Family - 1

<Aurora's (Sister's) POV>

Winter was acting weird.

His answer to my usual wake up was weird.

Well, the first thing that was weird was the fact that he had woken up before I came into the room.

The second thing was that he wasn't in the slightest bit irritated with me as I barged into his room.

And the third thing was his answer, quiet and shaky, an acceptance at that.

Honestly, I was wondering if he was plotting something.

I just hoped that he wouldn't get in trouble again, after all, he had hurt all of us enough.

But then, I noticed that he had for some reason turned around.

Leaning slightly, I caught a glimpse of one of his eyes.

I gaped in shock.

There were tears pouring out of it.

I ran out of his room and jumped in my bed, burying my face in my pillow as I thought hard.

'What the fuck did I just see?'

...

<Winter's POV>

Finally noticing my tears after 10 minutes of just sitting there, I hurriedly cleaned myself up before opening my doors.

Taking my time to absorb it all in, I descended down 5 floors. Finally reached the ground floor, I entered the dining hall and was met with the image of my whole family together again.

Right there and then, I wanted to hug each of them and cry in their arms, but I held it all in and sat in my chair at the family table.

"Winter, what do you want?" Asked my dad in a tired, weary tone.

At this point, my whole body was trembling, trying to hold in my tears, so I just kept quiet and shoved some food in my mouth.

Slowly chewing the food, my eyes widened.

I had never tasted something so tasty in my whole life.

And, whether it was because of how good the food tasted, how I was so emotionally unstable right now, or if it was a combination of the both, I unintentionally let a singular tear escape the eyelid of one of my eyes.

I knew they were staring at me, shocked and stolen of their words, as they watched me eat the food with that singular tear slowly falling down my cheek, but I didn't pay attention and started savoring each and every spoon of the delicious food.

It was at that moment that I made a vow to never take my food and family for granted ever again.

"A-are you okay?" Asked my mom.

"I-I'm f-fine." I managed to croak out, before suddenly pushing my chair away from the table and running up to my room before slamming my door and burying my face into my pillow.

Already at the point of no return, I let all of my emotions out and into my pillow, letting my tears stain the pillow as they cleared the way for my future.

...

After crying for a few minutes (it definitely wasn't a few hours) I finally got it in me to check the date.

Turning my phone on, I found out after a quick glance that today was the day that one of the first platinum grade gaming capsules, fresh off the conveyor belt, would be installed in my room.

Riding along with the platinum grade gaming capsule would be the opportunity to beta test the EDEN.

Realizing that I needed to take every single opportunity that I could get, I sat at my desk and started planning out what I would do immediately after entering the game.

Trying to fit as many valuable opportunities as possible into the schedule, I kept referencing back to all those articles I had read about the history of EDEN when I had free time as a slave, having a strange fascination with it as I wanted to learn everything I could about the entity that destroyed my life.

I was so absorbed in my work that I never noticed that there had been somebody looking over my shoulder for the past 30 minutes.

"That won't work, there's too much to do in too little time."

Hearing a voice from behind me, I instinctively whipped my head around whilst closing my notebook.

"I already saw everything, so you can't really hide much."

Seeing that it was my sister, I just didn't know what to say.

"What are you doing?" She asked curiously, the usual cold tone that she used with me nowhere to be heard.

"Nothing." I replied with the most generic answer possible.

Unfazed by my answer, Aurora continued,

"Well then, just know that you won't ever be able to do all of that with those time stamps you have, change your approach."

Saying her piece, she then left the room and I was once again left with my thoughts.

Thinking about it, I did have to acknowledge that maybe I was being a little too ambitious, and so I started revising my plan.

Finally, as afternoon came, the gaming capsules were delivered to our house.

The first one the workers brought up was my sister's, so I had to just suppress my anxiety as much as possible.

Finally, right as they finished installing my capsule in my room, I ushered all the workers out and immediately locked my door.

Opening the capsule, I stared at the familiar inside, before comfortably getting in and pressing the right buttons without hesitation, not bothering to read the instructions.

I watched as the world turned dark, before a loading bar appeared out of the darkness.

Anxiously feeling the seconds tick by, I let my memory control my movements as I quickly passed through all the procedures to start the game.

In the end, the only thing that tripped me up were the legal forms, but I just scrolled past them and clicked the check boxes at the bottom as they would become obsolete in the future anyways.

Finally done with all the formalities, words started appearing on my screen as I found myself in a nostalgic situation.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of EDEN!"