"Ppft- Someone had a rough day."
Martyn glared as Cleo picked the stones, leafs and sticks out of his hair and Jimmy prepared the med kit for his injuries.
"Secret Life. . . My goodness; That was the worst start I've had ever."
"Yeah; Usually you're out to murder but now you've gotta beg for hearts."
"I'm not use to hard-core! I'm not Philza Minecraft!"
Jimmy chuckled,"Things will hopefully get better next session, Martyn.", Jimmy put a plaster on Martyn's face.
Doc was chuckling, listening to how Secret Life was going after Session 1.
Bet that humbled Martyn once he realised how hard hardcore is.
"Hey! Hey, Martyn's Neighbour Doc!"
Grian appeared on his screen, he put his phone down,"Yes, Grian?", Grian fixes the camera, he could see more members around resting from Session 1-Well, Scott was asleep probably exhausted from Pirates, New Life and now this.
"I was curious; What made you realise there was life beyond your world and in the computer, I'm curious and I'm in need of a story!"
Doc sighed,"That's a story, you sure you wanna hear it?", Grian nods, taking a seat on the grass with the others quiet so obviously they wanted to hear.
"Okay, so it was back in high-school."
"The wonderful years of when you need to have your life figured out, plan out your future and basically; Hell."
"And, admittedly I wasn't ever in a good headspace. So, after homework I'd go online and play those very old online games."
"I'd check updates, play for hours before getting food, washed, play some more before going to bed."
"But while I was checking for updates..."
"Bug fixed. . . Added weapon. . . Add armour. . . New location. . ."
"HELP!"
Doc flinched, someone crying to help knocked him off and it was coming from the computer so maybe it was a quest.
But instead of seeing an NPC standing in place with a speech bubble above their head; They were rught in front of the screen!
They looked disturbed-
No terrified.
This was the shopkeeper, but he never leaves the shop-
"I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, BUT I KNOW THIS ISN'T REAL-THIS WORLD ISN'T REAL-I KNOW THERE'S SOMEONE BEHIND THE BLANK EYES-"
Then the screen went to static.
"The game crashed, confused and slightly disturbed I restarted the PC and logged back in the game to find the shop gone and The Shopkeeper not there anymore."
"So NPC awakening?"
"Yeah, that's what I think it was."
Doc leaned back,"There was no way the developers could fix or delete something that quick especially in the amount of time it took for my PC to restart and log back in.", Doc then took off his glasses, grabbing a glasses wipes as he thought about his next words.
"So then, putting that in the back of mind for years, years later while doing my second job that I still have today, I was messing around with the computer when I came across this screen."
Doc pulled up an image.
'It was of The Data Stream, first time I saw the portals to worlds beyond the data: I was skeptical, but I decided to investigate it to find out what this world was and; Your world stunned me.'
'NPCs full of life and people living life like it was normal, it was the first time I had seen hybird, magic and just all this happening like it was natural.'
'So then I created an Avatar, 'Docm77', and once making some adjustments I used thatcto explore the world and learned so much, like how life worked in the computer world, the people there and all their technology; It was all so amazing and it's when I began my research properly, it helped that some people from that world offered their thoughts.'
. . .
'And the incident happened.'
"Incident?"
"With C.H.E.S.T."
Doc huffed.
"One day, while doing work, I got a knock on my door and a man in a black suit was there and said to be working for C.H.E.S.T and they had heard a rumor about what I was doing, and in the future I would learn that they wanted to steal my research and technology for their own purpose. So when I refused to hand it over, first saying I was nowhere near done: The employee attacked me."
Doc scratched his neck, watching from the screen the others tense.
"When I woke up, with a headache and a sore throat, the man was dead on the ground with wires wrapped around his neck and he looked to have also been electrocuted by the exposed wires."
"When I checked the computer camera. . . It pretty much made me more confident in my research."
After slamming Doc's head against his table, the Guard grabbed Doc by the neck and began to choke him out.
Boss's orders.
When the man fell limp, he let him go and stood up,"Just doing my job.", the guy was bleeding from the head and still seemed to be breathing, he'll finish the job off once he gets this guy's work.
"Now let's see-!"
Something wrapped around his neck, it's tightened and it felt like a snake had just latched itself to him and was beginning to strangle him!
He tried to pulled it off, but the material was tough and rough, as it tightened and his vision began to have black spots.
He couldn't kick anyone behind him, it felt like no one was there and there on the reflection of Doc's monitor, wires were wrapped around his neck and coming from. . . The box?
"Steffen?!"
His neighbour and cop had came in, finding the guard dead and Steffen bleeding from the head.
"Oh God. . ."
"This might be serious, thanks for calling us about the mysterious van and the stranger entering his home."
The neighbour nods, grabbing a cloth and holding it where the blood was to stop the bleeding even if a little bit.
"So then I threw out anything related to their company and moved away to continue my research in peace."
"Woah."
"So the wires came to life!"
"Thank goodness you're okay, Doc!"
Doc nods,"No need to worry."