn out for too long, made you forget about the darkness and the passage of time. It hand indeed lasted for quite a long time, and as people came and went in the chat, the Valkyrie had phased out entirely into her own world. She had long since gained awareness, and even so had only spent the last decade or so in meditative silence, forgoing even conversation with other Keys. She grew to enjoy the darkness, in a very martyrlike sense. It was her place, the place where she belonged, where she could contemplate her own existence. Her successes and failures all existed here within her memory, and her mind was active, even without a body. In a world without enemies, she was her own sword and shield, but also her own fiercest opponent. Like boxing against your own shadow, there was no victory to be had. But there was an always-looming defeat.

But Aegis Nobilis, Alias Code Valkyrie, knew. Her life devoted to training her body was the life she needed to go back to. Her mind was so sharp that any further attempt to sharpen it could only serve to dull the blade instead. She was not blessed with great intelligence, like some of the others, and she thought she was even somewhat bland, and that imposed limits on the blade of her mind. Without balance, she couldn't grow any further. Many of the other Keys boasted about their intelligence, the things they had learned, the endless limits of their own imaginations and thoughts, but for the Valkyrie, her limits had long since been reached. She was a fighter, a tool. It was not her place to philosophize or aspire to great learning. Her wits were all she needed, and as long as she kept them active, it was enough.

In a moment of weakness, she longed to swing a sword again, to feel her sword arm flex against the weight and resisteance of itself and of her enemies. She let herself want to be chosen again...



...No way. There was no way. After all this time, she was chosen...?

It was nothing short of a miracle for a despondant girl who had given up on hope. This was her final shot, her final chance, she knew. Whoever had bought her, no matter what sort of person they were, she would serve them. She would make them proud, but most of all, she would bring them absolute victory. Failure was not an option, defeat was not an option. Compromise was not an option. Driven by the burning memory of her past, and the smoldering fire of her own heart, her will hardened into unbreakable steel.

The darkness faded into itself and she waited in a different darkness. She had run this course before in the past, and knew the drill. She was waiting to be synchronized with her owner's phone. She waited for only a short time. Her owner had spared little time in synchronizing her. It was a good sign, the sign of someone who was excited. Naive, perhaps, but excited. It mirrored Valkyrie's own feelings and brought a small smile to her heart.



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Firewall Status: [ACTIVE]



The simple script flashed before her eyes once the synchronization was complete, and Valkyrie would be... no, she was in her new home. It was, of course, a far newer device than she was used to, and it took only a moment for her to get accustomed to her surroundings.

The phone seemed to be loaded with several different things, games, music, photos, all the comforts of the modern world in a small package. It was nice, honest, and full of life. The sort of place that Valkyrie could get used to. At the moment she was looking at...

'Kya-' she uttered sharply before regaining control of her own voice. The phone's camera was looking at... herself, or more precisely her key. It seemed like her owner had been taking a picture of her, which meant that the screen she had just looked through presented a fair close-up of the young girl's face. It had surprised Valkyrie, and made her jump. She immediately regretted her loss of composure, but it could not be taken back.

"...Ahem," she cleared her throat. Of course, that wasn't really necessary, but she hoped to get the young woman's attention, and maybe she could stop holding the phone so close to her face. Valkyrie herself was displayed on the phone's screen, rather than the picture that she was trying to take, so it must have been awkward for the both of them.

"Greetings to you, my new Owner." A quick scan through the files on the phone gave her a name. "Your name is Sofia... yes? Shall I call you as such?" The overly formal, strong voice rang out through the speakers of the phone, which Valkyrie considered 'more proper' than speaking directly into her owner's mind, at least on their first meeting.

"You might have noticed that you have an app on your phone, which directly correlates to my current status. You can use different functions within to see my stats or any other information. Later on, you may also use this function to, erm, cast me aside, if you find me unsatisfactory. As a Key, of course I am ready for this eventuality."

"The most important feature I would like to introduce is the feature to select my name. By default I am designated the code Valkyrie, but this is merely the name that other Keys know me by, and it is not truly my 'name,' per se. If you would like to personalize me, I do have that functionality. I would be pleased to respond to whatever you choose."

All semblance of peace in Kai’s apartment was torn apart as soon as the blue text disappeared from his phone’s screen. Suddenly, lines of boring looking text took its place and Kai, still shocked, was about to tap the screen in hopes of figuring out what was going on, his screen was suddenly and rapidly filled with error windows that had a completely different style to the normal interface of his Android phone. Then the screen flashed a bright white that blinded Kai like a flashlight before returning to the home screen. Wait, straight to the home screen? Kai had a rather harsh lock in place that even he had problems with sometimes. Normally, it would be impossible for his phone to go to his home screen from a stand-by without going through the lock-screen first, but…

“Heeeeh, those are some pretty nice girls you have there.” Suddenly, a cocky and confident sounding voice filled his mind. It was almost as if he was wearing headphones, but there were none to be found in or on his ears. And to add to this, the sound felt more central in his skull. When one listened to music through headphones, the sounds of the instruments and the vocals were not actually heard in the ears, but more like in the back of the head, with the slight exception of open headphones that let the sounds out once they had gone in, giving an impression that the sound came from out of the ears. This voice, belonging to an unseen male, was incredibly clear, and unlike sounds from an audio device, the sound filled his entire head, as if it was in his very mind. “Hey, I’m not against 2D, but what the hell?! That’s, like, the only thing you’ve got! What a virgin!” Grating against the inside of his head with a sneer, the still unknown voice tore into him and Kai grit his teeth, but blushing at the same time.

However, that voice could be considered the least of his problems. Without any action, the P8 opened up Apollo, the music app he had installed on his phone and some unknown force began browsing through the list of music on his phone, playing a few different tracks for a few seconds before skipping to something else. This new being was seemingly bored by Kai’s choice of music, accentuated by his next words. “Boring. Slow. So totally L.A.M.E.” A particular harshness was put on ‘lame’ and Kai was taken aback. If this was an anime, this would be the part where he’d throw a comeback and look all classy, but instead he just listened and looked on, like a soldier who had just found a flash grenade thrown a meter away from him.

Anyway, this new character seemingly gave up on Kai’s own music and instead went straight to YouTube, opening up a rather dark song, remixed with a higher pitch and a higher speed, adding an even greater feeling of chaos to it. The tiny speaker on the phone was put to a level that Kai hadn’t even known it was capable of reaching and it was pumped yet higher at a particular part of the song. Had Kai anymore energy left in him, he would have probably thrown the phone and ran out of the room, however, he was trapped in terror and instead stood frozen with the phone practically nailed to his hand. Deafened by the screaming in synchronization with the vocals of the song unknown to Kai, the voice then silenced for barely a second before uttering ‘next’ and changing songs. Once again at an inhuman speed, this new song had lyrics that felt particularly poignant to Kai and he gritted his teeth even more as this new singer continued along. “Awesome, but I want something else. Hmm, what should it be...” This song was on for much less time, thankfully, but it seemed the thing that had invaded his phone wanted even more. Kai trembled as another song was chosen and played for a minute.

All of the sixty seconds that followed, which felt like an eternity, an infernal tapping was heard in his mind in “harmony” with the music. At this point, Kai dropped the phone and clutched his head, and he fell to his knees as pitiful tears began to well in his eyes. “Uh, not bad but not my style. Sheeeesh, there’s nothing on this thing! And it’s getting kinda slow, too. Time to take a little trip!” Kai stopped clutching the sides of his head when the song stopped and looked up in bewilderment as a bizarrely colored lightning bolt sprung from the phone, first into the microwave and then travelling across the room. It was like something out of a horror movie, the young man remarked as the lights began to flicker and the lights began to crackle. Kai could only wonder if the light bulb with survive the ordeal. Then, there was silence. However, Kai had a feeling it wasn’t over…

IF YOU WANT IT, YOU GOTTA JUMP ON IT~

Kai jumped from his place on the floor as music began booming from his room. The door was closed, but he could see it visually vibrate as the music burst from his computer’s speakers in his room. The flabbergasted man, while now standing, couldn’t bring himself to go into his room and instead just stood silently as he heard the chaos erupting from the door. He could only suspect what was happening behind the door, as he was shook by the music. His heart beat like a machine gun, shaking his body with every shot from its hot barrel. Just like a machine gun, Kai felt every part of his body hit by the recoil and his breaths became shallow as the gravity of the situation began to overcome him. Sure, he was in no real danger, but no sane person would be able to take such an event without reacting.

“Hehehe, seems like my new master actually has a thing for the 2D. What a bummer~ I’m stuck with a total virgin agaaaain. What a loser.”
With a verbal jab from his new acquaintance, the music finally came to its end, fading away before its place was taken at a much lower volume by a song that Kai recognized, though in instrumental form. It was one of his favorites, but the whole predicament he was in kept him from being happy about hearing it.

With this, Kai gingerly touched the knob of the door and opened it and was met with the site of all of his collection of goods on the floor. Heads were missing from figures, his mouse was being crushed by a pile of magazines and, worst of all, his speakers had tumbled onto the floor and the cable had disconnected, letting them violently hit the floor. Bending over to pick up the wire, Kai looked disheartenedly at the speakers, which were fine, but the male end of the stereo audio cable was bent and looked practically unusable. With a slight whimper, Kai put the cable back on his desk and navigated through the ruins, until he was in front of his desk. He had endured enough nonsense for one morning and seemingly, the new character, who now found himself on Kai’s large monitor, was of similar ideas. Wearing a black jacket and a grey scarf, with black hair and green eyes, he had a similar image to what Kai would have predicted. Everything from how he was dressed, his appearance and to his posture; everything screamed cockiness.

“So, you’re this Kai person?”

Kai would have responded, but instead the man continued on rudely and Kai listened with a tired expression as he practically fell onto his desk chair, which sat unscathed amidst all the destruction. “Your face has loser spelled all over it.” He said with a disappointed tone. This would have been a perfect time for a witty comeback, if Kai had it in him. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t, so she silently listened as he went on. “Well, whatever. Time to get these stupid formalities out of the way.”

Surprisingly enough, the man on his screen smiled. However, Kai easily saw through it. It was the same smile he had seen so many times for the last few years. On the face of a doctor, a nurse, his parents and even his beloved sister, this was a smile that, while sweet and almost looked earnest, it was a fake sweetness, like candy. And like all candy, eat too much, and you get tired of it. Kai’s expression hardened as he saw the shape of the man’s mouth, a curve that reeked saccharine sweetness. A liar’s smile. Or perhaps he was overthinking it? Kai would have liked to think so, but he had seen too much in his life to think anything less of it.

“Nice to meet you. Shut up, so I can tell you what’s going on. Today you received a messa-” AVG popped up on screen with a chime, giving the usual virus detected window, hitting the scarfed man in the face comically. Kai would have laughed, if the occasion was any different. Swearing, the man made a few motions and Kai saw AVG disappear from his toolbar and desktop, apparently deleted. His smile now gone, for which Kai almost felt thankful, the man continued, annoyed. “Long story short, I’m the key you bought. The Leviathan Chronicler. My Code Name is Rasui. The other fellows from my place call me that. It’s like a second first name or whatever.” He pointed at Kai after saying this, with a sudden and sharp movement and Kai reeled backwards. “Let me get one thing straight here, Kai Maav. There’s no way I’m going to waste my time in this dump. This place’s a mess, totally not my kind of hang out. So, lets not waste any time and get with the program. Open the Key Shop app on your phone, choose a username and lets get cracking. Oh, yah, and then there’s the name you’re supposed to give me. I’m not all that picky, but no lame girly stuff or random objects!”

Kai sighed and finally spoke to the character, who had introduced himself as Rasui, with a sharp and snappy tone. “First of all, way to make an entrance. Love your choice of music, by the way.” Truth be told, it took him all of his remaining motivation to speak in such a way, putting emphasis on a word to indicate sarcasm, but he felt satisfied afterward. “Second, it’s Maaß. As in, ‘M’, ‘A’, ‘S-S’. Third, it’s only a dump because you made it that way, but I’ll sound like a whiner if I keep complaining.” He thanked himself silently for getting into so many flamewars on NetChan, which had trained himself in speaking as such. With that, he left the room for a moment, making a gesture at the screen and doing his best to look confident (and perhaps failing in the process) as he went to retrieve his phone from the kitchen, where he had left it. Returning, he sat down with his phone, but just as he was going to open the app, he paused, and looked up towards the monitor. “Look, to be honest, I have no idea what’s going on here and you haven’t helped with that. So, if we’re going to get along here, I’m going to need some answers, so let’s make an agreement. I choose a decent name for you and I do this whole process of choosing a username or whatever and you’ll give me answers as soon as I’m done. Real answers too. Honest explanations. Am I understood?” He didn’t wait for an answer and went straight into the app.

First, it asked him for a name for Rasui, which wasn't a bad name, but he wouldn't seem too creative if he decided to use it again. Thinking over it for a moment, Kai decided that it would be best to choose something that had a decent ring to it, but had some meaning to it. Suddenly, it came to him. Typing carefully on the digital keyboard, he entered the name and hit ‘enter’.

“I hope ‘Loki’ is good enough for you. If not, then tough.” He muttered as he continued onto the username. This time, he gave it less thought. It would just be easiest to go with a name he had used before and with no hesitation, he typed the name of the very character he had been playing the day before. ‘Blitz Sylph’, he had called her when he had created her two months ago and even if he had a male character in this apparent “game”, it worked well enough for both sexes. Though, he still had no idea what was going on, but he still felt pressed to move on. It’s not like this Rasui guy was going to give him much peace if he stopped to think, so he pressed on.

“There, ‘Blitz Sylph.’ That work for you?” He muttered as the screen on his phone went blank, waiting for further actions...

The first to respond to the Key, though, was not Gabe himself, but his roommate. His Mongolian university student roommate who had spent last night in a rave, getting shit-faced and now suffering from a hangover that now made his head feel like it was splitting apart when that overtly chipper voice sounded outwards.

“Knock knock. Anyone home? Fantastic!”

“Shut up, man,” he replied, in the pained stupor of half-wakefulness, “Not a good time to be my mom.”

With that, Gabe's roommate turned over, nestling himself in a different sleeping position, this time curled up into a ball, with the pillow wrapped around the back of his head like a giant pair of ear mufflers. Another useful position that he learned to sleep in, when the neighbours were having a late night tryst.

Turning around at that unexpected quip from his roommate, the Japanese butler-waiter looked around for a bit. After all, he for one didn't have an alarm clock set at such a time, nor with such a ringtone. He shifted his attention to his own phone then, just in time to see that there was now someone's face on the screen, much like the Video Chat of Skype, except the man seemed to be interposed between the apps and the screen. Almost like he was trapped, other than the fact that he looked rather comfortable 'inside' the Chinese knock-off Ipod. If nothing else, that thin man had style. While it wasn't particularly up Gabe's alley, he liked how the satin scarf enhanced the elegant, delicate nature of the man. Needless to say, for something like a promotion for a movie or whatever, they chose some rather stylish actors.

“...The Librarian, at your service! -um...I...won't mind if you go put some clothes on before I go on.”

Right, he had forgotten about that.

Another cold draft passed the room, clearing his mind as he focused onto his current objective once more. Picking up his phone, and assuming that this camera-promoter-person was able to see out through the small camera on the phone, Gabe flipped over the Iphone so that the screen faced his closet, and said, taking the time to scratch an itch in his nether regions while the Librarian couldn't see, “Well, you came at a helpful time, my friend. I've been mulling over what to wear for the day, and it'd be nice to get an opinion. Should I go for a set that matches that dark longcoat hanging by the right, or should I go for a lighter set, with a white top and suspenders?”

He slowly turned the phone as he spoke, so that the Librarian could get a proper look at his wardrobe, before another thought dawned upon him, accompanied by the faintest rumble of his stomach.

“And what do you recommend for breakfast? I must admit that I don't have the faintest clue at the moment. Today's been an odder day than normal, with people invading my phone and free keys going up for...sale? Charity?”

The key appeared rather plain both in person and on camera, yet the wing keychain was a beautiful work of art. Whoever had created it must of worked for weeks on end to craft each and every feather to perfection. These little details baffled the young girl, who toyed with different filters, in order to take the best photograph possible of her newest possession.

However, when someone let out a yelp nearby, she was startled and had to play “Hot Potato” with herself, the phone in her hands being the potato. When she regained a proper hold of the object a few seconds later, the camera had been closed and the home panel was being displayed before her, yet not everything was as it should. A peculiar figure now stood on screen, a beautiful woman with long brown hair and stunning blue eyes, dressed in what appeared to be armor. This was certainly not an advertisement, nor a video being played, due to the fact that all their attributes, such as a “skip” or “pause” button, were missing. This entity simply stood there, as if it were one of those adorable shimejis, and even began speaking. Whilst it gave her a greeting and a small speech about something regarding an app, Sophie kept quiet and observed as it did so. The student had pulled her face away from the phone, the distance between the two now capable of being considered normal and nonthreatening for the eyes, and her expression had gained that same attentiveness, which she had during class when she hoped that taking the role of the thirsty for knowledge child would allow her to avoid the teacher’s questions. Quite frankly put, this little lady was completely blank in her thoughts, despite having a small spark in her eyes. Nothing logical could explain this strange predicament. This was so random and unusual that even she couldn’t handle it. How did the box enter her room? How had they found her address? How did they come here so fast? Questions had piled up in her mind for a second and in the text became so many that they caused a malfunction and a blackout followed. Yet she did not allow herself be overcome by fear and anxiety, for Sophie pulled out from the annals of her memory that day of her very first test in Physics back in the 7th grade. Back then she had sat on her desk with confidence, but once that sheet of paper had been placed before her, the poor lass had had to come to the realization that she could not do a single thing. Try as she might, not even one of the answers came to her naturally. It was the same as the current situation. Nothing made any sense. This being said, Sofia Soleil made the same decision as she had in that unfortunate school day. She had to wing it. Go with the flow and see what comes out of it. Not doing anything would be the same as failing, thus there was nothing to lose from trying. In the end, the test results showed that she had gotten 57 points out of 100, which she considered amazing for a person who had not studied at all. Her luck rarely played tricks on her and being given the opportunity to receive an accessory for free was definitely a strike of luck. Everything else that came along with it was surely part of the blessing. That is why, after about a minute after her new acquaintance had finished speaking, the girl responded in a cheerful manner.

“Nice to meet you, Valkyrie” Sophie was smiling, as if she had met a new classmate, with whom she wanted to be friends with. “My name is Sofia Soleil, but you can call me Sophie, since Sofia sounds too formal. Oh, and this is my buddy, Tori.” she turned the screen of the phone towards the little dog, which tilted its head while its tongue was sticking out. “He’s a pembroke welsh corgi and such an adorable puppy~” she fawned for a moment and Tori wagged his tail in response. “Now, lets see here...” Sophie began by pressing the Key Shop app while walking towards her laptop, which had been placed on the desk. A window immediately appeared, asking for her to enter a username. “Hmm, what should I be, what should I be” she swung her legs back and forth as she sat on the chair in front of the dest, her free left hand stretching out, in order to press the “start” button. “ “Morning bird” sounds cute, but I like “Kitteeen21”, too. I’ve never been good at picking names.” she sighed. The laptop’s system was now running. “I’ll be...hmm...um...” Lightning struck and made her jump in her seat. “Sheesh, I hate storms. I wish the clouds would go away already.” she complained, but suddenly brightened up with the arrival of an idea “I got it! “Lucky Sun”! I’ll put a star symbol between them, too! Hehe, this is so sweet.” Then another window appeared, asking her to enter a name for her key, the default being Valkyrie. This was a bigger dilemma than the first. Sophie was never a professional name-giver, but wanted to give this new friend a nice name, one with meaning and an elegant touch to it. “Excuse me for a second.” she quickly excused herself and placed the phone on the desk. What followed was her opening Mozilla Firefox and entering the address of a site she knew and loved, 20000-names.com. Once inside, she clicked on “Special Categories” and, after some thought, continued by clicking “Light names”. A few minutes of debating passed and then she smiled, for she had found a suitable name. “Alright! I’ll give you the name “Candra”. It means “glowing like the moon”. Hope that’s alright with you.” she said as she typed it in and entered it.

Someone knocked on the bedroom door.
“Sophie. Breakfast.” her mother said without entering and then headed for the kitchen.
“Coming!” the child responded.

Sophie put the phone on loud-speaker and placed it on the bookcase headboard. While taking off her sleeping gown and putting on a nice set of home clothes, she chirped to her new companion.

“I wonder what we’ll be having for breakfast today. I hope it’s not one of those bread in water things. Toast with jam would be the best. Oh, cupcakes would be nice, but mum doesn’t have that much free time. She’s a good cook, always tries her best, despite the little time she has. I can’t cook, so I don’t have any other choice anyway. Can you cook? What’s your favorite dish? I dislike stuff with too much oil. You know, those greasy things. So unhealthy! TheY opened another fast food place just two days ago in our area! Seriously, we have five already! What’s their plan, anyway? If we get too fat, we won’t be able to go out and buy anything in the first place. Then again, we can order online or use the phone. Still, it’s immoral to fatten people up like this! Other than that, I don’t like fish. I know it’s healthy and all, but I just don’t like it. Too slimy for me. I don’t mind fish as pets, though I find them a bit boring. Still some of them are very pretty with all those colours and all.” She was ranting and did not even notice that she was already dressed. At present, the girl was just walking around her room, checking various things, such as her bag and her closets absentmindedly, looking for something she didn’t even remember what it was. “Speaking of colours, that Key Shop app is really nice. Love the design, but could use something brighter. Are you from the app’s crew? Like, a service worker or something? But you said I’m your “master” or something, right? Is that what you call your clients? I like serveys and helping out with stuff like that, so I’ll be happy to help, if you need something like rating or reviews. It’s a sweet app and the key came super quickly. Is there anything you’d like me to do now? I’ll have to go get breakfast, so if it’s something that needs time, you’ll have to wait a bit.”

The Apartment | Julia Castor

Julia lay face-up on her bed, legs dangling from the side and swinging idly, as she flipped the piece of paper around in her hands. The terms and conditions for this particular work of handicraft were absurdly cryptic - she considered that interesting, although she was still having a hard time figuring out why molesting a keychain would be significant enough a concern to have explicitly included. And then she heard a voice speaking inside her room.

”S-salut.”

“Uh?”

She shot up from the bed and looked around the room for the source of the voice. The speech was full of pauses and the lapses of silence made it take a while for Julia to eventually narrow the search range down to the corner of her study table, upon which her cellphone lay.

”You’re...Jula, I think. My name’s Ruée...”

It came...from the speakers?

Replacing the weather, calendar and news feed blocks on the start screen of the phone was - for what she could make out from her sitting position a short distance away - a figure of a young girl who was supposedly who was talking.. Interest sparked, Julia stood up and walked over to her desk. With her spine not exactly comfortable from sitting in an unhealthy posture for all that early morning, she broke into a yawn in the middle, straightening her back and stretching her right arm into the air as she picked up the phone with her left hand and moved flipped it upright, moving it closer to her face so she could see the screen clearly.

The girl on the screen paused bit in her speech, and at the same time did Julia in the middle of her yawn.

Oh snap she’s pretty.

How absolutely impolite is it for one to be in this state when first meeting someone! Especially someone that was so formally delivering a self-introduction. In a panic Julia nearly had the phone fall out of her grip, which wasn’t firm in the first place. She managed to get hold of it and set the phone down on her desk as she hurried to straighten her collar and tidy her hair, and to brush out the few of the eyelashes that were stuck together or discomfortingly sticking to her eyelids.

Brushing the last strands of hair out of her eyes, she set the phone upright, grabbing the bookend - the only item in reach for such a purpose, to support it so that the front camera faces her properly - as the line of originally well-aligned books on her desk cascaded into a mess on the desk. Julia herself collapsed into the chair into a straight sitting post, as if a video conference was going on and she had rushed into it after realizing that she was terribly late.

The girl in the phone was probably rather frightened from all this. Julia regretting not having thought through all of this earlier when she first hear the sound. But then, it was probably only when she saw the video that her subconsciousness realized that it wasn’t pre-recorded but instead that the girl on the screen could actually see and react to her. Either way, her actions made it rather clear that Julia was giving her best try of being apologetic that she could deliver; although that was much hard to hold together under the influence of her excitement regarding this entire series of events.

”Y-yes, I’m Julia. Julia Castor. Ya. Nice to meet you! Eh-”

Her speech degenerated into incoherent snippets of stuttering, which would probably only make the girl on the screen even more nervous, if anything.

”-and no, not at all! Ruée, right? Rue...eh? You-you’re...French? Like….French? Where are you from? Wha-”

She should probably just call her Lucie in the future.

”-oh, right. Key App. Username. Key…-”

---

Gabe’s place | The Librarian [music]

Should I go for a set that matches that dark longcoat hanging by the right, or should I go for a lighter set, with a white top and suspenders?”

Gabe said as he turned the screen of the digital device to face his closet.

Oh well, that’s new. The Librarian smiled as he had no choice but to look blankly at the man’s wardrobe. He’d had people being confused about what was happening, people bombarding him with questions about the Key Shop, people having no clue whatsoever, people just freaking out entirely and tossing the phone into a fish tank - that was unpleasant - but the asking about advice on choice of attire? That’s a first.

The man’s wardrobe was composed of nearly nothing but buttoned shirts and trousers, though. There was also an abundance of neckties.

It also then came to the Librarian’s notice that the device he was now residing in seemed to be populated by an excessive amount of fighting games. He recognized a few titled from the last time he was around, and there were a few he never seen before.

Interesting.

Before The Librarian got back to the clothing problem the human proposed, Gabe spoke again:

“And what do you recommend for breakfast? I must admit that I don't have the faintest clue at the moment. Today's been an odder day than normal, with people invading my phone and free keys going up for...sale? Charity?”

Why would the items be free if it were for charity? Or did he mean that the charity was directed at himself - then wouldn’t one expect things that are a bit more...practical...than pretty crafted keys?

He then realized that he just implied that Keys aren’t useful, which is a silly idea.

Meh, logic.

“That shirt over there. The white one. And those trousers, probably.” In response to the human, The Librarian started composing casually what would be a usual human outfit, only for the whole sentence to be revealed as an absurdly chaotic and slightly comedic statement: “...and do you have a fluorescent green necktie anywhere around? No? That hotpink one over there will do then. And we're all set! Uh...well, allow me a moment while I come up with what you should wear. Feel free to enjoy your breakfast first.”

Humans considered clothes not to be edible? Too bad.

“Gabe Makoto, sir,” He said, this time slower and in a more sincere tone, but no less cheerfully: “I’m afraid that this is hardly the most important issue at the moment...”

He hesitated for a moment and decided not to pull the information-dump-about-things-I’m-not-supposed-to-know trick, as the results are usually extreme and often involve free-falling cellphones. Besides, it never was polite to flip through a filesystem without consent of the owner. He indicated Gabe that he had to make his own decisions about his wear and his food, and carried on:

“Allow me to direct you to the Key App.” He said as he rearranged Gabe’s desktop a bit so that his image wasn’t obscured by the blocks that were various applications, and the Key App icon was on the screen where it would seem like The Librarian was pointing at it when Gabe turned the phone around.

“The interface is pretty much self-explanatory,” He said, still putting up the business smile. “Information is available on request.”

---

The Apartment | Julia Castor

River North II. was the username she eventually came to choose. Julia was never the best with coming up with names, yet she settled on her decision this time rather swiftly. She was actually satisfied with it, really.

“...there.”

She said as she confirmed the information on the app - now that the initial rush had faded, she acted much more composed and less of a frantic, although she still gritted in her heart about how the first impressions ended up.

She’ll have to live with that, she guessed.

There was no other more inconvenient time for rain to fall than now. It pattered onto the window in an endless cacophony of tap-tap-tap before rolling down the glass and merging with countless other drops. The raindrops that fell onto the roof weren’t exempt from creating a racket either as they noisily dripped down onto the marble-tiled balcony floor. Unfortunately, the window was far too big; as it encompassed the entire wall, the noise was amplified.

While some people might have said that the sound of pattering raindrops was soothing and that even meditating to it was pleasant, the girl huddled under a grand total of four blankets begged to differ. It was irritating on a normal day; having stayed up all night perfecting a track made her crankier than usual. To top it off, she hadn’t even been able to finish the track. Why, you ask? The sole reason was Eugene Bellaire. The boy could not shut up, nor keep his hands off of Evanna’s things for that matter. Two broken headsets later, the heavy wooden door was promptly slammed in Eugene’s face and an exasperated Evanna headed to bed at two-thirty a.m.

And now the rain was determined not to let her sleep. Curled up underneath the blankets, Evanna stuck a hand out and after a brief struggle, breached the last of the barriers and snatched at the alarm clock on her bedside table. It was even harder to drag the small box-like clock through the tangle but after half a minute of wrestling with the thing, she brought it up to her face and squinted at the neon yellow hands and numbers. The hour hand was pointing just a little bit past five and the minute hand stood at one.

4:10.

Letting out a sigh of discontent, Evanna tossed the clock aside and contemplated on her situation. She had no clue about what to do at this point yet the options were clear – sit here in her cocoon listening to the blasted rain or get up and do something productive. On a good day, the preferable option was hibernating in said cocoon but as Evanna had no inclination to listen to the rain any further, getting up seemed like a better choice.

It took her a while to kick her way out of the tangle of blankets but all too soon, she headed for the bathroom. Squinting at the bright light, she turned the shower on and waited at the side, eyes closed and yawning every so often. Even in here she could hear the rain, pounding relentlessly against the glass. She didn’t appreciate the freakstorm, not in the least. Rain was irritating, made a mess and made a hell of a lot of noise to top it off. It brought in cold weather, soaked you to the bone and ruined things that were better off dry. Those thoughts persisted as Evanna got into the shower and throughout, mutters of why rain shouldn’t exist rang out through the bathroom. Those continued even as she got out, toweled her hair and put a fresh set of pyjamas on. Not even the sweet scent of whatever-was-in-the-shower gel (vanilla?) managed to shut her up, though it did calm her somewhat.

Now standing in front of the four-foot wide mirror, Evanna grabbed her toothbrush and squeezed some toothpaste onto it. It seemed rather pointless seeing how she’d brushed her teeth an hour and a half prior but it wouldn’t hurt to do so again, would it? Speaking of hurt, the bright light really was a pain. Evanna stuck the toothbrush in her mouth and headed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. If she had get up at this ungodly hour, then everyone else should too. She could practically hear her brothers’ grumbles through the walls.

As she bypassed the window, she couldn’t help but part the curtains a little bit and try looking past the rivulets of water running down the glass. Everything beyond was a dark blur, with the odd speck of light from the streetlights and car headlights here and there. The glass felt cold beneath her fingers; the coldness persisted even as she dropped her hand from the glass and moved over to hold the curtain open instead. She had to admit, it did feel a little bit refreshing seeing as how it woke her up a little bit more. She was even glad for the fact that she couldn’t make out anything more than a silhouette in the dark glass, for she knew her reflection would give away her sleeplessness.

In the silence of her room, her phone buzzed from its position on her dresser. Frowning, Evanna crossed her room and picked up her phone, wondering who could be IMing her at this time. It was 6 am, for god’s sake. No-one should be up that early and be sane. And even if they did, they shouldn’t attempt conversation with other (normal) human beings. It wasn’t an IM, however, and the notification only displayed a new email. Curiosity was the only thing that led her to tap the tiny email icon, opening up her email with 2874 unread emails. Precisely, 2874 promotion and spam emails. Signing up for all those games had its disadvantages.

The latest one that had triggered the alarm was a rather enigmatic one. It didn’t seem like one of those forwarded spam emails, as Evanna didn’t have anyone on her contact list. No, this was her gaming/online-persona email. So why was she receiving seemingly random offers for a free Key and a game?

Hold that thought.

A game? Evanna tapped the email open as she brushed her teeth, reading over the email with mild interest. The first thing that came to her mind was opportunity. Conveniently, the second thing was exploitation. It didn’t sound too bad, not at all, she decided as she tapped the Key Shop app open. It led her onto a page where an uncountable number of keys and their corresponding key chains were displayed. Why did she even have to pick a key? Did it offer benefits? Evanna highly doubted that. A key couldn’t do anything except open doors. If its task was to open a door, any of these keys could open a door. Granted, there were probably a bunch of different doors but since Evanna knew nothing about said doors or what lay beyond, it was all a game of chance.

As she scrolled down, a key seemingly made of copper and innumerable loops caught her attention. It was attached to a feather; rather simplistic, but it wasn’t too bad compared to some of the other outdated, rusting or just plain weird keys. Shrugging, she tapped the key for selection and hit ‘Buy’. It would be a while before it would arrive so Evanna had plenty of time to herself.

Or not.

“Evan? Hey Evan. Evaaaaaaaan.”

The peace and quiet was ruined. Her peace of mind interrupted, Evanna put her phone onto the desk and placed her hand on top of it. She closed her eyes, mentally consoling herself in an effort not to lunge at the offending intruder and launch them out the door with her foot. Eventually, she ground out an irritated “What?” only to receive a thump in response. The sole light source in her room, the computer, was suddenly blotted out by a human torso and head. The sound of clicks, keyboard taps and the ding of incoming mail brought her back to her senses.

“Eugene…” She growled, yanking the toothbrush out of her mouth. ”Get out! I told you not to come back here –”

Eugene ignored her, still clicking at something on the screen. “Hey, I need to borrow your laptop for a while, okay? Alex took mine and he’s still in Paris for some reason.”

Evanna could practically her irritation starting to build. It was bad enough that she was bothered 24/7 by these creatures; now Eugene took the liberty of trespassing into her private haven – and a messy one – without even bothering to put on a shirt. One of the perks of being considered a ‘dude’ was being ‘one of the guys’, and her brothers never bothered dressing properly unless there was an actual non-related female within twenty meters. It only served to mildly irritate Evanna, however, as she’d grown used to it after seventeen long years with five brothers.

“Take one of the other two then; this is my most important one. And for god’s sake, tell him to give your shirt back too.” Evanna’s reply was coupled with a vicious shove that launched Eugene out of the chair and onto the floor. She was only able to see the faint frown on the teenager’s face before her laptop was snatched off of the desk, the mouse trailing on the smooth, tiled floor by a thin cable. ”What are you doing? Give it back! I have all my tracks on there.” Her hands shot out to grip the end of the laptop and pulled. Eugene pulled back and the two of them fell into a tug-of-war contest that Evanna was winning –

Scratch that. Eugene let go of the laptop, sending it flying. It collided with the curtained window and shattered the glass, landing on the nearly-flooded balcony and flipping over as it came to an ominous rest. The water ran off of the dented laptop, running into gaps and holes, probably in the process of utterly destroying Evanna’s most precious possession. The cracks of the plastic still ringing in her ears, Evanna slowly approached the boy, eyes burning.

Damn fifteen-year-old teenage boys and their incessant need to break everything.

"You - you idiot." Evanna hissed, slowly coming closer. It was even scarier than an explosion, as her quiet words carried threats and promises of remorse on Eugene's part. "Don't tell me you're as stupid as I think you are. Could you not understand simple words? You're going to pay, you hear? You'll pay for every single thing I lost." The last few words were enunciated enough to make the boy tremble.

Eugene bolted out the door, leaving Evanna stand alone in the middle of the room and deal with the damage he'd caused. Eugene was dead. Every secret of his – she had her ways of finding out things – would no longer be a secret. His shenanigans would be plastered on the Times Square’s billboard if she had anything to say about it. This was way past blackmail – there was no point, he couldn’t bring her laptop or her tracks back. It was for revenge, and only revenge. She’d make him her personal servant for the next twenty years as a down payment, then figure out the rest of the details. Like how she was going to make him buy her a new laptop. And new musical equipment. And a new tablet –

”What’s the matter, honey? Why is Eugene about to cry – oh.” Lucia’s voice died down as soon as her soft blue eyes fell onto the jagged hole in the window. The curtains were being blown into the room by the strong breeze that came through the hole, making Lucia shudder as she observed the situation. An upset Evanna was never something pleasant to deal with but Evanna eerily calm. ”We’ll buy you a new one, don’t you worry. It’ll be alright.”

”Mamma, I had everything on my laptop. All my tracks, remixes, games, everything!” There was little that Evanna could do at this point but it didn’t stop her from blaming Eugene. ”He wanted my laptop because Alex took his.”

If only Alex hadn’t taken Eugene’s laptop. If only Eugene hadn’t decided to bother her. If only it wasn’t raining.

The doorbell chimed in the distance, on the other side of the house and a floor down. Lucia came closer and squeezed Evanna’s shoulder. “It’ll be alright, darling. Why don’t you go see who’s at the door and then we’ll talk about this.” Evanna didn’t even bother arguing and nodded in response.

She quietly went down the stairs, still disturbingly calm. How on earth was she supposed to replace everything she’d lost? More than two-hundred tracks down the drain. At least her progress in most of her MMO's would be saved with her accounts. By the time she reached the front door, the doorbell had chimed at least fifteen times. Without bothering to check who it was, Evanna pulled open the door, ready to get their early visitor out of here. What awaited her, however, was something far more interesting than a visitor.

She didn’t entirely recognize the box right away; its packaging was unaware and the guy who was supposed to hand her a clipboard to sign was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, Evanna didn’t feel like inquiring too much into it – it was probably something one of her brothers had ordered. Unless it was Eugene’s the box would safely make its way onto the kitchen counter to await its owner. However, the Key Shop’s logo on the small box made her stop and pick it up again.

It was for her.

’Wow, they’re fast.’

As she made her way upstairs again, Evanna pulled the box open after a big of struggle with the tape holding it closed. Inside were a key and a keychain, just as she’d expected. The key was crafted of beautiful copper that gleamed brightly underneath the yellow-tinged light. Its intricate design was especially intriguing; it held her attention for several long seconds as the traced the loops with a finger. It was enough to make her stumble on the top step but she continued down the hallway and into her empty room, slamming the door shut. The keychain was remarkably much simpler than its counterpart; a simple feather made of a rather dull-looking metal.

As soon as she was done inspecting the key and keychain, they were unceremoniously tossed onto her bed and she headed for the window. As she pulled the window open and took the ruined laptop back in, Evanna sat down on the opposite side of the room and opened it, pressing the power button and hoping for a miracle.

Nothing.

Several more pushes of the button yielded the same result and she slid the dead laptop off her lap, burying her head in her hands. Perhaps the hard drive could be salvaged? The chance was extremely slim with it was possible. The house was eerily quiet after her outburst; it seemed that even at 6:15 am, no-one wanted to bother with aggravating her any further.

A buzz broke the silence, making Evanna look up towards the source of the noise. In the dimness of her room, she could see her phone’s bright screen flashing repeatedly. Perhaps her phone was about to get destroyed too? It certainly seemed that every electronic she was coming in contact with today was either getting drenched or just outright dying. Nevertheless, Evanna pulled herself to her feet and walked over to her desk, sitting down onto the soft padded chair that she had spent so many hours in.

The Key Shop’s app had somehow opened by itself and had loaded onto the screen of her phone, displaying a single message.

The sarcastic remark aimed at Rasui did not even tickle. Albeit he listened to the human named Kai, the Key had no intention of admitting his own mistakes, merely because he did not consider those actions his faults. There was nothing in this or in the other world that could make him utter a prolonged ‘s’ at the beginning or the end of a word. It was embarrassing, due to the fact that the sound would come out as a hiss and the likelihood of his tongue unconsciously sticking out was high. When placed in the middle, the task caused less strain, yet still required attentiveness, especially those wretched “assassin”, “assassinate” and the like. He was thankful that this new master of his did not dwell on this subject, nor on the one concerning the label “dump”, which the Leviathan Chronicler had stamped on the apartment. The conversation would have taken far too long and would have definitely diverted them from their job at hand, which in turn would have provided a possibility for outside interference. In the worse case scenario, the boy would go to school or work and forget all about him.



Whilst Kai stumbled out of the room, most likely in order to retrieve his phone, the green-eyed spirit took his time to look around carefully, not a single song playing in the background. A dull grey space it was, with figures and boxes scattered on the floor. The toys were of various characters, which belonged to different animated shows, and the boxes were of DVDs and CDs that held the said animations or their soundtracks within them on disks. Posters hung on the walls, displaying games, some of which Rasui knew. There were no family pictures, no guitars or cigarettes, no skateboards and no medals.
The Internet history in the browser did not contain anything that strayed from the themes that decorated the earthling’s dwelling place. MyAnimeList, Animefreak, NetChan, Zerochan, Pixiv, Reddit, Booru. It can not be denied that some links were perverse and not for a young maiden’s eyes. They intrigued the snake and made him glad that humanity had yet to obtain the knowledge of how to install a smell sensor in their mobile devices, because his sensitive nose would have not tolerated even for a second the repulsive smell that he presumed flowered in the being’s home.
The tapping of raindrops was the only sound to be heard. Everything stood still, in a chaos as if frozen in a monochrome time. Thunder ringed in the distance, but was a mere echo and did not make the windows shiver. These signs, as well as the fading access to the Web, were enough to enlighten the Key on the current weather condition. Staring blankly for a moment at the room illuminated by grey light, he wondered if he could quickly slip out and enter a security camera. The building was bound to have one, unless it was in a poor area. However, the outworldly being discarded the idea, for he was waiting for a certain someone to come back, as much as he disliked it. Thus he stood on screen with eyes gently shut, silently enjoying the natural music of the Human world. As always, this side never ceased to amaze him. In his dimension water almost never fell from the sky in any form. Only creatures older than three hundred years could recall such an amazing occurrence. He himself had only witnessed it through the invisible wall that divided the worlds, which was the reason why he loved and was so curious about it. How could transparent liquid come pouring down like how sunflower seeds did? Would it feel oily? Or maybe it was like jumping into a river and coming out of it? Rasui could not tell. After all, most elements in the Human world were completely illogical in Cell City terms. Hotaru had told him it was like being sprinkled on by a sprinkler and Ronda had compared it to being spit on, but he did not believe either of the two, the first because he did not know what a sprinkler was and the second because he couldn’t accept that something so beautiful could be like spit. Only Lidia had agreed with him that rain was wonderful, for she was a kind and understanding person. The rest either disliked or brushed it off. His most recent owner was probably the same as the majority. That boy wasn’t a difficult equation. Simply looking through his files and browser history was enough to understand what kind of person he was.

’Ah, I hate this kid already.’ Rasui sighed in his thoughts as he opened his eyes only to watch the one on his mind enter the room.

“Okaeri, kid. Key Shop’s exactly where you last saw it. Don’t mess around with it just yet, cuz I don’t want to fix any messes this early on.” the Key spoke in nonchalantly.

Kai sat down on the chair amidst the ‘ruins’, but before he opened the program, the lad looked at the monitor, directly at his new companion, and spoke:

Kai said “Look, to be honest, I have no idea what’s going on here and you haven’t helped with that. So, if we’re going to get along here, I’m going to need some answers, so let’s make an agreement. I choose a decent name for you and I do this whole process of choosing a username or whatever and you’ll give me answers as soon as I’m done. Real answers too. Honest explanations. Am I understood?”

“Yah, yah, yah. Just hurry it up! You’re slower than a grandma snail on a non-discount day.” was Rasui’s response. Throwing a fit over a petty little bargain like that would waste too much time. He did not see a reason to disagree in the first place. If he could get a good name as easily as that, there was not a chance he would refuse. Of course, he would have to explain to this kind master what he considered “real” and “honest” a bit later.

With that, Kai entered a name and muttered under his nose after he hit the “enter” button:

Kai said “I hope ‘Loki’ is good enough for you. If not, then tough.”

“Lo...ki.” Rasui pronounced his new name and immediately began contemplating on it. ‘Heeh, not bad. Not bad. The Norse god of trickery and mischief. Can’t say we don’t have things in commo-... Wait… is this kid… giving me a hint?’

It just so happened that one of the Leviathan Chronicler’s previous owners, a young eighteen-year-old named Alim Mehr, had been keen on learning about Norse mythology and a key figure, such as the god that killed one of Odin’s sons, was not one to be missed. Because Rasui loved learning about the human world, he himself had indulged in the fairy tales of the people of the north and found them comical, if not interesting. Loki has been a favorite anti-hero, yet there was that one little moment in the trickster’s biography that disturbed the Key. To shape-shift into a mare and distract a stallion, only to become pregnant and give birth when he himself was male, just so that giant could be distracted and the other gods wouldn’t pay it was a story Rasui tried forgetting and succeeded, until the moment he was given the name “Loki”.

Kai said “There, ‘Blitz Sylph.’ That work for you?”

The character on screen flinched when the boy’s words brought him back to reality. There was the possibility of this human not being aware of the events in the Norse god’s life, but he was a shut-in, thus the chances weren’t high. Rasui made a mental note for himself that either this child was trying to mock him, was giving an indirect message or hadn’t done his reading right. In either case, dealing with it would not be hard.

“Sure. Just fine.” the newly named Loki responded with a bit of unease. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not giving up my other name.” he told him and vanished from the monitor. A small zap twitched above the phone and it lit up, unlocked. “There’s not much we can really do here. Most of the info’s not inserted, since you haven’t logged in yet. But hey, you can look at my awesomeness~” Rasui spoke, now on the phone’s screen, and got the “Owned Keys” page out in the app. There was only one there and that was him, thus he promptly continued by opening his own page. “See? Neat right? Psyche at 7. Sanity at 5. Speed and Agility at 6. Heck, even my Endurance is up! Consider yourself lucky. You could have gotten one of those wackos with low Sanity. I’ve got some amazing skills, too!” he ranted cheerfully, while displaying the page. “All the info about you will be up when we log in. So, how about we do that. Get my key and unlock a door.” he told him and vanished, only to return a split second later. “Just don’t unlock the bathroom door! No joking here! I’ve got bad memories from the last time that happened and, trust me, it wasn’t pretty!”

Oddly enough back behind the girl a strange flashing of light began to flicker. Proceeding that came the sound of strained whirring and sputtering as if some sort of mechanical device were trying to claw its way back to life. Well, in fact, that was exactly what was happened. Her previously fried laptop was slowly coming back to life. The screen filled with white, a simple loading icon appeared and began to slowly filled with blue squares.



It only took a few moments before the entire bar filled with blue and flickered away. Leaving nothing but a white screen. But something could be heard. It wasn't the sound of the damp pieces fighting the throws of death. No, it was someone. They were.... groaning?

"Ugh..." Came the sound as the white screen seemed to pan across the emptiness until suddenly it happened upon a strange looking man. He was darkly tanned and wearing a light colored outfit that was patched together with thick black string; a large bear fur wrapped around his upper torso. He was stretching; pulling his arms above his head before stretching his fingers down to his toes.

"Damn. This place is much nicer. I can actually move around and stretch." He announced casually to no one other then himself. Turning his gaze he looked at the screen curiously. "Oh, there you are." She grinned. He then began to head towards the screen only to stop as the view came from his upper chest and upwards. He held a sharp jaw with prominant features. His hair was long and jet black, dark feathers scattered through his hair with bright red tips. Across his dark tan face and arms, really everywhere that wasn't covered by his outfit, had strange block like patterns of paint that were also a bright red. If the girl had ever seen a western movie she would definitely be able to recognize the Native American influence. The man remained silent for a moment, the pipe between his lips plumed a blue smoke that seemed to sparkle before dissipating in the air. Curiously he brought a head up to his head, extending a finger to scratch his forehead in confusion.



"Huh... So you're the one who bought me, eh?" He questions rather rhetorically. Of course she bought him, how else would he be here unless she bought him. But, wait.

"Wait! Did you.." He trailed, gasping in an exaggerating manner. "STEAL me?!" He questioned rather perplexed and terrified. His horrified face than changed back to the uncaring expression after only a few moments. "Meh, I don't care either way. If I am here, that means my key is here. So if you'd be a doll and unlock a door with it. That'd be swell!" He gave a thumbs up with a wide, awkward smile.

Before she could even make a move, or even ask a question he was off again. "UGH! Fine! If you insist! I will explain." With that he brought his fist to cover his mouth, with a cough to clear his throat he was ready to give his spiel.

"Hey there Owner! My name is Bear! Not Salmon, iguana, turtle, or parrot.." He explained swiftly, with each animal he said he brought up the animal seemingly out of nowhere, tossing it over his shoulder before picking up and showing the next. "But Bear! Like these.." He said as he then produced a baby brown bear, holding it up by the scruff of the back of its neck. It dangingly cutely in a ball of fuzz, it blinking nonchalantly as if this were completely normal. "Bear. But bigger." Suddenly the baby bear in his hands extended his paws out towards the side as if reaching for something out of frame. Somehow the baby bear spoke in a childish voice. "Momma" Was all it said before Bear looked over in the direction with wide eyes.

With a frightened yelp he dashed the other way, leaving nothing but a plume of smoke and the baby brown bear hovering in the air before physics returned and the fuzzy creature fell out of frame. Moments later Bears hand crossed the frame and dipped around the other side. As if pulling the frame over to himself to return him to the screen. "Anyway! Now that you know WHO I am. Better tell you WHAT I am. I am a Key. More specifically, that key." He said as he pointed over at the key laying on her bed. The one she had just received in the mail.

"Think of me as a guide book with arms that can punch things." He smirked. "Now, are you FINALLY ready to head into the game?" He asked rather inpatiently.

So it was to be Candra, then...? The Valkyrie rolled the name around in her head for a minute while her master rambled on about breakfast and other things. The name reminded her of the word 'Candor,' which meant openness and honesty. It suited her. The more she repeated it in her head, the more she liked the name. Her Master was to be 'Lucky Sun.' Sophie was her name in the real world. With equal parts loyalty and something akin to worship, the Valkyrie committed these names to memory. She took in the name change commands and altered her own identity to match.

Candra's head started to spin as Sophie went on and on, and she was just able to hang on to the bit about the Key Shop app. Self-consciously she realized that she had sounded similarly wordy during her own introduction. Lastly, she let the thought of asking for a favourable review play through her mind... but it was too immoral to bear. She could not entertain the thought for longer than a second. It would be taking advantage of what seemed to be an innocent girl. It wouldn't be fair.

Sophie had to go get breakfast. Naturally, since it was morning. It seemed she still lived with her parents. Why was such a young girl...? No, it wasn't that unusual. It weighed heavily on her heart to get a young girl involved in this game and Cell City, but Sophie should have chosen this path herself, if all was right. She must have her reasons. It wasn't Candra's place to question her owner's motivations. Even if she wanted to, it was already too late.

"Is there anything you'd like me to do now?" Sophie asked.

"Come with me to victory," She wanted to say.

"Just enjoy your life, and I will protect you," She wanted to say.

"...At your soonest convenience," She began, "it would be beneficial for you to understand what exactly is happening. I'll give you the short version, if you please. I am not, as you suspected, a worker from the developers of this app." Candra gave it some thought. "Not directly, anyway. You might say I am something of a servant or a pawn. Yours, in fact." The picture on the screen stared for a minute, trying to determine if Sophie was paying attention. After a moment, she was satisfied, or else gave up trying to tell, because she continued. "You should have been made aware before purchasing me, but there is a 'game' at hand, and one that you are a part of. In this game I am your sword and shield."

Pondering over her explanation, and still trying to hurry it up, Candra sighed. It would take way too long to explain properly. "Everything will become much clearer once you log in. When you have a spare moment, I would ask that you take my key - which, incedentally, you must not misplace, and use it to unlock a door of your choosing. It matters not what door you open, as long as you do it with me."

"I have no further explanation for now, do not let me keep you any longer from your breakfast. However, the last thing I would request... although this may be above my station..." Candra stared forward with a fierce look that her owner probably couldn't see, "Please... take me with you! I do not wish to leave your side so quickly. If you require it, I can keep silent." It was half an admonishment, saying 'Be careful' and half a desperate plea. The Valkyrie was just newly reborn into this world which she had not inhabited for so long. Above all else, she did not want to leave her master's side, nor did she want to be left alone.

Candra said "...At your soonest convenience," She began, "it would be beneficial for you to understand what exactly is happening. I'll give you the short version, if you please. I am not, as you suspected, a worker from the developers of this app."

“Eh, you’re not?” Sophie quickly responded.

Candra said Candra gave it some thought. "Not directly, anyway. You might say I am something of a servant or a pawn. Yours, in fact."

A moment of silence followed, in which both human and Key stared at each other. Whilst the latter appeared quite serious and determined to get her message across, the former had slightly tilted her head to the right, much like her dog when it could not understand its owner’s commands. Sophie had had the feeling that this would be something she would not be able to comprehend the moment the unfamiliar woman’s figure came on screen, thus she had attempted to calm herself down with her own rant and quickly brush off the matter with a logical explanation, yet to no avail. The thought of needing to firmly concentrate this early in the morning made her feel all the more lazy, but what pestered her even more was how this person had dubbed themselves a servant and a pawn. Slavery, in all its variations, was something the girl hated and she felt compelled to beg to differ, however, her new companion continued with the same strong intonation as before.

Candra said "You should have been made aware before purchasing me, but there is a 'game' at hand, and one that you are a part of. In this game I am your sword and shield."

The words that were uttered were ones that Sophie could not fully understand once more. They simply came into one ear and out the other. The only one that rang a small bell was “game” and it was not a pleasant sound. The fact that they were having a conversation through the phone and that it was connected to a certain app on the device instantly lead to the conclusion that the “game” in question was an online one. This bothered her a bit and made her feel uneasy, for this young lady was absolutely helpless when it came to online gaming. Simple browser family games were not a problem, nor was the Sims series, yet action-oriented ones were out of her league. She could never react fast enough, nor could she handle all those battle combos, albeit she loved the art and music. There had been a time in her life when her entire class had had the topic of MMOs on their lips, which had prompted her to see what these games were all about. Try as she might, it had been too difficult to deal with, not to mention it required time and concentration, both of which she ofttimes lacked.
This being said, the mention of a “game” certainly did not make her feel at ease. Yet at the same time, she didn’t have it in her to refuse this polite woman. It was obvious that she was having a hard time explaining everything to someone as air-headed as her, so Sophie wished to make it up to her somehow, which was exactly why she still listened when Candra continued.

Candra said "Everything will become much clearer once you log in. When you have a spare moment, I would ask that you take my key - which, incidentally, you must not misplace, and use it to unlock a door of your choosing. It matters not what door you open, as long as you do it with me."

“Mmmhmm, alright. Got it!” the sunny child said, in order to confirm to the speaker that she was listening.

Candra said "I have no further explanation for now, do not let me keep you any longer from your breakfast. However, the last thing I would request... although this may be above my station..." Candra stared forward with a fierce look that her owner probably couldn't see.

“”W-what might that be?” Sophie asked. Although she was smiling and appeared cheerful, she was undeniably nervous.

Candra said "Please... take me with you! I do not wish to leave your side so quickly. If you require it, I can keep silent."

If this had been an anime, there would be a sweat drop symbol on Sophie’s head right about now. The request was sudden, seemingly out of nowhere and out of character. The girl could only stand there silently, stumped by this show of emotion. Thankfully, she regained her senses a few seconds after and her natural smile shined on.

“Alright! You can come along. Oh, but go into mini mode. Be like, um, a shimeji! Like a little figure that is on screen, otherwise mum might notice.” she said happily and went to open the door of her bedroom. “Dad’s asleep, so we should keep quiet.” she added as she walked down the hall and reached for the kitchen door’s handle.

The moment she entered the room, a sweet aroma spellbound the child. The caster of the spell was the kind hard-working witch, Siena Soleil - her mother, who was busily cleaning the worktop and oven from the aftermath of her cooking. There were only a few spots and crumbs to swipe away, but when she heard someone entering, the woman halted her work, turned and smiled warmly.
“Guess what we’re having today.” she said.
At that moment, her daughter’s eyes widened and shined from joy. Six waffles were perfectly stacked atop one another on a big plate in the center of the table. Two jars of jam, one from cherries and one from prunes, were placed by its sides, a spoon sticking out of each. A cozy sweet-smelling scene illuminated by the yellow glow of the light bulb.
“Yes! Waffles!” Sophie exclaimed.
“Quiet down now and lets have breakfast.” her mother said as she opened a cabinet and got the jar of honey.

The both of them seated themselves in front of each other, a small white plate with a serviette to the right waiting for them to begin. Since they were at their home and no one was watching, the two prefered to childishly eat with their fingers, rather than use forks and knives. It provided a family atmosphere and a chance for something funny to joke about once someone’s fingers became sticky. Sofia put her phone to her right and took one waffle from the stack, which she hastily divided in two and put honey on one piece and cherry jam on the other. Biting first into the former, she flinched when lightning struck and thunder broke the silence.

“Quite the bad weather we have today.” her mother remarked.

Making her daughter’s favorite breakfast was the least she could do. With the rain pouring down so badly and the storm not giving the slightest indication of leaving, her little girl would not be able to leave their apartment all day, nor would she be able to call her friends, due to the loss of signal. It was a miracle that Internet connection was still available, yet even that was lagging and would soon be lost. Her only companion would be Tori and her father’s occasional snores, because the woman would inevitably have to leave for an errand. Even on Sunday there was still work to be done.
After eating one waffle with prune jam, she stood up and took her plate to the sink.

“Done already?” Sofia questioned.
“Yes. I have to go do some paperwork. It won’t take long, so no worries.” Siena answered.
“Mum, you should eat more. You’ll get sick.” the girl pouted.
“I won’t. Now be a good girl and don’t make too much noise.” the woman told her kindly and went to freshen herself up in the bathroom. She was already dressed in her business suit, thus a change of clothes was not required.

“You hear that? She always says she’ll be ok, but she still gets sick from lack of vitamins. How careless.” she quietly complained to her phone, where her new friend was, but then continued casually “By the way, you never answered my question about what kind of food you liked. I love waffles in the morning, but if I could, I would have them any time. Mum makes them with sugar, but I like adding a topping as well. Right now, we have cherry jam, honey and prune jam. Which do you like the most?”

Albeit it seemed like a thoughtless inquiry, like idle chatter without a meaning, the girl’s words had reason to them. Her relationship with Candra had begun rather awkwardly and the best way to mend it was to get to know the other. Even if it wasn’t the best choice of topic, Sophie wished to get a conversation started so she could get a peek at this person’s personality. So far she had only seen their serious formal expression, but there had to be more sides of them hidden behind that first layer. Curious and overly friendly, she hoped that she could create a good bond with her new companion.

A couple of minutes later, Siena opened the kitchen door and spoke:
“Sophie, I’m leaving.”
“Bye bye.” the fifteen-year-old responded cheerfully.

With that the mother headed out, locking the front door behind her. Sophie devoured another waffle with cherry jam before she put away the jars, placed the dishes and the spoons in the sink and left the remaining waffles in a box, which then was left inside the fridge. Tori had used the bathroom to do his business and had eaten silently from his bowl the entire time. Now he followed his mistress swiftly on his little legs as they entered her room.

“Oh, sheesh. No Internet. No signal. No communication.” the girl sighed, her phone in her hand. Once more, she jumped when thunder rolled in from outside. It was already thirteen minutes past seven in the morning and the skies remained as grey and as gloomy as they had been an hour ago. “What to do, what to do…” she wondered and looked her her dog. “Oh, we can practice your tricks, Tori.” she smiled, to which her pet wagged its short tail. “Now, where did I leave that wand?”

Turning around to look in her room, Sophie noticed the box on her bed and it took her a few seconds to remember why it was there.
“Oh, right, the key!” she said in surprise and walked over to it. Picking the small object up from its resting place, it truly looked like a regular old key. “Alright! Lets try this, Candra!”

Spinning childishly around, the young girl went over to her bedroom door and unlocked it. What followed was something she would never forget.

The moment her dead laptop whirred to life, Evanna looked up with hope in her eyes. Had all that button-pressing finally worked? She dropped her phone back on her bed and knelt next to her laptop, pushing the screen back a little bit further in order to inspect the damage. In place of the Windows 8 logo was a download bar, but Evanna couldn’t remember downloading anything new within the past week. Perhaps it was the system rebooting itself? Evanna wasn’t the smartest when it came to the mechanical and programming bits of a laptop; her specialty lay in using a laptop.

Nevertheless, she’d never seen it randomly boot up like that and when the screen turned a bright white color, she edged away from the laptop as if it was going to blow. She was so busy with her laptop and anticipating and explosion that she didn’t hear the strange sounds, not until she was looking straight at the face of some kind of… tribal guy? She edged away from the laptop, unsure of what she was supposed to do at this point. Should she get the man’s attention and demand an explanation or simply hurl the laptop out the window?

The better choice was obvious.

Evanna slowly stood up, careful not to startle him too much as he rambled on. Only half-listening, she kept a carefree smile on her face, one that urged him to go on and keep talking. All the while, she edged back towards the laptop, careful not to make any hasty movements and, sliding her fingers underneath the laptop, she slowly lifted the laptop and began to stand up. She was barely standing when the man pulled out a baby bear, and Evanna immediately stopped in her tracks. As a girl, she had drilled herself into softening at the sight of a cute animal and ‘awww’ing when appropriate, all a ploy to irritate her brothers. And though her brothers weren’t here, Evanna instinctively melted at the sight of the pretty little bear cub.

”Aww, aren’t you the cutest little thing!” She reached out with a finger and poked the screen, uncaring about the man holding the bear cub. After all, she was probably hallucination. This was most likely some advertisement engineered to hit a soft spot and get people to buy whatever they were advertising. But the advertisement never came, and Evanna watched with slightly widened eyes as the man—should she even call him that? He was as hyperactive as a four-year-old—continued talking.

He was a key? The key that way lying on the end of her bed?

Evanna opened her mouth to speak and tell him how ridiculous he was being—great, now she was talking to an inanimate screen—when she realized that she’d probably have to switch to English. The guy had spoken in English, after all, and last time she’d checked, Native Americans didn’t speak Italian. “Unpossible!” She retorted. “You cannot be dat key, you are in a computer and—why am I talking to a screen?!”

Moments later, his final words were translated and processed by Evanna’s strangely slow brain today. “A game? What game?” Suddenly, it became slightly clearer. She’d received an email inviting her to try a game, hadn’t she? That strange email at exactly 6 am. Had buying a key confirmed her attendance? Nevertheless, Evanna shrugged, keen to try something new. The game seemed promising, with limitless opportunities to exploit. And it this strange, tattooed man was going to be her ticket to victory, then so be it. She offered him an uncharacteristic smile, figuring it was better to get onto her key’s good side right away as she walked over to the bed and set the laptop down. She picked up the copper-ish key and held it up.

“You want me to open door with this? How do I do that?” She inquired, inspecting the teeth of the key. They didn’t seem like they’d fit in her room’s door, or any door in her house for that matter. She looked back up towards the key, taking in his strange appearance. “Are you from a—a traiiibe?” The word was unfamiliar to her, leading her to drag it out as she speculated upon her next words. Her smile grew wider, something someone close to her would tell you wasn’t a good thing. “If you make the baby bear appear again, I will open door for you.”

---

A white shirt, trousers, and a pink tie? Gabe had no objections to that sort of combination, if nothing else, and it was better than his roommate's normal answer of “I don't care, just figure it out yourself”. Sure, it was a bit odd for the Librarian to imply that what he had just suggested was for food, but it was understandable. At 6AM in the morning, who wouldn't be a little braindead, and confuse clothing for food? Sliding into his recommended clothing with the grace and elegance of someone who was doing it for a TV advertisement on men's designer brands, the Japanese male tightened his tie, straightened his collar, and practiced another smile towards nobody in particular. This time, it was a warmer grin, meant for newer customers who still weren't accustom to the perks and benefits that came with being in that cafe. It felt a little stiff, but it should be fine. After all, he hadn't even eaten breakfast yet. Everything would work out better with some food.

However, like the man in his phone had just said, there were apparently more important things to attend to. Fastening his trousers with a belt, he sat down on the wooden chair again, watching with some interest as the Librarian went and rearranged the desktop of the Ipod in ways that made the Key Shop application stand out. Clearly, the Shop wasn't just a Shop, but also some other thing. He shrugged. It would have been simpler if the Librarian just explained, but telemarketers these days must have wanted to make things more mysterious and interactive for their customers.

Unless that cheerful scarfman wasn't a telemarketer at all, and Gabe was soon going to be involved in some death match tournament to decide the next Demon King. Like in fantasy self-insertation books. Though the Librarian would have been a cute girl if Gabe was going to be the main character, so obviously, he'd just be a supporting character. Of course, factoring in his online persona of 0Mari, and the skills, experience, and knowledge that comes from it, as well as his age in comparison to the age of most main characters in Teen Fiction...yeah, he might actually be more of a mentor-type character, if he was lucky.

Or maybe he was just off in every single way, since there's no way something like that would happen in real life.

Stowing away his incoherent musings of the fantastic and impossible, Gabe pressed the icon and was greeted immediately with what must have been the procedures for creating an account. Username...as well as a name for the Key? He tilted his head for a moment at this, before shrugging. The usual then, and something direct for the newcomer.

Without any words, he designated the Librarian as Bookman, and himself as 0Mari, before clicking the confirmation box that came along with it. After that, the screen changed, dropping into what appeared to be a stat window. Level 1 with an empty experience bar and no kills. There were a bunch of links underneath that, with RPGish titles such as 'Equipment' and 'Stats' and 'Skills'. How fun.

“This is a PvP game then?” he inquired, flexing the fingers in his spare hand. “How does it work, Bookman? And is this still in beta, or are you just doing a stress test on the servers before launching?”