ESCAPE // Ready Player One

FIVE

The next day is Sunday. I can't help but want to wake up as soon as possible to see if Parzival—Wade—messaged me. And to tell my friends about it, obviously.

However, I still sleep in until noon. Great.

When I do wake up, it's to my mom knocking on my bedroom door. "Val," she says softly, "are you awake? It's noon."

I sit up slowly. "I am now," I say, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

She smiles and comes in, closing the door behind her. She sits on my bed next to me. "Hey, are you alright?"

"What do you mean?"

"After you met that guy, Wade Watts, yesterday, you've seemed kind of... out of it. Like you're in another world. Is there anything going on? Did he say something bad to you?"

In another world, I think. If only you knew. "No, nothing's wrong. He was really nice."

"Good." She leans over and kisses my forehead. "Are you going out with V today?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." She stands up and moves towards my bedroom door. "I love you."

"Love you too," I tell her, smiling.

I really do love my mom. I mentioned how guilty I am lying to her, right? Well, whatever I said, I feel like that times 100 now. I feel like the worst person in the world. She loves me and cares for me, and what do I do? I turn right around and lie to her about my whole life.

But that's not going to stop me today. Not when a whole world is at stake.

I hop up, dress quickly, and am soon on my bike and at my station.

As soon as I gear up, I spot a message. As expected, it's from Parzival, and he sent it at midnight last night. I respond as fast as I can.

Parzival: Hey, Aelien. Or do you want me to call you Val?

Aelien: hi! i apologize for the wait

Aelien: and plz call me aelien or ae on here

Parzival: It's ok, I understand humans need sleep.

Parzival: So what's going on with this thing? Have you told your friends about our conversation yet?

Aelien: i haven't had the chance yet, did u tell ur crew

Parzival: Yeah, they're pretty eager to figure all of this out.

Aelien: maybe we could meet up on ludus later

Parzival: That's probably gonna have to happen...

Parzival: Just the two of us though, I wanna stay as incognito as possible.

Aelien: that's fine

Parzival: By the way, do your friends know you're a girl?

Aelien: ur the only person on earth who knows

Aelien: don't say a word i s2g

Parzival: Don't worry, I won't.

Parzival: And, what's with the lowercase letters?

Aelien: it's kinda my thing

Parzival: Ok then, LOL!

Parzival: On my way to Ludus now.

Aelien: cool see u then

Did he really just capitalize "lol"? I think, laughing. Then I log in completely and travel to Ludus.