HSR: Hacks Required

/Another Hobby Book./

/Pls Enjoy./

-3rd POV-

A boy could be seen running through a dirty alleyway of a bright city. As the boy ran, he couldn't help but get distracted with all the graffiti on the walls he ran by. Simple smiley faces, water drops and emoticons are what he saw.

But what he stopped to look at was what appeared to be a door but was instead graffiti. It looked so realistic to the point you could just walk through. As he walked closer to the door, he was suddenly pulled back by the arm and smacked in the head.

Dazed as he then fell onto the ground, he could only look up at the perpetrators. A few old and buffs guys each wearing a beany on their head. The beanies they wore were different colors as if they were pretending to be some messed up version of the power rangers.

"Damned kid, he can't even properly code a backdoor." The one with the red beanie said as he spit towards the ground near the boy.

"Yeah, he even failed to hack into a low level security camera." The one with the pink beanie replied.

"He doesn't even look like a male. He's so scrawny that'd he'd even be a female heh." The one with the black beanie 'Joked'.

"Ey, think he'd sell well on the market then?" The one wearing the blue beanie said with an evil smile.

"Nah, let's just kill em'. Bet no one would even bat an eye at his death." The lanky man wearing a yellow beanie said while taking out a butterfly knife. He then grabbed the boy by his hair and put the knife against his throat.

"If only you did your job kid." The one wearing the red beanie said as he shook his head wearing a face that screamed disappointment.

The boy could only grit his teeth and squint his eyes as tears slowly welled up. He felt so powerless and weak. He received a hacking program early at the age of 5, with it, he was able to slowly but surely make his way through his life till the age of 10. That was when he encountered this group of ruffians. They offered him food, a proper roof over his head and even took care of him.

That only lasted 2 years. They attempted to use him to gain immense wealth with his hacks. But with the immense pressure of expectation and fear, he failed Every Single Time. Today, that bunch had finally had enough of him and decided it was best to get rid of him.

All the boy could feel was pain, and he decided to smile in attempt to ease it. The smile confused 3 of them and angered 2.

"Why are you smiling?" Yellow beanie asked. The response he got pissed him off even more.

"Cause fuck you." With a swift motion, the knife slit the boys throat. This caused him to slowly die and choke on his own blood. But as he did, he smiled like a mad man. He fell to the floor and the blood slowly dripped from his neck and traveled down his face. It made it's way to his eyes, causing his vision to go red, and he looked up one last time to the 5 men he considered family.

The scene burned into their minds as the boy fell limp with not a sound being made.

"That was creepy." Blue beanie said.

"Well, let's get home already, we need to make rent somehow." Red beanie replied and everyone made they're way home after that.

--

The boy then opened his eyes once more. They contained shock and confusion, but also a hint of unfamiliarity. He sat up and coughed out some excess blood that did not taste well. The first thoughts that came to him were, 'Where the fuck am I?'

He put an arm to the wall and clutched his throat. 'Holy hell, it felt like I was drowning for a second. Blood?' He felt the dry blood on his throat and looked around him.

'An alley? There's so much graffiti.' He slightly calmed down but was still confused.

'Where even am I?' He removed his hand off the wall and kept his other hand on his throat as if he feared something would happen if he didn't keep it there.

He looked around once more at the colorful graffiti around him. But for some reason, everything seemed off, as if he were on the cusp on discovering something. An old habit of his kicked in as he bit his lip in frustration and excitement.

It's the type of frustration that makes you want to try again and again. The excitement that came was one of someone about to discover something new or even something that could change his life. So, he then formed a smile.

With his now red eyes, it seemed as if he were a predator staring at his prey, and he was. He stared at the door of graffiti and reached a hand out. 'This seems so out of place, but at the same time...' His hair started to glow a transient blue and his eyes seemed to pierce through the veil of this 'Door'.

His hand went deeper beyond the wall and touched the handle of the door made of graffiti. As he did, a light blue screen appeared beside him with constant 1s and 0s. He pulled open the door and disappeared into code as he entered a new world.

--

He had closed his eyes in order to prevent the bright light from blinding them. But as he opened them, he saw lines of code. No, he saw much more than that, he saw an uncountable amount of 1s, 0s, code and color.

But what truly caught his attention was the window in front of him. It greeted him with the most basic code and words that a programmer would know.

[Hello World]

A smile formed onto his face as he then spoke aloud.

"I truly am in a new world, no an entirely different universe!" His red eyes shone with a light blue hue, creating a light that basically scanned all the data around him.

He then quickly stopped as he then came to a thought. 'I should confirm who I am first before I do anything drastic.' He quickly arranged his thoughts and a smile formed.

'Okay, this place is called Punklorde, a place where data, reality and the such bend and form into a place. This boy, what a sad life, his name was Ezekiel. No last name and no family to speak of.' The new possessor of the body summed up the memories and data he gathered.

The man was named Kyle Schantive. In his previous life he was the worlds best programmer and hacker. He made games and cheated in them with a different account to fix errors. He was so anonymous that not even the governments of several countries could catch him. He died because he let his guard down and got assassinated from an old contact from his youth. When he died, he didn't have any regrets because he's been living on the high life ever since he made his first game and accessed documents in the pentagon. But because of this... he became quite the chuni.

He opened his eyes once again and stared at the screen that said [Hello World] in front of him. 'The reason I can see this right now is cause the kid got some special eyes. Dunno what they're called though.' He shrugged and tapped onto the screen, which cleared the worlds and asked for a name, or really, an [Alias].

'I'm not Ezekiel and I don't care for my old life anymore. Let's see...' He looked around the data space and then began to wander.

Instead of a data space, it was more akin to a sea or even ocean. It was an endless stream of data that continuously kept changing, moving, adapting and evolving. It was beautiful and hypnotizing. He then came across a type of reflective surface within this endless ocean and he finally got a good look of his appearance.

His physical looks made him look both male and female. His eyes were a deep crimson despite the blood drying up and this not being physically possible. His hair went up to his neck and it was black on the outside, but inside it was a light blue like the surface of water. He wore a navy blue jacket that seemed way to big for him and jeans that made it even harder for him to distinguish his gender if it weren't for him clearly feeling the man downstairs.

'Man, I straight up look like a trap.' He learned many things in his time of game development. Making a male look like a female is clearly one of them. 'I kinda like this look though.' He thought as he twirled his finger through ab it of his hair next to his ear.

He then looked at the screen again and then back towards his reflection.

[Crimson Butterfly]

/ED Note/

Cringe.