REVIVAL:Interlink

“C’mon, make your move.” jests a large warrior, donning red knight-like armor. His target, standing about 10 feet across from him, is a young man wearing more rudimentary armor, sans any color. The young man grips his sword tighter, his leather gloves creaking in response. His eyes, a soulless onyx-like black, stare down the warrior, whose face is covered by a mask of metal.

“No, no. I’m just fine where I am. You go right ahead.” says the young man in an attempt to draw the warrior in closer. The warrior growls in frustration, and plants his right foot in the dirt, preparing to charge. He lets out a rage filled yell and rushes forwards, his sword raised.

“Perfect.” the young man thinks. In preparation, he bends his knees slightly. The warrior, in position to attack, swings his longsword diagonally across with all his force. Ready for this, the young man vaults over the blade, his gloves protecting him from its edge.

“Not the brightest, are ya?” he quips, reversing the sword in his hand speedily and thrusting the butt end of the hilt into the warrior’s facemask. The warrior falls backwards, stunned by the blow. Taking the blade back into its normal grip as swiftly as he had reversed it, the young man points it directly at his defeated opponent’s face.

“Surrender. You’re beaten.” the young man says, feeling somewhat cooler than he probably should. As he says this, however, the warrior begins to laugh, somewhat menacingly. His eyes begin to glow red through the eye slit of his helmet.

“Am I!?” he asks aggressively, grabbing the young man’s blade and effortlessly ripping it out his hands.

“What the!?” How is he doing this?” the young man thinks as he steps backwards in fear, unsure of how to continue. Suddenly, however, he hears music. Familiar music…

“Wait…” the young man questions, “is that… Fuwa Fuwa Time?”

He then deeply inhales, his face buried in his pillow. Back in reality.

“Yeah, makes sense that it was a dream.” he thinks, somewhat relieved that it was. Realizing where the song is coming from, he blindly reaches for his phone on his cluttered nightstand. He scrabbles through various objects, such as a pen and a pack of gum, before finally grasping the phone, it still blaring the chorus of Fuwa Fuwa Time. As he brings the phone closer to his face, he finds himself blinded by the bright light of the screen.

“Dear lord, is my phone always this bright?” he asks himself, swiping the menu from the bottom up and turning the brightness down. Now able to see, he looks at the caller waking him up at this hour, 11:50 p.m. as the phone clock reads.

Peyton Harvey

“Peyton’s calling? I wonder what he needs this late.” he wonders. He answers the call.

“Yo, what’s up?” he asks, followed by a yawn.

“Grayson, where you at? Me and Lys are here at the store waiting for you!” Peyton says with a sense of urgency in his voice. At this moment, Grayson realizes… he screwed up. Looking back at his phone clock, he very quickly remembers why Peyton is calling. The midnight sale.

“O-oh, yeah. Yeah! I was just about to head out!” Grayson replies, trying to cover the sound his just-woke-up voice.

“I’m sure you were. You didn’t forget, did you?” his friend asks mockingly. He’s always been one to like to mess with Grayson.

“No, no. Of course not! I’ll be there in 5.” Grayson responds, despite knowing he can’t make it there in that time. Peyton, however, doesn’t forget this.

“But the store’s 8 minutes from your hou-“

“Ok, see you there! Talk to ya!” Grayson then hangs up the phone and bursts out of bed. He rushes over to his dresser, lined with various collectables and a few game consoles. Being that he’s already in his underclothes, he pulls out a pair of black jeans, and a well-worn Yuru Camp t-shirt. He grabs his belt off of a hanger on the wall, and throws all of it on. Remembering that money is needed to buy things, he returns to his dresser to grab his wallet.

“Shoot, I forgot to put on deodorant.” he mutters to himself, removing the t-shirt, putting some on, and then reversing the process. Grabbing his shoes, he begins to walk out of his room, it being covered in posters of various anime and video games. However, something catches his eye.

“I swear I set an alarm. Why didn’t it go off?” he wonders in reference to his Echo sitting on his desk in the corner. He walks over and stands over it.

He points at it with both hands. “You disappoint me!”

He chuckles lightly at his own reference. He has always enjoyed being just a little weird. It keeps things interesting. Remembering the rush he’s in, however, he continues his quest to the store. He walks down the narrow hallway out of his room. Nothing much lines the walls except a few pieces of what his mom liked to call “abstract art”. Grayson doesn’t think of it as much more than colorful scribbles. Continuing down the hallway, he passes both his parent’s room and his little sister, Akari’s room. He treads lightly, not wanting to wake any of them up.

It’s not that he’d be in trouble or anything like that. He had asked his parents if he could go to the midnight sale, and they said it would be fine. But they do need their rest. Akari was a pain to get up the next morning and through the day if she didn’t get enough sleep, and his parents both work during the day, so he figures himself courteous for his quiet steps.

Once he gets to the living room, he grabs his blue and orange basketball shoes and sits down on the couch to put them on. He has always liked to try to dress fashionably, simple at times as his style may be. He’s never liked to wear the same thing twice in a row, and as such, he owns an amount of clothes that may seem unreasonable to some. His shoes now on, he walks to the door, grabs his house keys off the wall, and walks out. Locking the door, he pulls on it again to make sure it is indeed locked.

“Alright. All good. Now it’s time to burn.” he thinks, pulling out his phone once more. 11:53 p.m. the clock reads.

“Shoot. I’m a little behind now.” He puts his phone back in his pocket and begins to run down the street. It’s currently February, and he can feel a chill in the air. He looks back at the car sitting in his driveway.

He shakes his head, disappointed in himself. “It’s times like these that I wish I’d stop being lazy and go get my driver’s license. A heater would be sooo nice right now.”

Disregarding the thought, as he usually did, he looks back ahead and continues down the road. Looking around the neighborhood as he continues on, he begins to think how interesting it is being out at this hour. Living just outside of Boise, Idaho, one can always hear the sounds of the city, albeit muffled by the distance. Although some parts in the area can get pretty chippy at times, his neighborhood was relatively safe. Not that it really mattered, as far as he thought, since he assumes he could handle himself in a fight if need be. Other than that, however, the town he lived in, and even Boise itself was not too interesting to him. Seeing as such, that’s why he enjoys playing video games. A lot. He loves to hop on with his friends, Peyton and Alyssa, and play all sorts of games late into the night, despite being tired at work the next day. What was good about today was that it was Friday, and he could stay up all night and still play the new game he was on his way to get the whole next day.

“I can’t wait to get on Revival with them tomorrow. I really hope it lives up to what they say it’s going to be.” Grayson thinks, continuing down the road. Panting out breaths of white vapor, his excitement carries him forwards.

-7 and a half minutes later… -

As he arrives at the edge of the parking lot, he slows down and almost collapses while breathing as hard as one possibly could. Usually, it wouldn’t be a good idea to run on a cold February night, he thought, but he reasons that sometimes the hustle is necessary.

“But wait, I work out, so should I really be this winded?” he questions to himself. “Eh, who cares.”

From where he’s standing, he can see the gigantic line stretching out from the door. At least 200 people are there in front of him, and by extension, Peyton and Alyssa. He can already feel Peyton’s wrath on his mind. Walking down past the line organized by stanchions towards one of the exits of the lot, he sees the two of his friends standing at the end, waiting for him. He would have expected there to be more people here, but then again, there were other stores not too far from here having the same sale. He walks slowly up to them, attempting to remain out of Peyton’s sight. Failing to do so, Peyton yells out.

“There you are! We’ve been waiting for like, half an hour! You see how many people are ahead of us now?” he asks, scolding Grayson like a parent would their child. Looking toward the front of the line, Grayson puts his hand on his neck in shame.

“My bad, guys. I must have not heard my alarm go off, so I woke up a bit late.” he responds.

“Ah, that makes sense, Gray. Definitely on brand.” Alyssa says, chiming in. “And Peyton, you’ve been waiting for half an hour. I was here 30 minutes before you were, so you have no room to talk about someone being late.” This is generally the dynamic of the friend group: Peyton messes with Grayson, Alyssa messes with Peyton, and Alyssa gets away scot-free. They all knew this, and as such, liked to continue the cycle.

“You getting here earlier than we agreed to does not make me late.” Peyton retorts, a deadpan expression on his face. “Anyways, let’s get in line before more people do.”

“Thanks Lys, always got my back.” Grayson says to himself internally. Grayson has always had a pretty positive view of Alyssa, generally vibing with her a little bit better than Peyton. Not that he doesn’t vibe with Peyton, but they do certainly butt heads at times. Despite this, they always seem to make up quickly.

Grayson again pulls out his phone to check the time.

“12:02? Shouldn’t they be letting people in already?” he thinks. “Guys, isn’t this a midnight sale? It’s 12:02 already.” Almost as if he were summoned, an employee opens the doors to the crowd and begins to speak.

“There. Are you happy, Mr. Impatient?” Peyton whispers jokingly. Grayson side-eyes him with an eyebrow raised in response.

“Okay everyone! Sorry for the slight delay. I’m sure you’re all quite excited to get your hands on your very own M.I.N.D. console, but there’s a couple of things I need to say first.”

“He’s right about that.” Grayson thinks. He thinks this because M.I.N.D. is a fully immersive headset that envelopes you in the game, 6 senses and all. It even was announced to have a fully autonomous AI assistant system. It was developed by a game designer who generally only goes by the alias “Novae.” Due to his being a notorious recluse, his real name is only known due to it being required for business purposes, it being Winston Marković. As for his age and appearance, no one knows, and if anyone does, they haven’t said.

His company, Mentalverse Gaming, however, is well-known in the gaming community, having produced multiple critically acclaimed games that surpassed the formerly known upper echelon of graphics quality, interactive gameplay, and networking capabilities. This was simply their next step towards domination of the video game industry.

“Number one: The store is only open for the M.I.N.D. midnight sale. No other purchases will be permitted aside from the headset, which there is a one-per-person limit on, and digital game vouchers alongside it.” the employee continues. As he says this, a decent amount of people exit the line under the stanchions, seemingly disappointed at this news.

“What were they even here for?” Grayson thinks, puzzled as to how you come to a midnight sale for anything other than the sale itself. The employee continues through a couple of other rules before reaching a conclusion.

“And with that, the M.I.N.D. midnight sale can begin!” he says, stepping to the side. “Will the first ten customers please come in?” Grayson was slightly frustrated at how slow the line would move at only ten people at a time, but understood that it was a good idea, as people tended to get out of control at these sales sometimes.

Alyssa grabs one of each of the boys hands and hops up and down. “Guys, I’m so excited! Are y’all ready for tomorrow? It’s time to explore all day!” Peyton looks downward and shakes his head, a small chuckle coming from him all the same. He was never one to display his emotions outwardly.

Grayson, however, loved to make a scene and saw a chance to mess with Peyton. He grabs Peyton’s hand and begins to jump as well.

“Lys, I am so ready! Let’s freaking gooooo!” he yells out, causing a few others in line to stare at them. Grayson didn’t mind this one bit. Peyton, on the other hand, takes his hands away from the other two and pulls the gray Spy x Family hoodie he is wearing over his head in embarrassment. Finished with his overemphasized display of hype, Grayson releases Alyssa’s hand and turns towards the store’s entrance, a satisfied smile on his face. Despite the jumping being a bit of an over exaggeration, Grayson was excited. A new era of gaming was about to begin…