I woke up in the morning at around 7 A.M. and rub my eyes. How late did I even stay up?

I check my history on the games that I’ve played recently, and it said that I played Climbey until 11:34 yesterday. Damn, that’s really late.

I kinda do want to sleep in more, but the fact is that I just wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Not only is it super bright through my window, once I wake up, there’s almost no falling asleep. That is, if it’s later than 6:30. That’s primarily because that’s around the time that I had to wake up to get to school on time.

I should probably take a short walk to and from school to wake myself up.

I get out of my bed and pick out the clothes that I want to wear today. I put them on and leave the house. It was hotter today than it was yesterday, and that definitely isn’t favored by me.

I continue walking, soaking in the not-so-beautiful scenery of the dystopian future that I live in. Now that I realize it, the effects of World War III are huge. Global warming was boosted for a short period of time, and thanks to the world’s scientists, it was shut down for good. On top of that, the air is a lot more polluted, meaning that if I go outside, I have a bigger risk of catching strep throat than I would back in the 21st century.

Luckily for me, I almost always have a stuffy nose, and that seems to really help. Mostly because of the mucus inside of my nose blocking off the dust and occasional soot from getting in my nose.

I walk over to my fort, which was surrounded by trees and rocks. The Actual building were sticks and leaves on top with clay cement covering it. The door, well if you would call it a door, were a bunch of leaves covering the entrance. More leaves and grass covered the top, making it seem less like a secret base and more like a random hill with rocks protruding from it.

I guess watching all of those primitive building videos on my HoloPad really did pay off. That reminds me, how is YouTube still a thing? Didn’t it start in like, 2006? It’s the year 2345 now, and if I’m doing my math correctly, YouTube has been around for 339 years.

Anyways, as I’m taking my walk that you probably barely want to know much about, I can explain a bit of background around the time I live in. As you probably know by now, World War III has Occurred a few years back. Many humans were killed, and to be honest, that did help our hunger problem. There are only about 4 billion people alive, instead of an estimated 45 billion.

Wait a minute… Why are the forbidden lands glowing? The light that’s glowing is blue, and that’s the color of light that Luminite gives off.

I’m going to go check it out in a little bit since before I go I need to record this.

I quickly run back home and grab my holopad, which has been charging since I went to sleep last night, and ran back to the location that the glowing occured. However this time, I pulled out my holopad, which was in a backpack I forgot to mention I was bringing, and pulled up the recording software, or “Camera.”

I navigated to the recording section and tapped the red button on the bottom, which started the recording.

“I’ve got to be quiet,” I whispered to the HoloPad. “Or the Government guys might find and fine me. So no more talking.”

I continued walking towards the glowing, sort of hoping that a cliché event would happen as I was investigating. As I got closer, I thought I heard high pitched voices. So I listened harder.

“...appears that the Humans have found out about us not being plain rocks. We must move further down the cavelands.”

I assume by cavelands it meant the forbidden lands.

“We must get going soon.”

Suddenly, my foot slipped slightly and dislodged a rock. The rock went tumbling down, creating a lot of echoey noise. Suddenly all of the Luminite stopped chattering.

“Number One, go investigate the noise.”

“Yes, sir!”

One of the Luminite started rolling towards me. Ahhh, screw it. I start booking it out of the cave, praying to god that none of them follows me enough to find out where I live.

“AFTER HIM! HE WAS EAVESDROPPING!”

All of the Luminite creatures start rolling at about 5 miles an hour towards me. At that point, I knew I could outrun them. I start pushing harder on the ground, so I can go faster. I start coming up against a boulder that I jump on, and with my velocity barely affected, practically bunny hop off of the boulder and clear the fence. I hit the ground, drop and roll. Don’t want to get a serious leg or back injury at the moment.

I almost forgot that I was still holding the holopad. I put it in front of me and say “In a rush, bye.” and turn off the video.

I run even faster to my house, and when I get to the door, rip it open and run inside. Then I slam the door shut. Thank god my mom was at work.

I close my bedroom door and turn back on my HoloPad and text Crystal: “You’ll never guess what I just saw.”

About five seconds later: “What?”

I access the video file and send it to my friend.

Approximately 2 and a half minutes later, she responds. “I don’t feel safe anymore, to be honest.”

“Do you want to hang out and play video games?”

“Sure. Your house or my house?”

“My house, If that’s fine. I’ve got plenty of games.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be there in about five minutes.”

______________

About five minutes later, exactly as Crystal promised, she knocked on the front door.

I open my bedroom door and jog over to the front door. Crystal says nothing until I close the door.

“What’s up?”

“I found some Luminites, hanging out by the fence. They might be waiting for you to come out, you know, to give you a few bruises on your shoes.”

“Wow, that sounds really forbidding,” I say sarcastically.

“I know, right?” Crystal says back. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, play a game, obviously. Let’s look at my library.” I respond.

Crystal follows me into my room, where I immediately walked over to my bookshelf, which is 75% video games, 25% action figures. No books, if you were wondering. I always read on my HoloPad (if at all.)

“Ooh, you have Wii Sports? That’s a classic.” Crystal says.

“Yeah, that thing was a family heirloom somehow. I’ve never played it. Have you played any?”

“Oh, hell no! Those things cost like 1,000 bucks a pop!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

I continue looking through my collection, to find something that I want to play.

“Ah!” I say as I pull out a game called ‘Minecraft,’ Which you probably know of. The creators of this game are long since dead, but everyone still plays it.

“You wanna play this?” I ask, waving the disk in front of Crystal’s face.

“Yes! That’s like, one of the best games in the universe!”

“Hear hear,” I say, removing the disc from the cartridge and plugging it into my xBox 900x.

Crystal and I play Minecraft for about two hours before crystal decides that she needs to go home.

“You know what, Max. I need to get home soon, my mom will blow one of her blood vessels if she returns home and I’m not there.”

“Bye, Crystal,” I say, waving.

“Bye.”

Approximately 7 and a half seconds later, I heard the front door close.

I guess it's about time for me to work out what I'm going to eat for lunch.

I run down to the kitchen where I see a couple of things to eat for lunch, including things like cereal, Animal Crackers, bread that I can toast, and instant oatmeal.

I pull out the bag of bread and take out two slices. I then pop the pieces of bread into the toaster and turn it on for five minutes.

About five minutes later, my toast pops up from my toaster while I look out of my window. But I don't notice, since I see a blue glow in the distance.

Is that the Luminite?

I pop out the toast that I just noticed was done, and shoved it in my mouth. I run back to my room, grab my holopad, and immediately find my contact I'm looking for: Crystal.

Just as I pull up Crystal's contact page, a call rolls in from her. I answer.

"I might be being paranoid as hell, but I feel like that blue glow in the distance doesn't mean-"

"I see the glow too, Crystal," I say. "And I'm pretty sure that that's all the Luminite, being overly mad about me eavesdropping on them."

"Max, I think they want to-"

"Kill me? A thousand of them probably couldn't do anything."

"I guess so. You want to play some VR then?"

But just as I was about to say "yes," I hear some monstrous stomping close by.

“Do you by any chance hear stomping, Crystal?” I ask.

“Yeah, I do, now that I think about it,” she responds.

“I think we should go back to our hideout. Bring snacks and entertainment, we might be there for a while.”

“Roger roger, captain.” Crystal jokes.

I laugh, then hang up the call.

I’m so freaked out right now.