Ch. 2

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"That will be $340.21, Miss." The middle-aged cash register person says. I pull my sleeve up past my left wrist and scan it under the Scanner. The Chip is a small, square piece of metal that has all of my valuable information engraved into it. What kind of valuable information? What were they called again... They were in our history books... Oh, right. Things like credit card numbers, birth information, the last four digits of your SSN, things like that.

The ahjussi pressed the screen of the clear, glass monitor and rips a plastic bag from the silver handles. "The receipt has been sent to your Chip. Just check your Chip at home to view it." He tucks the game and helmet into the bag for me.

I thank him as he hands me the heavy bag and give him a slight bow. The bag slips into my hand and drags my arm near to the ground as I begin to walk home.

Truthfully, I am super weak. Whenever I'm in gym, I just stand there and let other girls do the work. Even with my intelligent brain, I cannot even know how to serve a volleyball. Well, not like volleyball has to do anything with your intelligence.

//

Again with the Chip, I hover it over a Scanner about the door knob and wait for it to make "the" sound. I push on the handle and enter the house.

Of course, no one's home. I'm not even surprised; I basically own this place now. As a family, we always used to have lots of time together to do things like discuss stressful things with each other but we don't even have dinner together anymore. I miss having home cooked meals because all I eat now is ramen.

Literally.

Shutting the door with my left leg, I slip my shoes off my feet and slide them into my plain white slippers.

"Lights." I say and the lights flicker open. What do I do now? Take a shower? Eat? Try this thing out?

I walk up the wooden staircase to the second floor which has most of the bedrooms, including mine. Taking a left and going down the whole hallway to the end, I enter my classroom-sized bedroom.

"Ah, my backpack..." I slide the backpack that's drenched with books onto the floor and do some stretches for my back. I'm not even 18 and here I am having back problems.

I walk over to my Apple monitor and sit down in the chair in front of it. It's so beautiful; the clear glass is a baby blue color, which reminds me of the pool. The internal organs of the monitor are also clear, which is sick af. Technology has come quite a way.

Dropping the bag of expensive stuff onto the floor, I pull the game and helmet out of it. Man, I didn't realize how nice the packaging for each item looks. However, the items itself look like they've been sent by heaven itself.

The headgear looks like the stuff in SAO, except I bought the slick color: white. See, I adore that color. My whole family says that I'm so plain and that I'm colorblind because I don't have anything that's colorful.

"Let's take a look." I open the box and slide the headgear out of it. I set the box onto the ground and hold the headgear like it's a $1 million jewel.

Before I actually begin to do anything, I pull the directions out of the box with struggle and set the manual onto the desk.

Directions:

Just press the power button located on the right side of the helmet by the ear and wear it when it flashes green.

Well, the first thing I need to do is connect this game to the helmet and my monitor. I take the game chip out of it's bow-packaged box and hold it at the end of my fingertips. I've always wondered how game designer and all fit so much information in such the small thing.

I wave my wrist over the monitor and watch it unlock from it's recognized user. When I have my monitor up, I touch a part of the side of the monitor and wait for the slot to slide open. Placing the game chip into the slot, I touch the end of the slot to close it.

Immediately after the thing closes, something pops up onto the screen:

Welcome to Romanse!
(I know this is a cheesy name but my co-workers and I cannot think of a creative name.)

I laugh because the creator of this game is hillarious as hell. Plus, he describes my whole life in one sentence: uncreative.

To begin playing, please turn on the headgear and attach it to your head. The monitor and headgear will connect within a few seconds.

I press the button one the side of the helmet-like thing and watch it spur to life. A shade of bright, like green flashes and gives a little buzz to my hands. Taking a deep breath, I slide it over my head.

It's actually very comfortable, to be honest. The gel padding with memory foam on top of it gives it the extra oomph to make my head just melt into the cushions.

Connection succeeded. Please close your eyes and enjoy the game.

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