Strange Sounds

By the time Aran returned back to the basement, it was already way past midnight.

He has done everything to convince his mum to go to sleep, only for her to finally agree when she could no longer keep her eyes wide open without dozing off her chair.

The moment he got back to his room, he headed straight for his computer. 

He was already used to sleeping for a few hours in the morning, which was why he had every intention of continuing where he left off.

But one look at his screen and he knew he wouldn't be able to play through the night and all through the morning.

"Thirteen percent? I'm going to kill Harun for sending me such a useless game," Aran groaned, before unwillingly making his way to his bed, one of the cleanest areas in his room in the basement.

He thought it would take longer to fall asleep but the second his head hit the pillow, Aran instantly dozed off.

By the time he woke up, it was already noon. With anticipation, he ran to his computer and was more than delighted to see that the game was done loading.

He didn't bother taking his bath and simply ordered a pizza, more coffee, and other packs of noodles that he might later need.

In seconds, he was sitting in front of his computer with his gamepad in his hand. Without checking or confirming whether or not his gaming friend Harun was online. 

He quickly logged into the game.

[The Coming Zombie Apocalypse]

"THAT is a weird name for a game," Aran muttered under his breath, right before he began the tutorial. But first, he had to upload a picture of his face.

He expected to be given a range of weapons to destroy the zombies that were bound to attack him but all he got were hovering red signs that appeared in front of him.

[Warning: You can only pick one sign while alive]

"Duhh…" Aran sighed, going ahead to pick the elephant sign. Watching in slight surprise as his skinny character suddenly tripled in size, and his lean body of his character became muscled and bulky.

"I guess this game is going to be somewhat fun," Aran thought, diving right into the offline game and abandoning all else like he usually did.

Aran played for hours only taking toilet and food breaks when he absolutely needed to before going back to the game.

Time passed in a blur, as it usually did for him and since he got no messages from Harun, he simply assumed that he was still busy running errands for his mom.

His goal was to finish the offline game and win, especially since the last mission he got was to get rid of not only the strongest zombie bosses but to also rule the new apocalyptic world.

"By the time, Harun comes back, I would have finished the game," Aran thought stomping around the game proudly with his new strength-induced powers.

Days went by with him, losing in between and starting from his most recently saved game, yet he continued to play even though he kept on losing to other players who were not only stronger than him, but who he was convinced were using cheats he didn't know about.

"These dip-shits, how can she be that fast, what goddam sign did she get?" Aran cursed under his breath forgetting everything else as he stared angrily at his computer screen before reaching for the last slice of pizza that had been on the table in front of him.

The moment he was done eating it, he also grabbed a bottle of water. But as much as wanted to continue his game, he suddenly realized that he was completely out of food. 

Aran was used to eating junk food but he also barely ate it, going as far as to forget to eat sometimes which was the reason for his skinny appearance compared to other gamers who became chubby from eating and sitting all day without exercise.

"Shitt…" he cursed under his breath glancing at the time, only to discover that it was around three in the morning and there was no way he could order anything until the next day.

"Finee…I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning," Aran thought, walking back to sit in front of his computer, to continue playing for as long as he could until he won.

By the time morning fully came, Aran was still lightly drooling on his keyboard, fast asleep. There were no windows for him to determine the difference between night and day so what he usually used was his alarm which he made sure to set for ten in the morning, regardless of when he fell asleep.

By the time he was fully awake after snoozing his alarm more than five times, it was a few minutes to eleven and the hunger in his belly could no longer be ignored.

As usual, he picked up his phone to order his food for the week considering the fact he was out of everything including the snacks he stored for emergencies. 

He knew he had about thirty minutes before he would hear the knock of the delivery person at the side door that led from the basement to outside the house. In the meantime, Aran decided to take his bath, avoiding the temptuous call from his computer to continue playing games.

He was just stepping out of the bathroom, after taking his bath as quickly as he could,  when he heard a sudden noise against the door of the basement that led to the main house.

"Xana?" He lightly called out wondering why his brother would bother knocking on the door, especially since they would rather die than visit him in the basement,

"Klarina?" He again called out, calling the name of his only sister, Xana's twin who he rarely saw,

"That's weirdd…I could have sworn someone was knocking against the door," Aran said out loud, talking to himself right before going ahead to dress up as fast as he could, putting the noise out of his mind to continue his game.

Ten minutes later he was back at his computer but he had barely spent another ten minutes playing when his stomach rumbled out of hunger.

It continued to do so and by the third time, Aran had been on a losing streak and could no longer concentrate on the game.

After calling and leaving numerous messages without getting an answer, Aran decided to check around to see how close he was.

"Of all days for the delivery person to decide to be slow," Aran groaned, finally getting up from his chair and making his way to the side door of the basement that directly led to the front of the house.

"I'm starving," Aran loudly complained to no one in particular as he made his way to the door, rubbing his stomach as he moved.