Giantess World
“I’m telling you,” Siarra said. “You’ll love it.”
Malkav wasn’t so sure. “I’ve never seen a game tagged with ‘play at your own risk, fool’ before. It sounds kind of dangerous… One second, it’s done downloading.” He lowered the phone and clicked ‘OK’ on the computer screen in front of him. The screen turned black for a moment and then was suddenly replaced by a panning rural landscape looking fantastically real with the name ‘Neverquest’ hovering over the hills in gold letters. Malkav took off his glasses; the graphics were so bright and surreal that they blinded him. Then he looked back into the giant box the game had come in and pulled out a greenish-silver space helmet. He turned it over in his hands.
“I didn’t even know they had invented virtual reality yet,” he muttered to himself, pressing the button on his phone for speaker. “Siarra, are you sure this is legal?”
“When has that ever made a difference?”
“Okay, how do I put this thing on?”
“The helmet? Try your big head, dork. You can’t miss it.”
Malkav muttered something incomprehensible and turned the helmet back over, sliding it over his long black hair. He locked the straps together under his chin but kept the tinted visor pushed up. “Okay, it’s on.”
“Plug it in, plug it in!” Siarra sang over the phone.
“Very cute…” Malkav held up the cord dangling from his helmet and plugged it into the USB port of his computer. “It’s in.”
“Okay, now… Whatever you do, do not unplug that cord while playing the game. It’ll shock you with about a gazillion jolts of electricity and turn your brain into mushy goo, kinda like runny scrambled eggs—you know, like they serve at school.”
“…Do I have to do this?”
“Yes, stop whining! I wanna play.”
“Okay, okay. What do I do next?”
“What’s it say on the screen?”
“‘Neverquest’… Isn’t that copyright infringement?”
“Only if you care about that stuff. Now, it should say ‘New Game’ on the bottom of the screen.”
“It does.”
“Click that.”
“But I’m not done reading the ‘End User License Agreement’… What does it mean ‘periodic and unstable convulsions are normal during gameplay’?”
“Would you stop being a nerd and just start a new game? Nobody reads the manual. It’d take too long.”
“What did you use it for—a booster seat?” Malkav teased. Siarra was only about five feet tall in real life, one of the shortest senior girls at East Shore High. Malkav, in comparison, was over six feet, tall enough to be on the basketball team if his lack of coordination hadn’t left him benched for life. But he loved teasing Siarra, despite the fact he was lucky to know her at all. First off, she was a girl and everybody at ESH knew that the geeky and weird kids like Malkav had no experience and/or chance with girls. Secondly, she was actually cute, which further set her on a level above Malkav. She had short hair, dyed something between pink and purple, with black eyes that matched the color of almost everything Malkav was wearing. He was very into black.
“Haha,” Siarra laughed dryly. “See if I power-level you now.”
Malkav clicked the ‘New Game’ button and a menu bar appeared at the left, giving him a variety of choices for an archetype to pick. On the right was a rotating model and description of that character. He was surprised to see that the model looked just him like him. He hadn’t even inputted any of his information. “Umm…what class should I be? I think I’d make a good rogue, don’t you?”
“You can’t be a rogue.”
“Why not!?”
“You’re only level 1. The only class you can be is at the bottom of the list.”
Malkav scrolled down to the very bottom and looked the title. “Newbie… 10 HP, 4 strength, 2 agility, 2 dexterity, 0 intelligence—oh, that’s nice—1 wisdom, 1 charisma. ‘As a newbie, you have absolutely no power or skill at all. Your only weapon is a small dagger and you wear beggar’s clothes. Stick to fighting street rats and you might survive in order to level up to a higher class.’”
Siarra giggled.
“I don’t find that funny.”
“Aw, come on! Everybody starts out as a newbie.”
“Did you?”
“Well, no… This game was mainly meant for girls. Girls can start out as whatever class they want. Guys have to be newbies.”
“That’s sexist!”
“No, ‘sexist’ is every other MMORPG out there, isolating girls as ‘freaks’. Nobody believes girls are capable of playing online games. So they finally came out with a game favoring girls.”
“That means…the game is full of female players?” Malkav asked hopefully.
“Yup! There are a few guys like you, but don’t worry. They’re no…bigger of newbies than you’re about to be.”
“Fantastic…” Malkav moved the cursor over to ‘Begin’ and clicked. Nothing happened. He was about to click again, but suddenly he realized he had no feeling in his thumb. Everything had gone numb. The visor on his helmet slammed down over his face and his eyes closed almost as if on instinct. Then there was a great rumbling. The helmet turned on by itself and began shaking, faster and faster and faster, until Malkav thought his skull was going to implode. His head vibrated back and forth, his cheeks undulating, and bright colors flashing before his eyes even though they were shut. He screamed. The neurons in his body danced to an insane beat. He felt them being sucked up into his brain with his blood and consciousness and through the helmet’s churning tube, down towards the computer, and shooting into the machine. His scream gradually faded, though still echoing, as if drifting into some distant dream or death. The sound was unbearable. He could hear his voice crying out again and again and again, reverberating through the pulsing caverns of his head. The world blurred. Colors flashed. Howls of banshees tore away at his sanity and he felt himself slip away.
And then there was silence.