@LegendBegins and @chrysocoma “What do you mean? You should know, since you’re part of this dream.” Suzi’s eyes glazed over at what the older girl was saying,
“A… dream?” This thought took a while for the younger minded girl to process,
“I… I just woke up here. I didn’t know we were in a dream.” She looked at her feet and bit her bottom lip and contemplated her own conclusion before looking up to Aki, again,
“I thought we were in a video game.” Aki had to double take at the girl’s words.
A video game? What would that even mean? What would that look like No, this was obviously a dream. It had to be. But as she looked at the fanciful piece of technology on her wrist, doubts began to claw at her better sense of reasoning.
“What… makes you think that?” “Umm…” Suzi paused, unsure of how to address the question respectfully. Several thoughts flooded her mind, like Aki not having part of her vision scripted with technological advancements,
“I guess it was the wrist band.” She held up her arm for show,
“And the symbols in the sky…” Her arm lowered,
“And… th-the vision in my eyes?” Suzi forced a smile, feeling uneasy about attempting to correct the older girl,
“You have those, too, right?” The child’s words were unexpectedly grating to Aki. It wasn’t as if they didn’t make sense, but… but she couldn’t
afford for them to be true. Because if this wasn’t a dream… what else could possibly be going on? She had to admit, between the floating text, the weird looking watch, and the uneasy feeling she got when she looked at the world surrounding them, it did feel like it could be some kind of video game. Aiming to hold onto the more pleasant scenario a moment longer, Aki took a breath and smiled back.
“You don’t think it might be a dream about a video game?” “A dream about a video game?” Suzi repeated slowly,
“Does that mean we are having the same dream?” “Well, it would mean that you’re part of the dream.” Aki’s dreams were usually incoherent and meaningless, and she really didn’t like how human her discussion partner felt.
“I’m… I’m not part of the dream. I have a family… and…” Suzi thought hard on how to explain herself. Even dream people have families.
“I just… I just went to sleep last night and woke up here. My family didn’t even celebrate New Year’s because of my baby brother,” she said with a trite of lament in her voice,
“I thought we all woke up here.” “A… family?” Aki tried with all her might to believe that this girl might be anything but real. Maybe some sort of subconscious persona, or even a secret angel or something. Anything but a fellow kidnappee in a weird video game version of reality. If this girl really was a person, she would have to know something that Aki couldn’t possibly know. And Aki would have to have some sort of way to make sure she wasn’t just making up an answer. Okay, perfect—a solid plan without any actual way to pull it off. Great start.
“Maybe… maybe you could tell me a little bit about them? And about yourself too?” Suzi felt at ease as the older girl seemed to take interest in her explanation,
“My name is Takada Suzuki. I am eleven years old. I attend KAIS Middle School in Meguro City, Tokyo. My best subjects are social studies, fine arts, and mathematics. I have a father and a mother and a little, baby brother. He was born a year ago. My father is a teacher, and we… we moved to Tokyo when my mother became pregnant with my baby brother.” The child took in a deep breath, realizing that she had still been adjusting to all the recent changes in her life,
“My mother used to be a teacher, too, but it was easier this way, and my mother would have more time with my baby brother. I don’t really understand, because we used to live in the country, with big acres of land! Now, and now, it’s just the city and a small apartment. I sleep in my own room, now, though. My father and mother say that we have a nice sized apartment. I believe them. It’s just different, like a new adventure. In fact, we have lights that turn on-and-off with a clap! It’s much more interesting than the country house, even… I still miss the country house, but I love my baby brother more..” Suzi paused, contemplating on what she had just spoken to Aki, and then proceeded to follow her question,
“What are you and your family like?” Tokyo? The girl’s brief description of her life left Aki reeling—the older teen had hardly been outside of Miami, let alone a country as foreign to her as Japan. The only thing keeping her from going off the deep end and considering that this crazy dream might just be real was the thought that she had watched way too much anime the past couple weeks.
“M-my family?” She hadn’t expected to be interrogated in her own dream.
“Well, I have a mom… and a dad. And…” Aki stumbled over her words, trying to come up with anything more interesting than ‘I have pretty much no future plans right now and live with my parents.’ She settled on
“They’re nothing special. I’m taking a gap year before I start college.” “No plans for the future?” Suzi had never heard of this concept, or if she had, she was unfamiliar with it,
“How is that possible?” She asked, almost forgetting where they were and how they had met. The lack of direction in the older girl’s life was troubling. Suzi wished to be respectful, but it was getting harder and harder for her to understand where the older girl was coming from.
“Well… I do plan to go to college at some point.” Aki’s left arm brushed her right, and she could practically feel the child’s eyes burning judgemental holes into her forehead.
“I just… you know, don’t really know what I want to do right now. I’m still trying to figure that out.” Of course, Aki’s day-to-day life as an employee for the local skating rink didn’t do her any good on that front; she had wanted to travel the world and see all there was to see, but as she quickly discovered, traveling anywhere took money. Money that she didn’t have. And now this kid was telling her that those plans could be further disrupted by being trapped in some kind of demonic video game for the rest of her life.
It was getting harder not to judge the older girl. Suzi had never heard of such disorganized living.
What are her parents like? She wondered if they even cared. Her parents would have been furious with her for not knowing what she wanted to be. In fact, she was already deciding on becoming a school teacher, as well. Although, her mind was not completely made, yet,
“D-don’t your parents care?” She asked in a bashful manner.
Aki was taken aback by the child’s question.
“Well—well yeah.” She stammered, trying to recover from the inadvertent jab.
“If they didn’t care, they would have shipped me off to some college somewhere instead of giving me a year to try to figure out what I want from life. I mean, if we’re stuck in a video game, then I guess it doesn’t really matter all that much what I decide to do.” Aki choked out an awkward laugh at the lackluster attempt to change the subject. She didn’t get what was so hard to understand about her situation—it’s not like she was the only one out there trying to deal with figuring out who she was, right?
A blank stare glazed over Suzi’s face as she attempted to understand and process the entirety of Aki’s response — awkward laughter of a serious subject and all; however, all she could think of saying in response was,
“Stuck? Why do you think we’re stuck?” She wanted to continue asking Aki questions about her parents. They seemed odd. Her parents would never operate in such a manner. It seemed as if Aki’s parents did not care about her, but Aki was right to change the subject back to the original topic. The thought that she would be stuck in this strange world never crossed her mind. Being trapped was a new feeling.
“Well, I don’t know what you’re seeing, but I don’t have a logout button.” VR was just some kind of niche hobby that Aki didn’t have
nearly enough money to get into, but she imagined if there was ever going to be some kind of inescapable virtual reality death game, this would be it. The floating text and menu-like fixtures more or less guaranteed that. Her friend Ashley would be having a ball in this thing with her VR headset and Sword Art Online obsession, and would probably be pretty good at it to boot. Well, whatever “it” was supposed to be. Aki made a mental note to never make fun of Ashley’s weird tech hobbies again.
Suzi’s eyes darted across the digital screen several times, right-to-left, up-down. She did not see a logout selection, either. Her head turned downwards to her wrist, and she tapped the wristband, displaying the white egg. She took in several breaths as she began caving to Aki’s conclusion. However, she refused to believe it,
“My DigiMon doesn’t turn off…” She said allowed, realizing how tomboyish she sounded. She felt like a Tomagatchi was more appropriate now that she had said it aloud to this older girl,
“Unless it runs out of batteries…” Her mind shifted,
“Maybe someone else knows…” The younger girl’s attention shifted away from Aki. The others who had entered this realm seemed to have awoken during her conversation with Aki.
Neziul,
wanderingwolf,
PrinceAlexus,
Snowdrops,
Bugman,
Andreyich,
Lucian,
shylarah,
Mae,
Kaithe Dame
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