[Tuesday, September 8]

Zachary opened his eyes, realizing he was laying on something soft and warm and not the cold hard ground. He sat up in bed and looked around his room.

‘So it really was all a dream.’

He looked at his alarm clock. No time had passed even though he felt as if he spent an extra day throwing rocks at ducks.

His skills. His inventory. The pen. It was as if none of it had been real.

He ran out into the kitchen. “Mom! Mom!” he called but no one answered.

‘Oh yeah, she left this morning to the airport,’ he realized.

His mom wasn’t home for another week.

Besides, what would he say? He had been trapped in another world, thinking it was all a really bad dream about a bad game then woke up after he used magic to start a fire? Yeah right. No time had actually passed in the real world so it was fine.

Except it was not fine. He had slept in! It was already 7:00am according to his alarm and he still had to go to school.

He quickly dressed, brushed his teeth, and shoved his books into his backpack. The package for ‘Dungeons and Towers II: Snovideniye’ lay in tatters on his bedroom floor.

He consumed the lunch his mother packed for him for breakfast instead, resolving himself to buy something from the school cafeteria later. By then it was already 7:30.

He rushed out of the house and mounted his bike. He realized his hands hurt as he grasped the handle bars, but ignored it for now and started pedaling.

...

Zachary gasped for breath as he neared his school, Burlington High. Wheezing, he regretted dropping out of sports last spring. He wasn’t in shape anymore after so many months without regular exercise.

He parked his bike and locked it before jogging to class. He was late and realized he hadn’t done his homework either. This was going to be a tough one to explain.

“Mr. Trenner, you’re late,” a cranky old English teacher said to Zachary.

“Sorry, Mrs. Flick.” he replied between breaths. “I had to ride my bike to school today.”

She glared at him. “Please, take your seat.”

As soon as she turned around to resume class, Zachary heard sniggers from the three football jocks he recognised from… yesterday.

Jacob sat nonchalantly at his desk whispering with his two goons, Frank and Michael. All three had full letterman’s jackets on display. They rolled a ball between the three of them whenever Mrs. Flick wasn’t looking.

Seriously, if Zachary wasn’t so good at school, he wouldn’t have to deal with these three every day. He had tested better than the entire freshman class. Now he was enrolled in classes with upper level students.

It was irritating to watch, so he ignored them, glancing at the girl he sat next to. For some reason, she caught his gaze and blushed. Saya Park was her name. She was a weird one.

She had a textbook open in her lap and was as busy as he was, scribbling something on a piece of paper. It was clear how hard she was studying her math in an English class. She had probably blushed because he found out.

Zachary didn’t judge though, and brought out his own assignment that was due at the end of that period. He scribbled down a few things and finished up his third paragraph while the teacher droned on with her lesson.

He looked down at the pen in his hand, recalling the pen from his dream. Unintentionally, his mind drifted back to the small adventure he had gone on. He remembered the way his body felt as he threw a stone so hard and accurately, he killed a duck.

At the end of class he handed in the assignment to Mrs. Flick. Though, he missed the entire lecture in the meantime.

She scolded him, “Mister Trenner, I do not tolerate tardiness.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Flick. I tried really hard to get to class today, but I was late. My mom is taking a trip to California to visit my grandmother and she left this morning. I had to ride my bike to school.”

“That’s not a very good excuse. You do this kind of thing every day.” She snapped. “Besides, your work isn’t even that bad. You know what you are doing. If you just make it to class on time, you would get full marks in the class.”

Zachary had heard this all before so he just nodded. He briefly considered ratting out Saya and the football players, but dropped the idea immediately. He wasn’t a hypocrite.

When she was finished, he gathered his things and went to math, another absurdly easy course.

On the way, a football rolled into his ankles, the same football that Jacob and his goons were playing with in class. He reached down and picked it up. Jacob ran over, noticing he had picked up his ball. Since they were a good distance away, he called out to him and held his hands in a triangle. “Sorry, dude. Can you throw it back?”

Zachary cocked his arm and fired the ball toward Jacob. It flew in a straight line and with perfect spin, hitting Jacob’s hands with a snap.

“Wow. That one had some zip to it. Thanks.” Jacob said as he turned away.

All Zachary could think was, ‘what the heck just happened?’

He had never been so good at throwing.

He stared at his hands for a minute, then shrugged and wordlessly walked to his next class.

...

The rest of the day was laid-back for Zachary. He bought some lunch at the cafeteria. Afterward, he had a period of study-hall.

During this free time, he went to the library and signed on to one of the computers.

He was researching “how to cook ducks from scratch” when the chair next to him was suddenly pulled back.

Saya Park sat down. She was staring rather intently at him, so he turned to greet her.

“Hi, Saya. What do you need?”

“H-hey, Zach!” She began shyly. “I was just wondering if you have an email already?”

“Hmm? Yeah. I got it set up at the beginning of the semester by Mr. Lundy. He taught me how to use it too. Do you know how to use yours yet?”

Saya shook her head. “Actually, no. I don’t have one set up yet.”

Zachary gasped.

“We’re already a month into the school year and you don’t have an email account!?”

Saya blushed, embarrassed.

“Could you help me set one up?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied. “This is the future, right here. Slide rules, typewriters, and telegraph’s are out. Computers are in.”

Zachary proceeded to set Saya up with an email account of her own, and then taught her how to use it.

“And to compose a new message,” he explained, “simply press this button and type in this box the email address of the person you want to send the message to.”

“Cool! What’s your email address?”

“Um. You want my email address?” Zachary asked, slightly baffled. “I’m going to be your first contact. Is that okay?”

“Naturally. You helped me figure all this stuff out, after all.”

“Well, in that case, here.” He typed his email address into the box. “This is my email. Since the system is smart, once you send an email to someone, their email address will automatically be recorded to your contact list, so you don’t need to remember it.”

“Don’t worry. I won't be able to forget you after all.” Saya replied. Then her eyes went wide at her own words. “I-I mean, not you! I meant, your email address! But of course I will still remember you. But don’t take it the wrong way.” she stammered.

“Of course, of course.” Zachary replied quickly, trying to calm her down.

“I-I’d better go,” she said suddenly.

At that moment, the bell signalling the end of the period rang.

“Thanks for the email, I’ll be sure to message you sometime.” she said before waving goodbye.

“Wait!” Zachary called out. “Do you have a computer of your own at your house?”

“Yes I do. Don’t worry.”

Then she was gone.

Zachary was ecstatic. It was the first girl’s email he had ever gotten.

But then he remembered something. His mom saw that he played too many video games on their family computer and blocked him out with some form of parental control software a week ago.

He sighed in defeat and packed up his things. He wouldn’t be able to email her back tonight.

…

After going through his last class, Zachary biked home.

When he finally arrived at his house, he was out of breath again. He rubbed his tired legs, feeling a bit of soreness seeping in.

His stomach growled a little, so he deposited his backpack on his bed then went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge when, much to his surprise, there was no food left. His stomach complained a little more. He dug out some leftover Chinese food that had survived and stuck it in the microwave.

Only now did he realize how uncharacteristic of him it was to eat this much. Must be that extra [Consumption] point his subconscious was trying to tell him about last night...

After consuming an entire bowl of lo mein, there was a light knock on the door.

“Mrs. Heizel!” he said, pleasantly surprised.

“Hello, dear. Your mother told me you were home alone this week and asked me to pick up some groceries for you every day.”

The sweet old lady smiled and held up a grocery bag full of goods.

“Thank you.” he said, taking the bag. He noted a whole chicken, a box of lettuce, and some soup cans.

“Anytime, dear. Don’t be a stranger.”

After making a substantial dinner that sated his appetite, then after making sure everything was in the fridge, he went to his room.

He sat down on the bed and picked up the controller, ready to finally play his new game and not do another English assignment. He reached for the power button on his consol, only to realize it was still on.

‘Hmm. That’s weird,’ he thought.

He found the TV controller but stopped just before hitting the button, the incredibly realistic dream stole away his thoughts.

Despite the painful realism (pun intended), he had a strange desire to go back. The feeling of throwing rocks with all his might and performing magic was still fresh in his mind.

Childishly, he even thought about looking at his stats again.

No beans. The window didn’t appear in real life.

So instead of turning on his TV, he simply laid back, sinking into the bed. His light was already off and it only took a few minutes to fall asleep.

The sound of running water. The cool of an outdoor breeze. The damp, hard ground.

‘I’m back.’

[End Chapter 3]