Lovers: Boarding School

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YOOOOOOOOOOOO I'm so proud of this update! This update plus the update after it were actually supposed to be one chapter, but after having reached a 9000+ word count on the beast I decided to cut it down into two. I need to stop writing so much ゞ(ↂ ω ↂ)ゞ

It looks like a lot of my usual readers have dropped this story after the previous update (just four votes in like two weeks QwQ) and I'm not hurt at all. I'm so close to finishing my first novel EVER that things like votes and reads don't bother as much as they used to. The feeling of accomplishment trumps that ✌('ω'✌) Plus, there's like, six chapters left to this book so anything can happen from here to the end. And boy, did outlining them made me cry like a bitch. 

This will part 1/2 of a double update so please do enjoy!

"Close your eyes. In the darkness focus on that one white point. Do you see it?"

"Yes."

"Now, from that solitary point draw a green vertical line."

"Got it."

"Don't rush into it. Very, very slowly draw a corner of that room. Recall its colour, its depth. Be as precise as possible."

"W-Wait, it's like the room is drawing itself!"

"Stay calm. Just leave it be. Remember, don't fight the slight sinking sensation."

"Is that why my body feels heavy?"

"Yes, now--"

Viola opened her eyes. She was sitting on the edge of a rickety bed, a beaten DSLR grasped tightly in her hands.

"Gale?" she whispered, afraid to even blink lest she invite a fate worse than death.

"You did well."

Gasping, Viola twirled around and found Gale standing a few feet away from her smiling.

"Fuck, you scared me!" Viola hissed, her hand atop her heart.

Chuckling, Gale walked past Viola and headed straight to the motel room's two-paneled window. "Congratulations on your first scene jump. And on your first try too," Gale said, poking his fingers in between the blinds and looking through them. "It took me twenty eight tries to complete what you did and hundreds of trials to perfect it. You truly are a gifted graphics artist."

Red in the face, Viola looked away from Gale and surveyed her 'new' surroundings. This room she was in had the same noxious green wallpaper, the same bed side table with the vase full of roses, the same rickety bed that had seen better days and much worse nights--as the other motel room nestled above them.

"Are you sure we're in a different room?" Viola said skeptically.

Gale motioned his head towards the window. "Check it out."

With a twirl of a wand, Gale squeaked open the faulty blinds and revealed, like a magician unveiling a rabbit from his hat, that they were indeed inside the motel room on the ground floor and not the upstairs room they were originally in. 

"What the fuck?" Viola blurted out when Gale first introduced her to the notion of "scene jumping" moments earlier. "You can 'jump' to places by recreating them in your head?"

"Yup," he said as he discreetly leafed through photos in his viewfinder. "It's the only way we're able to leave this room without being detected."

This ability, to teleport from one place or scene to a different one, was an ability him and his VCCU colleagues discovered by accident during his team's second brush with the game. As they were experimenting developing an operation system--with menus, log buttons, and the like--for his non-playable, operable avatar, Gale had noticed a white, minuscule dot appearing in his "vision" whenever his virtual eyes were sealed.