Swirling into Reality

The bright light from the game swirls away and folds back into reality. The computer next to him slowly hums down, outside the window the sun can be seen setting from between the skyscrapers.

"Ahh, what time is it?" Max stretches and slowly lifts himself off the bed setting his headset on his desk. "Wow time is slower in that game than real life huh." The clock shows 6:37, time in real life is at 1/2 speed compared to Cloud Tale. "Well I guess I should make some Max and cheese since its close to 7." Laughing at his own joke he opens the door and walks don from his apartment. Passing a mirror he stops and looks at himself, seeing his usual self but with bed head or headphone... head? After doing a once over seeing his messy black hair rumpled gray shirt and jeans and short frame he walks to his small kitchen. Waving at his succulent plants he opens a cabinet where his pasta falls down and bursts on the floor.

Jumping back he sees his dinner spilling onto the floor. "DAMN IT, did Edward not put this back after yesterday?" picking up the now empty box he glares down the hall at a slightly open door is. Blue light can be seen filtering through. "ED! Wanna go out for some sandwiches?!" Aiming his box at the door waiting for him to come out.

After a minute of hearing stumbling noises Edward walks out with his short blond hair sticking up and pushing on his glasses, his arm is part way through a light jacket. Max waits for his arm to be mostly though then throughs the box at his chest. "Ah man what the Fu--" Not being able to lift his arm he gets hit and trips back falling into his now dark room.

"That's what you get for not putting the box back right, and don't worry ill pay for the food tonight." Edward looks at dismay of his scuffled outfit and the box sitting on the floor. "Oops sorry man I'll do it better next time." He sheepishly looks up at max. "Ok well I hope you remember that, now c'mon we gotta get to the sub place before it closes." Max briskly walks to the front door snagging his hat and wallet. "We got 15 min lets go chop chop man, got to walk 5 blocks and you know how busy it is here." Max opens the door for Edward then hurriedly locks the door and tosses him the key. "So, Ed what game where you playing earlier?" Edward thinks for a min then askes max "Which one?"

"Responding to a question with another question ay? Well what game did you spend the most time on?" Max looks down at his phone seeing that its almost 7. "Well I was playing that new VR game for a bit but I spent most of my time checking and analyzing the leaderboard spots, You know at one point I think I saw you in the top 50 spots but you were going up so I'm not sure. You are ColdNightHawk right?" Max looks up at his friend and simply says yah. "Wait really Max? What hack client and how good was it for you to finally make it to top 50 on a leader board? I mean your usually stuck in the top thousand and that's pc." Glaring at his friend, if looks could kill he would be losing a lot of hp if this were a game. "Gosh man have some faith in me, I found a couple of items while on the floating islands instead of picking a class then I decided to stay up there."

Edward looks at him in disbelief, while looking away he bumps into some people who give him looks. "Come on Ed we made it to Jerrys, what you want?" (Im sorry for the bad name but I cant think of a name... idk well ill just not name it but make the guy working there be called jerry)

Opening the door I walk in a small twinkling noise can be heard, "Ayy Mr. Cunningham what can I do for you today, and you brought Mr. Jameson with you! He looks at Edward as he walks in. "Aw Jerr you know its just Max and Edward." "Protocol protocol Mr. Cunningham, ok so you want the usual ham and cheese sub toasted am I right?" Jerry looks up from making the two subs which he started before we answered, but it wasn't like we were going to get anything else but just to make sure I asked Edward and he was fine with it.

"Okay Then I got yah fix right here, and the final price is $16.42 with tax." I look at the price then up at the board with the sandwich listings. "You know Jer that the price should be 14 bucks not 16, you trying to cheat us?" Jerry laughed then looked at me. "As sharp as ever Mr. Cunningham but you should see that Mr. Jameson slipped in some drinks so I got to add onto the final price."

I glare at Edward as I reach into my wallet and pull out my wallet and hand Jerry my card. As we leave he sees us out and tells us to come back soon. As we get out of view I rip into my friend, "Really man you could've just told me to add onto it." Edward looks back at me and scoffs. "You did say you would pay." I put my head down and take a bite of my sub. Edward brightens seeing that he earned a point in our some what frequent verbal battles.

"All in a days work Max, all in a days work." We eat our subs as we walk home to play some more games.