Ding! Buzz, buzz. A text message, coming through to a girl sitting at her computer, playing Minecraft.
FROM: wiener dog ( wayne )
mari, dude. have you been watching my latest streams?
Oh boy. It's been a while since Mari got on Twitch. Not much of a live stream fan, but what does that matter when her best friend is a Twitch-obsessed live streamer?
FROM: mewsy ( mari )
no, sorry. whats up?
FROM: wiener dog
holy shit you're gonna love this. made me go insane a little but MAN. actually imma send you the game link, you gotta experience this shit for yourself.
FROM: mewsy
wtf are you on about
FROM: wiener dog
( wiener dog sent a link to a shared steam game. )
just play it. and don't you dare cheat and look at my streams i'm watching you
FROM: mewsy
if this is a virus i'm killing you.
DOWNLOADING . . .
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.
◖―――――――――――――――――◗
Her name was Marina. Or Mari, if you were a friend.
Friends with a Twitch streamer, a self-employed artist both digitally and traditionally; though she actually preferred to work with robotics when doing hands-on art. Tinkering, if you will. She wouldn't consider herself a gamer, but she definitely loved games. Peaceful, friendly games with a little bit of combat every now and then. So when that aforementioned Twitch friend sent her a link to a modified, experimental copy of Half-Life hosted in G-Mod, she was almost tempted to ignore it completely. She didn't like FPS games.
But hey, it was Wayne. They had known each other for years by now, he knew what she liked. What's to say she wouldn't enjoy this just the same as her other games?
Hooking everything up, and settling her VR headset onto her head, she prepared herself for the visceral transition from reality to VR. It's a miracle how Oculus managed to make a headset that actually connects your nerves to the game; it's like dreaming, almost — you can feel everything, but your outside body isn't moving, and you can exit anytime, just like waking up. It's like you're part of the code, inside the game.
VR booting up . . .
WOOSH. There it is. That transition sent goosebumps across her body every time; it was SO weird. She was kind of excited, though; mindless thoughts wandered through her mind, questioning what custom beauties Wayne had set up for her in this little Half-Life session.
But oh, poor Mari. She was blissfully unaware of the shitshow she was about to experience.
> LOADING . . .
> LOADING INTERRUPTED.
> SAVE FILE OVERLOAD — NEW PLAYER HAS CONNECTED.
> SEARCHING FOR NEW PLAYER MODEL . . .
> MODEL FOUND. CREATING CHARACTER NAME . . .
> NAME CREATED — 'MARINA FREEMAN'.
> LOADING . . .
> LOADING COMPLETE.
[PLAYER 2 HAS ENTERED THE GAME.]
YOU ARE READING
cringe
Fanfictionhello friends my name is queen watevra wa'nabi don't worry i'm totally not one of those evil queens you've read about in fairy tales or seen in the movies and there's no reason at all to be suspicious of me i'm so not a villain i have zero evil plan...
