Chapter #5Gaming Grace and her awful team by: Reneg4de   "Watch the right side! No, not over there! The other side!"
Grabbing her can of sugar-free Red Bull, Grace took a quick sip, almost chok as an enemy came charging around the corner. Dropping the can, which was thankfully empty, she clicked her mouse maniacally, rapidly emptying her entire clip into her opponent.
"Okay, or I'll just do all the work!" She growled at her teammates, who seemed to be all converging on the completely wrong side of the map. Ignoring her less than useless teammates, Grace pushed forwards on her own. She ploughed through enemies, some of which yelled ' Hacker' at her when she killed them.
As she reached their final spawn point and began to capture it, she leaned back in her chair, grinning confidently.
"Honestly, I don't even know why I try!" She bragged, hands folded in her lap. "It's the same result, over and over again. Other team tries to win, other team gets decimated. By me!"
Chuckling, Grace leaned forwards as she heard the footsteps crunching towards her. Spinning around, she killed the poor guy who had made a poor attempt at sneaking up on her. He cursed as his virtual body collapsed to the ground, before blinking out of existence.
"Another one down~" Grace sung, grabbing another tin of Red Bull. As she cracked it open, a somewhat worrying warning came through her headset.
"You're the last one left. Complete the mission!"
Dropping the unopened can, Grace clutched her mouse and readied her hand over her keyboard. Even without a team, she could still win. She'd done it plenty of times!
"Bring it on!" She taunted into her mic. "I can take you all on!"
A few seconds later, her challenge was answered. A whole squad of enemies, maybe five in all, came sprinting around the corner. Clicking furiously, Grace managed to take three of them down before the other two got lucky shots on her.
"FUCK! THAT!"
Almost ripping her mouse and keyboard away from the desk in front of her, Grace stared at the massive red 'Defeat' in disbelief. She had that game. There was absolutely no way she could've lost! Or was there...
"Hey, you bunch of goddamn failures!" She yelled at her teammates. "What were you doing at the back of the map, sucking each other off? Where the hell were you guys?!"
Silence answered her.
"What, too scared to answer me?" She asked angrily. "Didn't know I was playing with a bunch of babies!"
"Would you kindly shut up?"
Grace narrowed her eyes as the microphone symbol next to the player at the bottom of the leader board lit up. He had no kills, and died every single round. The complete opposite of her, who had at least two kills every round and only died on the last round.
"Sorry, couldn't hear you all the way at the bottom of the board! Maybe get a few kills before talking to me! Hell, even a capture would do it!" Grace responded.
"Maybe some of us aren't as good as you? Or maybe we've got a life, so we can't thrown countless hours at playing games with strangers, then getting angry when they don't meet our impossibly high standards!" The other guy answered. "Look, I don't know you. Maybe you're just stressed or something. If you apologize, then it's all good! We can go about our day..."
"Oh, are you still talking?" Grace asked. She could leave the lobby at any point, but the nerve of this guy! She wanted to crush him, make sure he knew his place at the bottom of the board. "How about you actually play the game? Get more kills than me, then I'll apologize! Of course, that's never going to happen!"
Chuckling to herself, Grace waited for a response.
"Okay then..." Came a quiet, slightly unnerving voice. "I gave you a chance. You didn't want it, so you've forced my hand. Let's see if you enjoy gaming after I'm done with you..."
"Oh, you're crazy as well?" Grace asked, but the only response she got was a bunch of mumbling. She opened her mouth to interrupt, but paused. The more they mumbled, the odder she seemed to feel. Her stomach filled with butterflies, her head spun, her vision seemed to lose colour...
And then it stopped.
Staring at the screen, Grace saw herself alone in a lobby. Blinking her eyes a few times, she hesitated before exiting the game. Suddenly, she didn't feel so good. Maybe she had been playing for a bit too long?
Shutting her computer down, she spun her chair around and stood up. In the darkness of her room, which was illuminated by a lamp on her bedside table, her reflection in the mirror stared back at her. She rubbed her eyes before brushing a few crumbs off of her red jacket. She
"I need sleep..." She groaned, pulling her jacket and trousers off and throwing them to the side. She inspected her reflection again, now wearing a simple black t-shirt and a pair of boxers, for a few moments. Something seemed off about it, something she couldn't place.
Stepping closer, she pulled her shoulder-length black hair out of her vision. Her eyes ran over her modest chest, which wasn't too big but wasn't too small either, down to her stomach, which had a thin layer of purge covering it, before stopping on her boyish hips and nearly flat backside.
"Hmm..."
Shaking her head, Grace stepped away and fell into her bed. The frame cracked beneath her, causing her to groan.
"Stupid university provided bedding..."
Closing her eyes, Grace gradually drifted off to sleep, unaware of what had just happened to her...
=====
The next morning, Grace awoke to the sound of her alarm clock blaring. She rolled over, staring blankly at the ceiling, before realising...
"I'm late!"
Jumping out of bed, Grace redressed herself in her red jacket and denim jeans. Pulling a pair of trainers on, she grabbed a granola bar from her desk and sprinted outside. She barrelled past students, almost killing a couple on the stairways, before racing outside and towards class.
She barely made it before her lecturer, Mr Alexander, walked in. Breathing heavily, she slowly ate her granola bar while he began his lesson. However, as she crumpled up the empty wrapper and stuffed it into her pocket, she began to fell increasingly weirder...  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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