Megan opened her laptop with a smile. Tomorrow she could go back home and see her family again, and even though she only had two days before she had to head back to school, it was a relief to finally get some rest. The last three weeks had simply flown by, and Megan had enjoyed every minute of it. There had been no bullying of any kind. She had just come back from eating lunch, and she had nothing to do until dinner, which was in a few hours’ time. She knew exactly what to do.
Although the school didn’t have any Wi-Fi, Megan was still happy. She had only planned to use her laptop to listen to music, read the Kindle books she had downloaded, and her favourite – play Minecraft.
As soon as she had logged in, she clicked the little dirt block pinned to her taskbar, and chose a track to play. She didn’t bother putting her headphones in. Geo shared her taste in music, so she didn’t mind Megan playing it out loud.
However, right now Geo was still at lunch. Megan logged into Minecraft, and opened up her survival world. Her laptop wasn’t the fastest in the world, so Megan barely reached thirty frames per second on low settings, but it was good enough.
Megan was fighting a creeper when the door slammed open. “The party’s arrived!” Geo yelled. Megan didn’t turn around. She was too absorbed in the game. “Ooh, is this Minecraft?”
“Haven’t I showed you it before?” Megan said good-naturedly.
“Yeah, but you’re always doing boring stuff, like mining or farming. This seems more like it.”
The creeper blew up, and Geo jumped. “Did that thing just explode?”
“Yup,” Megan said. A skeleton was shooting at her now. She drew back her bow, and knocked out the skeleton with a few arrows.
“Can I try?”
“Sure.”
Megan stood up, giving her roommate the mouse. She laughed as Geo desperately tried to fight off a zombie. “I never thought Minecraft could be this fun!”
“There’s a reason I play it so much, you know.”
Megan smiled as Geo picked up the tricks of the trade. After a few minutes, Geo handed the mouse back to Megan. “Where can you buy Minecraft?”
Megan paused the game quickly before something attacked her. “Go to minecraft.net, and you can buy an account on there.”
“Isn’t there a disc or something?”
“Nope, it’s all online. And once you’ve bought it, it’s yours to keep forever.”
“How much does it cost?”
“Can’t remember… about twenty dollars, I think.”
Geo grinned. “I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.”
~o~O~o~
After the customary quick meeting, Megan headed up to her room, talking to Geo excitedly. Time had gone so fast. It was the beginning of another three weeks, and the two of them were dying to play Minecraft together. Megan had found out that Geo was a technical wizard, and following her recent addiction, Geo had found out a way to play multiplayer without an internet connection.
Megan left Geo to do all the technical stuff. As soon as they were in their room, they set up a server and started playing some survival.
“I can’t believe I hated Minecraft before,” Geo said. “It’s such an awesome game.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Megan smiled, gathering some wood. “You’ve been enlightened now, so it’s all good.”
“You cow!” Geo cried, desperately trying to punch a cow that kept running away from her. Megan joined in the chase, a lot more accurate than Geo was.
“Got it,” Megan said smugly, as the cow fell to the ground in a puff of smoke.
“A moment of silence for our dear friend… Bob,” Geo said quietly, pretending to sniffle. There was absolute silence for a few seconds, until the girls couldn’t hold their laughter in for any longer, and burst into fits of giggles. “All right, moment over. Now gimme some of dat smexy steak.”
“No,” Megan said defiantly.
“You wanna do this the hard way? We’ll do this the hard way!” Georgia grinned.
“Bring it on!” Megan laughed. Geo leapt onto Megan with a war cry… and started to tickle her. Megan was begging for mercy, tears in her eyes, when the bell rang for bedtime. The girls quickly closed their laptops and ran into the ensuite bathroom, still giggling as they brushed their teeth. As soon as they had finished changing into their pyjamas, the door opened, and the towermistress looked around the room. She was actually quite nice.
“Goodnight,” she whispered.
“Goodnight,” Geo and Megan echoed. The towermistress turned off the lights, and although both girls had plenty to talk about, they just felt tired. As soon as their heads hit the pillows, they were asleep.
~o~O~o~
“Geo! We’ll be late for lessons!” Megan cried, slinging her satchel over her shoulder.
“You can go without me!” Geo said, her attention on the computer screen before her.
Megan sighed. “See you at English,” she said as she ran down the stairs. The only reply she got was a grunt.
When Megan arrived at English, Geo was not there.
When Mr Walshe took the register, Megan had no-one to talk to.
When they read out their poems in front of the whole class, everyone applauded, except for Geo.
One hour later, the lesson ended, and Megan walked to French all by herself.
An hour of French and an hour of Maths later, Megan ran back to tower as fast as she could. She was worried for Geo. Had she fainted? Was she avoiding her? Was she simply skipping lessons? Megan didn’t know, and she was dying to find out.
Megan flung open the door. “Geo!” she said crossly. There was still no-one there.
With a sigh, Megan sat down on her bed. What had happened to her best friend? They hadn’t had any arguments, and Geo was usually always there for Megan. Why was she gone?
Megan looked over at Geo’s desk, and noticed her laptop, still open. She was about to close it when some movement on the screen caught her eye.
There wasn’t anyone else in the tower that played Minecraft, and the other towers were too far away to play multiplayer. So how was there another player, looking like a pixelated version of Geo, running about in front of her?
<GeoIsABoss> who are you
<GeorgiaCrystal> Megan? Is that you?
<GeoIsABoss> yeah but who are you
<GeorgiaCrystal> It’s me, Geo!
<GeogiaCrystal> Help me!
<GeoIsABoss> where are you
<GeorgiaCrystal> I’m ingame! Literally!
<GeoIsABoss> wait is that why you werent at lessons
<GeorgiaCrystal> You’re right.
Megan gaped as ‘GeorgiaCrystal’ told Megan things that only Geo would now. How was this possible? Was this some sort of prank? If it was, it was pretty extreme. But something inside her told her she was wrong. Her best friend had been sucked into a video game. How, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to get her out again.
