As the pancake batter sizzled in the pan, she hummed. The liquid batter began to brown, and its liquid form hardened. Her cooking apron hung down to the floor, and her wavy dark hair tied in a bun; she was in a cheerful mood. She slid the pancakes onto the plate with tenderness, placed two plates down separately at the dining table, with a half-filled syrup dispenser in the middle of them. Gazing over at the table one last time, she formed another smile, and held it.
Step by step she carefully made her way up the stairs, trying not to make any noise. After passing the top step, she began tiptoeing down the hallway, carefully avoiding the floorboards she knew would creak. She slowly reached her hand out towards the doorknob of her son's bedroom.
"Happy-!" She stopped, confused at the sight of an empty bed.
Panic began shooting through her, overflowing her body. Her vision went blurry, and her limbs began violently shaking. Her head immediately flipped to the worst-case scenarios; Was he kidnapped? Is he hurt? Where is he?
As she burst through each door upstairs in search of her son, her search ended in nothing. Rushing back toward and down the stairs, she hurried to call someone using the house phone in the kitchen. She maneuvered her way around the corner closely grazing the edge of the wall. Terrified, she lets out a yelp.
"AH! Kaito! When in the hell did you get down here! Why is your face all banged up?!" She screamed, experiencing a feeling of terror, anger, and relief simultaneously.
"Mornin' Mom I was just in the bathroom!" Not wanting to worry his mother, he knew it was best to hide what really happened.
"And the cuts and bruises, Kaito?"
"It was just a skateboarding accident, landed flat on my face. Really nothing to be worried about."
"I am worried. Every few days you come home with new cuts and bruises, Kaito…" His mom expressed, with clear concern and confusion written on her face.
"Mom, I promise it's nothing to worry about. Can we eat now? the food looks good."
"Oh yes! You gave me such a fright I nearly forgot! Happy 16th Birthday, Kaito!"
She disappeared into the pantry and came back out with a medium-sized rectangular present wrapped in green and red stripped wrapping paper. Gently placing it in front of Kaito on the table, trying not to give away how much it weighed based on the thud of the placement. She held a cheerful smile and looked up from the gift towards Kaito.
"I hope you enjoy your present, Kaito" she said, seeming genuinely thrilled to watch Kaito open it.
He gazed at the green and red wrapping paper blankly for a moment, then began to tear back the paper, exposing the contents. Bit by bit he exposed more of the rectangular object, then he saw it.
"A D-Box 2?! Wait how did you get your hands on this, Mom? It must have cost a fortune!"
"HAH I knew you'd light up when you saw it. I've been picking up a lot of shifts since you told me they announced it 5 months ago." Still with a smile on her face, she felt proud of herself and that her hard work was worth it.
Her smile faded as she continued to, "I do have to work again today though, Kaito, I'm sorry I can't stay with you on your birthday, sweetie. Here's 40 dollars; go to the local game store and buy yourself a game for your new console. I love you, sweetie, bye."
With the slam of the front door closing, silence followed. Kaito now sat there, alone, processing what to do. That's when he spotted the money his mom had placed before him on the table. He sat carefully in thought for a moment, still gazing at the money. Falling back into reality, Kaito quickly grabbed the money, stood up from his seat, and headed towards the front door.
Speedily opening and going out the front door, Kaito wrote off this as expected, and recalled the way to the game store by memory. Just around the corner. He could even skim off a few minutes if he cuts through his "secret path." (neighbor's backyard). Standing face-to-face with the fence leading into his neighbor's backyard, he scouted left, and then right. Seeing no one, he places one hand on the fence and leaped over, with little to no hesitation.
He slipped through the one end of the yard to the other undetected and jumped over the next fence, placing one hand down and quickly swinging his legs across, landing in the playground of a school. Just a straight path down from here, short and simple. Placing one end of his wired headphones in his left ear, and pulling his black hood over his head. Kaito kept his eyes locked onto the ground almost as if something is there, and his hands were buried deeply in his pockets. This was his physical way of disconnecting with the world around him, especially the people.
After roughly a song and a half of his playlist had cycled, he arrived at the game store. A high-pitched chime, from a bell was heard when Kaito pulls open the door.
"Hey, welcome to John's Game Store, can I help you find anything?" A cheery employee in a red polo, about in his thirties, stood a few feet from Kaito. Declining the employee's invitation, Kaito walked directly towards the game section for his new D-Box 2. In the corner of the store a sign, lit up in neon purple text reads: "D-BOX 2." Below it sat controllers, the console itself, and a variety of different compatible games for that system. Not even stopping for a second, Kaito moves from the front of the store to the back right to the D-Box 2 section.
Surveying the different games on the shelves, his eyes landed on one specific one. What the? Land Wars 2? I didn't know there was a sequel. He thought to himself. Reminiscing about the times as a child when he played the original Land Wars, and how much of a thrill the new gimmicks they came up with were. Kaito ultimately decided to buy it using the money his mother gave him earlier. Grabbing the game case for Land Wars 2 off the middle of the shelf, he carried himself hesitantly to the counter.
Placing the game on top of the checkout counter, the same employee who greeted Kaito at the door, stood behind the counter now, grabbed ahold of the game case, scanned it underneath the barcode scanner, and gently placed it in a nice smooth grey plastic bag and back down on the counter.
"That'll be $36.99. How would you like to pay" The employee said with a smile, holding a bit of a sharp edge in his voice.
Kaito reached down into his right pocket, pulled out the two 20-dollar bills, and placed them next to the plastic bag on the counter. Averting anymore interaction Kaito spoke his first sentence to the employee;
"Keep the change." He then turned to the exit on his left, grabbed the bag from the counter, and exited the store, without looking back.
Pausing outside of the store, Kaito reached into his left pocket. Pulling out his cellphone, he resumed the music in his headphones; he then placed both sides in this time to completely drown out reality. Ignoring any and all existing beings around him, he decided to take the normal way home. Instead of cutting through the school and the neighbor's backyard, it was just a long bend eventually meeting his house.
Before that long bend was an intersection which then met the game store on the connecting road. Approaching the intersection on his left, Kaito's head remained down towards his feet. His head remained down as he began crossing the road, meanwhile a blue SUV is driving 50 kph, headed for a direct collision with Kaito. The driver of the blue SUV spotted Kaito crossing only a couple of meters away from colliding with him. Quickly steering the wheel to the left, the driver averted the car from Kaito, swerving it left around him, then to the right, back onto the road.
Parking the car at the side of the road, the driver turned off the car and stepped out. A man in his 20s with short black hair had come out, and along with that followed an obscenity of swears "What the fuck are you doing?! I could have fucking killed you, kid!"
The 20-year-old watched as Kaito continued to walk off, not even having noticed what had just occurred. Completely unbothered and oblivious, Kaito kept on walking. The man seeing this, decided it was not worth his time, and mumbled under his breath as he walked to get back into his car. "Fuckin' weirdo."
Turning the last corner to his house, Kaito took out his keys early to go in the moment he's at the door. Approaching the door, he put the house key into the key lock of the door. Turning the key, he opened the door and saw the house exactly how he left it; Dark and alone. Grabbing the D-Box 2, still packaged, that he left at the table, he went directly to his room and closed the door.
Setting the box on the floor and the plastic bag on the desk, he grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk and used them to cut off all the tape sealing the box shut. Pulling the now exposed lip from the box back, he gently slid out the contents. Before him laid a thin cubic-shaped white box with "D-Box 2" labeled on it in blue. Beside it is a connecting cord for the console to his TV and a cord for the console to the outlet. He placed the D-Box 2 softly on his desk and plugged in both cords.
Turning on the power to the TV, Kaito walked back towards the D-Box 2 and now switched that on. A white screen displayed on the TV, from there a blue logo dropped down that read "D-Box." As that lowered off the screen, a menu screen came down. The first slot was selected and read "insert game chip." He grabbed the plastic bag and took out the game he purchased, tossing the bag aside, Kaito used the scissors again to cut off the plastic concealing the game. Opening the game's casing revealed a square-sized chip the size of Kaito's palm.
Opening a tab at the top of the D-Box 2 revealed a slot for you to insert your chosen game chip into. Placing the game chip in the slot, Kaito walked over to his cot and sat down crisscrossed on top of it. Seeing the icon for Land Wars 2 come up in that first slot, Kaito turned on his controller and hit play. The game launched and the loading screen was displayed. After a few seconds, the screen turned black.
A character appeared forth on the screen; only the upper half was seen. A mysterious 8-bit figure, wearing a white mask with a black robe on, and a hood up. A floating spin wheel was next to the figure on the screen, each section of the wheel containing a different role that you'd expect in a video game. A strange voice is heard "Before beginning, a random role will now be given to you."
Immediately after speaking this, the wheel spun at a rapid rate.
As the wheel came to a halt, the role is both revealed on the screen and announced by the same strange voice. "Blllllacksmith!" The voice spoke with suspense.
"Alright then, without further ado, have fun in this new and thrilling experience." After a small pause, the voice continued to speak. "Oh, and one more thing.. DON'T DIE."
Grinning for a moment, Kaito is excited for the continuation of one of his favorite childhood games. This grin soon faded, as Kaito began feeling strange. He looked down to place the controller down for a moment, but that's when Kaito noticed. His own body bit by bit was breaking off into small fleshy-squares, almost as though he was being digitalized. Each piece going towards and into the TV screen. The pieces began breaking off quicker and quicker until there was nothing left of Kaito.
Each pixel moved towards the screen in a spiral pattern. Once the final pixel of Kaito traveled through the aperture of the TV, the screen shut off completely, leaving no trace of Kaito behind.