You Looked So Innocent

Chapter III

The girl asked again, "Did you need something miss?" You just stood frozen. You weren't quite sure why but you couldn't get yourself to talk, or move, or anything at that moment. "Look—if you're just going to ignore me at least look the other way." She huffed and turned back, shoving the earbud she had in her fingers back into her ear.

Now you decided to move. You stumbled through people, "Wait! Sorry I didn't mean to stare and say nothing–" another person pushed you out of their way. They walked behind you and pushed you through a few other people to knock into that girl's gun on her back. You landed on the floor behind her after getting your cheek hit. It felt so real, you wouldn't be surprised if when you logged out you could see a bruise there.

"Hey, what's the big idea," she turned around and just saw people walking. But nobody directly behind her. She then rolled her eyes and looked at the ground. That's when she saw you. You were hissing silently and rubbing your cheek. "Oh. It's just you," her eyes went back to being almost soulless, no shine in them.

"Y-yeah! It's me," you shook as you stood. All of these people pushing you around is throwing you off balance. The girl in front of you puffed out her cheeks and let the air escape quickly. She looked to her left and right, then glanced behind her. She shifted her attention to you after.

"Hey, you tired of this place?" She asked and crossed her arms over her chest. She leaned her weight onto one leg and smirked at you.

"Oh yeah, so many people. And they're just pushing me around like I'm nothing!"

"Well, that kind of is what you are. Some of these people have played the beta so they already have great upgrades and all those cool gadgets and whatchamacallits," she pushed a chunk of hair that was on her shoulder to her back. "Including me. But at least I can manage a conversation with somebody I knocked into without getting into a fist fight."

"Yeah.... wai–"

"How about we go to the tavern?" She smiled and cut you off, scratching the back of her neck. She grabbed on the bottom of her skirt tightly and waited for your answer. You hummed. "Then I can explain some things to you."

"Sure. Okay," You nodded. Then she led you between two stands that were selling foods. No wonder it was so crowded, this was a market. She led you deeper until you two were in an alley between two buildings. It wasn't dark though, like people would probably think. The sun in the game lit up the corridor.

The girl lifted her wrist to her chest and bent her arm horizontal. A black bracelet appeared there. She used two fingers to hover over the bracelet and the rest of her forearm. The bracelet split in two at the middle and one half spread to the end of her forearm at her elbow. You watched in awe, then a square lit up directly above the rainbow between the two half bracelets. It was formatted like a menu.

"Open your menu," you knew it was a menu. You then hesitantly tried a few times to do what she did. A couple tries later and you successfully opened the menu. It showed your name, age, and gender at the corner. In the center at the top was a bunch of numbers and letters and something that looked like a complicated qr code. You stared at it with a confused look. There was other things on the menu, but this detailed qr code had your attention already.

"Here, show me your code," she leaned over your shoulder and looked at the screen. In the corner of your eye you noticed her face change to a somewhat confused one. "You're 14?" She looked at you in the eye and you gulped, nodding.

"Y-yeah.. how old are you?" The girl just showed you her screen.

"Looks for yourself. Maybe learn my name while you're at it," she shifted her arms so her menu was in front of you. You read what was on it; Yulsi, age 15, female. You nodded and she clicked an icon that looked like a spiral. When she tapped on it the screen showed what was on the floor. Must be a camera.

She put her screen above yours and pressed on your qr code that showed up on her screen. It took a couple seconds to load and your name, age, gender, and a bunch of numbers and letters. To your surprise it also showed a picture of you.

"Just gonna add you as my friend," she murmured under her breath, clicking a plus sign on the pop-up after she scanned your code. "Not gonna bother adding you in any parties right now..."

"Parties?— oh!" On your screen a picture of Yulsi showed up and her information. You added her back as a friend and the screen returned back to the menu, as did hers.

"Yeah, I'll explain later. But for now to the tavern?" You nodded and hummed.

"But, uh, how do you close this thing?" You motioned to the bracelet that was split in 2 and the glowing screen. Yulsi face palmed and just moved one half of the bracelet to the other with one hand.

"It's pretty simple once you just think about it," Yulsi retorted, looking at you with a sideways glance as she closed the menu. The black bracelet also disappeared.

"Whoah.. this game is really cool!" You just looked at your wrist in awe, you saw Yulsi's illuminated face in your peripheral vision.

"Yup," she looked concentrated as she tapped around her screen. "I can tell you more about it once we get to the tavern," she smiled at you for a split second then focused her attention back on what she was looking at before. "Okay grab my hand."

"What?" She rolled her eyes and grabbed your hand forcefully. She used her nose to tap something on the screen and then the bracelet disappeared along with her screen.

"I'll see you at the tavern, don't freak out," she giggled slightly and then everything started going white. Buildings chipped away and people faded into nothing. The ground and sky turned into coding and wrapped around you until you saw nothing but black.