Mariola's avatar stood on the screen, bouncing slightly on the balls of her—or it's—feet. The strange figure smiled at Mariola, her—or its—creator.
Mariola didn't smile back as the computer said, "Everything you do now will be reenacted by your avatar. If you need to ask a question, just say my name. Ready?"
Mariola didn't know what to say. How could she be ready for the unknown? She stayed silent.
"Stimulation ready in three, two, one..."
A blare of trumpets rang, and Mariola found herself standing in a hallway streaming with people. Not just people but teenagers—some hunched, some bobbing with gigantic headphones, some heaving textbooks.
"Welcome to your freshman year of high school," Via announced. "Here, you will discover yourself. What will you become—a nerd, a jock, a Queen? How many friends will you have? What kind of grades or parties will you make? Well, go find out!"
More and more teenagers shoved their way through the crowd, and Mariola gasped when invisible shoulders and hands bumped against her own. Another gasp caught in her throat when a high-pitched voice coated with malice and impatience snarled into her ear, "Get out of my way, freak!"
Looking at the wide screen, Mariola found herself—or her avatar—facing a prima donna girl covered with strokes of makeup and fake beauty. Floating on top of the girl's brow, like the one on Mariola's, bobbed the name LAYLA. Angry emoji faces lined the bottom of the name like a platform.
"V-via!"
"Yes?" The computer asked just as the screen, the prima donna, the rush of teenagers froze.
"What are those...faces inside that bubble?"
"Well, it shows how much she dislikes you."
"Gosh, that's a lot of dislike," Mariola said, letting out a low whistle. "But why are there faces? What's it for?"
"A goal for you is to make people like you, and right now you're not doing a very good job with this Layla girl. Go!" Via chuckled, slightly like a human.
"W-wait!"
"Wait for what?" Layla and the crowded scene melted back to life. The avatar took a step backwards, just as Mariola did. "Wait for you to get out of my way?" Layla reiterated, sashaying her shoulders and hips.
"Why are you being so mean?"
Surprise in her pretty oil-and-pimple-free face, Layla snarled, "Wow, the freak can speak; but are you deaf? I said get out of my way, freak." The word rolled off the girl's tongue and into Mariola's head.
"Is freak the only bad label you know? Is your vocabulary that limited?"
"Why, you little...freak!" Layla fumed, another angry emoji sprouting out into her bubble.
Mariola was having fun; but she was already failing at making people like her. So, she smiled, slid to the left side, and swept her arms in a big gesture to let the drama queen walk by. "I'm sorry. I just didn't want to be called a freak anymore." She straightened her back to look at her enemy in the eye. "My name is Mariola."
The angry emojis continued staring at her, but no other popped out.
"Get out of my way!" Layla repeated angrily and, with as much strength she could muster in her twig-like arms, shoved Mariola.
She felt her body falling—then nothing. Her body simply floated there for a split second as the screen flashed the question WHAT DO YOU DO? in a large speech bubble. Smaller, rectangular bubbles appeared beneath the question with the actions DODGE, PUSH BACK, PUNCH, NOTHING, and OTHER.
"Other?" Mariola asked, mostly to herself, still disoriented with her body still bobbing in the air.
Her body jolted slightly—still in the air—when Via answered, "Other is your own specialized and individual action. You can tell me what your Other action will be, or you can just act it out; and your avatar will perform the task."
How easy it would be to just say DODGE and super-humanly avoid the shove, but Mariola simply closed her eyes and did nothing as her body crashed onto the ground.
Rubbing her sore back, Mariola looked up to see Layla smirking over her.
"Freak," the girl seethed, again, then sauntered away with her troupe of minions.
"Ouch!"
Sneakers and sandals stomped over her feet and fingers; and Mariola quickly jumped up to avoid being trampled by the uncaring crowd when a strong hand grasped her own and saved her.
"Are you alright?" The name AUBURN with a neutral emoji face danced on top of the Asian girl who rescued Mariola.
"I-I'm good. Thank you so much!" Mariola dusted the dirt off her shirt, tried not to cringe at her red, possibly-broken fingers, and avoided more oncoming shoulder-shoves.
"No probs... What's your name? Are you the new girl?" Instantly, another emoji appeared underneath her name—a curious emoji. The girl tilted her head, cascading a wave of black hair to the side, as her eyes narrowed tighter.
"Uh, yeah, I am." Mariola dodged another incoming high school student hustling past her.
"Cool. Well, see you around." The girl expertly weaved her way through the crowd like stalks of wheat.
"W-wait!"
Flipping around, AUBURN cocked her head. "Yea?"
"Uhm, could you tell me what I'm supposed to do here? I'm l-lost." Mumbling dumbly, Mariola lowered her eyes to the ground, causing her to almost get knocked over again from another shoulder-shove.
"Well, all newcomers have to go see principal Al. His office is straight down this hall and the first door up the stairs." AUBURN's emojis continued to stare at Mariola mutely and disinterestedly while AUBURN herself raised an eyebrow then stalked off. Right to the direction she indicated.
Quickly, hastily, Mariola followed the girl's footsteps, carefully trying to copy her smooth, watery stride that eased through the crowd like a snake in grass.
"Why are there so many people?" Mariola muttered, glancing at the dense, segregated groups clumped by old, grey lockers with battered locks. A few caught her eye—some grinned, some smirked, some stared, some pitied her.
AUBURN chuckled. "Well, we are all prisoners here. Nobody gets out."
"Oh, I'm getting out, alright," Mariola said through grimaced teeth as she dodged a troupe of boys hustling and shoving each other against the lockers.
"It's not that simple," AUBURN replied, looking over her shoulder. "There's a hierarchy around here, and you just messed with the top. And I mean, the very top. You have to be careful around here."
But why? Mariola wanted to ask. Isn't this just a stimulation?
Reaching the foot of the stairs, AUBURN stopped. Mariola looked up at the girl standing a feet over her and thought, Is she just a stimulation?
"I don't know who you are or why you're here," the girl, or the stimulation, said, "but you need to comply with the rules. That's how we all survive. That's how I've been surviving for three years now."
"I can't stay here that long." Mariola paled. She could feel all the chatter, all the chaos, all the stares jab through her mind.
"Why not?" Another curious emoji appeared.
"B-because I don't know. I just can't. I can't." There was something she needed to do, so someone she needed to meet. Mariola couldn't explain the burning yearning inside her chest, but she could feel the warmth seep through her body down to her toes. She just couldn't explain it.
"Whatevs," AUBURN replied, chucking a chunk of her black hair across her shoulder; but the emojis remained.
"No, it's not just whatevs, whatever that means! Don't you want to get out of here?"
"Of course I do," the girl muttered, her eyes turning into slits.
"Then you should do something about it!" Mariola cried out above the din. "Because I am not going to just stand around doing nothing, and I will not spend three years in this hellhole."
"Well," AUBURN started, "right now you're just standing there doing nothing when you're supposed to be meeting principal Al." The girl's eyes finally gleamed, and a small emoji of a smile popped up.
"Do you wanna shake on that?" The girl, or stimulation, challenged. "If you don't get out within...a month, you'll have to sit in the janitor's closet for...a whole day!"
"Janitor's closet?"
AUBURN nodded and crinkled her small nose. "Oh, yeah, the janitor's closet."
"And if I do get out within a month?"
AUBURN smirked, a tug of her lips to the right side. "If you get out of here within a month, you have to promise you'll get me out of here, too."
"That's unfair." Crossing her arms, Mariola began to raise her foot up the stairs, then the other, away from the deal.
"No, it's not," AUBURN said, still standing by the foot of the stairs. "Because I'm going to help you get out of here."
A friend. Mariola desperately needed a friend. She could've hugged, cried, shouted, or even kissed the girl; but AUBURN simply smiled, ushered her to go up the stairs, then melted into the crowd.
So, Mariola floated up the stairs, feeling an ember of hope glow inside—finally something for her to hold onto, to believe in a future again. But when Mariola reached the door, the glow in her chest dimmed when the wooden door was closed tight with a sign that said TO MARIOLA: MEET ME NEXT TIME.
"Next time? What?" Mariola furrowed her thick eyebrows as the door, the hallway, the staircase, and the stimulation dissipated; and she stood alone in a dark room.
"First stimulation complete. You will continue your stimulation next time when the principal is ready to meet you—M-Mariola run!"
"Via?" Mariola looked around the room as if trying to find the voice.
"Get away from here—" The voice glitched.
"Why does the principal have to be ready to see me? What's going on?"
But Mariola didn't have the time to find out what was going on before the floor fell beneath her feet; and she disappeared.
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
Oh yes, I do love my cliffhangers 💖 do you? What do you think of the story so far?
Thank you for reading this far!! I am really sorry for the snail updates, but I'll do my best 😁 now that I know that people, actual human beings (you're not a Bot, are you?), read this, I am so pumped up to keep writing!
Anyways. Here are the emojis in the stimulation:
Angry emoji : 😡
Neutral emoji : 😐
Curious emoji : 🤔
Friendly emoji : 😬
What's your favorite emoji? Comment, vote, follow, love, and peace out!