Reality

What happened in those 4 hours???

 It didn't take too long for it to settle in. I fell to my knees recalling events that had only transpired during a simple 3 minutes, yet it felt so long...

I watched my surroundings fall around me, melting to a familiar street, to a familiar building, completely... restored? I saw many other people, although they were running around, some screaming, there were still others. I watched another boy appear out of nowhere in an alley nearby, his hair and face completely soaked. Sympathetic ones look toward me, my hair tossled and scorched, my clothes ripping at the seams, and my arms covered in blood. But they seemed calm.

Is this... normal? Now that I think about it, those roommates seemed to know what to do too, even if they were screaming. The roommates...

"Was that your first game?" A blonde, petite girl appeared to my left and helped me up.

"Yeah," I responded calmly, brushing off cinders from my sweatpants.

"Ahh, that can be hard, I had mine a few hours ago, but at least it's pretty easy at first."

"At first?" I tilted my head dubiously, looking toward her instead of staring awe of the completely normal building.

"Yeah, some parts around here can trigger quests, you just got an exclusive quest though, seems it can only happen once."

She seemed pretty experienced at this. I took my chance to observe her closely, something I'd always been good at doing. For some reason my senses seemed even sharper, acutely detecting every abnormality in her. In this I noticed quite a few things: Though dyed really well, it seemed her natural hair colour wasn't blonde. Her sweater and skirt were matched very well, unlikely to do many of these so called "Quests." Her voice was a bit higher pitched than most others, and most importantly, she walked awkwardly. With every step her right hip raised slightly high than her left's, and she let her oversized sweater hang just under her hip. She has a gun on her right.

"May I ask how many games you've played?" I turned completely toward her now, trying to pick up on any other body language. Now that I noticed, her guard was also up, probably from the beginning of the conversation, as if she was on edge. Then again, a lot of people seemed tense, in fact, this girl and me looked a bit strange standing together as people ran around urgently beside us.

"Hmm... 4 or 5 I guess, they were mostly easy games," she looked up to the sky, with her hand on her chin as if hesitating whether to tell me or not. In the end she seemed to choose not to tell me whatever she wanted to. "I could easily beat them with my magic."

I flinched at the word. Now that I think about it, this place really seemed a lot like my virtual reality game, Fantasy. Players of it could design a special ability of their choice, like magic per se. Of course it had to be in standards or they would be banned, but a lot of people created some OP skills by hacking, so many criticized it as unfair and unplayable with the amount of hacks.

I need to settle down. I need to know what happened during those 4 hours I wasn't awake. I need to know.

I looked to her one last time and smiled.

"Thanks for telling me. Good luck on your next games!" I smiled encouragingly and I left. All I was thinking about was this supposed "weapon of choice."

Little did I know that the girl behind me looked horrified, terrified out of her mind of what just transpassed. But the moment passed quickly, and she began to think that maybe it was only a coincidence.

[Congratulations! Skill Twisted Countenance has upgraded to level 2!]