Another statement: Since the rule breaking, I've changed some of the words in the story. So this is the re-post. Following chapters will be updated.
A little introduction to the story:
Although I started up writing this story (more like a journal, but don’t know if this could be called fan fiction) in late January, the idea first came to me when I read the news about Minecraft movie last year. When people announce a new film for a game I like, I have the hobby to think of my own version.Speaking of which, I do hope the movie could involve real life scene, but not just another world-saving kind of animation. Then a picture of a normal young lad who’s lying prone on a white sofa forms in front of my eye, and the first word that jumps up with it is: loneliness. Well, don’t go off track, I mean loneliness in the modern world that most of people are suffering.
As I went along the first chapter, another line unfurls. Why not base the story on my very own experience? There's no denial that Minecraft does no small part in one of the most memorable period in my life.
Discontinued and bittersweet, my gaming experience could get a little bit weird. I guess myself the least person you want to play with when it comes to multiplayer part or co-op mode. Therefore, I mix some of my feelings about playing video games into the story.
Of course, the movie Childhood and the ‘Let’s play’ series by Greg and Brian give me inspiration. But the story speaks the truth of me for a majority part(except for gender). It includes what had happened during my gaming with my family members and the thoughts that developed from the game and, my situation in current months. Instead of merely delivering them all out like a game journal, I cluster these elements into a story set in near future with an enhanced technology kind of a mixup of all gadgets we use for screen projections and orders-giving today.
Last but not least, English is not my mother tongue. If there’s any confusion comes up when you read the story, please let me know
And I'm really not good at giving names to the stories I've written...
Hope you enjoy the story
A statement: I only post the story in Ign as ‘chebriz’(this name has been used in other websites before I realize it, but this is the only place I use this handle) and the minecraftforum.net as ‘somanyquestions’.
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Under A Thousand Starry Nights
Chapter One
Blinking across the night sky, stars, around the skirt of the moon, wander by in an elegant calmness. Should it be summer’s night, when breezing wind resonates with chirpings of cicadas? Should it be with broad thick snow in desperate coldness under winter’s grip, or be above the endless view of sands with cactus and dried branches? Imagination revives and you fall into a bottomless pit.
But, Daryl doesn’t care much.
It’s his night sky, his moon and his stars. As he would remember, today should mark the 10th day since the establishment of his Sun Rise Kingdom – which he sat thinking for so long but finally turned to as the game started with him facing the rising sun. In fact, this magnificent name explains itself by a small wooden house looking forward the seashore. Fenced by cobbled walls, this 9-blocks-wide house has two stores- each were built by different colors of oat blanks- the first of which corners chest furnace and worktable, that’s what he had to endure for the very first day of survival. In this once dark and roofless house, he consumed the whole restless night, held up all his hope and wished the harm away. But it is right here, he lies down in the middle of his room, watching the starry sky projected to the ceiling passed by. And it is right here, for the first time, from the unfinished side of his house, he witnessed the wonderful view of sun rising against the tangerine light where three giant trees set upon the far horizon.
As time went, this floor becomes too low to jump and too small for the widened door, that’s when he started up stairs to the second floor, in which sits only a torch and a bed, while still with incomplete roof and walls. There’s no way he should give up the chance to take the thrill at the monsters that would wanders around when night falls, as well as the fascinating flower fields surrounding the house- which he deems as a lovely gift from the game and another reason for settling down on here. Along with other brands of flowers he ventures to pick in the dark forest, his front yard booms with colors.
He is satisfied, indeed, watching his house built one by one from almost nothing to a place that could secure him, a place more like a cottage with a small farmland he extended as backyard. This farmland always has three irregular rows of crops bursting up on new green and two blocks for a pumpkin. Soon as they go fully grown, he will enjoy the harvest by hearing the rustling voice and making the pumpkin into a light that can illuminate the nearby chicken pen. Looking up on the house again in pride, one day, he knows, it’s going to be a grandeurs fortress, with four stone towers at each side, and beautiful halls. Of course, a deep and wide moat filled with lava is needed to run around. However by now, due to limited sources, he temporarily replaces this with a placard in front of house that reads ‘Stay Away!’
A burst of knocking, fast but heavy, breaks in abruptly. It’s his mother, Samantha.
“Turn down the music.” Hands thwart across the breast, his mother orders. “Why you put all of your stuff to your sister’s room?”
“It’s just for a couple of hours, they hamper the screen projection.” He explains.
“Do you know she has to squeeze through them to her bed?” Her voice becomes stronger.
“I’m just helping you clean up this place, anyway” Daryl feels annoyed, he takes up the game controller and sits with his back to her.”Once I move out, she can put whatever she wants in my room. ”
“Whatever the excuse is, you have to put them back tomorrow. I don’t want to see Linda complaining her ‘evil brother’ again the very next morning. And don’t stay up too late!” Samantha shuts the door behind. She knows that Daryl won’t answer, it’s better to finish talking this like by her doing so first.
Several message boxes have piled down on the screen, with a slightly swing of his hand, an audio starts to play: ‘Hey, Daryl, I need a hand in building the city last time I told you about. If you got time, come join me. I’ve sent out…’ Didn’t wait till the audio plays through, he has already chosen ‘accept the invitation’. He does this almost every time when he recognizes the voice of his best friend, Charles, who first introduced this game to him two years ago.
“How’re you doing, buddy?” Soon as Daryl joins the game, he meets Charles’s greeting.
“Been doing okay. I guess.” Daryl answers.
“No, I can tell it both from your words and tone that you’re not okay. What’s going on?” Charles asks.
“Ugh… Same thing, you know, the graduation thesis. I’m completely clueless about it. Every time I face it, it’s like an ordeal. I don’t even like doing this kind of stuff.”
“Put yourself together, man. Feel the responsibility on your shoulder, the reputation of the whole video gamers is counting on you. Show the world: ‘Who says we are loser!’, and then ‘let’s get back to our games!’ ”
Daryl giggles. ”What about you? How’s your life in there?”
“It sucks, and it’s getting colder here.”
“Yeah, everything sucks.”
They jump up and down for putting or destroying blocks, sometimes they would stop to take a glimpse at their work and the halfway-built city unfolds beneath them, desolate and relics-like, but they own this world and the lovely monsters strolling without any lethality, although they would attack those who are naughty enough to stand in the way.
“Somehow I think they have consciousness.” Daryl says as a rabbit is staring him in the face.”They can speak but we just can’t hear them.”
“I have the same feeling.” Charles agrees “Last time when it’s turning dark, three Creepers and a skeleton showed up on each chair I just built minutes ago. And they turned around to look at me when I got there.”
“Whoa, that was creepy.”
“What do you think they are thinking about when they sometimes come by and set eyes on you?”
“I don’t know, maybe like ’this creature looks so ugly’ or ‘I’m going to smash you up in survival mode’.”
“I think creepers might say: ’Could you give me a hand?’”
“But when they look away after long time staring, you will feel kind of frustrated. All those assumptions were just in vain.”Daryl sighs.
“What if one of them attacks us now, just for once, things will be so different.”
“Look, the stupid skeleton is looking at the cake.”
For most of the time in game, they would spend ranting and venting, or share things they’ve encountered. They’ve sat watching the whole forest in fire, attacked each other after taming a group of wolves, opened villagers’ doors when zombies around and laughed how snowmen shoot snowballs and miss their target. The feeling of happiness is just as fresh as it was ten years ago, when Charles hadn’t moved away, and both of them still cared much about their role in pretending soldiers and generals.
“What will happen if somebody dies? I mean if he or she is a player, what to do with their saves in this game?” Charles raises this long-concealed question in his mind.
Daryl thinks for a while and says: “It’s like you stop playing the game, saves will be kept automatically. Probably just kept in somewhere, forever.”
“That sucks. Who’s going to feed my wolves? And my crops, I have to harvest them.”
“Don’t worry, before that I will blow up your house and take all of your stuff.”
“What do you think your parents will do if you die?”
“The first thing they do must be throwing the game projector out into the garbage, or sell it… No! I can’t accept this.”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What’s that?” Daryl feels uneasy at Charles’s grim voice.
“If, I mean if, one day, I die. Could you help me accomplish building this city?”
“Nothing’s going to happen, okay? Come on! ‘Charles The Tough Guy’, eh? Remember how you fought with higher
grade students for those collection cards?”
“Bad things happen. Every day people die accidentally, even when you’re just sitting in the house playing a video game.”
“When do you become so emotional?” Daryl can’t understand.
“You’ll know when you’re living in a place where there’s not a one you want to trust…” But all of a sudden, Charles bursts into laughter. “Ha-ha! Look at you! Stupid! I was kidding.”
“How dare you, Charles. ” Daryl chuckles, “But that’s a good question, and I’ll say yes to that.”
“Well, I have to go now. 3 o’clock, I need some sleep. Either way, if you want, just give me a call. I can share a bed, a beer mug. If you come now, I can share the influenza with you.”
“We’ll see about that, and take care.”
After Charles leaves, screens on the wall have swiftly faded into white as Daryl calls up several files, each of which has been filled with pages of words and references, and one that always painfully stays on the same line, that’s his thesis, dull and distressing. He used to force himself on this everyday with 1,000 words, in order to keep up on the deadline. However, no one knows since when has he stopped and has it dragged on, leaving the gap larger and larger, larger enough to be visible in his almost empty room after turning down the projector, larger enough for him to hide in his bed trying to sleep away the night like he does in the game.
Great story, one of the best new ones on here. One thing I would say is to start a new paragraph for every line of speech, which would make it a bit easier to read.
Thank you for your support ! I'll improve them later.
Note: 1. Glorious Path To Eternity is a name I made up for a video game
2. This chapter reveals some of my current status and my guessing about the view my parents hold.
Two
“I don’t know what to say, Frank. Every time I ask him about the graduation things. He just grumbles through. Only knows to eat snacks, plays games, talks to a wall. Am I a failure in teaching our son? He never grows up!” Samantha’s voice carried through the wall.
“Our never-outgoing boy needs time. Still 4 months to graduation. Great pressure.” says Frank.
“Most of student like him have already got a job, and even moved out.”
“I’ve told you, should have cut his finance.” Frank replies.
“You think that easy, huh? Being penniless, homeless…”
“No one wants to leave their snug, but they have to. We leave our parents, kids leave us. Don’t worry, I think he should have already realized this problem and knows what to do when peers around him do the same.”
“Yeah” Samantha has to repine” He will know to hide in his room and play video games again. Seriously, where’s the charger...”
The two audience of this conversation meets in the dining room. Aware of the shame that topic like this could have been heard by his 10-year-old sister, who is making a face at him, Daryl responds with a roll of his eyes. Both of them sit at the table, eating the last palatable breakfast this week and watching their parents moving around with bags and packs. Half an hour later, the couple will be out travelling for their wedding anniversary.
Although Samantha has told them infinite times the dos and don’ts, she won’t bother to do this one more time before getting into the car. “… and don’t let your sister eat too much sweets, she has to go to sleep before ten thirty and make sure she has brushed her teeth.”
“Have enough money?” taking out her purse, she continues.” You have to give it back to me if there’s any left. Okay?”
Daryl says nothing but nods.
“Take care of your sister, Daryl. Don’t play games too late at night.” Samantha kisses good bye her two children. “We’ll be back in four days!”
“Happy anniversary!” Daryl speaks out as the car sets off with the couple’s glancing back and grins. He watches the car gradually vanish in the
distance until the drifting dust mixes with both his sigh of relief and worries.
“I want to eat chocolate.” Linda looks up and gives a slight begging push on Daryl. “I’m not going to tell mom about your gaming, like last time we did.”
It’s already noon when they make it to the supermarket, pushing the cart in which have piled up some of the instant foods needed in the following days, Daryl walks behind Linda, who always jumps around to sound off her wonder in looking new goodies.
“I want this, this, this and this.” Linda pours a bunch of chocolate bars and lollipops into the car.
“You can’t have too much!” Daryl shoves some back to the shelf.
“Just for once!” She begs again. “I haven’t had this for a long time!”
“Two more and there’s no argue! Don’t blame me if your toothache happens again.” He warns, and then walks directly to the cashier.
Haven’t had time to sort out the purchase, when they arrive home the house turns into a party, it won’t be one without Linda pulling out all the candies on the table as well as watching cartoon at a loud volume, and Daryl, closing his door and turning on the game projector.
“Nice mood today.” Charles hears Daryl sing while mining with him.
“Sure. My parents go traveling for four days. Man, four days! No one would be whining around me.”
“So you’re at home by yourself?”
“No, I’m with my sister.”
“Why don’t you join her to the game?”
“Her? No. I’d rather die than play with her. I remember last time saw her play Glorious Path To Eternity, you know the shooting game. That was a
disaster. Furthermore, every time in the co-op mode of a game, I basically do the most.” Daryl laughs in the thought of Linda failed the simplest mission for more than five times.
“Com’on. She’s just a kid! Besides, it’s good to play with family. I used to play video games with my dad. That’s one of the best periods in my life. ” Charles argues
“By the way, how’s your dad? Haven’t been seen him for years. ”
A sigh of grievance comes, “He divorced my mom last year.”
“I’m sorry, bro.” Daryl apologizes immediately.
“I guess he’s playing with his another son now.” Another sigh blurs the background music.
“Wait a minute.” Daryl leaves for the door and shouts Linda’s name. “You wanna play a game?”
“Like play house?” She rushes from the couch to him.
“It’s a video game.” He pauses, “But sort of like that.”
“Okay. But you have to play with me.”
“We are going to join Charles. I think you should still remember him…”
In front of her is a small bay embracing the sea upholds several houses and paths that only allows for two people walking past, lamps around the fenced up area also shed light to the carefully crafted irrigation. This land of old time is fully prepared for the joyous new comer, new laughs and new trouble.
“Don’t use pickaxe to punch wood, you incurable silly.” Daryl comments on how Linda starts her first day journey. “And don’t use planks as fuel!”
“Why you look so square? Why I can’t boil the chicken’s eggs? Why mushroom can grow into a tree? ” sitting back against Daryl, Linda enjoys the
excitement brought by the screen displayed on the wall.
“Shut up! ” Daryl answers with impatience.
“What’s that walking little green thing?” Her curiosity is aroused.
“He’s our friend.” Daryl snickers quiet enough to be apprehended by Charles. “Go over there and say hi to him!”
A blast breaks out seconds later, accompanied by Linda’s complain and turn-around punch at Daryl. But laughing keeps going during their exploration, no matter how they leave Linda alone when she’s drowning in the sea at first, how Daryl plays mischief in burning Linda’s house, or how she got killed by creeper with her inventory fully loaded with valuable stuff, the funniness never stops.
“The creeper is staring me at the window!” Linda exclaims.
“Hush… I’ll take good care of him.” Daryl aims at the monster with an arrow. “Done!”
“Look, I’ve made a boat!” She thrills to take it to the shore. “Do I need an oar?”
“No, if you want to board it, just pull the left trigger.” Charles comes to guide her. “Be careful driving, it will crash. You’d better make some more for backup.”
“That’s fine. I’m just strolling around for a little bit.” There she rushes off amusedly. The next few minutes are dominated by Linda’s own talking: “I see horses! There’s lava coming out from the mountain! …It’s a dog!”
“That’s a wolf. Stupid.” Daryl corrects.
“It is turning dark now, where am I?” She struggles to go ashore after the boat breaks apart.
“Oh yeah, it serves you right! Find your way back yourself, we can’t help you out.” Daryl won’t pass over a chance to mock.
“You bring the map with you?” Charles says.
“I don’t have a map. Oops, a zombie is going after me!”
“Look for the sky-high sugar canes.” Daryl reminds her, “The ugly twisting lines that point upwards. You ‘re not going too far away, are you?”
“I see them now!” Linda can’t help to shout.
“Sprint home, silly! Ignore those monsters.” Daryl even stops his game to watch her run.
“I’m trying! The skeleton won’t give me a break.”
“Forward! Only thirty blocks away!” Charles stands in the stone tower, concentrating on the moving figure.
“My chicken thighs almost run out!” Linda keeps on the shout. “Here comes another zombie!”
“Just run!” Intensity weighs much more on Daryl’s mind, and it finally has him unburdened when Linda crashes into the fence gate in the last second.
“You made it!” Cheers erupt among them. “Welcome home, soldier!” Daryl pats Linda’s head.”Go recover your health and sleep. ”
“I do want to sleep now.” Linda turns back the controller followed by several yawns.
“Sure.” Daryl checks the clock on the screen “It’s almost one o’clock. Brush your teeth, silly!”
The silence of night reemerges, as time goes on, pressure felt against the ear grows stronger to force Daryl thinking about leaving for sleep.
“Except for this game,” this is how Daryl concludes the gaming night with Charles.”I still had better play by myself.”
“But there’s no doubt we had a great time.”
It would have been like usual, after good bye words things go calm and quiet for Daryl. However, it won’t do for Linda, who, despite sleepiness, lied awake for some time thinking about the joyous moments in the game. Moments about her playing Pokémon with her brother went alive, in which she always got defeated in arena; in which Daryl could always tell the name from the different sound of each monsters. That was long time ago, she doesn’t know when her playing companions have been transferred to dressing dolls and story books again. Whatever once the memories might be, she thought that she has to fall fast asleep, what if the tree grows higher without her notice, what if a chicken runs away out of thousands attempts to jumps, what if…
Another good chapter! It made me smile because Linda sounds like my little sister. I think your characters are all good and feel very much like they are real.
One critique is where you have speech, you need to end with a comma not a full stop. So instead of “That’s a wolf. Stupid.” Daryl corrects." you should have “That’s a wolf. Stupid,” Daryl corrects.
Thank you! That's an honor for me to hear you saying this. Actually, my English name used to be Linda. This is the experience
I had when playing with my two younger brothers(yeah.. the point is, much younger). Kind of awkward , but still lots of fun.
Thanks again for the correction. It's my first time realizing the utilization of comma in English. So you've shed a new light
on this part for me. Regarding the length of the story, it might take quite some time to adjust the misuses. I can only make the
adjustment after posting the story all out.
If it wasn’t Linda’s drag and push, Daryl wouldn’t have woken up to realize the pointers of the clock have all come to ‘eleven’. Although in his sleepy eyes, Daryl can tell some difference from Linda’s swollen jaw.
Linda keeps sobbing: “My teeth hurt!”
“I’ve warned you about that!” Daryl looks into her mouth with slight anger.
She looks up for help, “What am I going to do with this?”
“Where’s the medicine the dentist gave you last time?” He goes to search for the closets.
“That’s a month ago!”
Hurriedly delving into drawers, Daryl takes up all the money he can find and rushes to a bus with Linda for her dentist’s clinic. On their long way to the destination, none of them communicates much. It has been a common sense that settling everything down before leading up to the rage of their parents and undermining the rest of the vacation will be the most important, the thought is so deeply rooted that she even conceals her headache from Daryl. Yet, things seem going against their wish.
“I’m sorry .His schedule is full. And you don’t have an appointment.” This is the nurse’s third time to answer.
“Miss, we go all the way here and my sister’s very sick now. Could you, please, arrange for her now? It won’t matter if you put her last of today’s
waiting list.” Linda can hardly hear Daryl’s voice.
“It would be unfair for those patients we reject today that dropped in without an appointment.”
“We can wait here.”
“How about we come here again tomorrow?” Linda asks Daryl.
“We don’t work tomorrow. I can only put your appointment on Monday.”
“Forget about this,” He says “I’ll take you to the pharmacy.”
All day’s waiting and walking have worn them, it goes harder for Linda without proper foods to eat. Regrets fill up Daryl’s mind. How he wishes nothing had happened yesterday! Thus what’s supposed to be a day of team death match won’t turn into busy caring that has long been his dislike. Things as they are, Daryl is left with no choice. He has every responsibility to look after his own sister, whom he loathes sometimes but still loves. Even that means he has to pick up cookery which sounds bizarre to him.
“What’s this?” Linda spoons up the steaming paste-like thing in the bowl.
“It’s oatmeal. This is the only thing available for you in the kitchen, since you can’t have pizza or bread.”
“Alright, explanation accepted.” She tastes a bit in the spoon. “It’s cooked… You do it better than Dad.”
“I don’t even want to rethink how things he cooked taste like.” Daryl sits down with his pizza.
“Do you really have to move out like they say?” the question breaks out like a bomb to Daryl.
It’s quite some time before he answers: “I think so.”
”Why?”
“We all have our own life to live.”
“Do I have to do this in the future?”
“Sure. In a blink of an eye, you’ll grow up. Maybe the next minute you’ll be eating with your own children at this table. Cherish your time here. Time
flies.”
For a girl still baths in the protection of family, Linda looks bewildered.
Daryl furthers his words, “Either way, when you’ve come to my age you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
Covered by Linda’s scrawl, numbers line up on the calendar which opposites Daryl can easily figured out by him. He has no idea how time starts to plunges into deadline cold-bloodedly regardless of the never-unfinished thesis, the narrowing span somehow frightens him. “Two more days, just give me two more days and I’ll restart writing it.” Daryl thinks to himself.
Like Daryl’s game projector, light stays on in Linda’s room. After making sure she has had the medicine and brushed her teeth, Daryl carefully tugs her into bed.
“I’m sorry.” She watches her brother from the quilt.
“Don’t be silly. You’re my sister.” Daryl smiles.”Good night!”
“Leave the light on please!”
“It’s bad for your eyes.” He switches off the light and leaves.
Sounds of smashing buttons resonates with dazzling screens, Daryl hasn’t missed out the final wave of exciting combats, but seeing the playing list turning grey one by one doesn’t feel right, until he finally joins the leaving parade and comes to his planned mining, which is later interrupted by Linda, who’s dragging her pillow and quilt at the door.
“What?” Daryl turns around from the game.
“I want to sleep here.”
“Something’s wrong?”
“It has light in here. And I want to watch you play. Besides, mom won’t let me stay up so late after she comes back.”
“Come in.” Daryl readjusts the brightness of the projector. “How’s the light? I’ve shut down the one that’s facing you.”
“It’s fine. Just keep your gaming, I won’t disturb you.”
The rest of the two days moves on smoothly in the house. One particular thing Linda did these mornings is to check before a mirror her aching teeth for the better, a sign to prove her secretly-made swear that if mom doesn’t find out anything she’d be lessening the number of the candies she eats every day. But scolds won’t therefore loss its intensity when Samantha and Frank come back to see a house of mess with dusted floors, dirty tables and the same mumbling attitude of Daryl towards graduation issues in university. Nevertheless, a load of paper works numbs instantly all the incitation he received and causes his fishy eyes. Rather than wasting time for nothing, he saves them for the newly-found interest in Creative Mode. Theories of building gadgets are carried out on the plain, and he’s content with success comes from numerous tests and his drafts of works tidily clustered in the corner. With one more test on the high speed rail, he’s going to reprise them in Charles’s small town, as Charles described it, a town full of adventure and surprises.
Resent increases as much as his enjoyment in gaming. More than one time Samantha has shouted to her son, the effect she expects reverses most of the time. Does as Frank told, she keeps on persuading herself with the excuse that time could just be the main factor for this situation. If it weren’t for next week’s big family party, which has seen his absence for several years, she might have gone further.
“I’m not going. Have to do my thesis.” Daryl objects the idea in the very first place.
“If you keep on like this, no one’s going to recognize you. Daryl. Grandma almost forgets your face.” Samantha is irritated.
“Next time. I’ll be there next time.” He scratches his forehead.
“You have to go with us this time! Aaron has come back from travelling, and we’ll celebrate Henry’s birthday.”
“Yay! Uncle Aaron promised to buy me a souvenir! Come with us, Daryl! Must be a big cake over there! ” Linda breaks in.
“Well, fine.” He reluctantly gives in.
They are late for fifteen minutes, partly due to Linda’s tireless clothes choosing and Daryl’s protest in form of dilatoriness. Family’s hugs and greetings warm up the house upon their coming. Too many familiar faces crowd together in cordiality makes Daryl feels unaccustomed. Not until now did he realize the long period he hadn’t been here for. He had practiced in the car before they come, but it takes him sometime to remember some of his relatives’ names. Childishness he seeks for disappears into the grown-up faces of cousins, while other kids are immersed in their own role playing. Daryl tries to sit in the corner watching people praising curious souvenirs brought oversea or talking about recent life. In the mean time, topics among the younger generation begin.
“Long time no see, Daryl! You’re very big now.” Joseph is amazed at the infrequent visit of his cousin. “Are you about to graduate this year?”
“This June. I guess.”
“Congrats! So, what are you going to do?”
“Maybe I’ll end up in an import and export company.” In fact, Daryl doesn’t know how long this faked answer can go on.
“That’s very nice! You can go all around the world. But you have to be ready for working over time.”
“I always stay up late.”
“It’s much different from your experience. You’ll get loads of things to worry about.” Joseph talks like a veteran.
“And you? I heard that you’ve made it the job interview.”
“I’m so excited! This is my dream job! You won’t believe that I’ve made preparation for about two months! By the way, isn’t it time for you to find a girl friend?” He implies with a raising eyebrow.
“I don’t know. Wait, I remember someone told me that you’re…”
“Well. I’m going to bring her here next time.” a burst of flush is seen on Joseph’s cheek.
“Wow!” Daryl says but he’s in hope of transferring the seemingly interesting topic. “Are you still playing video games?”
“Video games?” Joseph seems in shock, as if this is his first time hearing about the words.”Man, it sounds decades ago. I’ve sold the console away for quite a long time. ”
“Oh, I see.”
They both go silent.
Dinner is almost ready, when all the ladies are laying out dishes and foods, Samantha is looking for Daryl room after room, until she finds him sitting
at the balcony drawing something absorbedly with Linda.
“The red stone would be broken if you put the block this way.” Daryl points on the paper. “Didn’t you both hear me calling your names?” Samantha says.
“Give me five minutes.” Daryl is too busy to move away his eyes.
“They’ve been waiting for you! What’s on it?” Samantha feels the pulse to shred the paper into pieces.
“Nothing.”
“It’d better not be crappy things. Leave more time for you future, Daryl.” Not caring much about the presence of Linda, Samantha makes her own
rebuke.
“Here you are, my dear!” Grandmother shouts near the window, “Time for dinner! We don’t want to waste family time on reheating foods again.”
The party is coming to an end where everyone is posing for the family photo. The whole process goes smoothly unless for several interruptions to tell Daryl to smile, but photos are still full of funny or sweet faces. Pending work days are calling them back to their homes. Car lights flash in Daryl’s eyes, he knows maybe one day, he’ll be like them, driving home for work.
In the dim backseat, Linda has fallen asleep. The whole family remains quiet because of tiredness, what moves with them are the series of fast receding street scene that only attempt to shadow Daryl’s blank expression. Thirteen years ago, in the same car, a boy who knew every corner of the street, where to watch a bunch of brawling homeless dogs, where to steal the fresh fruit without being caught, left with his parents. And thirteen years later, the street scenes just hurtle like something unimportant. From the rearview, grandmother’s house, to which a period of his past belongs, has long been hidden by tall buildings and finally, queues of glaring headlights, in front of and behind them.
“I left my bottle in granny’s house!”Linda wakes up to find her hand empty.
“How can you be so forgetful?” Samantha complains.
“Can we drive back to fetch it?”
“We’re not going back. Linda.” Frank answers in a tone of lessoning.
‘We’re not going back.’ This is what Daryl only hears in the conversation.
“Watch your step!” Daryl rights the wobbling speaker box promptly.
As soon as Samantha and Frank leave for friend’s house, Linda dashes into Daryl’s room for the already prepared seat and game controller. For her, the action itself has been a clandestine and thrilling task to go against her dull schedule.
“Morning Piggy! Morning my little wolves! They’re so adorable! ” Linda never misses her ritual greeting in the game.
Several times of playing has enabled this little girl to go freely around this place. Blocks from Netherland start to take over her roof, from where she can have a view of quirky buildings Daryl and Charles have been making. Now, she thinks it her turn to building something big.
“What are you doing here?” In Daryl’s mind, things she builds must come with whatever funny.
“A fast encircling rail road upon our houses.” Pride can be heard in her voice.
“I guess we can never see it finished at your speed.” Charles laughs at her awkward building process.
As the other two jumps on the paved cobblestones, she yells “Don’t do anything to my raid road!”
“Duck down to build, Stupid. It’d be faster. Do you know how to make the rail turn around? Let us help you.” Three people’s joint effort is forged into success within minutes. With a red stone torch each few blocks, they stampede through the rail road in the mine carts like crazy, over and over until they’re tired of it.
“It’s meaningless.” Daryl stops on the midpoint after a few more turnings. ”The whole thing, going round and round.”
“What’s the meaning you want from playing a game?” Charles also leaves out from the cart.”It’s just for fun.”
“Too much I want.”
“But only you yourself know what you can actually get.”
“Yup.” Daryl breathes a sigh. “I’m heading back college tomorrow.”
“Congratulation!” Charles knows it hurts Daryl to hear this. “Enjoy your last few days of last vacation, man!”
“I don’t get this.” Linda can’t bear them talking something she doesn’t understand. “We still have lots of holidays. Like National day, Labor’s day...”
“It’s because you’re stupid.” Daryl attacks her avatar for fun,” go back to your homework garbage piles. ” And this brings the cost of being chased by
the wolves she raises in game. “Charles, help me!”
“Sorry,” Charles has decided to stay away.”I don’t plan to involve myself into family issues.”
“Well, in order to boost my morality, I’m going to sing that song again! Linda-la, Linda-la, do-la-do-la-do… why you’re so suck in this game~” Linda is angered again by the song created by Daryl once he saw her die from drowning.
The small land meets another period of craziness with every elements of fun they can think of: compacting labyrinths of blue wools that promise no treasures but monsters and tricks, an enormous field with barricades for horse racing, including the competition about catching a ocelot. Running wild like a child, they gear up to fight together in Netherland, scare each other in strongholds and splash potions everywhere. Eventually, spellbound sun set settles their heart down to the highest tower.
“If only life could be this simple.” Watching the sun going down, Daryl rests his chin on his hands.
Charles counters the opinion: “But the saddening truth is it isn’t. I know you’re going to hate this, but I have to ask you one thing. Have you finished your thesis?”
Daryl gives a wry smile: “No.”
“I’m going to tell mom about this!” Linda thinks it a good way to fight back his arrogance against her.
“Yeah, just go ahead. Wait for me to delete your account and saves.”
“And I will ask dad to throw away your game projector!”
“To be frank, Daryl” Charles breaks in, “Do your parents really dislike video game?”
“Um… It’s awkward. However, I think Linda should have a listen about this. Remembering once I was so full of courage. After my parents came home, I seated them on the couch in the study room with a big screen displaying my fully prepared presentation. Did you know what that is? ‘The benefits of video game’. I was trying to talk them into it. I’d spent like, two weeks, to prepare. When I finished my talking, they said nothing but a sentence: ’is this the thing you bother to tell us after we worked our way through the day and went home like a tired dog? We don’t raise you up to play video game! We raise you up to be…’” Daryl drags on the final tone.
“To be what?” It interests Charles and Linda
“Iron man! Ha-ha!” their reaction makes him laugh.
“Oh, I thought the answer should’ve been ‘a fool’.” Linda adds.
“So you’re lucky, Linda,” Daryl continues, “to have someone to play with you.”
“Hey, man. You’ve got me here!” Charles says, “That’s why you cheated your mom just to play games at my house after school.”
“Wow, bonus with secrets and handles today!” Linda had never expected to learn something different about her brother. For a long time, her impression towards him stays as a slightly hunchbacked boy, seen in a room of bleak light with a pair of red headphone. He does talk a lot, mostly to his friends in the game instead of talking to her, the mommy’s good girl, who stays up beyond her bed time being excited about news of games that she could probably never play. This is a habit she keeps so well, because apart from video games, what else she can talk to him?
As if by magic, time ticks to seven thirty, a usual time for their parents coming home. Daryl urges her to stop the game.
“What’s the next time we’ll play together again?” Linda starts to neaten her inventory.
“Maybe half year later, maybe longer.” Days ahead seems as messy and gloomy as the answer by Daryl.
“What if you don’t come back?” she asks.
“Then I’ll see you on the computer screen.”
“Alright, before I go,” Linda does one more visit to her own farmland.”I want to say goodbye to them.”
“Good bye, my piggy and little wolves! How I wish I could give you a hug, but mommy won’t let us keep a pet because she thinks they’re dirty. Here,
one more piece of rotten flesh for you. If I see you half a year later, would you still recognize me? Would you gonna miss me? Because I will miss you so much... ” her weep starts takes over the rest of her words.
“What’s going on?” Daryl is caught unprepared and shoves paper towels in her hand. “They are still here in the game.”
“But you leave for a long time! And I don’t have a console.” She tries to clear her voice amid chokes.
“I promise, I promise no one’s going to touch your house and pets. Everything will stay the same.”
“Is it true?”
“Of course. At least that’s how this game’s programmed when we’re not playing it.” Charles comforts her.
The doorbell rings, striking a painful note to Linda.
“Dry your tears, stupid.” Daryl wipes her face. “And run for the door.”
Holding the knob, she disappears upon her closing the door.
“I feel envy sometimes, Charles.” Daryl looks up on the appealing night sky, “Kids, carefree. She can cry whenever she wants.”
“We have freedom that they can’t enjoy. Although, it doesn’t come an easy way.”
“Fifteen years, it has been, right? We’ve known each other and played video games for this long.”
“Yeah. Best chums.”
“I miss those days.”
“Same here, bro. But it’s always funny to imagine we’re holding our own newborn while playing games.”
“Now you’re talking about this, I’m going to train my kids as video gamers.”
“Great idea! Then you’ll go bankrupt sooner as they ask you to buy new games instead of small toys.” …
No one is going to disturb this two best friends’ chatter tonight, including Samantha who’s lowering her supposed knocking hand. At the same time in previous years, she would either check his packing by bossing around and nagging in case of anything forgotten, or try to cram more fruits in his backpack as well as urging him to call home on his arrival in college. Her self-perceived instinct as a worrywart never stops her from pouring care to her son, but she thinks it’s time to give it a little rest and leaves with the prepared clothes for him without notice.
Two more good chapters. It's interesting to see how you focus on the characters and how they interact whereas most stories focus on the events. It is different to the usual on these forums and it's nice to see variety.
Thank you Minecraft has in some way influenced my life and some of my thoughts on things around me. It's a witness to my growth. Therefore I wrote the story as a thank-you note to this game. Have two more Chapters to wrap up this story.
Since I'm still writting my graduation thesis(well, I don't like it -_-), the next two chapters will be my imagination about what will happen in the coming days, still in the chapters there are some events that truly happened in my life.
Five
A line pops up against the darkened computer screen, it reads: You Died!
Daryl can no longer refrain his tears. “I screw up.”
“It’s just a game!” His strange voice confuses Charles.
“I…I screw them all up…the game, the graduation, everything.” Tears on the keyboard start to flow.
“They held such ah high expectation on me. While I kept lying to them I’m writing my thesis, I couldn’t lie to myself. Speaking of those words just makes me laugh: I’m going to graduate in blah blah blah. My minds are not on them.”
“So what you’re going to do next?”
“Find a job or something. Save some money. Do some stuff I want.”
“I remember you’re writing novels,right?”
“Yeah, I’m still on it. Anyway, I have a job interview next week.”
“Not going to say ‘good luck’ to you, but” says Charles, “welcome to the league, bro.”
Daryl doesn’t know what else to reply for the empty holder of game projector reflected on the screen sends him into pondering. Alone on the center of white ceiling, the holder hanged down like a withered twig that just suffers a battering storm, while the fruit it once held, the easy reminder of the quarrel, pieces of which carry the weight of disappointment and rage at the moment his father threw it on the floor, lies shattered on the table. In the left side, a print of his shabby resume, the margin of which has been smudged by carless strokes, is pressed wrinkled on the bottom of books. When compares it to the chunky words about requirements on the job lists, Daryl thinks it pure luck that it could earn him even a chance to work after waiting for a long time a new email in inbox or a new phone number. Thus, he can have a longer time to shun away his parents’ angry face and words at home.
Now along with part time job, Daryl accepts the formal one as a clerk in a shipping agency, turning into a young man, who dresses in an uncomfortable suit passing through crowds between home and workplace. Not until his first day to work, when the owner of the long-time shoppe praises Daryl’s new suit while he’s buying breakfast, did he realize that he will never be sitting in the shadowy corner to wait for the school bell rings. Days of drowsy lectures by boring teachers have drifted away, calling on Daryl are the scuttling subways packed with strangers and later the drowsy works to be done.
“The campaign is about to start!” Daryl’s missing on several rounds of game night prompts Charles to call him.
“I’m so tired.” Daryl answer torpidly, he’s lying in his bed after all day’s work.
“Com’on, it’s Friday!”
“I’ve got part time job tomorrow. Dude. ”
“Okay, then. How’s your first day in um…whatever agency?”
“Anything bad you can imagine.”
“Do you have office romance? What about infighting between colleagues?”
“Jeez! I don’t even have enough time for the tons of works assigned to me! And you start to talk like my mom.”…
Daryl has expected more chatting alike to expand into the coming work days, especially when he’s sitting outside alone on the bench gobbling on meals, or whirls the straight paths home after easily turning down polite invitation for drinks from colleagues. For the rest, the glaring mobile screen is made the protagonist, which can’t wait to wrap Daryl up in music and news in his way through the crowds. Sometimes, with any luck, he’ll accidentally look up into the thriving stream of cars and people as he walks by, but soon lowers his head again. He’s heading for a location, he thinks for now, structure changed but essence remains.
Same white wall and broad desk, papers of work are put aside for a book of an eyesore under the door-locking sound. Daryl’s written some words, most of them can’t form a sentence, and the following pages jump to a mess of listings and numbers that struggle to meet the goal he sets. It’s causing him headache to record his money and find the swelling ambition frozen to death as ink pushes out into words. And finally one day, among the consecutive waves of cruel tiredness, his eyes turn automatically to the little-bit dusted keyboard of his computer.
The feeling of familiarity from desktop and icons is almost overwhelmed by a bunch of loud barking noise after clicking into the game, he’s startled to find out the new placards and trees around his house, with some of them reads “Daryl sucks!” “Your doggy is starving” “Four dogs now!”“Your house decoration is a bad taste.” he moves on as tears run down on his face, “How do you think about your job?” “Why you seldom talk to me?” “I made the worst score in exam.” “I’ve beaten the ‘Glorious Path To Eternity’ myself in 60 hours!”
“That’s the slowest clearing time I’ve heard about this game.” He smiles, replying with another placard. Looking back at the place, memory of everything revives: a water pound hided in bushes of sugar canes where monsters always fall off, a bridge towards the village, a colorful stripe hang upon his bed... However, minutes of rushing are slowed down, for the long-missed stars are rising upon the sky where different colors of purple changes into dark along with the setting sun. He should admire them, like exactly the first time he saw their images on the ceiling and walls.
What Daryl might not know, in the same time, at the other end of the house, another drawing is coming out from a childish stroke. Rugged lines shed upon the paper forms into portraits of her family whose smiling faces appear against the square houses, near which are rows of sugar canes and towers. Of course, there’s no left out for a square-faced dog slanting its head in a yellow necklace. The drawing book Linda’s doing with has accumulated similar pictures she supposed to hand out but later denies. Being the poor victim and witness of the fierce quarrel, Linda feels the burden to bury the hatchet. Words she’s so well prepared would disappear at once as Daryl drags his tired body directly to the room without any sign of friendliness. When there’s finally a time to have a small talk at weekend lunch, her father would ruin it with taunts and jeers.
After all these, she ends up leaning against the windowsill some mornings, watching Daryl hurries out the door, watching how her brother becomes a lesson to learn in Samantha’s lecture. Somehow influenced by her mother’s words, Linda would review herself in the mirror. Who she’s going to be? What choices she should make if the same thing happens to her? “So annoying!” in this case, she would abandon the idea of doing this and walk towards her room for other stuff.
But those aren’t what Linda’s caring about, there’s nothing upset than the numbers on the calendar, although events are marked on the date, one is still missing, and she knows what that is.
That's the best chapter so far. It really doe well to show the emotions of Daryl, and shows them in a way that is very realistic and makes the reader feel sympathy towards the character. The grammar used is getting better with every new chapter, so the improvement you are making from writing this is clear to see.
Thank you! Your words give me great courage! I've been confusing the usage of some grammar and I'm just afraid that what happened to Daryl in this chapter might take a toll on how people view video gamers, which is not what I mean. I'm happy that you feel for the character.
Only read the first chapter so far, and honestly it's one of the better stories I've read on here. The prose is solid, your grammar is good, I like the descriptions where they are. The plot is also fairly original and the characters fairly interesting and likeable. You also do what very few people are able to do here, even the good ones, and that's get down emotions correctly. Good job, I'll give this a 7/10 on the first chapter and I look forward to reading more. Welcome to the Literature section formerly colloquially referred to as Minefic.
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Like fantasy? Like Minecraft? Check out a blend of the two here! Fall and a Rise: A Vanillacraft Tale!
Only read the first chapter so far, and honestly it's one of the better stories I've read on here. The prose is solid, your grammar is good, I like the descriptions where they are. The plot is also fairly original and the characters fairly interesting and likeable. You also do what very few people are able to do here, even the good ones, and that's get down emotions correctly. Good job, I'll give this a 7/10 on the first chapter and I look forward to reading more. Welcome to the Literature section formerly colloquially referred to as Minefic.
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Thank you for the review! It's very encouraging to recieve such praise. I once thought that the first chapter would bore the readers, thankfully it somehow keep you through the story. And thank you for the welcome.
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Another statement: Since the rule breaking, I've changed some of the words in the story. So this is the re-post. Following chapters will be updated.
A little introduction to the story:
Although I started up writing this story (more like a journal, but don’t know if this could be called fan fiction) in late January, the idea first came to me when I read the news about Minecraft movie last year. When people announce a new film for a game I like, I have the hobby to think of my own version.Speaking of which, I do hope the movie could involve real life scene, but not just another world-saving kind of animation. Then a picture of a normal young lad who’s lying prone on a white sofa forms in front of my eye, and the first word that jumps up with it is: loneliness. Well, don’t go off track, I mean loneliness in the modern world that most of people are suffering.
As I went along the first chapter, another line unfurls. Why not base the story on my very own experience? There's no denial that Minecraft does no small part in one of the most memorable period in my life.
Discontinued and bittersweet, my gaming experience could get a little bit weird. I guess myself the least person you want to play with when it comes to multiplayer part or co-op mode. Therefore, I mix some of my feelings about playing video games into the story.
Of course, the movie Childhood and the ‘Let’s play’ series by Greg and Brian give me inspiration. But the story speaks the truth of me for a majority part(except for gender). It includes what had happened during my gaming with my family members and the thoughts that developed from the game and, my situation in current months. Instead of merely delivering them all out like a game journal, I cluster these elements into a story set in near future with an enhanced technology kind of a mixup of all gadgets we use for screen projections and orders-giving today.
Last but not least, English is not my mother tongue. If there’s any confusion comes up when you read the story, please let me know
And I'm really not good at giving names to the stories I've written...
Hope you enjoy the story
A statement: I only post the story in Ign as ‘chebriz’(this name has been used in other websites before I realize it, but this is the only place I use this handle) and the minecraftforum.net as ‘somanyquestions’.
______________________________________
Under A Thousand Starry Nights
Chapter One
Blinking across the night sky, stars, around the skirt of the moon, wander by in an elegant calmness. Should it be summer’s night, when breezing wind resonates with chirpings of cicadas? Should it be with broad thick snow in desperate coldness under winter’s grip, or be above the endless view of sands with cactus and dried branches? Imagination revives and you fall into a bottomless pit.
But, Daryl doesn’t care much.
It’s his night sky, his moon and his stars. As he would remember, today should mark the 10th day since the establishment of his Sun Rise Kingdom – which he sat thinking for so long but finally turned to as the game started with him facing the rising sun. In fact, this magnificent name explains itself by a small wooden house looking forward the seashore. Fenced by cobbled walls, this 9-blocks-wide house has two stores- each were built by different colors of oat blanks- the first of which corners chest furnace and worktable, that’s what he had to endure for the very first day of survival. In this once dark and roofless house, he consumed the whole restless night, held up all his hope and wished the harm away. But it is right here, he lies down in the middle of his room, watching the starry sky projected to the ceiling passed by. And it is right here, for the first time, from the unfinished side of his house, he witnessed the wonderful view of sun rising against the tangerine light where three giant trees set upon the far horizon.
As time went, this floor becomes too low to jump and too small for the widened door, that’s when he started up stairs to the second floor, in which sits only a torch and a bed, while still with incomplete roof and walls. There’s no way he should give up the chance to take the thrill at the monsters that would wanders around when night falls, as well as the fascinating flower fields surrounding the house- which he deems as a lovely gift from the game and another reason for settling down on here. Along with other brands of flowers he ventures to pick in the dark forest, his front yard booms with colors.
He is satisfied, indeed, watching his house built one by one from almost nothing to a place that could secure him, a place more like a cottage with a small farmland he extended as backyard. This farmland always has three irregular rows of crops bursting up on new green and two blocks for a pumpkin. Soon as they go fully grown, he will enjoy the harvest by hearing the rustling voice and making the pumpkin into a light that can illuminate the nearby chicken pen. Looking up on the house again in pride, one day, he knows, it’s going to be a grandeurs fortress, with four stone towers at each side, and beautiful halls. Of course, a deep and wide moat filled with lava is needed to run around. However by now, due to limited sources, he temporarily replaces this with a placard in front of house that reads ‘Stay Away!’
A burst of knocking, fast but heavy, breaks in abruptly. It’s his mother, Samantha.
“Turn down the music.” Hands thwart across the breast, his mother orders. “Why you put all of your stuff to your sister’s room?”
“It’s just for a couple of hours, they hamper the screen projection.” He explains.
“Do you know she has to squeeze through them to her bed?” Her voice becomes stronger.
“I’m just helping you clean up this place, anyway” Daryl feels annoyed, he takes up the game controller and sits with his back to her.”Once I move out, she can put whatever she wants in my room. ”
“Whatever the excuse is, you have to put them back tomorrow. I don’t want to see Linda complaining her ‘evil brother’ again the very next morning. And don’t stay up too late!” Samantha shuts the door behind. She knows that Daryl won’t answer, it’s better to finish talking this like by her doing so first.
Several message boxes have piled down on the screen, with a slightly swing of his hand, an audio starts to play: ‘Hey, Daryl, I need a hand in building the city last time I told you about. If you got time, come join me. I’ve sent out…’ Didn’t wait till the audio plays through, he has already chosen ‘accept the invitation’. He does this almost every time when he recognizes the voice of his best friend, Charles, who first introduced this game to him two years ago.
“How’re you doing, buddy?” Soon as Daryl joins the game, he meets Charles’s greeting.
“Been doing okay. I guess.” Daryl answers.
“No, I can tell it both from your words and tone that you’re not okay. What’s going on?” Charles asks.
“Ugh… Same thing, you know, the graduation thesis. I’m completely clueless about it. Every time I face it, it’s like an ordeal. I don’t even like doing this kind of stuff.”
“Put yourself together, man. Feel the responsibility on your shoulder, the reputation of the whole video gamers is counting on you. Show the world: ‘Who says we are loser!’, and then ‘let’s get back to our games!’ ”
Daryl giggles. ”What about you? How’s your life in there?”
“It sucks, and it’s getting colder here.”
“Yeah, everything sucks.”
They jump up and down for putting or destroying blocks, sometimes they would stop to take a glimpse at their work and the halfway-built city unfolds beneath them, desolate and relics-like, but they own this world and the lovely monsters strolling without any lethality, although they would attack those who are naughty enough to stand in the way.
“Somehow I think they have consciousness.” Daryl says as a rabbit is staring him in the face.”They can speak but we just can’t hear them.”
“I have the same feeling.” Charles agrees “Last time when it’s turning dark, three Creepers and a skeleton showed up on each chair I just built minutes ago. And they turned around to look at me when I got there.”
“Whoa, that was creepy.”
“What do you think they are thinking about when they sometimes come by and set eyes on you?”
“I don’t know, maybe like ’this creature looks so ugly’ or ‘I’m going to smash you up in survival mode’.”
“I think creepers might say: ’Could you give me a hand?’”
“But when they look away after long time staring, you will feel kind of frustrated. All those assumptions were just in vain.”Daryl sighs.
“What if one of them attacks us now, just for once, things will be so different.”
“Look, the stupid skeleton is looking at the cake.”
For most of the time in game, they would spend ranting and venting, or share things they’ve encountered. They’ve sat watching the whole forest in fire, attacked each other after taming a group of wolves, opened villagers’ doors when zombies around and laughed how snowmen shoot snowballs and miss their target. The feeling of happiness is just as fresh as it was ten years ago, when Charles hadn’t moved away, and both of them still cared much about their role in pretending soldiers and generals.
“What will happen if somebody dies? I mean if he or she is a player, what to do with their saves in this game?” Charles raises this long-concealed question in his mind.
Daryl thinks for a while and says: “It’s like you stop playing the game, saves will be kept automatically. Probably just kept in somewhere, forever.”
“That sucks. Who’s going to feed my wolves? And my crops, I have to harvest them.”
“Don’t worry, before that I will blow up your house and take all of your stuff.”
“What do you think your parents will do if you die?”
“The first thing they do must be throwing the game projector out into the garbage, or sell it… No! I can’t accept this.”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What’s that?” Daryl feels uneasy at Charles’s grim voice.
“If, I mean if, one day, I die. Could you help me accomplish building this city?”
“Nothing’s going to happen, okay? Come on! ‘Charles The Tough Guy’, eh? Remember how you fought with higher
grade students for those collection cards?”
“Bad things happen. Every day people die accidentally, even when you’re just sitting in the house playing a video game.”
“When do you become so emotional?” Daryl can’t understand.
“You’ll know when you’re living in a place where there’s not a one you want to trust…” But all of a sudden, Charles bursts into laughter. “Ha-ha! Look at you! Stupid! I was kidding.”
“How dare you, Charles. ” Daryl chuckles, “But that’s a good question, and I’ll say yes to that.”
“Well, I have to go now. 3 o’clock, I need some sleep. Either way, if you want, just give me a call. I can share a bed, a beer mug. If you come now, I can share the influenza with you.”
“We’ll see about that, and take care.”
After Charles leaves, screens on the wall have swiftly faded into white as Daryl calls up several files, each of which has been filled with pages of words and references, and one that always painfully stays on the same line, that’s his thesis, dull and distressing. He used to force himself on this everyday with 1,000 words, in order to keep up on the deadline. However, no one knows since when has he stopped and has it dragged on, leaving the gap larger and larger, larger enough to be visible in his almost empty room after turning down the projector, larger enough for him to hide in his bed trying to sleep away the night like he does in the game.
Thank you for your support
! I'll improve them later.
Chapter 2 updated.
Note: 1. Glorious Path To Eternity is a name I made up for a video game
2. This chapter reveals some of my current status and my guessing about the view my parents hold.
Two
“I don’t know what to say, Frank. Every time I ask him about the graduation things. He just grumbles through. Only knows to eat snacks, plays games, talks to a wall. Am I a failure in teaching our son? He never grows up!” Samantha’s voice carried through the wall.
“Our never-outgoing boy needs time. Still 4 months to graduation. Great pressure.” says Frank.
“Most of student like him have already got a job, and even moved out.”
“I’ve told you, should have cut his finance.” Frank replies.
“You think that easy, huh? Being penniless, homeless…”
“No one wants to leave their snug, but they have to. We leave our parents, kids leave us. Don’t worry, I think he should have already realized this problem and knows what to do when peers around him do the same.”
“Yeah” Samantha has to repine” He will know to hide in his room and play video games again. Seriously, where’s the charger...”
The two audience of this conversation meets in the dining room. Aware of the shame that topic like this could have been heard by his 10-year-old sister, who is making a face at him, Daryl responds with a roll of his eyes. Both of them sit at the table, eating the last palatable breakfast this week and watching their parents moving around with bags and packs. Half an hour later, the couple will be out travelling for their wedding anniversary.
Although Samantha has told them infinite times the dos and don’ts, she won’t bother to do this one more time before getting into the car. “… and don’t let your sister eat too much sweets, she has to go to sleep before ten thirty and make sure she has brushed her teeth.”
“Have enough money?” taking out her purse, she continues.” You have to give it back to me if there’s any left. Okay?”
Daryl says nothing but nods.
“Take care of your sister, Daryl. Don’t play games too late at night.” Samantha kisses good bye her two children. “We’ll be back in four days!”
“Happy anniversary!” Daryl speaks out as the car sets off with the couple’s glancing back and grins. He watches the car gradually vanish in the
distance until the drifting dust mixes with both his sigh of relief and worries.
“I want to eat chocolate.” Linda looks up and gives a slight begging push on Daryl. “I’m not going to tell mom about your gaming, like last time we did.”
It’s already noon when they make it to the supermarket, pushing the cart in which have piled up some of the instant foods needed in the following days, Daryl walks behind Linda, who always jumps around to sound off her wonder in looking new goodies.
“I want this, this, this and this.” Linda pours a bunch of chocolate bars and lollipops into the car.
“You can’t have too much!” Daryl shoves some back to the shelf.
“Just for once!” She begs again. “I haven’t had this for a long time!”
“Two more and there’s no argue! Don’t blame me if your toothache happens again.” He warns, and then walks directly to the cashier.
Haven’t had time to sort out the purchase, when they arrive home the house turns into a party, it won’t be one without Linda pulling out all the candies on the table as well as watching cartoon at a loud volume, and Daryl, closing his door and turning on the game projector.
“Nice mood today.” Charles hears Daryl sing while mining with him.
“Sure. My parents go traveling for four days. Man, four days! No one would be whining around me.”
“So you’re at home by yourself?”
“No, I’m with my sister.”
“Why don’t you join her to the game?”
“Her? No. I’d rather die than play with her. I remember last time saw her play Glorious Path To Eternity, you know the shooting game. That was a
disaster. Furthermore, every time in the co-op mode of a game, I basically do the most.” Daryl laughs in the thought of Linda failed the simplest mission for more than five times.
“Com’on. She’s just a kid! Besides, it’s good to play with family. I used to play video games with my dad. That’s one of the best periods in my life. ” Charles argues
“By the way, how’s your dad? Haven’t been seen him for years. ”
A sigh of grievance comes, “He divorced my mom last year.”
“I’m sorry, bro.” Daryl apologizes immediately.
“I guess he’s playing with his another son now.” Another sigh blurs the background music.
“Wait a minute.” Daryl leaves for the door and shouts Linda’s name. “You wanna play a game?”
“Like play house?” She rushes from the couch to him.
“It’s a video game.” He pauses, “But sort of like that.”
“Okay. But you have to play with me.”
“We are going to join Charles. I think you should still remember him…”
In front of her is a small bay embracing the sea upholds several houses and paths that only allows for two people walking past, lamps around the fenced up area also shed light to the carefully crafted irrigation. This land of old time is fully prepared for the joyous new comer, new laughs and new trouble.
“Don’t use pickaxe to punch wood, you incurable silly.” Daryl comments on how Linda starts her first day journey. “And don’t use planks as fuel!”
“Why you look so square? Why I can’t boil the chicken’s eggs? Why mushroom can grow into a tree? ” sitting back against Daryl, Linda enjoys the
excitement brought by the screen displayed on the wall.
“Shut up! ” Daryl answers with impatience.
“What’s that walking little green thing?” Her curiosity is aroused.
“He’s our friend.” Daryl snickers quiet enough to be apprehended by Charles. “Go over there and say hi to him!”
A blast breaks out seconds later, accompanied by Linda’s complain and turn-around punch at Daryl. But laughing keeps going during their exploration, no matter how they leave Linda alone when she’s drowning in the sea at first, how Daryl plays mischief in burning Linda’s house, or how she got killed by creeper with her inventory fully loaded with valuable stuff, the funniness never stops.
“The creeper is staring me at the window!” Linda exclaims.
“Hush… I’ll take good care of him.” Daryl aims at the monster with an arrow. “Done!”
“Look, I’ve made a boat!” She thrills to take it to the shore. “Do I need an oar?”
“No, if you want to board it, just pull the left trigger.” Charles comes to guide her. “Be careful driving, it will crash. You’d better make some more for backup.”
“That’s fine. I’m just strolling around for a little bit.” There she rushes off amusedly. The next few minutes are dominated by Linda’s own talking: “I see horses! There’s lava coming out from the mountain! …It’s a dog!”
“That’s a wolf. Stupid.” Daryl corrects.
“It is turning dark now, where am I?” She struggles to go ashore after the boat breaks apart.
“Oh yeah, it serves you right! Find your way back yourself, we can’t help you out.” Daryl won’t pass over a chance to mock.
“You bring the map with you?” Charles says.
“I don’t have a map. Oops, a zombie is going after me!”
“Look for the sky-high sugar canes.” Daryl reminds her, “The ugly twisting lines that point upwards. You ‘re not going too far away, are you?”
“I see them now!” Linda can’t help to shout.
“Sprint home, silly! Ignore those monsters.” Daryl even stops his game to watch her run.
“I’m trying! The skeleton won’t give me a break.”
“Forward! Only thirty blocks away!” Charles stands in the stone tower, concentrating on the moving figure.
“My chicken thighs almost run out!” Linda keeps on the shout. “Here comes another zombie!”
“Just run!” Intensity weighs much more on Daryl’s mind, and it finally has him unburdened when Linda crashes into the fence gate in the last second.
“You made it!” Cheers erupt among them. “Welcome home, soldier!” Daryl pats Linda’s head.”Go recover your health and sleep. ”
“I do want to sleep now.” Linda turns back the controller followed by several yawns.
“Sure.” Daryl checks the clock on the screen “It’s almost one o’clock. Brush your teeth, silly!”
The silence of night reemerges, as time goes on, pressure felt against the ear grows stronger to force Daryl thinking about leaving for sleep.
“Except for this game,” this is how Daryl concludes the gaming night with Charles.”I still had better play by myself.”
“But there’s no doubt we had a great time.”
It would have been like usual, after good bye words things go calm and quiet for Daryl. However, it won’t do for Linda, who, despite sleepiness, lied awake for some time thinking about the joyous moments in the game. Moments about her playing Pokémon with her brother went alive, in which she always got defeated in arena; in which Daryl could always tell the name from the different sound of each monsters. That was long time ago, she doesn’t know when her playing companions have been transferred to dressing dolls and story books again. Whatever once the memories might be, she thought that she has to fall fast asleep, what if the tree grows higher without her notice, what if a chicken runs away out of thousands attempts to jumps, what if…
Thank you! That's an honor for me to hear you saying this. Actually, my English name used to be Linda. This is the experience
I had when playing with my two younger brothers(yeah.. the point is, much younger). Kind of awkward , but still lots of fun.
Thanks again for the correction. It's my first time realizing the utilization of comma in English. So you've shed a new light
on this part for me. Regarding the length of the story, it might take quite some time to adjust the misuses. I can only make the
adjustment after posting the story all out.
Here's the third and fourth chapters:
_________________________________
Three
If it wasn’t Linda’s drag and push, Daryl wouldn’t have woken up to realize the pointers of the clock have all come to ‘eleven’. Although in his sleepy eyes, Daryl can tell some difference from Linda’s swollen jaw.
Linda keeps sobbing: “My teeth hurt!”
“I’ve warned you about that!” Daryl looks into her mouth with slight anger.
She looks up for help, “What am I going to do with this?”
“Where’s the medicine the dentist gave you last time?” He goes to search for the closets.
“That’s a month ago!”
Hurriedly delving into drawers, Daryl takes up all the money he can find and rushes to a bus with Linda for her dentist’s clinic. On their long way to the destination, none of them communicates much. It has been a common sense that settling everything down before leading up to the rage of their parents and undermining the rest of the vacation will be the most important, the thought is so deeply rooted that she even conceals her headache from Daryl. Yet, things seem going against their wish.
“I’m sorry .His schedule is full. And you don’t have an appointment.” This is the nurse’s third time to answer.
“Miss, we go all the way here and my sister’s very sick now. Could you, please, arrange for her now? It won’t matter if you put her last of today’s
waiting list.” Linda can hardly hear Daryl’s voice.
“It would be unfair for those patients we reject today that dropped in without an appointment.”
“We can wait here.”
“How about we come here again tomorrow?” Linda asks Daryl.
“We don’t work tomorrow. I can only put your appointment on Monday.”
“Forget about this,” He says “I’ll take you to the pharmacy.”
All day’s waiting and walking have worn them, it goes harder for Linda without proper foods to eat. Regrets fill up Daryl’s mind. How he wishes nothing had happened yesterday! Thus what’s supposed to be a day of team death match won’t turn into busy caring that has long been his dislike. Things as they are, Daryl is left with no choice. He has every responsibility to look after his own sister, whom he loathes sometimes but still loves. Even that means he has to pick up cookery which sounds bizarre to him.
“What’s this?” Linda spoons up the steaming paste-like thing in the bowl.
“It’s oatmeal. This is the only thing available for you in the kitchen, since you can’t have pizza or bread.”
“Alright, explanation accepted.” She tastes a bit in the spoon. “It’s cooked… You do it better than Dad.”
“I don’t even want to rethink how things he cooked taste like.” Daryl sits down with his pizza.
“Do you really have to move out like they say?” the question breaks out like a bomb to Daryl.
It’s quite some time before he answers: “I think so.”
”Why?”
“We all have our own life to live.”
“Do I have to do this in the future?”
“Sure. In a blink of an eye, you’ll grow up. Maybe the next minute you’ll be eating with your own children at this table. Cherish your time here. Time
flies.”
For a girl still baths in the protection of family, Linda looks bewildered.
Daryl furthers his words, “Either way, when you’ve come to my age you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”
Covered by Linda’s scrawl, numbers line up on the calendar which opposites Daryl can easily figured out by him. He has no idea how time starts to plunges into deadline cold-bloodedly regardless of the never-unfinished thesis, the narrowing span somehow frightens him. “Two more days, just give me two more days and I’ll restart writing it.” Daryl thinks to himself.
Like Daryl’s game projector, light stays on in Linda’s room. After making sure she has had the medicine and brushed her teeth, Daryl carefully tugs her into bed.
“I’m sorry.” She watches her brother from the quilt.
“Don’t be silly. You’re my sister.” Daryl smiles.”Good night!”
“Leave the light on please!”
“It’s bad for your eyes.” He switches off the light and leaves.
Sounds of smashing buttons resonates with dazzling screens, Daryl hasn’t missed out the final wave of exciting combats, but seeing the playing list turning grey one by one doesn’t feel right, until he finally joins the leaving parade and comes to his planned mining, which is later interrupted by Linda, who’s dragging her pillow and quilt at the door.
“What?” Daryl turns around from the game.
“I want to sleep here.”
“Something’s wrong?”
“It has light in here. And I want to watch you play. Besides, mom won’t let me stay up so late after she comes back.”
“Come in.” Daryl readjusts the brightness of the projector. “How’s the light? I’ve shut down the one that’s facing you.”
“It’s fine. Just keep your gaming, I won’t disturb you.”
The rest of the two days moves on smoothly in the house. One particular thing Linda did these mornings is to check before a mirror her aching teeth for the better, a sign to prove her secretly-made swear that if mom doesn’t find out anything she’d be lessening the number of the candies she eats every day. But scolds won’t therefore loss its intensity when Samantha and Frank come back to see a house of mess with dusted floors, dirty tables and the same mumbling attitude of Daryl towards graduation issues in university. Nevertheless, a load of paper works numbs instantly all the incitation he received and causes his fishy eyes. Rather than wasting time for nothing, he saves them for the newly-found interest in Creative Mode. Theories of building gadgets are carried out on the plain, and he’s content with success comes from numerous tests and his drafts of works tidily clustered in the corner. With one more test on the high speed rail, he’s going to reprise them in Charles’s small town, as Charles described it, a town full of adventure and surprises.
Resent increases as much as his enjoyment in gaming. More than one time Samantha has shouted to her son, the effect she expects reverses most of the time. Does as Frank told, she keeps on persuading herself with the excuse that time could just be the main factor for this situation. If it weren’t for next week’s big family party, which has seen his absence for several years, she might have gone further.
“I’m not going. Have to do my thesis.” Daryl objects the idea in the very first place.
“If you keep on like this, no one’s going to recognize you. Daryl. Grandma almost forgets your face.” Samantha is irritated.
“Next time. I’ll be there next time.” He scratches his forehead.
“You have to go with us this time! Aaron has come back from travelling, and we’ll celebrate Henry’s birthday.”
“Yay! Uncle Aaron promised to buy me a souvenir! Come with us, Daryl! Must be a big cake over there! ” Linda breaks in.
“Well, fine.” He reluctantly gives in.
They are late for fifteen minutes, partly due to Linda’s tireless clothes choosing and Daryl’s protest in form of dilatoriness. Family’s hugs and greetings warm up the house upon their coming. Too many familiar faces crowd together in cordiality makes Daryl feels unaccustomed. Not until now did he realize the long period he hadn’t been here for. He had practiced in the car before they come, but it takes him sometime to remember some of his relatives’ names. Childishness he seeks for disappears into the grown-up faces of cousins, while other kids are immersed in their own role playing. Daryl tries to sit in the corner watching people praising curious souvenirs brought oversea or talking about recent life. In the mean time, topics among the younger generation begin.
“Long time no see, Daryl! You’re very big now.” Joseph is amazed at the infrequent visit of his cousin. “Are you about to graduate this year?”
“This June. I guess.”
“Congrats! So, what are you going to do?”
“Maybe I’ll end up in an import and export company.” In fact, Daryl doesn’t know how long this faked answer can go on.
“That’s very nice! You can go all around the world. But you have to be ready for working over time.”
“I always stay up late.”
“It’s much different from your experience. You’ll get loads of things to worry about.” Joseph talks like a veteran.
“And you? I heard that you’ve made it the job interview.”
“I’m so excited! This is my dream job! You won’t believe that I’ve made preparation for about two months! By the way, isn’t it time for you to find a girl friend?” He implies with a raising eyebrow.
“I don’t know. Wait, I remember someone told me that you’re…”
“Well. I’m going to bring her here next time.” a burst of flush is seen on Joseph’s cheek.
“Wow!” Daryl says but he’s in hope of transferring the seemingly interesting topic. “Are you still playing video games?”
“Video games?” Joseph seems in shock, as if this is his first time hearing about the words.”Man, it sounds decades ago. I’ve sold the console away for quite a long time. ”
“Oh, I see.”
They both go silent.
Dinner is almost ready, when all the ladies are laying out dishes and foods, Samantha is looking for Daryl room after room, until she finds him sitting
at the balcony drawing something absorbedly with Linda.
“The red stone would be broken if you put the block this way.” Daryl points on the paper. “Didn’t you both hear me calling your names?” Samantha says.
“Give me five minutes.” Daryl is too busy to move away his eyes.
“They’ve been waiting for you! What’s on it?” Samantha feels the pulse to shred the paper into pieces.
“Nothing.”
“It’d better not be crappy things. Leave more time for you future, Daryl.” Not caring much about the presence of Linda, Samantha makes her own
rebuke.
“Here you are, my dear!” Grandmother shouts near the window, “Time for dinner! We don’t want to waste family time on reheating foods again.”
The party is coming to an end where everyone is posing for the family photo. The whole process goes smoothly unless for several interruptions to tell Daryl to smile, but photos are still full of funny or sweet faces. Pending work days are calling them back to their homes. Car lights flash in Daryl’s eyes, he knows maybe one day, he’ll be like them, driving home for work.
In the dim backseat, Linda has fallen asleep. The whole family remains quiet because of tiredness, what moves with them are the series of fast receding street scene that only attempt to shadow Daryl’s blank expression. Thirteen years ago, in the same car, a boy who knew every corner of the street, where to watch a bunch of brawling homeless dogs, where to steal the fresh fruit without being caught, left with his parents. And thirteen years later, the street scenes just hurtle like something unimportant. From the rearview, grandmother’s house, to which a period of his past belongs, has long been hidden by tall buildings and finally, queues of glaring headlights, in front of and behind them.
“I left my bottle in granny’s house!”Linda wakes up to find her hand empty.
“How can you be so forgetful?” Samantha complains.
“Can we drive back to fetch it?”
“We’re not going back. Linda.” Frank answers in a tone of lessoning.
‘We’re not going back.’ This is what Daryl only hears in the conversation.
________________________________________________________
Four
“Watch your step!” Daryl rights the wobbling speaker box promptly.
As soon as Samantha and Frank leave for friend’s house, Linda dashes into Daryl’s room for the already prepared seat and game controller. For her, the action itself has been a clandestine and thrilling task to go against her dull schedule.
“Morning Piggy! Morning my little wolves! They’re so adorable! ” Linda never misses her ritual greeting in the game.
Several times of playing has enabled this little girl to go freely around this place. Blocks from Netherland start to take over her roof, from where she can have a view of quirky buildings Daryl and Charles have been making. Now, she thinks it her turn to building something big.
“What are you doing here?” In Daryl’s mind, things she builds must come with whatever funny.
“A fast encircling rail road upon our houses.” Pride can be heard in her voice.
“I guess we can never see it finished at your speed.” Charles laughs at her awkward building process.
As the other two jumps on the paved cobblestones, she yells “Don’t do anything to my raid road!”
“Duck down to build, Stupid. It’d be faster. Do you know how to make the rail turn around? Let us help you.” Three people’s joint effort is forged into success within minutes. With a red stone torch each few blocks, they stampede through the rail road in the mine carts like crazy, over and over until they’re tired of it.
“It’s meaningless.” Daryl stops on the midpoint after a few more turnings. ”The whole thing, going round and round.”
“What’s the meaning you want from playing a game?” Charles also leaves out from the cart.”It’s just for fun.”
“Too much I want.”
“But only you yourself know what you can actually get.”
“Yup.” Daryl breathes a sigh. “I’m heading back college tomorrow.”
“Congratulation!” Charles knows it hurts Daryl to hear this. “Enjoy your last few days of last vacation, man!”
“I don’t get this.” Linda can’t bear them talking something she doesn’t understand. “We still have lots of holidays. Like National day, Labor’s day...”
“It’s because you’re stupid.” Daryl attacks her avatar for fun,” go back to your homework garbage piles. ” And this brings the cost of being chased by
the wolves she raises in game. “Charles, help me!”
“Sorry,” Charles has decided to stay away.”I don’t plan to involve myself into family issues.”
“Well, in order to boost my morality, I’m going to sing that song again! Linda-la, Linda-la, do-la-do-la-do… why you’re so suck in this game~” Linda is angered again by the song created by Daryl once he saw her die from drowning.
The small land meets another period of craziness with every elements of fun they can think of: compacting labyrinths of blue wools that promise no treasures but monsters and tricks, an enormous field with barricades for horse racing, including the competition about catching a ocelot. Running wild like a child, they gear up to fight together in Netherland, scare each other in strongholds and splash potions everywhere. Eventually, spellbound sun set settles their heart down to the highest tower.
“If only life could be this simple.” Watching the sun going down, Daryl rests his chin on his hands.
Charles counters the opinion: “But the saddening truth is it isn’t. I know you’re going to hate this, but I have to ask you one thing. Have you finished your thesis?”
Daryl gives a wry smile: “No.”
“I’m going to tell mom about this!” Linda thinks it a good way to fight back his arrogance against her.
“Yeah, just go ahead. Wait for me to delete your account and saves.”
“And I will ask dad to throw away your game projector!”
“To be frank, Daryl” Charles breaks in, “Do your parents really dislike video game?”
“Um… It’s awkward. However, I think Linda should have a listen about this. Remembering once I was so full of courage. After my parents came home, I seated them on the couch in the study room with a big screen displaying my fully prepared presentation. Did you know what that is? ‘The benefits of video game’. I was trying to talk them into it. I’d spent like, two weeks, to prepare. When I finished my talking, they said nothing but a sentence: ’is this the thing you bother to tell us after we worked our way through the day and went home like a tired dog? We don’t raise you up to play video game! We raise you up to be…’” Daryl drags on the final tone.
“To be what?” It interests Charles and Linda
“Iron man! Ha-ha!” their reaction makes him laugh.
“Oh, I thought the answer should’ve been ‘a fool’.” Linda adds.
“So you’re lucky, Linda,” Daryl continues, “to have someone to play with you.”
“Hey, man. You’ve got me here!” Charles says, “That’s why you cheated your mom just to play games at my house after school.”
“Wow, bonus with secrets and handles today!” Linda had never expected to learn something different about her brother. For a long time, her impression towards him stays as a slightly hunchbacked boy, seen in a room of bleak light with a pair of red headphone. He does talk a lot, mostly to his friends in the game instead of talking to her, the mommy’s good girl, who stays up beyond her bed time being excited about news of games that she could probably never play. This is a habit she keeps so well, because apart from video games, what else she can talk to him?
As if by magic, time ticks to seven thirty, a usual time for their parents coming home. Daryl urges her to stop the game.
“What’s the next time we’ll play together again?” Linda starts to neaten her inventory.
“Maybe half year later, maybe longer.” Days ahead seems as messy and gloomy as the answer by Daryl.
“What if you don’t come back?” she asks.
“Then I’ll see you on the computer screen.”
“Alright, before I go,” Linda does one more visit to her own farmland.”I want to say goodbye to them.”
“Good bye, my piggy and little wolves! How I wish I could give you a hug, but mommy won’t let us keep a pet because she thinks they’re dirty. Here,
one more piece of rotten flesh for you. If I see you half a year later, would you still recognize me? Would you gonna miss me? Because I will miss you so much... ” her weep starts takes over the rest of her words.
“What’s going on?” Daryl is caught unprepared and shoves paper towels in her hand. “They are still here in the game.”
“But you leave for a long time! And I don’t have a console.” She tries to clear her voice amid chokes.
“I promise, I promise no one’s going to touch your house and pets. Everything will stay the same.”
“Is it true?”
“Of course. At least that’s how this game’s programmed when we’re not playing it.” Charles comforts her.
The doorbell rings, striking a painful note to Linda.
“Dry your tears, stupid.” Daryl wipes her face. “And run for the door.”
Holding the knob, she disappears upon her closing the door.
“I feel envy sometimes, Charles.” Daryl looks up on the appealing night sky, “Kids, carefree. She can cry whenever she wants.”
“We have freedom that they can’t enjoy. Although, it doesn’t come an easy way.”
“Fifteen years, it has been, right? We’ve known each other and played video games for this long.”
“Yeah. Best chums.”
“I miss those days.”
“Same here, bro. But it’s always funny to imagine we’re holding our own newborn while playing games.”
“Now you’re talking about this, I’m going to train my kids as video gamers.”
“Great idea! Then you’ll go bankrupt sooner as they ask you to buy new games instead of small toys.” …
No one is going to disturb this two best friends’ chatter tonight, including Samantha who’s lowering her supposed knocking hand. At the same time in previous years, she would either check his packing by bossing around and nagging in case of anything forgotten, or try to cram more fruits in his backpack as well as urging him to call home on his arrival in college. Her self-perceived instinct as a worrywart never stops her from pouring care to her son, but she thinks it’s time to give it a little rest and leaves with the prepared clothes for him without notice.
Thank you
Minecraft has in some way influenced my life and some of my thoughts on things around me. It's a witness to my growth. Therefore I wrote the story as a thank-you note to this game. Have two more Chapters to wrap up this story.
Since I'm still writting my graduation thesis(well, I don't like it -_-), the next two chapters will be my imagination about what will happen in the coming days, still in the chapters there are some events that truly happened in my life.
Five
A line pops up against the darkened computer screen, it reads: You Died!
Daryl can no longer refrain his tears. “I screw up.”
“It’s just a game!” His strange voice confuses Charles.
“I…I screw them all up…the game, the graduation, everything.” Tears on the keyboard start to flow.
Charles’ sound appears seconds later: “Damn you, Daryl. Damn you.”
“They held such ah high expectation on me. While I kept lying to them I’m writing my thesis, I couldn’t lie to myself. Speaking of those words just makes me laugh: I’m going to graduate in blah blah blah. My minds are not on them.”
“So what you’re going to do next?”
“Find a job or something. Save some money. Do some stuff I want.”
“I remember you’re writing novels,right?”
“Yeah, I’m still on it. Anyway, I have a job interview next week.”
“Not going to say ‘good luck’ to you, but” says Charles, “welcome to the league, bro.”
Daryl doesn’t know what else to reply for the empty holder of game projector reflected on the screen sends him into pondering. Alone on the center of white ceiling, the holder hanged down like a withered twig that just suffers a battering storm, while the fruit it once held, the easy reminder of the quarrel, pieces of which carry the weight of disappointment and rage at the moment his father threw it on the floor, lies shattered on the table. In the left side, a print of his shabby resume, the margin of which has been smudged by carless strokes, is pressed wrinkled on the bottom of books. When compares it to the chunky words about requirements on the job lists, Daryl thinks it pure luck that it could earn him even a chance to work after waiting for a long time a new email in inbox or a new phone number. Thus, he can have a longer time to shun away his parents’ angry face and words at home.
Now along with part time job, Daryl accepts the formal one as a clerk in a shipping agency, turning into a young man, who dresses in an uncomfortable suit passing through crowds between home and workplace. Not until his first day to work, when the owner of the long-time shoppe praises Daryl’s new suit while he’s buying breakfast, did he realize that he will never be sitting in the shadowy corner to wait for the school bell rings. Days of drowsy lectures by boring teachers have drifted away, calling on Daryl are the scuttling subways packed with strangers and later the drowsy works to be done.
“The campaign is about to start!” Daryl’s missing on several rounds of game night prompts Charles to call him.
“I’m so tired.” Daryl answer torpidly, he’s lying in his bed after all day’s work.
“Com’on, it’s Friday!”
“I’ve got part time job tomorrow. Dude. ”
“Okay, then. How’s your first day in um…whatever agency?”
“Anything bad you can imagine.”
“Do you have office romance? What about infighting between colleagues?”
“Jeez! I don’t even have enough time for the tons of works assigned to me! And you start to talk like my mom.”…
Daryl has expected more chatting alike to expand into the coming work days, especially when he’s sitting outside alone on the bench gobbling on meals, or whirls the straight paths home after easily turning down polite invitation for drinks from colleagues. For the rest, the glaring mobile screen is made the protagonist, which can’t wait to wrap Daryl up in music and news in his way through the crowds. Sometimes, with any luck, he’ll accidentally look up into the thriving stream of cars and people as he walks by, but soon lowers his head again. He’s heading for a location, he thinks for now, structure changed but essence remains.
Same white wall and broad desk, papers of work are put aside for a book of an eyesore under the door-locking sound. Daryl’s written some words, most of them can’t form a sentence, and the following pages jump to a mess of listings and numbers that struggle to meet the goal he sets. It’s causing him headache to record his money and find the swelling ambition frozen to death as ink pushes out into words. And finally one day, among the consecutive waves of cruel tiredness, his eyes turn automatically to the little-bit dusted keyboard of his computer.
The feeling of familiarity from desktop and icons is almost overwhelmed by a bunch of loud barking noise after clicking into the game, he’s startled to find out the new placards and trees around his house, with some of them reads “Daryl sucks!” “Your doggy is starving” “Four dogs now!”“Your house decoration is a bad taste.” he moves on as tears run down on his face, “How do you think about your job?” “Why you seldom talk to me?” “I made the worst score in exam.” “I’ve beaten the ‘Glorious Path To Eternity’ myself in 60 hours!”
“That’s the slowest clearing time I’ve heard about this game.” He smiles, replying with another placard. Looking back at the place, memory of everything revives: a water pound hided in bushes of sugar canes where monsters always fall off, a bridge towards the village, a colorful stripe hang upon his bed... However, minutes of rushing are slowed down, for the long-missed stars are rising upon the sky where different colors of purple changes into dark along with the setting sun. He should admire them, like exactly the first time he saw their images on the ceiling and walls.
What Daryl might not know, in the same time, at the other end of the house, another drawing is coming out from a childish stroke. Rugged lines shed upon the paper forms into portraits of her family whose smiling faces appear against the square houses, near which are rows of sugar canes and towers. Of course, there’s no left out for a square-faced dog slanting its head in a yellow necklace. The drawing book Linda’s doing with has accumulated similar pictures she supposed to hand out but later denies. Being the poor victim and witness of the fierce quarrel, Linda feels the burden to bury the hatchet. Words she’s so well prepared would disappear at once as Daryl drags his tired body directly to the room without any sign of friendliness. When there’s finally a time to have a small talk at weekend lunch, her father would ruin it with taunts and jeers.
After all these, she ends up leaning against the windowsill some mornings, watching Daryl hurries out the door, watching how her brother becomes a lesson to learn in Samantha’s lecture. Somehow influenced by her mother’s words, Linda would review herself in the mirror. Who she’s going to be? What choices she should make if the same thing happens to her? “So annoying!” in this case, she would abandon the idea of doing this and walk towards her room for other stuff.
But those aren’t what Linda’s caring about, there’s nothing upset than the numbers on the calendar, although events are marked on the date, one is still missing, and she knows what that is.
Thank you! Your words give me great courage! I've been confusing the usage of some grammar and I'm just afraid that what happened to Daryl in this chapter might take a toll on how people view video gamers, which is not what I mean. I'm happy that you feel for the character.
Only read the first chapter so far, and honestly it's one of the better stories I've read on here. The prose is solid, your grammar is good, I like the descriptions where they are. The plot is also fairly original and the characters fairly interesting and likeable. You also do what very few people are able to do here, even the good ones, and that's get down emotions correctly. Good job, I'll give this a 7/10 on the first chapter and I look forward to reading more. Welcome to the Literature section formerly colloquially referred to as Minefic.
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Thank you for the review! It's very encouraging to recieve such praise. I once thought that the first chapter would bore the readers, thankfully it somehow keep you through the story. And thank you for the welcome.