Dive

Jason thought over his lack of communication skills throughout his test, nearly missing out on several questions due to his lack of concentration.

He only stopped thinking about it when it was time to hand in his paper for marking, and even then it was only brief. 

"That was hell, how are you meant to find any of that? Who thought of putting letters on shapes in maths, 'cause I'd like to have a word." Eric began raving to him as soon as he was allowed to.

"If you ever find him, can you kick his arse for me as well, normally I can handle maths quite well but...I shudder to think about what my marks for that will be." A tall dark-haired boy from the left of Jason chimed in.

"You can say that one again Paul, jeez I feel like my head's been put through a cheese grater." Jason made exaggerated shows of pain, making Eric chuckle under his breath.

"Come on then, it's time for science," Paul said while standing up from his chair.

The rest of the school day felt like a blur to Jason, nothing feeling significant in any way, if he hadn't been running for his life earlier he would have written the day off as being just like any other.

"You on tonight or do we have to 3 stack again?" Eric asked him as he was about to leave the school gates.

"I may be on, I'll see what my mum wants and if I have free time to myself, I've got homework and the like." Jason's response was met with a disapproving look, but he was coming up with excuses so that he could have time to study Apocalypse Runner more so that he wouldn't be caught off-guard like last time.

The walk back home wasn't long, but normally it would be enough that he would go back to his room to lie on his bed for an hour before tea, not that it was the walk's fault, it was usually just being in school that would slowly drain his energy.

"You home mum?"

He waited for a response which, when it failed to materialise, sent him into his usual zombie state where he would trudge himself upstairs to fall asleep without even taking his clothes off, it was an institution of the house by now.

`Shame sis isn't here, I need to give her a right...I don't know, maybe I should fill her bed with spiders again, nah she'd be expecting that, wait, what if I set up all of her dolls in a way that made her room seem haunted, a perfect plan.` He couldn't hide the smile that had formed across his face.

While he was plotting ways to torture his sister his autopilot mode had taken him directly to his bed ready for him to jump in and catch some rest, but today he had decided to forgo tradition for the sake of his honour and also his survival.

It took him fifteen minutes to disassemble and reassemble his sister's room, but when he left it even he felt a chill down his back and he had been the one to set it up.

`That's the first issue dealt with, now to do some research.` 

"Runney, come here I want to go through the system by myself."

Like magic Runney appeared from his bedroom and transformed himself into a fluorescent panel of light displaying the same information as last time, except now he had an ability listed.

Skills: Disguise (I)

Equipment: 

`That's depressing, absolutely nothing in my inventory, and the skill that I have doesn't really help in anything other than running away, and even in that it doesn't help until I've actually managed to get away.` He was slightly angry at the hand he had been dealt, but he knew that it was mostly up to his own inaction that he was presumably so weak.

`Next time I'll be ready and I'll take full advantage of the loot drops.`

He scrolled through to another section of the system called the store which held several thousand items for purchase with differing kinds of currency, from U.S dollars to Russian Rubles. 

`Moonlight sword, potion of strength, magic book, when I get money this will be worth scrolling through, although the prices are a bit high, $700 for a single book on beginner magic seems a little excessive.`

When further scrolling down proved fruitless he swiped to the left revealing another tab that was titled "Apocalypses" and the very first app-like popup was the zombie apocalypse that he had been sent to earlier that day.

`So I can enter it again whenever I want by tapping the red join button, but what does the letter next to it have to do with anything?` Right next to the picture of the world was the letter C which had a silver texture plastered on top of it.

2 Swipes to the right revealed the chatroom that he had received Lucy's message, which made a thought cross his mind.

`Let me see what Runney wrote to her, just in case.`

JAS - Hi Lucy it's Runney, Jason had no idea how to respond to your text so he put me up to the task, he's also at school and will contact you when he gets home.

`It could have been worse, but him putting words into my mouth rubs me the wrong way for some reason, oh well, he set up a great opportunity for me and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.`

He started typing furiously, not quite finding the right words that he wanted to use which began to start sending him up the wall, but he eventually gave up and sent a message that had the gist of what he wanted to get across.

JAS - Sorry for taking a while to get back to you, school was a bit of a pain, anyway I was thinking about going back into that zombie world to find more loot, do you want to come with me or am I doing it alone?

While he thought that the ending sounded a bit manipulative he hoped that she wouldn't interpret it like that.

After that, the time that he would have normally spent asleep had already passed which meant that it was time to have a shower, he didn't close the system as he took his clothes of and got into the steaming hot shower that he had let run for a few minutes to get up to the heat that he enjoyed.

*Ding*

As he was about to step in he got a notification from Lucy, which he eagerly checked to see if she had agreed to join him.

LUC - I'll join you, but you're going to have to wait until 11.00 tonight since my schedule's pretty packed.

"Hmm hmm hmmmm hmmm hmm"

He was happy enough to start humming a tune in the shower, a thing he rarely did anymore because of his sister's constant teasing.

`I guess I should check the shop out some more while I'm in here, maybe there'll be something that I'm able to afford in there, although looking at the average price for things I doubt that a fiver is going to afford anything other than maybe a single peanut.`

Luckily for him, there was a filter button that allowed for viewing of the cheapest products currently on sale.

` That's not too bad, maybe a bit pricey but a sword for £50, even if it's made of what seems to be a very low-quality metal, or the book next to it for $54.23 which seems to have a skill that it can give to the user.`

The variety of low-cost items was limited, they were usually bottom-of-the-barrel low-quality items that would probably bring very little benefit in an actual survival situation.

Ten minutes of scrolling later and he was ready to leave the shower, completely refreshed and ready for tomorrow as much as he could be, all he needed now was to eat and he would be set until 11 PM.

`It's already five and mum isn't back yet, I wonder if she said if she had anything on, oh yeah she won't be back until 7 so I have the house to myself unless Cath walks in and ruins my home alone time.`

The first thing he did was get changed into a spare set of clothes before heading downstairs to get the microwaveable meal that had been left in the fridge for him which he slurped down after the 10 minutes it took to cook.

After he ate he ran back up to his room where he would stay for the rest of the night, setting an alarm for 11 to make sure that he didn't forget about his arrangement, he proceeded to play games until it was time for him to get ready for bed, his mum having came back and his sister still nowhere to be seen.

He glanced at his clock which read the time as 10.58 which annoyed him since he had tried to time it perfectly so that he would be in bed by the time he had to dive into the apocalypse again.

`Whatever, I'll just go in a little early and wait for her where we left off.` He pressed on the relevant picture which now had a C+ next to it and felt the same drowsiness that he had felt in the morning.

When he opened his eyes he found himself in the exact same area as when he had left, the sun was high in the sky beaming light onto the activity-less world below, and there was no one left on the rooftop with him

"Where did everyone...go?" He asked himself as he gazed at the packed streets below.