Chapter 29: In-Game Skin Synchronization—6%

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: In-Game Skin Synchronization—6%

Victor opened his eyes to the familiar ceiling he had known for a big part of his life.

It had a water stain that had always looked vaguely like a rabbit when he squinted just right. There was also that crack running along the corner he’d meant to fix three years ago but never got around to.

Never had he been so happy to see it again.

He lay there for a few minutes, breathing hard, chest heaving like he’d actually run for his life instead of just dreamed it.

Of course it was a dream.

His heartbeat was still slamming against his ribs. What a terrible fucking nightmare.

He attempted to sit up, bracing himself for the usual struggle. It would need to roll while grunting hard, to take his weight off the mattress.

He would try again and again, until he got it right. Sometimes ten minutes, sometimes closer to thirty on a bad day.

However, the moment he attempted it, he sat up in one motion.

He blinked, sitting there a second, caught off guard by his own body.

Huh. Maybe it’s the Adrenaline.

The thick stale, particularly funky smell of the room that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, hit him next.

He looked around. There were Junk food wrappers piled in the corners; Pizza, Instant ramen, Chicken wings boxes. Old containers he’d been meaning to throw out.

All of it was exactly the same as it had always been.

Then his eyes landed on his console.

Memories flashed in his head. The console on the road, the truck with the blinding head lights, and then that place.

A shiver ran down his spine.

For once, after waking up, his mind wasn’t already circling toward the console.

He didn’t feel like touching it. Not today. Not after whatever that dream had been.

He pushed himself up to stand, but staggered, catching the wall for support.

Victor felt like his weight was off-balance in a way he couldn’t place.

My legs are probably numb from sleeping weird again.

He shuffled through the mess of his half of the apartment.

This was a two room apartment, split down by a wall. The other side was for his father, and this side was for him.

Going through the curtain that separated the rooms, he saw him there.

His father.

He was passed out in his chair, an empty bottle tipped over near his hand, vomit dried down the front of his shirt.

He looked like he hadn’t moved for hours.

Victor gave him one glance. Just one.

His father used to be a responsible hard office workaholic. Which meant that he was not always around, and thus Victor spent most of his younger years with his mother.

Victor knew his father blamed himself for what happened to his mother that day. He had been working hard for his family, when is world came crashing down.

There was a time in Victor’s life that he too had believed it was his fault. It felt easier to push the blame, and not bare the weight.

However, after stepping up for Jaja...

Arhhh! He winced, catching his head.

Why was he remembering that dream now? And why did it hurt so much?

After a few seconds, his eyes fell on his father again.

The man had never stopped drinking since that day.

He blamed himself, and Victor added to it, making him drown in any distraction that offered itself.

And in turn, Victor did not get proper parental guidance growing up.

Victor suddenly felt the urge to apologize. But then his father whispered a word in his sleep, "Vivian..."

That was his mother’s name. Victor paused.

Maybe another time.

He turned away and shuffled out of the apartment. He was heading towards the the shared bathroom used by all in the apartment building.

As he passed the rooms, one was noiser than than the others. The muffled sound of people quarreling.

The kellys.

"The payment is due. What do you mean you invested it in Dungeon and Conquest."

"Yes, I had to. Their stock just rose. If we don’t invest now, we will be losing the opportunity of a life time."

"Of a life time!? The only thing we will be losing here is our lives if we don’t get that money before the loan sharks get here. Or have you forgotten what they said they’ll do to us. To our son."

Next came the sound of what Victor assumed was a flunged chair.

He paid it little mind. Most of the people in this run down building had financial issues, and usually fell into gambling and debt with loan sharks. Even his father had been a victim at one time.

Everyone just minded their business.

Victor reached the shared bathroom and pushed open. The door groaned on a hinge that had needed oil for years.

This bathroom was as horrible as you’d expect from a bathroom shared by people who had littke responsibility to maintaining it.

He twisted the tap. It coughed, sputtered a few drops. No water, same as always these days.

A bucket sat beside the sink instead, a few inches of water left in the bottom. Someone must have used the place only recently.

Victor scooped a double handful and splashed it over his face, over and over, trying to shake the last of that dream loose.

Then he looked up into the mirror.

He SCREAMED.

—stumbled backward so hard he nearly went down into the pile of laundry behind him. But he caught himself at the last second, another small thing that should have surprised him and somehow it didn’t even register through the panic.

He forced himself forward again. Closer to the bathroom mirror. Closer to what was staring back at him.

He wasn’t the same him he knew or had always known.

He was thinner. Like a real, visible portion of his weight was simply gone, like it had melted off him overnight.

The face and body that was called Air Balloon his whole life looked different now.

Leaner. Sharper at the jaw.

And faint lines traced across his skin, his cheeks, his neck, the backs of his hands, like the ghost of tattoos that had been there once and were slowly fading, too pale to be real, but too deliberate to be nothing.

His mind went cold as he remembered something from that dream.

[In-Game Skin Synchronization—6%]

"No," he whispered. "No, it can’t be. It can’t..."

He turned and bolted out of the bathroom.

(Author’s note: Add the Book To your Library. I need this contract please.)