Tutorial

"I don't get it, why do you even try. This is pure trash."

"Shut up will you! It took me all week to get to this level!"

"Luke! It's just a dating game, its not real."

"Oh really, coming from the girl who's obsessed with Ouran High School, Host Club."

"Leave my boys alone, alright!"

My brother Luke is the biggest nerd that I know. He may be an adult, but he still acts like a kid. During the summer, Luke hates to see me doing nothing but stay in my room. So, he lets me stay in his house in the summer, he even gave me a bedroom of my own. The reason I don't stay with my parents is because they are divorced, it has been like that since I was born. My mom loved my dad, but she didn't want any kids when they got married, but then Luke and I came into the picture. Dad said she drastically changed when Luke and I were born, she got more angry and was never at home. Dad was done with her, so they got divorced. Luke was worried that I thought it was my fault that our parents are not together and I know it's not, it's her fault. Luke blames her as well but he plays shooter games to get his anger out; I do the same thing.

"Alright, since you think it's easy why don't you try it" Luke said in frustration.

"Sure, why not. Watch and learn my dear brother."

I grabbed the controller and started the game. On the screen was a cartoon girl crying about her school life and three choices; to walk away, kiss her, or hug her.

"Dude, why did you choose kiss! It's too soon, she'll now probably hate me now!" Luke screamed in panic.

"Well if the antagonist likes her so much then go in for the kill, so kiss was your best bet."

"The way your supposed to win a girls over is make it seem like you’re their best friend, then after a few years-"

Luke turned to the screen and saw the words "true ending" and played the special ending.

"If you kept on doing that, she will probably think of you only as a friend, then it would be a game over for you."

When I finished explaining, Luke was pissed and had his game face on.

"Well then if you think your so much of an expert then how about a challenge."

"Sounds interesting, what's the challenge?" Luke went into his hoodie to get his phone.

"There is a game called Solaria that recently came out. In the game, you only have one life and if you die in the game you can't log in anymore."

I heard about Solaria in WeTube news. It's so far the most downloaded game now, and is almost always sold out at stores.

"I accept your challenge, but I don't have the game." I said sarcastically .

Luke gets up from his seat and goes to his room. After a few minutes, Luke comes back with two copies of Solaria in his hands.

"My friend's dad was a developer for the game, so he gave me two copies for both of us." Luke explained to me.

"What friend gave you the game?"

"Ren of course. You know my best friend, the one that's at your high school, the one with white hair."

"Oh, I remember now for a minute there I thought you made some new friends from going outside. Man, that would be funny."

Ren Waywood is a senior at my high school. Luke met Ren when he was a sophomore and Ren was a freshman, but I didn't really meet him until he was a junior. That might sound a bit confusing so let me try explaining like this, Ren is two years older then me while my brother is three years older then me. Anyways, back to the story.

"When you log in, lets find each other then meet up with Ren. He will teach us the basics of the game."

Luke handed me the game and walked to his room, then locked the door. I don’t see what's wrong with the challenge, all you have to do is live the longest, and that sounds easy.

I turned off the dating game and headed to my room, then locked the door. There was nothing special with my bedroom. It had a bed, a closet, a nightstand, a desk with my computer, and book self with video games and books. I also had a big window and yellow paint on the walls. Solaria wasn't a computer game it was a VCR game. I turned on the VCR sense gear and put it on my head. While normal VCR gear has you walk around and use your arms and legs IRL (in real life), but the sense gear lets your head move your character from your point of view. So you can lay on your bed without any problems. I looked around my room one last time and then put on the sense gear.

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"Welcome to Solaria, the land of gods, warriors, and magic. Your character will look like you, so no need for customizing. But in this world there are different creatures that have a different purpose. So, will you be holding a sword, staff, have wings, or be the creature of the night. The choice will effect your future, choose wisely."

"I choose a staff." I answered

"You choose the gift of magic. Would you like to be a healer, witch, or a sorcerer?"

"I'm going to go with witch, it seems more fun."

"You choose witch; your magic will be the night sky and darkness. And with being a witch you can summon a familiar. You can't summon it now, but it will come when your ready. Now stand still for in game clothing."

A flash of white light blinded me for a second then it said I was wearing a black tank top, purple sweater with a hood and short sleeves, grey ripped pants, and black boots.

"Now that you have in game clothing, here is your lunar staff."

The staff was tall, made out of brown wood with a blue ribbon like thing wrapped around it and the top looked like a dream catcher, but the string was shaped as a star with a crescent moon charm in the middle. Off of it were strings with stars at the ends.

"Now you are ready to enter the world of Solaria. It's up to you if you side with good or evil. May the Celestar God bring you another bright day."

I turned around and saw a white church door behind me. When I opened the door, there was a village on the other side. I went through the door continued walking, the door closed, but now a church building was attached to it. I looked around trying to find Luke, but there were too many players.

"Luna! Luna! Over here!" Luke yelled, walking toward me.

Luke had a long black coat (something a pirate would wear), a white button up shirt, black pants, and white boots. He also had a reaper staff in his hands.

"You chose a witch like always, so predictable."

"Same to you, reaper of souls. You chose sorcerer and got the magic of the dead; so original."

"Come on we need to get to the city entrance, that's were Ren is." Luke explained to me.

As we walked I noticed some things about the village. There were parties of players glaring at each other, merchants selling weapons, power ups, and food. There were even some home buildings for sale.

"This village is a main place to target newbies, just look at that party over there." Luke warned me.

He was right, the other players weren't looking at each other they were looking at us. Hopefully, no one is planning to kill us already. The city entrance wasn't that far from the starting spawn. As we got closer to the entrance I saw a boy leaning against a wall. He had a black tank top, blue jeans, black and white sneakers, a huge sword on his back, and a arm bracelet with the same star like the ones on my staff.

'Looks like you guys logged in alright. Nice choice on getting magics, it’s a good skill to have and if your something outside of magics then it takes forever to learn." Ren said.

"Thanks again for the game copies dude. By the way, what class did you choose?" Questioned Luke.

"I'm a shadow knight, in the outside I'm a knight in shining armor, but in the inside a demon lives."

When Ren said that I couldn't stop laughing. He sounded like he was trying to woo a lady like in a drama or anime.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, but what did you just say? It just sounds like you’re the prince or have a crowd of girls around you."

"Oh well, it was worth a shot. Thanks for laughing Luna." Ren said while laughing.

"Come on Ren, lets go! You said you'll teach us how to fight. Come on!" Luke said running towards a herd of wild pigs.

"He acts more like a child than a adult."

"Very true, you should see him at home." I agreed. We both laughed and tried to keep up with Luke.

"Okay, since you both have magic as attack and defense you need to know these two spells. Aria as attack and Dena for defense, easy right now you try.'

Luke looked at me thinking that I would volunteer to go first. Then he had to make these words come out of his mouth. "Ladies first," I hate him so much.

"Fine then my DEAR brother; let me show you how it's done." I said in a sarcastic tone.

I walked toworded one of the wild pigs, closed my eyes, and hoped I wouldn't fall.

"Okay, celeste Aria!" And a storm of stars attacked the pigs. It managed to kill half of them, but the others were mad to see their friends die, and came running towards me.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Ren help me!"

"Say 'Dena' it will create a shield for you."

When I got a far enough distance I stabbed my staff to the ground.

"Moons Dena bring me shelter."

Then appeared a dark-blue colored sphere protecting me. When the pigs tried to hurt me they injured themselves and walked away.

"Great job Luna with a little more practice you will be a pro."

"Come on I can do it way better then her, watch me." Luke said being hot-headed like always.

"There he goes acting like a kid again." I said

"Well at least he can put on a good show."

And that was how we spent our first day together fighting pigs, running away from them and laughing at each other being stupid.

"Wow you guys are quick learners, for most people it takes a few days to understand the basic. But you're already pros at combat."

"Now the challenge can finally start." I said with excitement.

"Okay what's this challenge you and Luna are doing anyway." Ren asked

"We're trying to see who can live the longest in the game."

"Sounds fun, I would join but I don't like to play with bets. Anyway, it's getting late we better log off now."

"Wait how go we log off?" I asked

"You just lift your left arm and mover your hand to the right and the menu will show up with the log off button." Ren explained to Luke and I.

I did what he said but I didn’t see a log off button.

"Don’t see the log-off button Ren, where is it?"

"Yo dude I don’t see it either."

"That’s weird. There has to be a glitch in the game or we're really close to a spawn point."

Then I noticed loud noises of people in the village.

"Guys, look! There seems to be a mob of people in the village."

"Must be players with the same problem. Lets go check it out." Ren said

We all ran from the fields towards the center of the village, the log-in spawn. Players were fighting each other while others were trying to open the church doors. This was bad, very bad. Everyone was going crazy, some ven cried. But it only got worse. The sky turned from a sunset orange-pink to a blood red, then a hologram of a man in a black cloak appeared.

"Hello players, you may be wandering why the log-off button is gone from the main menu. In this game you only have one life and here is the reason why. If you die in the game, you die in real life. If you don't believe me then I will provide a demenstration."

A second hologram appeared next to the cloaked man. It was a boy in his room layingf on his bed with his sense gear on. The same boy saw and started to run away from the crowd, when he thought he was safe a strike of lightning hit him and died. When we looked at the hologram again, he was screaming for his life, asking for help then he died and blood was dripping off his head.

"Do you believe me now? If you still think its not real then test it out yourself then you end up the same way as he did. If you don’t want to end up like him then try to locate me in the boss level and kill me. If you are able to do that then all the surviving players will return back to reality safely. Let's see who will die next shall we."

Then everything went back to normal as if none of that happened.

"Luke what are we going to do? What if dad starts to worry about us or tries to take the sense gear off of us."

"That won't happen because no one is going to take it off." Luke explained

"The person, and yes I mean person, who is behind all of this would have made sure that the world knows what's going on and to make sure no one takes the gear off of our heads." Ren added

So that's what started the whole journey, about 40,000 people stuck in a life or death game wondering if we will ever see the outside world ever again.