A grace to grass story

CLACK CLACK

Sounds of rapid typing came from a lavish one-person bedroom that had rays of early sunlight streaming in, illuminating the contents of the room; a bed, bedside table and a desktop table as the only furniture.

The room was still very large though, hence leaving large amounts of spaces in the room, with the door and the table almost 10 meters apart.

There was only one person living in this large house that could contain a family of five.

A young man sat in front of a computer screen tapping animatedly at a keyboard with his right hand and maneuvering a joystick with his other hand.

He was trying out a popular video game that kids his age were apparently into these days while looking at the wall clock every now and then, in the middle of gunfire sounds.

a first person shooter game. The game combined elements of a battle royale with the ability to construct in-game walls in every direction from harvested materials.

Right now he was in his second run of the game and he found the game very interesting. At least the part where he harvested materials to construct bunkers and so. He'd spent the last game exploring that function and paid the price for it.

He'd been cornered in his own house by five people! His ending was truly miserable…

He'd spent his short 1-second deliberating on which of them to shoot at and had ended up only releasing one shot at their leader, only for the guy to pick up a health kit from the floor. He didn't want to play anymore, sniff.

His avatar as a dark-skinned man with a cyperpunk look was walking while crouching; he'd heard some gunfire sounds transmitted through his headset and was going to see If he could 'win the lottery'.

But suddenly he heard some gunfire sounds from behind him and started seeing red.

Just as he thought, 'I'm being hunted! Respond!' and turned around to find the shooter at light speed, but alas, the enemy's armament must have been of a higher quality and he died within 2 seconds since the shooting started.

The replay started showing but Amadi wasn't interested in looking at it. He wasn't really invested in the game. Even before he lost twice…

Standing up and dusting his hooded clothes almost habitually, he picked up his phone and checked for a particular message only to drop it back with slight disappointment, but not before sending a message inquiring his friend's whereabouts as their schedule was already messed up by now.

"Didn't they say they had 'something special' for me today? What's taking those guys so long?" he said, asking himself but eventually chalking it up to Lagos traffic.

'Sigh, if they wanted to take someone out they should have made plans for the traffic- let's just do something else to kill time' he thought to himself

He sat back down on his chair that had only ever been used for gaming today, and logged onto a browser on his high performance PC to look for something new and fun to do.

He'd been too busy working almost every hour of the day, every day of the week, only brushing up on some online classes every once in a while.

His bros had joked about how he didn't know anything apart from work and study all these years… that was the main reason for them taking him out today on his birthday

It was a great idea on text but when the time came for text to turn to reality those guys were nowhere to be found.

Anyways, he searched online for something to do to kill time…

Then he found numerous suggestions such as gaming- but he didn't feel like going back since the fate of noobs like him was only to serve as free kills to the strong.

He came across a random suggestion; Meet strangers online? Sure why not.

He clicked on the site and was pleasantly surprised when it opened up without having to put his personal info; well he was going to lie anyways.

The interface opened smoothly [Matching you with a stranger…]

[Chat room formed.]

[Participants; You, Sarah G]

[The conversation is private and will not be monitored-] Amadi saw a bunch of other notifications like that that he didn't bother to read.

He was using a VPN anyways so the odds of him being tracked was, zero.

It was just the two strangers in the chat, very soon the first message from the one called Sarah G. came up

[Oh hello, nice to meet you]

He didn't know what he was looking for in this awkward situation but he was committed to staying calm and disregarding his lessened expectations [Hi. Nice to meet you too]

'How awkward'

[This chat was apparently supposed to lead me to my destined one…you.]

"Well, he said it. Didn't he say it?" he bragged to no one in particular, before relaxing back in his chair.

This day was already going downhill before he met some internet snake oil peddler. What's he going to ask me to buy, let's see? Also this was most likely a Guy In Real Life(G/I/R/L)

[Could be next random stranger? XD] he used a laughing emoticon to give the person a last chance to pass it off as a joke.

The next reply came in quicker.

[No, the fate reading said it was only the 'first' person that I meet through the link… so face it, me and you are fated~] the message said assuredly convincing of the owner's childish nature.

"Who believes in stuff like 'fate'?" Amadi didn't consider himself a pagan. He'd briefly been introduced to Christianity by someone who took him in when he was younger but it never went past basic information about Christianity.

It had a perfectly believable backstory and plotline, but fate? The theories he's read were all over the place. Nobody seemed to agree on anything except the randomness of it all

[Anyways, I come from Nigeria, what about you] these chats were 100% random, which meant finding a fellow countryman was rare, but not impossible. The key point is that less than 0.0001% o so Nigerians believed in fate. He'd be hard pressed to find a traditional worshipper online.

[I come from Elon]

[I assure you dear, you've never heard of it~] Just as I was about to reply a message came in causing me to cancel what I'd already typed.

It was getting increasingly harder to keep this conversation going.

[Why 'dear'?] I asked, feeling mildly repulsed.

[Because our hearts are connected~]

Okay. It was at this moment Amadi decided to quietly excuse himself

[One of my friends has a birthday celebration coming up so I'll be leaving to attend it. Bye] I typed holding onto the mouse and shifting it towards the end chat button.

[Oh, happy birthday bby (cute emoji)]

'Who is this creep' Amadi thought. He thought he didn't have anything in his stomach to retch considering that he hadn't eaten, but still…his intestines seemed t be detachable today

"Simply, wow" he never thought I'd meet someone so shameless in the same line of work as me. Is this platform only filled with people like this?

Amadi decided to end this. This was shaping up to be a horrible birthday.

"Maybe I should have just worked today?" he was contemplating fixing his broken no-off-day streak before another message came in.

[Don't you think you've already worked enough?]

'That's odd' until now the messages went in a back-and-forth manner, at least until the guy on the other end started speaking gibberish.

'Could it have been a voice call, too?' he thought

Meanwhile he typed [I won't stop working, I need to feed a bunch of kids I picked off the street]

["..."] speechless.jpg

[It's not my birthday] he tried to phrase it in a joking matter, but meanwhile he was freaking out deep down.

[Sigh, it's only now you're noticing something is off…?]

He was shocked? What else could he have missed? He reread the entire chat window again. Nothing.

[When I said 'link', you must have mistaken it to be a type of link that exists over there. But this link I formed isn't only through your screen, but also through you. Our hearts are linked]

[Then why don't I feel it?]

[You will, but later. It was troublesome observing you all the way from Elon, but I've decided to make you my…. Eighth husband! Or a close friend who knows how things will work out after a date…

'How do I bring another person over I wonder…' he heard her ponder.

Holding his palm to his head he began contemplating what was going on. This G.I.R.L- no, a real girl, had sought him out on what was supposed to be a random call. There was only one explanation.

"A hacker, or someone supernatural"

[The second one]

He'd been hacked once, almost tracked down by CIA. Luckily, the power shut off at that predestined moment…

[What are you then?]

[You should never ask a woman what she really is!]

It was at this moment the car of his friend was heard parking in the driveway outside.

[I'm going, then.]

'Wait, he might really die if he goes like this'

"What" he only realized he could now hear an extra voice in his heard apart from his own. The only logical explanation was that it was the weird girl who claimed that their hearts were connected. Sigh

At this moment he could be seen lamenting while holding his head in his hands "A random conversation? 'Why not,' he said" he lamented openly 'Now look at how much 'fun' he was having

The sound of keys in the door could be heard, it was only his employees that had the key so it was okay.

[It's your birthday right? This is your gift]

Following what seemed like a hurriedly typed sentence, a file quickly appeared for download

[You don't want the gift?] the screen showed.

[This is the gift] he decided to type out

[Yes, it's a very powerful tool. I would have sent the complete package over except the amount of power needed to do that would be more than I could handle. What I sent you is the base version. The price is a bit expensive, but you need to pay and open it immediately.

You will soon be sent to a place where I cannot reach you, your mission will be to establish a connection using the gift I sent you, goodluck!]

[Chat ended]

He quickly downloaded the file watching it go from 0 to 60 to 100 in a few seconds

"Emeka! You guys wait for me, I'm coming down"

After saying that he clicked on the file and noticed that it came in an unknown format known as '.sys'. the name of the file was R-CS.sys and it took up a whole 500mb.

He clicked on it to open and it led him to a screen asking me how much him wanted to pay; 10%, half or everything.

In the spur of male bravado, he decided to pay the entire thing at once. That's right, his thought process was probably; 'there's no way I don't have enough money. When the pay screen comes up I'll transfer over all the money it needs, let's not pinch pennies.

But that was a mistake

DING

It was a message from his phone, and it wasn't the one he was expecting from his friend Emeka.

[Debit Alert; $50,020]

"JESUS CHRIST!"

[Debit Alert; $50,021]

[Debit Alert; $50,070]

[Debit Alert; $50,050]

[Debit Alert; $50,120]

Slide down to see more notifications^

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO WHAT THE F*CK" he said frightened, as debit alerts kept on coming in.

Too bad, that wasn't all!

He was also receiving alerts from his PayPal, TrustWallet, Crypto Accounts, Forex Accounts, Stocks and all!

As for how anyone was capable of performing an action when the stock market was closed for the day, he didn't give a sh*t about it!

He was about to type a plea to stop whatever the stranger was doing, even calling them his baby if he had to, before he noticed something else happening.

A stream of translucent dots started leaving his phone, the watch he was wearing and were coming from all over the house!

"What now?" he went over and observed the window of his bedroom, only realizing that the pixels were coming from outside.

Looking out the window he saw all the cars parked outside which belonged to his friends that just came becoming digitalized too.

"I'm dead" he didn't even have strength anymore. He walked back to the computer that was still strangely intact along with the desk and his living room door along with the floor.

It bore a certain resemblance in the way that trees were harvested for materials to build things in that game. The streams of pixels seemed that stemmed from his wealth and high value belongings seemed to be harvested, just like the game he was playing earlier.

'Harvesting building materials? What for?'

It could be using his hard earned money to do anything!

Five minutes later

A glowing screen appeared on the system

[Warning! Once installed, the system will transmigrate the host over to where the calling is strongest. Do you wish to go?]

"I wish for my money back, sniff, sniff"

[Affirmative response detected]

"Can I still have the money?" he asked with renewed hope

[Warning! Threat of death elevated to 20%]

"Give me money or give me death!"* he shouted

At that moment the door burst open revealing five men of considerable bulk, all wearing ski masks and holding ammunition rifles.

"You, come with us"

Without wasting time Amadi quickly clicked on the button to open the file. Before the people could react sounds of war drums could be heard, causing the entire room to shake and dust to fall from the ceiling

"Blood of Jesus!" Amadi, already expecting 'something' to happen was more restrained, feeling a little shocked, but the intruders who were there were frightened that the entire house was shaking as if it was going to collapse!

Amadi even recognized the voice that shouted out. It was his good friend and employee Emeka!

"What is happening" Chisom

"Shit" Madu

…

When the shaking subsided he found that the area he was in had changed.

He was currently standing in a huge cavern made of stone and in the middle of a ritual circle.

Suddenly he started hearing incomprehensible murmurs from around him; it turned out that the room was filled to the brim with people of all ages, wearing ethnic garb. They all eyed him with a mix of excitement, fear and shock.

There was a strange man wearing a white circle drawn around his right eye and holding a staff made of a tree branch looking over while stroking his chin with his free hand.

"M'mesua up…"*

"What?"

"My king, what should we do to the others" he spoke towards a middle aged man who was well dressed and wearing a traditional crown.

The man had been observing the proceedings from an elevated platform, along with two women, five boys and one girl.

The man looked me in the eyes and stared coldly before breaking out in a warm smile.

"He's the one" he spoke with a hint of pride

'Who?' Amadi clearly saw him point in my direction.

All of a sudden the people that were around us broke into cheers

Each of them chanting different sentences until finally, as if agreeing on one of them started "The fifth prince"

"The fifth prince"

"The fifth prince"

'This is my nightmare'

"Emeka, where are we now?"

"Omo…"

Then I looked over my shoulder to see five other figures that came along with me.

***

"Give me liberty or give me death" a famous quote from…French revolution??

Mess-up…- An exclamation for "Fuck up", or "I fucked up"