GOD GAME

I think I need life's tutorial scene

I collapse on my bed, tired from the seemingly endless ❻ week school. We stayed there overnight, resting for 2 hours and then working for another day. Everyone was miserable. The teachers that weren't replaced by robots were, too. There was just so much to learn in adolescence, being that most of physics and the universe was found out. If you couldn't figure out a subject you were put behind, some people never leaving school until they died of age or another accident. Some took the easy way out, leaving the adult population slim. It helps the world conserve resources in a twisted way, but as a teenager I can't do much about it. My room grew dim as my muscles and mind slowly wandered. This day was purely for sleep. I felt around in the growing darkness for my pillow, and finding its silky touch, I pulled it beneath my head.The darkness of sleep enveloped everything in my sight except a large, metallic chip. It shone in my tired darkness, begging me to revisit its world.

"Should I... should I finally stop putting it off?" I mumbled.

I brushed the dark haze that surrounded my vision away by rubbing my eyes and sitting up. I walked towards my desk, picking up the black game chip. It had white print on the front that stated its name in large, bold letters: "GOD GAME". Other than this there was no other writing on it, just a black chip. I had borrowed it from Clora, who was a good friend of mine. She suggested I should play it on the weekend. I never got to it because those types of games were in real-time, which would lower my performance in school from of lack of sleep. She would always play it though, her grade never suffering.

One day, she left the physical plane. She left this world for the one in the game.
Sure, school is ridiculous and a digital world seems appealing, but when you die in this plane, you die there too! She hasn't left since and her family isn't putting her on a life support machine because she is a "disappointment". I just don't understand why she would leave in the first place, she had the best grades in our class. She's going to die due to lack of water and food soon, and I'm going to be the only one to miss a "disappointment" it seems. I looked back at the game in my hands.

Why did she leave?

[GAME START]
My surroundings were odd, instead of a background of a single color such as black or white, it was nothing. I stared at the nothingness for a while, getting lost in it.
I mumbled "It's so bland here, where's all the colo-!"
Colors of unimaginable hue burst into existence, surprising me with their sudden appearance. I shrieked, but slowly regained my previous relaxed posture. I was eager to learn of what else I could do in this "God Game".

"I wonder..." I whispered to myself.

This time a rocky sphere emerged from the colored world, brown with grey protrusions. It floated near me. It was large, but no force pulled me toward it, until I remembered gravity. I fell at an alarming rate, fearing I would die as the mass pulled me closer.

"HELP HELP!" I screamed.

I closed my eyes and after a while of doing so I opened them. I hovered above the world's surface. I went into hysterics, laughing like a mad man at the fake fate I had just undergone.
I keep forgetting this is a game. It's so real!
I touched the spheres dry dirt, pushing my feet down into the loose soil. I made my hand into cups, imagining that I was scooping the large chunk of earth with large hands. The land gave way to imaginary fists as I carved holes and created mountains. Is this what she felt?! I thought of water, and guided the clear liquid into several holes and rivets, creating streams and oceans. This is amazing! My mind remembered wind, causing the water to run into each other, causing the streams to course into lakes, causing waves to splash into one another with a newborn excitement. This... I then thought of the most important thing. The thing that was the game's challenge to control.

The one thing I never thought could be as terrifying as it is beautiful.

Grass shot up from non-existance, flowers, trees, and other flora followed. Then animals of all sorts popped from a forgotten plane, animals that I studied in school that had long since passed in my world.

My world... no.

This is now my world, not that cursed place I left.

I sat down amongst the fauna and flora that sprung about around me, staring into the lake I had formed closest to me. Its waters sparkled and shimmered with the constantly changing sky. I stared at the water, fascinated, for a long time. This is why she stayed. I understand now, Clora. I smiled faintly. The other world has no idea...
[GAME QUIT]

I stopped the simulation and awoke, but something was weird. I wasn't tired anymore and...

"No time has passed?!" I yelled to myself in a shocked manner.

"Honey is something wrong? You should be sleeping if you want to pass school!" my mother grumbled.

"Just a dream! I'll be fine mom don't worry!" I assured her.

"Alright, stop talking and go to bed then," she said something vile under her breath.

"Got it... mom."

I jumped on my bed, sprawling out on it so that my body didn't completely fit on its square frame. Games slow down a human's perception rate to fit with the game's processor. More time should have passed outside of the game than inside of it. Where did Clora get this game? I couldn't find it on any shopping websites. And how come I'm in the state I was when I exited the game, that's not supposed to happen either...

"Ugh," I moaned "maybe some sleep will do me some good, I'm probably hallucinating from lack of sleep, yeah."
I shut my eyes, forcing my body to fall asleep in spite of the adrenaline that was running through it from the game. After struggling against my palpitating heart I managed to lose consciousness beneath my thin, summer blanket.

I saw her, Clora. She was happy, smiling in my world... I was dreaming but I felt so real.

"Why did you leave Alex? You goofball. Here, you can still learn, but you can breathe here! You can live and feel and escape that world of treachery, it's... beyond saving."

She grabbed onto my hand and pulled me through pillow-clouds, sun leaking through them on all sides till we both escaped their comfortable squeeze. The light was blinding, but my eyes quickly adjusted. It was my world.

"See? It's it beautiful! Look at the reds, yellows, and oranges we were bred blind too. The color our race deemed distracting... aren't they so pretty Alex?"

I nodded, taken by their beauty again. Why did we have to forget something so beautiful...