Chapter 005.5 - Interlude I

Interlude I: "Kira's Life"

April 4th in the real world...

"Is Brandon still on that dumb game of his?" asked Brandon and Kira's mother, who seemed very fed up with her son.

"I'm not really sure, but I figure that he still is. He just got it like a day ago so I don't blame him for wanting to play it so much." replied Kira, her daughter, who was trying her best to sympathize and connect with her brother, as her mother never attempted to do such a thing. While Kira saw nothing wrong with Brandon's, or Bran as she liked to call him, hobby of virtual reality video games, her mom saw differently; she saw his almost excessive use of such technology as nothing but a waste of time to distract him from actual important things taking place in the real world. However, he still managed to get good grades, make friends, and go outside once in a blue moon, so she felt that there was nothing she could morally do to stop him.

"Anyways, where are you heading to?" asked her mom just as Kira was about to walk out of the front door.

"I'm going to the mall with Lily."

"Remember, Kira, be--" started her mom before Kira cut her off with a most likely purposefully audible sigh.

"Yes, I know mom, I'll be safe." she said right before she exited the house to prevent her mom from saying anything else that would end up making her even more late.

Although her mom didn't know at the time, there was actually a very specific reason that Kira and her girlfriend were going to the mall; they were going to buy the VRMMORPG known as Fabula Quest.

Once Kira finally arrived at the mall, she waited at the central lobby as she had promised Lily, although Lily was nowhere to be seen. After only about a minute, Lily finally ended up at the central lobby.

"Looks who's late!" giggled Kira as she covered her mouth with her palm in an attempt to hide her hysterical laughter, but her attempt was very unsuccessful.

"Actually, you were just one minute early!" angrily grumbled Lily, although Kira was able to tell by now that the face she was currently making was her jokingly upset face, so she didn't have to wonder to herself if she had accidentally offended Lily.

After the two laughed together for a bit, they finally began to walk upstairs to the video game store, where the front window predominantly displayed Fabula Quest, as well as telling so much information about it that it was hard to process. As they entered the store crammed with shelves and people, they were greeted by loud rock music from decades ago that was so prominent in Kira's ears that it was impossible to drown out with the countless sounds coming from machines and people.

"Maybe we should have got this online like you suggested." admitted Kira while her shoulders were sulking.

"Ha, you finally admitted that I was right for once!" laughed Lily, almost as enthusiastically as Kira had before they entered the store.

By the time they had eventually stopped giggling to themselves, the line for the check-out counter had shortened significantly, so they picked up a copy of Fabula Quest from a shelf and brought it to the person working the cash register.

"Alright, that'll be $80!" said the cashier as they attempted their best to replicate a natural smile.

"Geez, $80? Games have gotten really expensive over the years" replied Kira. While she was in shock for quite some time, she eventually came to the terms that due to the drastic increase of cost for developing video games for a virtual reality device, the price of the game itself must be higher in order for the game developer to make any money.

Kira thanked the cashier, took the game, and went back to her house. Once home and after convincing her mom to allow her to play the game, she decided to call Lily, even though they had just been together less than 10 minutes ago. This was because she had one major question that refused to leave her mind.

"So, when we were at the store, why didn't you end up getting the game?" asked Kira.

"Well, it was on sale online, so I decided to just get it that way instead." replied Lily. This caused Kira to be filled with nothing but genuine rage.

"What!? It was on sale and you didn't tell me!?" she screamed into her phone, most likely too loud for the phone to process all of the noise that came out of her mouth. This outburst caused her to calm down a bit, shown by her now natural skin tone as opposed to her previously rage-filled reddened face, but she was still extremely upset about not being informed of the sale going on online.

Kira and Lily continued talking about the game on the phone until it eventually became late and they both accidentally had fallen asleep while still on the call, causing the phone to force the phone call to be hung up automatically.