Race to the egg

~4~

The next day, I woke up to the song "take on me" by A-ha. It was important to immerse myself in pure 80's culture as that was the time Halliday had lived and surrounded himself in. Like a lot of other gunters, I thought that some clues had been left in songs. I hadn't found anything so far, but it couldn't hurt to keep looking.

I got out of bed and rushed over to my wardrobe and put on some jeans, a pac-man t-shirt and a long cloak-like coat. I put the padded bag into my rucksack. I finished putting on my vintage converse and fingerless gloves and I picked up my rucksack by the door with pins such as Star Wars, blondie and back to the future.

Opening the door as quietly as I could, I tiptoed out of the house, so as to not wake up my mom. She usually was lying on the couch, fast asleep and drunk. That would mean that I would have to channel my inner ninja and try and get out without her waking up. But today I was lucky, as she managed to make her way to her room and fall asleep there. So I picked up a sandwich from the fridge and threw it into my bag.

The next part of making my way to my beaten up truck was my favourite. As I lived in the stacks, I was able to do a jungle like quest towards the bottom. I felt like Indiana Jones while I was slipping and swinging my way down.

When I had reached the bottom, I raced to the back of the stacks, which was like a wall of beaten up cars. Slipping between gaps in the car-wall, I made it to the street my truck was on in less than five minutes. Jumping down a hole into the street, I heard a noise follow opposite me. At the same time as I had landed, a boy had as well. He was about my height and had brown curly hair. But what had struck me most about him were his eyes. They were a deep brown, but I noticed he had a tiny little fleck of gold right on the outside of his left pupil.

He saw me and we both became startled, running as fast as we could away from each other. I spotted my truck and threw open the doors, leaping inside and closing them. I sank to the floor, catching my breath with little success.

I didn't know who the boy was, I hadn't even met him before, but it felt familiar seeing him, like I knew him already. I decided not to think about him anymore as I didn't need to be bothered with him. Linking my headset up with my treadmill and harnesses, I took my sandwich, bit into it and stared up at the countless newspapers and articles and books I had on the wall about James Halliday. I had been researching him for years, ever since his death, yet I hadn't come across anything really major as to the whereabouts of the first key. The closest I had come to something about the first key, was this one quote that stood out among the rest: "If one wishes to succeed, one must think outside of the box". Think out of the box where? I know it must have something to do with the race as the portal would not have opened if I had nothing to do with the competition. I decided to think about it later and get back online with my friends.

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Hey, sorry that it was a shorter chapter this time. I really wanted to just get something out on this story so I hope it was enough. 

Ruby xxx