Morgan

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Morgan ran madly down the street, phone in hand, desperately trying to call Luther for the 12th time. If he did not answer this time, as she expected, he wouldn't. She would have to wake him up in person. Morgan was a highly superstitious person and even making a 13th call to the same person on the same day felt like a dangerous risk of potential misfortune.

"That idiot! If he was going to make me give him a wake-up call so early in the morning, he could have at least had the decency not to sleep in and ignore my calls." 

Morgan gasped for air as she finally made it. She stood momentarily in front of the dingy apartment complex Luther called home to catch her breath. Now that she was stopped the full weight of her exertions now hit her like a semi-truck of exhaustion. Oxygen firmly secured in her lungs, she climbed the stairs quickly but still skipped every 12th step as always. "You should never take a risk in the face of misfortune." Abuela’s words were something Morgan was more than happy to live by. 

Finally, at Luther's apartment door, she began flipping through her key ring. Finally, coming to a well-worn silver key before inserting it into the lock. Luther had been Morgan's best friend since the two were kids. However, when he pulled stuff like this, it made it very hard to not want to shove him off a tall bridge. Feet sore from overuse, she stepped into the modest apartment. She had to be careful when stepping around the piles of assorted junk that made Luther's apartment into a minefield. After breaking past all the obstacles there, he was her lazy bum of a bestie, just lying around in bed. Luther’s happy little face, lost in sweet dreams, only made Morgan more annoyed. She whipped the sweat from her brow as she took heavy steps toward his bed. It took her a moment, standing over his bed, to remind herself that she was there to wake him up, not kill him.

 With all the limited patience she could muster, she began to call out to him, " Lu! Lu! Lu! Lu! Lu!" Morgan shook and jostled her buffoon of a best friend with everything she had. "Lu! Lu! Lu!" she kept shouting wearing out her voice becoming sore from screaming in an attempt to wake him up. She knew it wasn't his fault, but she just couldn't help growing angry and frustrated. Her irritation tempted Morgan to just slap Luther silly. Unaware he was finally waking up, she filled a nearby bucket. She had gotten Luther last summer as a gift, with water from the apartment sink. Morgan saw Luther finally open his eyes, but it was too late and he was met with the full force of a cold bucket of water directly to the face.

SPLASH!!

"Lu! Lu! Lu!" Morgan called out to him trying to make sure he didn't go back to sleep."Oh, come on Luther, get up!" but Luther only groaned, and turned his face back into his pillow. "Five more minutes," He mumbled infuriatingly. "Ohhh, no you don’t! Did you forget what day it is?" Morgan snatched the pillow away, half tempted to throw it out the window. "Life Sentence is finally being released today, in less than half an hour!" Deciding a window was too similar to a mirror to risk breaking, she simply whacked Luther with the pillow instead. "You would have had more time, but you kept ignoring my friendly wake-up calls," she explained, without no small amount of self-control, "so, I had to resort to desperate measures to wake you up, Sleeping Beauty!"

"Okay, okay, just don't call me Luther again. It makes me sound like a balding supervillain or something, and while we are at it. The nickname Sleeping Beauty dies here and now as well." Morgan could only chuckle and roll her eyes at such a silly response. " Also, don't you dare wake me up like that again! I was having a very nice dream. Are we understood? Just keep calling me Lu like always, because it sounds so much cooler!" Morgan honestly tried her best to not laugh every time Luther tried to get someone to call him that ridiculous nickname, but now he was pushing it by trying to claim it was somehow cool.

"Yeah right, that nerdy nickname you chose is definitely... Something!!" Morgan said, trying but failing to hide her sarcasm. "Well, whatever, that's not the point! Don't forget if you don't enter as soon as possible, everyone else will snatch up all the good items and guests in the starter area and you will have to wait forever to find anything good." Morgan's anger finally burned out as she lectured him," I don't know why you are being so grumpy about it when you're the one who asked me to wake you up so early. If you want to be upset at anyone, you should be upset at yourself, and leave me out of it!" he looked a little annoyed, but at least she got his attention.

Morgan made herself comfortable while Luther whipped the sleep from his eyes. The two best friends turned their attention to the virtual reality capsules they had ordered many months ago in anticipation of the release day.

The sleek silver virtual reality pods sat coldly in a prominent corner of the apartment. The devices, no matter how much Luther tried to deny it, looked exactly like futuristic metal coffins. She would never tell Luther this, but ever since she first saw the machines in person, they had given her a bad feeling she could explain while still sounding rational.

An ominous feeling surrounded Morgan, just looking at the ‘state-of-the-art piece of machinery’. With no sane way of expressing her concern, all she could do was give it a strong, impatient kick. Unfortunately, her best kick only released a loud metallic clanging noise that reverberated throughout the entire room. Morgan silently cursed the sturdiness of the machine.

" What in the pure insanity do you think you are doing?! Have you already forgotten how many long painful months of mind-numbingly bland work it took for us, or should I say me, to save up the money to get our hands on these in time for the release day!?" Morgan felt bad about that, however, that had been before she had seen just how eerie it was in person "And now you decide to kick it like a psychopath! If you break it, I expect you to pay for it. To be clear, I expect whatever you pay to be with interest." Luther said, seemingly ready to go into a full lecture.

"Sure, whatever, I just can't get over how creepy these things look. I keep telling you, it's messed up how much they look like a massive silver and glass coffin. You couldn't pay me to get into one of those terrifying death traps."

"I don't know why you're complaining now. You could have saved us both a lot of time and money if you decided you didn't want one before you made me buy one for you. And now that state-of-the-art piece of technology gets to be used as an overpriced coffee table."

"Come on, I already apologized a thousand times. What do you want me to beg for your forgiveness on my hands and knees, because I'm telling you right now that is never going to happen. Now grow up and get in your shiny metal coffin already!"

Luther grumbled under his breath, unaware Morgan could still hear him, but she generously decided to let it be. As Luther climbed silently up into the inside of the virtual reality capsule, Morgan felt compelled to stop him. However, in a choice she would regret for the first and last time in her life, she ignored her bad feelings. Luther fastened himself into the seat inside the device.

One last bad feeling was ignored as she watched the glass doors of the VR capsule sliding shut over Luther. Never one to ignore an opportunity for a bit, Morgan waved to Luther sarcastically through the glass door. Annoyance filled his face, and he looked as if he was about to say something, but the machine booted up and his entire body went slack. Even though Morgan knew his senses were just being transmitted into the game as she saw him laying there more silent and motionless than when he was asleep, the eerie machine seemed even more like a coffin than ever.

"Good night sleeping beauty, or with the glass coffin, should I call you snow white?" she said, snickering to herself.

"I'll see you again soon," Morgan said to the silence, with no idea of just how wrong she was.

Morgan gave the eerie device, containing her best and only friend in the world, a reassuring pat before turning off the lights in Luther's apartment. The room was now dark. She locked the door and made her way home. She wasn't in any rush to get home, so she took her time properly taking in the scenery she had ignored on the way to Luther. The city may not have been anything pretty, but it was home. 

Morgan reached into her pocket to check the time on her phone, but she missed it. The phone slipped from Morgan's pocket, falling to the ground, the screen cracking slightly against the force of the concrete floor. The phone rang ominously as she saw Luther’s Nerdy profile picture overtake her phone screen. This was the 13 call of the day. Something must have gone horrifically wrong.