Screen Time

Chapter 8: Contagious

I step outside and I'm met with the usual, sickeningly perfect weather. Maddie and her dad aren't here to pick me up since it's the weekend which means it's the perfect time to hunt for some clues. I walk through the neighborhood to see if anything's changed but it's still just filled with the same old copy-and-paste houses. I'm about to turn around and walk towards the library until I notice that one of the doors is slightly ajar. I approach the house and I hear faint noises coming from inside. I open the door and see

"Apollo?", Apollo is currently sprawled on the living room couch with a controller in one hand and a bootleg can of soda labeled 'mepsi' in the other.

"Emma?", he jolts up as soon as he notices me. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing", as I look around and take inventory of the house, I realize that apart from a few changes, such as the gaming equipment in the living room, the interior is the exact same as 'my' house. "Is this where you live?"

"Huh? Oh! No this is Felix Nerdstorm's place"

"Nerdstrom? You mean the gaming kid", well that explains a lot.

"Yeah I come by here when I need to relax"

"How'd you get in?"

"The front door...?", He looks at me confused for a while until he realizes what I meant. "All of the background character houses are unlocked. You can walk right into any of them."

"Well, that would have been nice to know before."

"S-sorry. I thought you knew...", an awkward silence permeates the room. He probably still feels bad about how things ended yesterday. All of a sudden a 'you lose' sound effect can be heard from the TV. "Shit, I forgot to pause."

"What are you playing?"

"Kingdom of the Lost Forest 2. It's this game where you-", as he begins to ramble on about the game, I'm hit with a sense of déjà-vu.

"Sounds fun. Sorry for interrupting you. I'll be on my way now.", just as I'm about to turn around and leave, I hear him call out to me.

"Wait!", I immediately stop in my tracks and turn around to look at him.

"Yes?"

"Oh uh-", even though he called out to me, he seems puzzled when I respond back to him as if he didn't actually expect me to stop. He stammers for a bit before asking, "Do you wanna play with me?"

"Sure why not.", I was gonna use today to try and find clues, and what better way to do that than to question Apollo, who seems to know more than he lets on.

"Here you can be player one.", He hands me a controller and I sit down on the couch as the screen begins to light up. The game starts and we are given background information about our hero who has been granted light powers by a goddess in order for him to go on a quest to defeat evil. His name is-

"You said you chose your name right? Did you name yourself after the main character?"

"Wait how'd you know that?", Apollo looks at me in confusion. Guess I was right on the money.

"I just figured the two of you having the same name wasn't a coincidence."

"You're really smart, you know."

"I wouldn't really call that smart. Just deductive reasoning I guess. Why Apollo though? Is it just because it sounds cool or?"

"Well, this game was one of the first things I found after waking up. It took me a while to find Simon and the cabin so I thought I was the only one like me. I felt so alone and scared. And then I played this game and everything changed. Apollo goes through so much in the story. His best friend betrays him, he loses his whole family, and the goddess who he thought he could trust was just using him the entire time...", he begins to list all the trials and tribulations that the hero has to face. This story is apparently A LOT darker than I thought it was. I mean it's a game about defeating demons so I didn't expect it to be all candies and roses but how much mental and physical torture can one guy go through? "But even after all of that, even when everything seems hopeless, he never gives up. He never stops fighting for what he believes in and because of that, he ends up saving the day. That's why I named myself after Apollo, to remind myself that even when things look hopeless you gotta keep moving forward."