Signature Sword Online [Being remade]

1 "See ya!"

My eyes snap open and I throw my blanket off myself, almost falling from my bed in the process. I put both hands on my chest and take a deep breath, trying to calm my furiously beating heart. Damn that nightmare. Why now?!

I rub the last traces off sleep from my eyes and look at the digital clock on my bedside table. 7:05am. Oh, that's alright. Wait what?

"Seriously?!"

I rush through the corridor and almost run head on into my dad in the process.

"Good morning to you too, little whirlwind."

"Sorry dad! Morning!"

I enter the bathroom and close the door with a BANG!

My name is Sakura. I am a 17 years old high-school girl who fell in love with gaming. The past few months of my life have been more than chaotic. Exams, my parents' usual fights, my part time job and my one and only chance to escape from all of this were very hard to balance. The shit was toxic, believe me. But everything ends today: Saturday, the first day of spring break, and the most important day of my life.

I rush down stairs, gulp down a glass of orange juice and sprint to the entrance hall where I put on my sneakers and denim jacket in a hurry.

"I'm going out now! See ya later! Oh, and eat dinner without me. We'll definitely stay in late and I'm probably going to celebrate with Chi."

My mother chuckles at my excitement, rushing in the entrance to see me off while she still has the chance. "Be careful honey! And don't stay out too late."

I grunt and roll my eyes in response. "Don't call me that mom. I'm not a kid anymore!"

A heavy sigh escapes her as she scans over my figure. "I will never understand why you like jeans so much..."

I laugh. She never liked my "jeans and t-shirt" look. If I was dressed according to mom I would be in a dress or skirt and high-heels all the time.

When she sees I don't respond, preferring to focus on tying my laces – which I am unable to do properly, by the way, because my hands are too shaky with excitement – she glances up at the clock on our living-room's wall. "Look at the time! You should hurry or you'll be late."

"Right. See ya!"

I run out of the house and my mom shouts behind me "Have fun honey!" I wave for a second while running backwards before sprinting properly along the boulevard.

For over one year now, I've been one of the 5 people in this whole wide world who have been chosen to test the latest VR gaming technology: the "teleport system" developed by W.H. Labs (or lamely Wilson Harris Research Laboratory).

This one genius called Wilson Harris (original company name, right?) revolutioned the world of gaming by finally finding an efficient technical solution in order to materialize the headsets everyone has been waiting for since the whole crazy rush for the VR world started back in the 2010s.

Normally, the VR player uses his brain waves in order to enter the VR world and leaves his real body behind, just like the concept first explained when it appeared in fiction works. But the "system" I'm helping out with uses the latest scientific discoveries and experiments in order to turn organic solid matter into electric signals.

In other words: some damn smart people created a machine that turns you into pixels and makes you enter completely the VR world. Nothing left behind.

It's been incredibly hard and it took a gigantic amount of begging and solid arguments to make my parents agree to let me do this. But it was nowhere near as hard as it had been to pass the selections to be part of the project. You need a certain score in dozens of specific games, a certain body type, an insane amount of stamina it took me forever to build and the worst of all was that I had to fight back my phobia of syringe nails in order to take the dozens of medical exams required to know whether you are fit for this or not and sign the papers about all the risks and secondary effects.

But that was no problem because I love these secondary effects. Yes I'm crazy, sue me. My favorite effect is that since the system allows you to use your real body, many things like fighting skills, reflexes, agility, stamina and strength are kept when you log out. I love this part and it makes life so much funnier but the Lab doesn't allow me to show off. All the information about the five of us is classified and kept as safe as State Secrets so if a girl who was originally very bad at athletics (me) suddenly becomes the best in the district it would be somewhat of a problem.

But there is one extremely creepy thing I never got used to: even though we all log in from the same room, we know nothing about the four others and we've never seen what anyone else looks like. It's really no fun and kind of awkward when you think about it.

For the past 8 months, the Lab has forced me to be one of the 200 beta testers of a new game that comes out today: Signature Sword Online.

While being one of the most badass (self-praise is in bloom people!) players in the VR world and a tester for both the game and the "system", I still lead a normal life. Well, if you can call this normal.

When you think about it, it's kind of odd to know that the same person can actually be two people at the same time and lead two lives. Using the same mind for math problems and war tactics and all that stuff... And since it's the same body in both cases it's even more awkward. It makes you feel like a double agent who came out of a James Bond movie.

"One person, one mind, one body, two lives."

That's how I would express it. I came up with that epic phrase on my own and I am very proud of it so don't judge me!