It was a dark and stormy night
You chose to stay up in your room, away from everybody else to enjoy the solace. Some of your family members were helping with dinner, and you didn’t want to get caught up with all of that. You’d much rather be doing what you were currently doing.
Specifically, playing The Sins, a simulation-based video where you have a virtual family of your own that you have to control and care for. Some people found it stupid, but you found it to be pretty entertaining and time-consuming as you meticulously edited what your characters looked like, what their houses looked like, what their abilities were, and their personalities. You enjoyed being in control of what your characters did, as you felt that it gave you a sense of authority and a minor sense of purpose.
BOOOOM, CRACK
You jumped a little bit as the thunder outside rolled in the presence of the storm that was happening outside. Flashes of lighting in the distance illuminated brightly in the dark sky, casting faint traces of light into your room.
Every year you normally get a bad storm near your area, but this one was definitely the worst. It rained longer and harder than it ever had before, and the wind became a new factor that you and your family hadn’t dealt with. This powerful weather has called upon something that most video game lovers would appreciate: a stay-at-home order. All affected residents and their guests were required to stay in the households until further notice, to avoid accidents and to help keep the roads clear for first responders.
Normally this would be fine, but unfortunately, you live in a packed house. Typically there were 5 of you, but there were also an additional 2 extra visitors who now had to take shelter there with your family. Those visitors were your Aunt Paris and your cousin Bella, related to your through marriage thanks to your Step-Mother Kat. They were visiting but decided to extend their stay due to the harsh weather, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world but you didn’t enjoy having to share a bathroom with them.
Focusing back on the screen, you maneuvered the in-game family around their home, assigning all sorts of different tasks. It was a decently sized family like your own. You weren’t too sure why you were so drawn toward this game, maybe it was a great way to kill time, the control aspect of it, or you just genuinely enjoyed designing the lifestyles of others.
Just as you were about to assign the mother character to change her outfit, you heard rumbling from above. You looked up and listened as the thunder continued to roll. It wasn’t too hard to distinguish it from the sound of the heavy raindrops on the roof. “Well there’s that again,” you thought to yourself, as you directed your attention back toward the game. Just as you looked back, the sound of thunder grew louder and the roar of a lightning strike erupted. Your entire room was illuminated with a bright blueish flash and then, darkness.
You sat in the darkness, as it was all brought about so quickly. You then heard screaming from downstairs, probably from your cousin, “AHHH WHAT WAS THAT?! I CANT SEE ANYTHING! WHERE IS EVERYBODY?”
You got up quickly to address the screaming, but you stopped when you heard your dad’s voice downstairs as well. “Everybody just needs to relax. It’s just a power outage from the storm. Some lightning probably hit one of the power lines or maybe even the house. The backup generator should kick up soon”, he said reassuringly as he always does.
Sure enough, just after he said it, the backup generator turned on and the lights turned back on. You chuckled at the coincidence and sat back down at your desk to get back on The Sins, but you were greeted with a rebooting screen as your computer was turned off abruptly. “Oh great, now I have to wait for this to turn back on,” you said to yourself, sitting in your seat.
The monitor lit back up and you clicked on the Sins icon on your desktop. As it loaded in, you noticed that there was something a bit off about the menu screen. As you focused in on the options, there seemed to be an additional choice.
“Start new game, load game, game options, live mode, exit game” you read to yourself. You did a double take as you looked back over the options, “Live mode?”. You’ve played this game endlessly and never once did you notice an option for a “Live Mode”. You hovered over it with your mouse and clicked it. A notice popped up on this screen:
“Congratulations! You’ve been chosen to test run our newest “Live Mode” feature on The Sins! You’ll be able to experience gameplay at a whole new, personal level! Enjoy!
- The Sins Dev Team “
“Personal level, what the hell?” you said to yourself as you read over the message. You close the message and decide to click on the “Live Mode” option.
The screen turned to a blank white screen, leading you to believe that this “update” has crashed the game. However, a large message saying, “LOADING” had appeared on the screen, which was one that didn’t typically appear while playing the game.
As the game loaded in, the house was a lot different from the one you were used to playing within the game. The furniture looked a lot more realistic and was placed in a fitting manner around the house. The characters moved around organically, moving fluidly with each step around the house. As a matter of fact, it looked a lot like….your house?
“There’s no way!” you said to yourself, as you scanned around the house. This in-game house’s shape was eerie similar to yours, as well as the layout. Hell, even the furniture looked exactly the same! Your eyes then bolted to the bottom corner of the screen, to take a look at the playable characters in the house. Your jaw dropped as each of them look exactly like the members of your family, each of them doing different tasks. All 7 of you were accounted for, as 6 characters were downstairs, and 1 character was alone upstairs in their room.
“Is that…me?” You thought to yourself as you zoomed in on the character.
Sure enough, there you sat, on your computer!
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