If I didn’t have a headset on I would have been rubbing my sore bloodshot eyes but sitting in a virtual class while in an old ripped up leather chair isn’t too bad. Last night was hell, the sounds of gunfire weren’t uncommon but it never made it easier to deal with. Of course I had to put that past me as I was in class, well not exactly in class, but in the OASIS in class. My avatar mirroring me, slumped in a chair listening to something I’m never going to use. I just wanted to go do anything else. As a gunter anytime I wasn’t searching or making progress to the first key I felt like someone was and getting ahead of me. I was so far into my own thoughts I didn’t even hear the bell and it took a slap on the back of the head by some random student to bring me back. Of course since school was a no PVP zone: it didn’t hurt or inflict damage but I still felt it and recognized it.
Going outside the school I was bored and too tired to go hunting so I went to The COD(Call Of Duty) Zone. It was the biggest respawn shooter world, the whole appeal is you got a completely separate inventory system here called loadouts. In the rest of the OASIS if you died in a PVP zone you lost all of your possessions but here progress was saved. Call Of Duty was huge before the OASIS and it was the first big time game franchise to move to the OASIS. I was pretty good at it as it was mostly reflex and reaction time which was one of the few things I actually had going for me. It was mindless fun and I enjoyed it for the few hours I killed after school. I was still dead tired though so I decided to just pack it in.
After logging out and taking the headset off I caught a glimpse of myself in a broken window in the van I used as a hide out. It was always a harsh reality check that I looked nothing like my avatar in the end. I peeked outside to see through the smog covered sky the faint outline of the sun low down in the sky, I didn’t want to go home but I was starving and rolling the dice on the appearance of food was worth it. Somehow every day I manage to lumber around the mountains of trash between my hideout and my stack. Clambering up the makeshift ladders to my stack always left me in a pile of sweat and out of breath. The muffled grumbling from inside was a hint I was going to have to be creative to get some food...
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