What have I done?

Chapter 7: I want to play a game

[Some rights given to Sony and Atari]

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"Oh god... what happened?"

"I'm very sorry, sir, but you are going to have to go right now."

"What...No...NO! Get off me! Stop it! STOP!"

The next day, after the meeting with the creepy man, Darius went out again, same time as usual, for the next robbing, but it wasn't where you'd expect. Because Darius was bored. Very bored. He didn't have anyone to bully because everyone stayed far away from him, and he didn't have any games or toys to play with because his mother didn't have any, and even if she did she wouldn't have let him use them, though even with that reasoning, I still think that half the reason he went there was just for the sake of robbing something. But anyway, he decided to visit the one place that was left to provide him entertainment.

The games store.

Yes, that's right. There it was. His local game store, and possibly the biggest game store in the country. The best video games for every console, although, since his mother only had an old, dusty Atari 5200 in the attic, he was just going to have to settle for that. He would have preffered to be buying games for the new biggest hit at the time, the PlayStation 1, but he didn't mind - just so long as he had something to do.

It didn't take too long for him to find the Atari 5200 section, as it was one of the few sections that was very dusty, full of cobwebs, smelly and overwhelmed with games due to the lack of purchases. In fact, the owner was apparently thinking about completely shutting down that section altogether, so Darius was unsure what he would do then.

He did the usual thing; checked for CCTV cameras and made sure to hide himself from any existing ones, and quickly grabbing the game and stuffing it into his pocket. However, there was, of course, no room in his trouser pocket, so Darius had brought a jacket with some convenient inside pockets just for this occassion. He didn't choose any game in particular, he just wanted something, anything. Plus, if it was in that aisle, chances are it was pretty good, else it wouldn't have been in the store at all. He quite easily escaped too; the employee behind the counter was much too busy watching some weird game advert.

Unlike last time, with the sweets, Darius had no chance of playing the game during the day, as his mother would definitely catch him, so he knew when he had to do it. He was forced to stay up all night, until he heard his mother's loud snores echoing down the stairs, and that was when he knew it was time. Using a random needle in his cupboard, he lockpicked the lock on the door, using the skills he had learned off of an old friend. Darius never actually told me who it was, but I can only assume it was Kevin. I don't think Darius had actually had very many friends before then, though I am curious as to why someone like Kevin would teach Darius something like that.

He slowly creeped and crawled up the stairs, the floorboards creaking under his weight. As he neared the top, he spotted the hatch in the ceiling where the attic lay, though he almost missed it in the darkness of the night. Failing to reach, he grabbed a wooden stool nearby, and climbed onto it, and then he had it. He slowly climbed up the wooden ladder and peeked into the attic.

It wasn't much of a good sight really. Small, dark, cramped, damp, smelly, disgusting, dirty, dusty and filled with cobwebs. Random, miscellanious stuff was scattered about on the wooden attic floor, or atleast, what there was of a floor. Not much of a floor, really, when almost the entire thing was just a giant hole. Swiping his hand over a dusty rectangular shaped object, he read the words 'Atari 5200' etched into the plastic. Grinning, he grabbed it and snuck back down the stairs, remembering to close the hatch to the attic behind him.

After plugging in the Atari to the TV and starting up the game, he spent the rest of the night shooting bloodthirsty zombies for hours. He enjoyed it loads, even if it did cause him to become sleep deprived. Honestly, I think that there are better ways he could have relieved his boredom, and this was definitely at the bottom of that list, in my opinion. But, anyway, he did that all night until he heard the clock strike six, and that was when he finally decided to get off it. He unplugged the Atari and stuffed the machine in a small corner in his cupboard, out of sight, as well as the game, which he had discovered was 'Zombie Shooters 3: Ultra Extreme Edition', and he had also discovered that the name didn't live up to the game - because the game was better than the name, and I have to say, that's definitely saying something. With what little time he had, he took a nice little nap.

But he was woken up later by a ridiculously loud knock at the door. Whoever it was really, really wanted to see someone about something, and Darius thought that it would probably end up being something very trivial. But when his mother woke up, shouting and screaming at whoever it was, and opened the door in what she called a dressing gown, Darius realised it was more than that. Much more than that.

He put his ear close to the door and listened carefully to the conversation.

"Hello, madame, sorry to interrupt you, but we have reason to believe that you're son is responsible for a crime commited at Jenkin's games store yesterday afternoon."

Darius froze on the spot, his hair standing on end. He could tell from their voices and the way they spoke that it was the police, but how on earth did they know? Was he being sloppy again, and been caught by the cameras? Darius didn't doubt it, but luckily, he had no reason to go again for a while, as he had an awesome game to play that would last him quite a while. Then, after that thought, the door shot open.

"Come here, boy!" shouted his mother, as she grabbed him by his pyjama top and lifted him up. "This one, officers?"

"Looks like it." said a police officer. Darius could see that there were 2 of them. "Would you mind if we asked him a couple of question, miss?"

"Not at all. In fact, it would be a pleasure. And make sure you give him a beating, because he deserves it."

"Um, yes....okay...right then, madame. Okay, son, tell me truthfully; did you rob Jenkin's game store?"

Darius hesitated for just a moment. Should I lie, he thought, or should I tell the truth? He didn't even think about putting his strength to the test on the policeman, because they would probably overpower him, plus, even if they didn't, it would simply lead to more troubles. But then he came up with a sly idea.

Suddenly, Darius burst into tears.

"What's going on!? I didn't do anything! Why are you all-" The rest of his sentence couldn't be heard, as the rest was muffled by his crying.

"Oh, we're so sorry, son," said the policeman and just like that, his plan had worked. They felt sympathy for Darius and they suddenly didn't believe that someone as innocent as Darius could possibly have pulled something like that off, so he managed to get away with it. Most likely, the anonymous tipster got a warning or something from the police for wasting their time. But Darius learnt a lesson from that, and it wasn't a lesson to stop robbing everyone. It was just a lesson, in his opinion, to be way, way more careful next time. He had no idea how they had found out, but they weren't going to find out again. Ever again.

And that's why it became worse.