Azure Garden

Adult life is tough. One time you’re in your room struggling to make ends meet, the other time you’re struggling living your busy working life. Life was so simple when we were a kid. I remember that one time I just sit around doing nothing while feeding my Digimon from then newly bought Tamagotchi. I could stare at the screen for hours. Well, I still stare at screen for hours now, but looking at all these sales and operational data doesn’t feel the same. Wish I could go back to those days again. Or transporting to a parallel world of dragons, sword and magic would be nice. Choosing to be an adventurer and gets paid for subjugating goblins and giant spiders sounds like an ideal life to live.

“Roy! What are you spacing out for!”

Ah, this guy. Hendri Rullyansyah, the closest officemate I know in this company. Already shouting so loud 8 o’clock in the morning.

He continues, “Man, our first break is not gonna be any sooner than in four hours and you’re already sleepy, you sleepyhead?”

“Thanks a lot, Hen, you definitely uplift my mood this morning. I’ll take a cold cheese green tea as the compensation.” I say with a clear sarcastic tone.

He laughs as loud as his earlier shout. “C’mon now, at least a cup of Americano! Or a sweet cappuccino if you are too scared, ha ha ha!”. Then he leaves. Just like that.

I’m back minding my own business. Finishing a lot of reports before the noon break. All of sudden, my phone vibrates. There is an e-mail from an unknown sender. The subject title is written in all caps, “BECOME OUR TESTER AND GET REWARDED!” Great, how do you know that I need more side money right now? I open the mail and read while searching for any keywords indicating the mail as a scam. By judging the highlights like “You are the chosen participant!”, “One in a million chance!”, and “The possibility to get a billion rupiah!”, it is clearly a scam. I’m about to press my home screen until I notice two of my favorite words next to each other, Parallel World.

I can’t concentrate on the work anymore, I get up from my seat and go to the coffeeshop nearby. The more I scroll to the bottom, the crazier the e-mail gets. “What do you think of the possibility in starting a new life in a parallel world?” Well, off course that’s nice. Other people will surely tell that it is a scam right away, but for me, this sentence means something. The next part sounds even better. “If you haven’t noticed yet, we don’t send this e-mail from another e-mail. Your e-mail provider is not able to identify ours, so let’s cut the nonsense so that you can digest it right away. We are what you, Teronian, called Alien.”

I reach my cappuccino with soy milk and take a gulp from the cup. For a fiction, this sounds very elaborate… and entertaining. “You might think of this as a joke so we provide a link to our colony documentation. Although you would think of them as a product of a very advanced CGI, just please watch all the videos without skipping a single one.”

Intrigued, I pull up my laptop and order another cup of cappuccino with soy milk.