In an entirely different place, a standard school day is abruptly interrupted. A spitball flies sharply into Clark Bennett’s neck. The black-haired, intense-faced lad turns sharply behind him to see Billy, as expected, though nowadays he just goes by “Bill”.

“Listen up, fuckwad,” Bill says amidst a row of chuckling from the other kids.

Clark just allows it, without a murmur or a gesture. Having been long-since broken to allow this kind of treatment, it’s not hard to blame him for just bearing with it.

“Has Clark been daydreaming again, Mister Ericson?” The teacher asks, looking from her white board just enough to address Bill with her gaze. Of course, she conveniently only heard the “Listen up” segment of Bill’s sentence- at least, Clark is pretty sure she did.

Bill grins, the whiteness of his smile visible to the teacher at even the back row of the classroom. “Sure has, sir.”

The teacher, a puckered, stern woman with intrusive glasses and a face so ugly it can only be stereotypical, shakes her head at Clark. “I swear, Clark. You’ve got to get your head out of these useless games!” She starts, ushering another set of snickers from everyone around him. “Those headset’s will rot your brain. They’re the devil’s tool and transport you right to a world of sin,” she adds, winning a collective, soft jeer from the class, pointed fully at Clark.

It came out in a conversation early on in ninth grade that the infamous, secretive Clark does nothing but play games at home. This is all in an age where dedicated, “hardcore” gaming is considered stupid and lame again. After all, who nerd would deal with all those complicated stats and builds when you can simply tap a plot of corn on your smartphone?

“It’s not bad,” Clark says, like he always does. It’s the one thing he believes in. He watched a video about it online once: “Videogames is the continuation of the evolution of all mediums. Narrative is for books, sound is for music, and visual is for art, but when combined and pulled into the interactive medium, you have just created the final frontier of human interaction: Magic.” Said developer Sakamato in the interview, and he holds those words close.

Of course, no one in the classroom really cares for Clark’s opinion on how he wastes his life away now that he’s in high school and should be doing real things with real people, like doing real drugs, and getting into real trouble.

“It is bad, and no one in their right mind would do it. It’s like drugs — shouldn’t be legal,” the teacher says.

Bill, right behind Clark on a daily basis thanks to consistent assigned seating, leans up to whisper. “Hear that, Clarko?”

Bill asks with an expectant tone. “You’re out of your mind.”

Clark would start up from his chair and go straight to the detention, as that’s how this scenario usually plays out, but he has to get off from school on time today. It comes out today.

“You’re not wrong,” Clark says, half-jokingly.

To the teacher’s surprise, Clark doesn’t “defy her authority” by explaining himself, but rather nods quietly as if in agreement.

“See, Mister Bennett? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She says, referring to all the previous times she sent him to detention. “Sometimes just a little respect makes the world go round.”

He nods again. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Wonderful.” She smiles and turns back to the board.

“Backing down? What a pussy,” Bill says with a venomous tone. Clark does not respond, and understandably this irritates Bill.

Clark will appreciate the effects of this slight after school, when Bill executes the legendary “passing-by-locker-slam” technique in the hallway after last period. His forehead pressed deep into the locker’s ridges, his face is bloody for the entire trip home thanks to the two long cuts from Bill.

The bus ride is maddeningly long, no one will offer him a seat, which isn’t anything new, but today it seems like the world is particularly against him, as if it didn’t want him to escape to his real life.

As all bad things do, this comes to an end, and Clark is dropped off in front of his small, two bed two bath house. He does not spare a glance back to the school bus; there’s nothing for him there, especially today of all days. He’s always excited to get back home, but today is the day to be excited. He can’t help but grin like its the holidays as he steps through the unkept yard with childhood toys scattered about the tall grass. He opens the door, slewing forth the immense odor of garbage and tobacco, wafting and permeating through the house’s entire being like the miasma of some darkness lurking within.

“Did you do the dishes?” A heaving, gravelly voice speaks from a room across the hall.

“I did,” Clark says, freezing up and his heart holding still.

“Could you bring me some Wavies?”

Clark takes a breath. His mom needs his help, is what the doctor said, and he will not abandon that responsibility. After all, she’s the only thing that brings dad back, he’s fairly certain. “One minute.”

He heats up a plate of “wavies”, which taste way better than they look on the package, and Clark delivers it over to his mom’s room. He opens the door just wide enough to place the plate on the small table next to the entrance. He has since learned from sorrow not to look far into her room to see her; it’s too sad, but he knows he’ll never get that addicted to the games - he’s responsible, after all. He doesn’t blame him mom for living the life she does, she’s happier in the virtual world, where there is no third stage cancer to hear of.

“Thanks, honey,” she says, a respirator gasping in oxygen during her sentence.

“No problem. I’m going to play that new one for a while,” Clark says, praying to whatever god will hear him, “do you need anything else?”

“Nah, I’m good. Have fun,” she says, the mechanical whir of the respirator equal in volume to her voice.

Yes.

“Okay, just let me know,” he says, turning from the door and going to his surprisingly clean, sparsely-decorated room.

The only things of significant value in his bedroom are his V.R. headset, a “Full Neuron” model from Takahashi Technical, and his PC, running a powerful tri-card setup for split frame rendering. His mom helped him set it up, as his father wouldn’t dare touch the things.

Clark gently affixes on his headset, and pulls down the visor. He can see his computer monitor’s G.U.I. like a landscape with it on, stretching his icons and appbar around him like an expansive field.

From all of his icons on the app bar, he clicks on the very last one, symboled by some artistic cross of a dragon and a weapon: the DSO patcher.

The patcher window opens, showcasing celebrating player characters on launch day - today, as well as any pertinent news and events coming up. Naturally, the entire game’s been pre-loaded, all he needs to do is download the small launch patch of no more than a few megabytes, and begin.