The ringing of the doorbell awoken the sixteen year old girl who was deep in slumber. The doorbell continued to ring as it echoed through the empty and quiet apartment.
The girl, alone in the apartment on a Saturday afternoon, lazily got up from the couch and dragged herself to the door and answered, “Who is it?” rather sluggishly.
After a few seconds of nothing but silence, she tiredly opened the door in irritation just to be greeted by a small box on the floor, a few distance away from the door.
She furrowed her brows before bending down to pick it up and taking it inside, her eyes still heavy as she struggled to keep them open.
Placing the package on the table, she observed it before finding out that it was the game she had ordered online.
“It's finally here!” She enthusiastically exclaimed before fumbling inside the box and rushing inside her room.
She paused in the middle of setting up the game when she remembered. Didn't they say that the developers of this game are still unknown? She thought to herself before starting it.
៚ · •
“Han Minju! How many times do we have to call you to come out for dinner?” It was around dinner time and both her parents had arrived home when Minju's mother was once again raging about Minju and her obsession with locking herself in her room during dinner time, playing games.
“Alright, I'm coming! Stop raising your voice at me, I swear to gosh,” Minju sighed before standing up and leaving her room.
She sat down in front of the dinner table with her parents after washing her hands and started gobbling down the food.
“Slow down, Minju, you don't want to choke on your rice again,” her father worriedly looked at her.
Minju glanced at him in irritation before eventually chewing slowly and properly. She would have normally talked back if it had been her mother. But since her father barely raises his voice at her, she didn't feel the need to piss him off more.
“I saw that you ordered something online again,” her mother started, to which she heaved out a sigh at.
Her mother stole a glance at her before continuing to have her dinner, “You should really stop using up all your money if you want to live alone once you leave for college.”
“I still have two more years until I graduate high school, don't worry much about the money. I'll save up enough in just a year,” Minju spoke.
“Unless you use that up for some dumb games or stuff again,” her mother uttered.
Minju rolled her eyes and decided to keep quiet because the food was too good to be left uneaten even for a few seconds just to argue with someone.
“Aren't your first term exams coming up this month too?” Her mother added and made her curse in her head. How did she even know that?
៚ · •
It had been a week and a few days and Minju was struggling as she was about to choose one of the four options in the game.
She had just arrived home from school and the first thing she did was continue the game.
She closed her eyes before randomly picking one and opening her eyes again.
“Yes!” She exclaimed, “Okay, what now? What now?”
She was rather excited to know what was going to happen next when the screen suddenly went black and showed her own reflection. She stared at in confusion before asking herself, “Is that it?”
She stood up to check and see if the screen was just frozen or not. I used up all of my savings for this game, it cannot just end like that.
She got closer to the screen when the screen lit up and started buffering before showing an abrupt ending for the game.
It looked extremely incomplete with all the missing backgrounds but the dialogues were still clear enough to figure out that it was an unfinished secret ending.
She squealed at it and sprang up from her seat to take a better look at it before the game buffered once more and switched itself off.
What in the— It was at that moment when she felt something pulling her inside it. She froze as she did not have any idea what was happening.
The lights fluctuated for a couple of seconds before everything turned back to normal, but Minju was nowhere to be found inside of her room.
៚ · •
Minju's mother, exhausted from shouting all the time, walked to Minju's room and knocked on the door. To get her even more irked, there was no answer coming from the room.
She attempted to open the door and to her surprise, the door was unlocked and Minju was not in her room like she always was. She instantly rushed to her husband to ask him where she was.
“Maybe she just went in the bathroom—” the father was cut off as the mother panicked, “The lights of the bathroom are switched off! What do we do?”
៚ · •
“We have bad news!”
“What?”
“Someone managed to get a glimpse of the ending we're working on right now. What do we do?”
“Who?”
“Their user is minjujutei.”
“How?”
“It seems they played the game and got to the draft ending just before we removed it.”
“When did they start playing?”
“Last Saturday.”
“So, they played the game and reached the ending in just almost two weeks?”
“I suppose, yeah.”
“Do you have any record of their profile? Gameplay info?”
“Yep, they had been playing the game nonstop ever since they created their account, except during weekdays between 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. I have a feeling that they're currently in high school.”
“No mission fails?”
“Just once.”
“Did you take them in for the game trials?”
“Yes, just before I came.”
“Good. Don't let them out of the game until they finish the whole game, including the ending.”
“Uhm, are we going to go with the plan again?”
“Which plan?”
“Trapping them if they fail even once?”
“Of course. Let's see if they'll be able to help the other users who are still stuck there.”
© 2022 -bbimagination
