{Contest Entry} Strings

Part Three: Jordan

"Good morning, Jordan! Glad to see my buddy!" SeaNanners, or Adam, happily greeted me.

"Hey Adam! How's it going?" I smiled back at him, my red framed glasses almost sliding off my nose.

"Not bad, you? Man, I just got the best news today that we're going to a conference! But it's not gonna be boring or anything like that, it'll be a meeting to discuss who will compete in this year's Machinima Games! I'm so pumped! I wanna get picked sooooo badly!"

"Nice, Nanners. I'm kinda eh today so far," I responded, feeling the weight of not having my morning coffee start to drag me down.

"Probly 'cause you haven't had your morning coffee, Jordy. Lez go to the office and get some," Adam suggested, starting to jog ahead of me towards the large, blue glassed building. I followed closely behind my friend, hoping to relieve myself of this sluggish-ness soon.

~~~

We reached our floor and Nanners ran off to go and get me a cup of Joe. Gamers were already at their work, producing content for viewers and providing some form of entertainment while the world around them seemed gray and bleak.

"Here ya go!" Adam offered me a standard white mug with the steaming, brown liquid inside.

"Thanks man," I replied, taking it graciously and drinking up. Within a few minutes, I was already returning to my usual self, calm and mellow, but also cheerful and funny.

My supervisor gave me my assignment and I took it happily, ready to record some Minecraft for my viewers. But before I actually started recording, I glanced at my subscriber count on my YouTube page. It was dwindling bit by bit and I was carefully keeping track, marking the number and subtracting from yesterday's count. I had lost thirty subscribers overnight. I couldn't let that get me down, though. The roughly 10,000 people still watching needed me.

"What's going on dudes, and welcome back to the realm of Mianite! Today, we have got-ooh! M'lady Ianite is on! We must greet her. 'Hello, my lady,'" I read aloud my chat message as I sent it. Ianite was a fictitious goddess in the series that I was involved in, the Realm of Mianite. She was an actual person behind a screen somewhere, but I had never met or spoken with her in person.

"Nothing matters anymore, Jordan..." was the reply.

This change of tone shocked me. Just yesterday, she was acting as usual for her character in the series. All of a sudden, this was what stared me in the face.

"Jordan, listen to me, I am speaking to you as Alicia, not as Ianite. This world is crumbling around us. You cannot live this lie any longer." "This sickness is everywhere. We are all infected with it." "We have no cure, but we buy ourselves time" "with animals, and drugged drinks and food with only prices the rich can afford." "Wake up, Jordan." "They blind you each day and you never know it." "You work for a corporation that basically tries to sell the happiness of others to the viewers." "To make the viewers believe there is nothing wrong." "You live a lie, Jordan." "Wake" "Up"

And with that, the stream stopped. I stopped recording and was kicked from the server. I tried to re-join, but found I was unable to. The IP had forcefully been closed.

I sat back in my chair in shock. What had this message meant? Was I being fed lies each day?

I stood up and looked around at the gamers filling the room, their voices almost creating a monotone of cheerfulness, giving everyone watching that there was nothing wrong, there was no sickness, we were all fine. The world came crashing down on me and I fell back into the black office chair again, this time, heavy curtains falling over my vision and turning my body into nothing but dead weight.

~~~

I woke with a start in my bed. Was it all a dream? Surely, it had to have been a dream. I wasn't at the office just now. I glanced at my alarm going off on my phone. "8:30: Conference" it read. This sudden reminder jolted me from bed and I sprinted off to the bathroom to hurriedly get ready and leave in time for the Machinima Games meeting held at the Crafter's City Hotel.

~~~

My breath came as laboured pants once I reached the glass doors of the hotel. I ran inside and checked in, breathing heavily and barely able to speak my name to the young man at the desk. He nodded and gave me my key card, telling me which way to go to the conference room of the building. As I made my way to the elevator, I couldn't help but notice the man playing a classical song on the glass piano near the entrance, his fingers dancing upon the keys lightly. Then the doors of the elevator slid closed and I began my ascension.