Everstone(old)

Chapter 1:Six Years Prior

       Christmas day. My mom had invited her friends over, which meant I could play with Amelia and Eris. Oh, right. My name. I'm Piper Krou. Now, let's get back to the story, shall we? Our naive kindergarten minds were content to run circles around our mothers. "You received Everstone, too?" Erica, Amelia's mother, seemed surprised, yet not at all at the same time. "Yeah, it arrived with the mail this morning, addressed to Piper! What about you, Rayna? Did you get Everstone?" Inquired my mother. "Actually, I did, Elizabeth!" Replied Rayna. "Isn't it weird that all three of us got the same video game in the mail?" The three paused for a moment, then nodded in agreement with each other. "Hey, mama! Can we play now?" I was practically jumping out of my skin with excitement. "Yeah! Can we? Can we?" Eris and Amelia exclaimed, just as excited as I. "No, dears," my mother explained. "It says to wait until New Year's Eve to play it, and they know better than I do with when to play their game" All three of us children groaned in disappointment. This was going to be a long wait.

...

         ...It was almost New Year's Eve, okay? I, Katy Grae, never thought for a moment that simply opening the case would do anything. I thought that something bad would only happen if I played it too soon. Besides, it was almost midnight. What's a little peek a minute or so too early going to do? I... was wrong. I went to bed with a strange sinking feeling in my gut, which stayed with me all of the next day. I didn't really know why, after all, I was three! Do you expect a three year old to know what a sinking feeling is or represents?

...

         Finally, it was New Year's Eve! Piper, Eris and I waited almost a week itching to be able to play the game. I dragged my mom through our basement apartment into our living room, where the TV sat. She turned it on, then booted up Everstone. It immediately went to character creation, and asked for my first parent's gender. Then, the game asked what race she would be. The options were Everean, or Stoni. "Mommy, I'm gonna make you a Evewean!" My voice radiated joy. "Alright, Amelia." My mom was almost as happy. "What name do I give you?" I asked. "Do I call you mommy?" My mom smiled, then replied, "No, dear. Enter my name as Erica." The screen changed, and asked for the gender of my second parent. I made my dad a Stoni, but my character for him wasn't entirely accurate. After all, I never met him. My character was then generated, and I started playing.

...

        I flew into the master bedroom the morning of New Year's Eve. "Ma! Ma! Wake up! It'th time to play Everthtone!" I dragged my Ma straight into our family room, not even stopping in our giant kitchen. My little heart was on the verge of exploding with excitement. "Woah, there, Eris! You haven't even eaten!" Ma exclaimed, surprised. "Tho? Finally we can play Everthtone!" I started jumping on the spot. Finally, Ma gave in. "Oh, alright. But you have to eat in an hour!" I ran toward her, springing up to hug her. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!"

         We then booted up the game. I made both my parents Stoni, but then immediately after I finished my Pa's character, I randomly hit a bunch of buttons. "Eris! Stop that!" My Ma wasn't too impressed. The character that came up afterwards looked like me, but had pure white wings. "Look, ma, my character'th an angel!" Then, I hit play.

...

         All day, I waited for Mama to let me open Everstone. You have no idea how hard it was. When I was finally able to open it, I hovered over the Stoni option for Mama's character, then quickly entered a code my babysitter taught me. "Piper, what was that?" Mama didn't know it. Good. A third option flashed on screen, a dark silhouette, then it went to a black loading screen. I then made my dad, not hovering over anything before entering the code again. Once again, a third option flashed on screen, but it's silhouette looked even darker. The game then started a three minute long loading screen, and my character appeared. She looked like me, with straight jet black hair that came down to her chin. She even had my almond shaped eye sockets. The only difference was her eye colour. Rather than dark brown, she had bright purple irises. Then, I hit accept and began to play.

...

         The game didn't have much to do, at first. All we did was learn how to move our character, then made them jump hurdles until we reached a mountain. It had stairs going up, so we climbed to the top. It took a whole hour just to climb up. Eris took only thirty minutes to climb up, due to her wings ability to carry her. Amelia, for some strange reason, decided to skip up the stairs. She skipped. Do you know how much energy that wastes? Personally, I thought that simply walking would work. But my character decided to walk twice as fast as me, as if she wanted to show off or something. When I finally got to the top, it was almost midnight.

"Ten!"

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

"Seven!"

"Six!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Happy New Y-" The end of the phrase got cut off by screaming. I felt myself start floating as I saw a meteor hit my house, destroying it. Then, everything went black.

...

          I woke up surrounded by darkness. My hair fell in front of my face as I sat up. It... was green. Sort of like my character in-I realized that I was my character, somehow. I stood up and started walking. I saw a girl my size looking straight at me, confused. I saw her clearly, despite the blackness all around. She looked like Piper, but had eyes alight with a violet flame. I walked closer. "...Pipew?" She showed recognition. "...Amelia? Your hair... your eyes, too!" I didn't fully understand. "What do you mean, Pipew? Suwe, my haiw's gween and showt, that's what my chawactew looks like!" Piper sighed. "Amelia, your eyes are white. They're white instead of blue! Aren't you scared?" I stopped walking, though there was still a metre of space between us. "Huh? They awe? I didn't see that on the TV when I made hew..." Suddenly, I saw a shadowy figure behind her. "P-Pipew! Person!" I didn't have time to be scared or happy, because right after I said something the person approached and swiftly stabbed Piper in her back. The resulting scream echoed all around, or maybe it was just that I screamed as I ran at the person. I didn't know what to do, but I decided to wrench at the stomach area of their shirt. A long, white ribbon flew out of them, despite their outfit being pitch black. It showed the scene again, only from their perspective. Unaware of what the ribbon could do, I let go. She took advantage of my naivety, and blindfolded me. I felt something similar to a headband get shoved on my head, and as I collapsed crying over what happened, I heard her say "Welcome to the Purple team, kid."

...

         I opened my eyes and saw a woman dressed in all black standing over a sobbing Amelia. Suddenly, I remembered. She stabbed me. She thought she could rid the game of me before it even started. I wasn't sure how I knew all of that, or why I was reacting in such an angry way. But I knew that I wanted her gone. I ran at her, my vision suddenly becoming crystal clear. Knives appeared in my right hand and I lunged at her, knives pointed at her chest. I felt something connect with my blades, focusing on the girl's reaction to the wound in her chest. See how she liked getting stabbed. She fell down as I removed the blade of a knife, a strange fog coming from her body. I reached for it, and the fog turned into a cotton candy-like substance, and I felt like it should be eaten, for some reason. I complied with my weird feeling, and it tasted kind of... normal, in a way. It's hard to describe. As my vision returned to normal, I realized that I killed her. I looked up, and saw a winged version of Eris look down on me in despair. More people quickly dragged Amelia away, but avoiding me. Looking back at Eris, her wings looked less white, somehow.