Veridis Quo

Chapter 20 - Too Good to be True

I removed the beanie from my head, a cool wind caressing the compressed hair. The weather was in that pesky Goldilocks zone; too hot for a full get-up and too cold for the jacket to retire to the closet. That meant the mittens and beanie were useless which annoyed me to no end! Even within the confines of either pant or jacket pockets, my hands were bloody cold!

I sighed, surrendering to my daily fate as a living scarecrow.

Although my love for snow was undying, the cold was getting on my nerves, literally. While I could deal with warm climates, sweat, ice, and a fan were wonders when the AC broke, the cold was apathetically brutal. Though the skin protected the core from excess heat, the frost didn't care, it penetrated every layer to the bone. Countless coughs, a constant shiver, the renewed shock when exiting a steaming shower into a meat freezer.

I loved snow, truly. If it existed in the desert, I would've moved to Nevada.

Blowing hot air onto my clapped hands, I gazed at the main building, no students in sight. It was that early in the morning, half an hour before the first class. Waking up in winter was like fighting against a hurricane on a jet ski. I basked in a sinister satisfaction knowing I wasn't the only one affected in some way by the blasted frost.

Every day had blended into its neighbors; yesterday and tomorrow. The same classes, the same animals, the same Juno on the weekdays and Auntie Miya on the weekends. I never called her that aloud, too embarrassing for my taste. In the grand picture, all days seemed identical. The oddities occurred during an unannounced stream and digging through the cancerhouse that were Zootube comments.

I chuckled at a memory. A whole page, around five hundred words of unhinged conspiracy. Apparently, some terminally online individuals believed the human race was created by primates, which wasn't totally false, so we'd outbreed every other species. Like, how unhinged did one have to be to begin formulating that line of thought, reflect upon everything and draw a decisive conclusion and post it for the internet to see forever? As fond as it was laughing my ass off at the absurdity, I prayed they got the right pills.

I stopped before the stairs to the entrance, bumping my shouldered backpack. Truly, I achieved my objective; return to normality. I was just another student, average, humbly, maybe a tad above if I put in more effort. It might be pompous to think it but school had become... mundane. And that was good! I was a face in the crowd, I had my little troubles, I had a life. I had everything I had had.

What was a human face in a zoo? Little troubles, as little as a giant's daughter. And what a life I had.

Sometimes, I hated myself for those moments. I had no reason to be negative, I couldn't count the times I contacted Miya for a miscellaneous item or school supplies. Hell, I considered requesting a bike but then remembered I couldn't go out without supervision.

Yup, Johnny got an upgrade!

During the holidays, half of Rexmas, still couldn't say it with a straight face, was spent holed up in my room grinding on one of the most addictive and toxic multiplayer games I had bookmarked; Dust. It was about surviving, killing, raiding, and my personal favorite, trolling. That was a day for the records for I discovered the subculture that was human gaming.

There were hundreds if not thousands of video games about the human race. Fantasy, horror, sci-fi, puzzles, casual, clicker, there wasn't a genre that didn't have a tentacle latched onto. I happened on the one known for an evil player base. However, I took that as a challenge.

The very first stream, I created a funny character and spawned on the golden beach. The first spawn was special, like turning over a new page. In my infinite wisdom, I didn't think prior to censor the server I'd logged onto or my in-game name.