Alter Strike Online | Re-make | ✍🏻 ONGOING

Prologue

The buzzing sound that kept Alex's mind at ease resembled a tv's ecstatic; deafening and hypnotizing, yet calming. Strangely, this was the only sound that benefited Alex's sleeping schedule, she'd frequently stay awake until sunrise and often sleep less than 2 hours before going to work, to add up, she'll have to go home earlier because of her headaches she'd had during mid-work.
It clearly made everything suck for Alex, she had to pay her own rent, taxes and bills by herself. She preferred not to pester her parents to help her pay even though they didn't bother to fulfil her payments. They offered to pay her, at least an amount of money to cope with the payment but she denied, she wanted to be independent and pay by herself, even if that meant killing herself for money. Which is exactly what she did. Going through the consequences of overwhelming herself with work and forcing her body to stay awake for many hours.

________

After a long time thinking through what she did wrong and not figuring out what, she rolled out of her bed and cleaned herself. At least she had to do something productive instead of wasting her time waiting for her body to feel tired.
After cleaning her room, rearranging it and putting on some new clothes a knock on the door echoed throughout her house. The thought of who could it be remained unknown, she didn't expect someone, nor someone would want to visit her on a sunny day in June; she opened the door, letting sunrays blast inside her house through the door, the rays themselves blinding Alexis' eyes as she leaned against the small space she opened, big enough for her eye to peek from it to see the outside
"Yes?" She spoke, her eyes wrinkled to the maximum making her unable to see
"Uh, Alexis Welner?" A squeaking voice asked, Alex opened her eyes and scanned the person outside her house, a tall boy with an infestation of acne all over his face. Probably a Highschooler.
"That is she, what do you need?"
"Uh I—" The boy twisted his body towards his backpack "I'm— I'm from the mail, I came here to hand a package," he spoke with a trembling tone, his hands searching for something to fidget around while he talked to her.
"Its okay, I don't bite."
That simple comment she made somewhat calmed the boy's nervousness and loosened his muscles
"Thank you," he spoke softly leaving a dead silence afterwards. "Oh! These are the packages that came for you in the mail, they're two" He turned to his backpack and took out a white letter and a big box wrapped in blue with a black note stuck on it's top. The white letter was probably the monthly letter her parents send her. They always send the news that happened throughout the month in one single letter. That gesture reminded Alex how much her parents cared about her even if she was living in another country.

"I'll need you to sing here ma'am" His voice dragged Alex down to earth from her thoughts. He handed her a clipboard and a pen to sing, she scribbled on the pad and then proceeded to be handed the packages. The boy left smiling and thanked her one last time for calming him.

_______

After Alex took out what was inside the box she contemplated the headset in front of her eyes. The brand new VR headset that launched just a week ago. It was strange, no, odd to have that high-tech device under her nose. She didn't know why it was given to her but the answers had to be the note that came along the box.
As she read the text imprinted on the paper her jaw dropped,

Congratulations 'Alexis Welner' you have been chosen randomly by the Vortex Company to own a brand new EXEMind ™ VR headset! Out of the 2,000,000 people who participated in the "VOR Raffle 2035" you were one of the limited winners.

Alex stayed awe, she didn't even remember singing in the raffle, but she believed without any proof, singing in a raffle for a big prize would be something she would do without thinking.

Alex grabbed the box and dug her hand trying to find the instructions of the helmet.
Once she found them The instructions were brief, practical and easy to remember:

The EXEMind headset comes with three different cables, each for different purposes:

The red cable's purpose is memory extraction of the user's social experiences (friends, photos, conversations, videos recorded in between others)

The Yellow cable is the avatar backup information which includes the card memory of: skills, achievements and items.
(The levels and coins accumulate in the avatar will not be backuped.

The green cable serves as the charger, it can be connected on the back of the EXEMind helmet (recommended not to use the device while charging)

Charging station:
Once the headset is connected, a bar depending how much battery the headset has will appear in the black screen, left corner. The bar will change color according to it battery:
Red: the headset won't work if the light is on red (15%-)
Orange: headset will shut down while playing. (35%-)
Yellow: the headset may turn on and off and/or glitch the game while the user is playing.
(50%-)
Green: Game is ready with enough battery to last for a week
( 89%+)

Alex took out the green cable and connected the headset with the power plug. A red glowing bar appeared on the headset's black screen meaning the gadget was charging.

While Alex waited for her headset to charge she took a look at the other back paper of the instructions. Turns out the headset had the newest VR game in its setup; Alter Strike Online.
The game was well known around the world for its graphics and touch sensory; Hence, many people stated it was so addicting that players had stayed inside the game for weeks without a single break.
How eye straining Alex thought as she researched in the official website for the game's forums and guides; The game had an amount of NPCs widespread around the game as well as a variety of monsters to fight with to get loot and XP.

Though this wasn't the first time Alex had played a VR game she was still nervous, scared of what will her life turn to because of this addicting game. Will she be addicted to it too? Will the game give a spin to her world?
Alex's minds revolved around those two questions, she was scared to drop her life easily because of a simple game. She was scared of disappointing her parents into turning to a game addict.
A sudden pitching sound the headset produced snapped Alex out of her thoughts, it was the headset indicating that the bar was already orange. How much time has passed?
Alex checked the time, not even an hour. She stood up from her desk and headed to the kitchen to cook something for herself, she had to wait at least one hour until she could play, since she was a bad cook she could try to make something decent in the meantime.

________

*ding*

The headset had already reached green once Alex finished eating her (what she intended to be spaghetti) overcooked mashed pasta.
She picked up the headset from the floor and inspected the device trying to locate the on and off buttons, whilst walking towards her bed, the wooden floor squeaking behind every step she made until she flopped onto her bed.

She pressed the on button and adjusted the headset over her head; the headset's front view was made out of a transparent black glass while the back was mate white. The headset was like a halo, it surrounded all of the area that was the level her eyes were. Pretty tiny for a VR headset. Alex positioned on her bed
"Start"

END OF PROLOGUE