The skies were dark and the air was frigid. It was late into the early into the winter and school had just been let out. A bright yellow school bus could be seen driving up a narrow road surrounded by trees. On the school bus was a lone teenager and the bus driver. The teenager had his head resting against the window as he stared out at the passing trees, his breath fogging up the glass.
The bus slowly came to a halt next a well maintained iron gate. "Cypress, we're here." The bus driver called to the teen. Cypress' face fell when he realized he had made it home safe and sound. He stepped out of his seat and walked to the front as the doors creaked open. "Have a good day." The bus driver smiled at Cypress as he was walking down the stairs. "You too, Mr. Bell." Cypress smiled back at the driver before stepping off and making his way to the gate.
Cypress walked up to the keypad and entered the code, causing it to swing open automatically. He made the long walk up from the gate to the pristine manor atop the hill. Out of breath, Cypress opened the door and took his shoes off, placing them on a rack. He made his way towards the kitchen but before that he passed an open door and saw his father leaning over a desk that his younger sister, Belle, was sitting at. She was concentrating on something and would make various movements with her pencil over a piece of paper. His father looked up and saw Cypress watching and looked him in his eyes. His father spared him one glance and then looked back down, watching over Belle again.
Cypress nodded to himself with a forlorn expression and continued on to the kitchen. Once he reached the kitchen he noticed that there was someone already there. To Cypress' relief, it was only the in-home cook that made their meals. "Hello Sirius." Cypress smiled at he chef. "Why hello Cypress, want me to whip something up real quick?" The chef, Sirius, turned to look at the boy. "Nah, I'm just getting a snack." Cypress replied, opening the pantry and grabbing a small bag of chips, some cookies, and a granola bar. "You sure?" Sirius asked again seeing the armload of food Cypress was grabbing. "Yup."
Cypress, holding his snacks, walked over to the lift and pressed the button with his elbow. He heard a ding and the door slid open revealing a relatively spacious, well, space. Cypress stepped on and pressed the button for the second floor. He made his way to his room after stepping off and laid his snacks on his desk and threw his bookbag on his freshly made bed. He sat in his chair and opened his bag of chips as he booted up his computer. The pc booted up in a several seconds, definitely because of its specs, best that money could buy at the time.
Once Cypress was logged in he was met with several applications opening. "Fuh off." Cypress let out with a mouthful of chips as he clicked the little red ex on all of them. Then a notification popped up and he was about to ex out of that as well before he realized what it was. "Huh!" He said as his eyes widened and he forcefully swallowed the chips.
The new game company, Tempest, had unexpectedly gone public today unannounced. Just a year ago they came out saying that they were partnered with the mega corporation Atai in releasing the first ever 'full dive' vrmmo for Atai's unreleased console featuring this 'full dive' technology.
Upon reading this, Cypress immediately opened up his browser to confirm it and sure enough it was true. He had waited for this moment for an entire year, saving up his weekly allowance that his parents had given him. He then invested 100,000 dollars into the company as soon as he could. Almost immediately his phone began to ring and the caller id read Father. 'Damn.' Cypress thought as he looked up at the ceiling.
He picked up the phone and heard a smooth voice, but Cypress could tell that he was angry. "Boy, did you just spend 100,000 dollars? In one place?" His father asked. There was silence for a few moments. "Yeah, but it an investment father. It was meant for the future." Cypress said trying to defend himself. "100,000. Give me a moment." Cypress' father said his voice getting further from the mic. The several minutes of silence was only broken by the slight noise of keyboard clicks. "A VIDEO GAME!?" His father had finally raised his voice. "I thought you had changed for once, thinking of your future. But you do nothing, nothing Cypress." He berated. "Your weekly allowance is no more." The phone then lit up as his father had ended the call.
"..."
'Well hopefully this will put me on the list for investor beta testers.' Cypress thought as he slowly put the phone back on his desk. Feeling down, Cypress turned his computer off and laid down in bed, kicking his bookbag to the ground. The snacks lay forgotten on the desk.
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One day before winter break, in a packed lunch room at a table with only four people sat the familiar figure of Cypress sat listening to the other three talk. His lanky figure didn't really fit under the table but he didn't mind it. You would think with his handsome face that he would be popular but he was far from it. These three people were the only 'friends' he had in his school. He only sat with them at lunch and they didn't have any classes together nor did he talk to them outside of school.
"Cypress, what are you doing over break?" One of the other boys asked. Hearing his name, Cypress looked up from his lunch and shook the hair out of his eyes. "Oh, I'm probably just going to play games." "Oh, ok." The other boys returned to their conversation and didn't ask him another question. Cypress retuned to his food.
The day quickly ended and he was again the last person on the bus to be dropped off. "Happy Holidays Cypress ." The bus driver said with a red hat on. "To you as well." Cypress got off the bus and made his way to his house.
Once inside he didn't see anyone and quickly went up to his room to relax. Cypress laid on his bed for only a couple minutes before he heard a knock on his door. To his surprise, his sister Belle was outside of the door with a large package at her side. "You got a package. Also look!" Belle smiled at him and showed him a large sheet of paper with a detailed drawing of a dress on it. "I finished my first dress. With a couple more revisions Daddy said that I can send it to the store and they might sell it." Cypress smiled back, "That's awesome Belle, let me see." Cypress grabbed the paper and looked it over.
"Here look. You can change the stitching here and here. Also look at this fold. If you change it to this angle it would flow better." Cypress pointed out a few things as his sister dragged in the large box. He then pulled out another sheet of paper and drew a small sketch on it. "See look."
"Wow. It does." Belle said looking at the small sketch. "Why don't you design anything for the store?" Cypress squinted his eyes and frowned for a moment before smiling at her. "I'm not that good, look you're already better than me when I was in middle school." Belle's eyes lit up as she received praise for her work. "Really? Thank you Cypress." "Of course, now let me look at this package." He said rubbing the top of her head. Belle left the room staring proudly at the paper in her hands.
'Now what could this be.' Cypress said to himself after closing the door. He found a pair of scissors and opened the box only to find another box with a letter atop it. The top of the letter read, Addressed to: Cypress Albre.
Cypress opened the folded paper and read its contents: Thank you for your investment to the Tempest company and your faith in our vision. Inside Atai's first developed full dive virtual reality machine. Our game, Uprising, is in the final stages of development so, unfortunately, we cannot give access to the full game as of yet. However, we have already loaded a demo version of our game onto the console for your enjoyment and feedback. The final game will be released by the start of summer, apologies for the wait. Enjoy, Tempest.
Cypress read the letter again just to confirm before throwing it to the side and opened the second box. Inside the box was a helmet like device that had a see through face shield and various plugs. He pulled out the helmet and the cords and found a small instruction pamphlet. Cypress hurriedly plugged in the cords to the various ports on the helmet and plugged the other two ends into the outlet that was next to his bed.
Holding the helmet infront of him, Cypress had a wide smile on his face. Sitting down on his bed he slowly slid the helmet onto his head and pulled the see through screen over his face. Cypress couldn't contain himself anymore and shouted out loud. "Link Start!"