Neutral Credits

It was 4pm by the time Abigael managed to get to an electronics shop. The shop was only in the mall nearby her apartment but waiting around for Mischa to leave took most of the morning, then she had to wait for the repair guys to fix her window, then go shopping for new bed sheets... Ah, so much effort, what a waste of a day! But finally, FINALLY, she was able to go and get the watch removed now.

She smirked triumphantly as she walked through the sliding glass doors and into the air conditioned interior of the shop. No crowd stopping her this time, no rude sales person to close the door in her face. She sauntered over to the repairs and maintenance desk and dinged on the little silver bell smartly as she waited for assistance.

The worries and stresses of the day slowly faded into the background as she looked forward to the moment she would be rid of the horrid black watch that was the cause of so many of her troubles. Not long to go now.

'Hi, can I help you.' A retail assistant walked out abruptly from the office behind the counter and mumbled without looking at her directly. He seemed the stereotypical neet type and she'd always found dealing with socially challenged people, well, challenging. She tisked at the guy in her mind before raising her left hand and displaying the watch.

'I recently got this new watch and can't work out how to take it off. It didn't come with an instructions manual.'

'Hmm,' the retail assistant narrowed his eyes and looked at the watch, flipping her hand over a few times to get a closer look. 'I don't think we sell this model here.' he said hesitantly, 'If it didn't come with an instructions manual then it might be a knock off or a faulty product someone shouldn't have been selling. Where did you buy this from again?' He asked, quickly turning and typing rapidly onto the computer nearby.

'Er…' Abigael hesitated, she didn't exactly buy this, but if it was something illegal should she really be saying things like where she got it from? 'I won it in a raffle.' she finally admitted. [No harm, even if it is illegal, I don't have anything to do with it. It's not like I asked for this thing anyway.] She flipped her hair and checked her nail polish for chips as she waited for the retail assistant to finish checking the details on the computer. 

'I can't find the model of this watch in the system.' The retail assistant finally admitted, glancing at her mildly haughty attitude with a little apprehension, 'Wait a moment, I'll go get my manager.' As he quickly scuttled off she gave a loud sigh of frustration and turned around, faking some impatience.

After five minutes she started to get a little bored. Tapping her foot impatiently she decided to check the watch one last time. There was nothing else to do after all.

The self-defence app was still downloading

{Goal: 'Unlock app' Achieved: find a hiding place. A new app is now being downloaded and will be ready in 4 min}

Well no change there. To be honest she was supremely uninterested in this promised 'Self-defence app.' The whole thing was a dud anyway and she was sure that even this supposed ability to tell the future was all just some kind of hoax, like a dodgy fortune teller.

Daily had also lit up.

{Goal: GC/BC}

{GC: heavy object}

{OR}

{BC: storeroom}

As ambiguous as ever. She sighed and crossed her arms, randomly looking around the store as she waited.

Three minutes later and the assistant still hadn't come back, nobody had come to help, not even the promised manager. She wasn't faking her impatience anymore as she crossed her arms and tapped her fingers in frustration. What on earth was taking that guy so long? She was just about to begin tapping the small bell again when the watch alerted her with a beep.

It flashed purple and a message started scrolling.

{App: Basic Transmission, installed. Initiating app}

The purple glow dimmed and what looked like tiny mirrors in the shape of hexagons started flowing out from the rim of the watch, like a sleeve being put on her arm. Only it didn't stop there, the mirror-like fabric sped up and quickly covered her whole body, fitting perfectly around her skin, hair and clothes.

Abigael couldn't help but let out a startled shout she reached to grab onto the service desk as support to help her stand against the shock only to see her own hand as a pale grey shadow of itself. She almost screamed out loud again but quickly covered her mouth and swallowed it down instead. Hesitating somewhat, she moved her hands in front of her and found that the whole situation was so weird that she had absolutely no reaction whatsoever. This was something that was just way beyond her comprehension and she didn't know what to do.

Her hands were there but they seemed to be grey and see through, kind of like what she imagined what a ghost would be, but without the ethereal whisps or clouds. There was a hexagonal shaped pattern covering her entire body, not just her hands but her clothes as well.

Remembering the little hexagonal mirrors that had flowed out of the watch she trained her eyes on the small screen on her wrist, looking for an explanation. A timer was all that she could see, even when she tapped on the screen it wouldn't let her access any of the normal functions of the watch. It just displayed the timer, slowly counting down.

9:36

9:35

9:34

[Is this telling me how long I'm going to be stuck like this? Oh thank the heavens!] she breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she wouldn't be stuck as a ghost forever.

[Wait, a ghost? Am I… No, no it couldn't be-] Her eyes widened at the possibility and she scrambled for the powder mirror in her purse. Her purse was ghostly just like she was but she could still touch it and use it which was a relief. She quickly opened it and took out her powder mirror, opening it in front of her face.

The mirror perfectly reflected the products on the shelf behind her. She could see them very clearly.

What she couldn't see was her face.

She stared at the small mirror, moving it in different directions in case she was holding it wrong, trying to force her eyes to see what her brain said she should be seeing. Eventually she just quietly placed the power mirror back into her purse.

[Invisible- Heavens, I'm invisible!] the same thought kept running through her mind uncontrollably. She felt her body turn towards the door. It was as if all form of conscious thought had left her and she was just watching herself doing things. She couldn't think anymore, didn't want to understand anymore. She just needed… she didn't know what she needed actually

Without stopping to think about what she was doing, not that she could even if she wanted to right now, she started walking off just as the retail assistant arrived back with his manager in tow. There was confused head shaking and a scoffed remark about 'entitled customers', but Aibgael wasn't listening, she just kept walking, her footsteps even and purposeful. But her eyes were blankly staring straight ahead as she willed her body home on autopilot.

As she reached the sliding entrance doors, a man with a black face mask and hoodie pulled low entered swiftly from the other side, bumping right into her as she walked past. The man cursed and swung around wildly, looking for what had bumped him, but saw nothing. Growling something unintelligible through the mask he hunched his shoulders and fiddled with something in his oversized pocket before turning and continuing into the store.

Abigael noticed none of this.

[I'm Invisible…]

She got into the elevator on the ground floor of her apartment building and at some point before she reached her floor the countdown ended. The hexagonal invisibility fabric started flowing back off her body and into the watch until she had completely returned to normal. The display on the watch changed back into the current time and it was as if nothing had ever happened.

The watch flashed and there was a purple ring highlighting a bunch of apps.

She stared blankly at the watch on her wrist for a moment before realising that the elevator had arrived at her floor. Stepping out numbly she walked to her apartment in the same purposeful yet absent way. Completely ignoring Mimsy as the cat swiped at her ankle and even forgetting to bolt her apartment door after she closed it behind her.

She navigated her way around the couch and sat at the kitchen table, now back where it was supposed to be after she had cleaned up the impromptu bed she made for Mishca earlier in the day.

She put the hand with the watch on the table gently then stared at it.

And stared at it.

//

The sun had just begun to set when Abigael eventually came to her senses. She shivered slightly in the cooling air and looked up with bleary eyes to see the last vestiges of sunlight filtering through her dust streaked kitchen window. It was quite a striking sight really, the blending of red and pink in the clouds with the dull bluish grey of the sky, the dust motes floating through the air in the last rays of sun, like some kind of fairy dust. It would be utterly perfect…

Her gaze returned to the watch and, hesitating somewhat, she prodded at it. The display immediately changed to the home screen, showing [Daily], [Stats] and the [App Store] highlighted, just as it had been for the last two hours she had been staring at it. Nothing had actually changed.

Except that everything had changed!

'Invisible…' she muttered quietly, tapping on [Daily] without really being able to think about what she was doing. She tapped on history like usual.

{Goal: GC/BC}

{GC: storeroom}

{OR}

{BC: heavy object}

{Goal: 'storeroom OR heavy object' Achieved: leave through the front door, 1 Credit (Neutral) has been added to your account; Achievement Unlocked 'Forging your own path,' reward of 5 credits (Neutral) have been added to your account; Progression Neutral Credits Unlocked}

Going back to the main screen of Daily she realised that the screen was displaying the five regular options but this time there was actually a new option she hadn't noticed.

{New Goal}

{Current Goals}

{History}

{Progression Good Credits}

{Progression Bad Credits}

{Progression Neutral Credits}

She tapped on the last option.

It was identical to the two pages on Good and Bad credits, with lots of graphs and tables showing her when, where and how she had received her Neutral credits and just like it said there were six neutral credits in her balance.

'Whoopee.' She muttered sarcastically before laughing quietly, then loudly, then she realised that there were tears running down her face. But she couldn't stop laughing.

Eventually, she fell asleep.