The Games We Play

Level 1 | Player: Calista

Not all games were easy to play.

And she had played a lot of hard games. Nearly impossible to beat boss battles, difficult parkour she shaved by with sheer luck, multiplayer shooter games where sweats and masters were in the lobby, one particular game with lanes and towers to reach the enemy's base, insanely hard platformers- you name it.

Calista had a lot of experience with games.

But life was not one of them.

She was finding that out the hard way.

It felt like her world had shattered the last couple of weeks. Everything she had built to sustain, built for herself, all by herself, was gone.

Taken down like a tower in one of her games.

She had been taking loss after loss recently. And they weren't just normal losses. They were the kind of losses that she would have to bear on her own two shoulders.

Staring blankly ahead of her wasn't going to do anything, but what else was she going to look at when she was zoning out?

Her thoughts were conscious, but everything surrounding her was not. Her eyes drifted from the browning blades of grass to the nearly naked trees, then back to absolutely nothing but one could argue she was looking at the building directly in her view.

It was quite unfortunate what had happened to her the past couple weeks, maybe months, or maybe even years.

Calista was only focused on the last month.

She went from a straight A student to a struggling student who had no idea how to help herself. She went from being in a great relationship with a loving boyfriend to one who dropped her in the dust and probably thought she was the scorn of the earth.

There were not many reasons for a man to cheat. She felt like she had an inkling of an idea as to what had really happened, but she didn't think she'd actually ever know.

To top it off, her bank account was almost empty after she had gifted her boyfriend- ahem, ex-boyfriend, a pretty pricey graphics card.

Oh, and her parents had cut her off for the time being.

At least until she could drag her feet back and apologize in the most sincere manner she could muster.

One C on her midterm and the world started falling apart for her.

And the tree next to her used to be really nice to her, but earlier today, her raven hair had gotten caught on it and refused to cooperate. She had to carefully untangle her long almost waist-length hair to avoid further damage.

So she was really just down on her luck, it seemed.

What would happen when something actually bad happened?

Achievement Unlocked: See the glass half-full.

Wooden benches lined the room. This lecture hall was one of the older ones. The wood was chipped and the staircase to the four rows was narrow enough that she had never seen two people walking side by side.

There wasn't a lot of room, either. The benches were cramped and she was glad she got here early to make sure she would be able to get a seat. Their first lecture, there wasn't enough room so people sat up front on the floor or just left. As the semester went on, more and more people had just stopped showing up. There were maybe ten other kids who still attended this class.

The hard backs made her uncomfortable. There were only two outlets in the room, so if you used a laptop and it was dead, you'd have to suck it up.

It was a calculus lecture. She mostly just used her notebook, so it wasn't a problem for her. Her friend, Mila, used a tablet so it could pose an issue for her. Luckily, Mila didn't have a lecture in a dingy room like this, and on top of that, she was always on top of her stuff so it was rare to even see her need an outlet, unless they were studying in the dining hall.