"Ugh, another day of school" Eli groaned as he made his way to his class.
Being fifteen and already dreading school, he scanned the crowded hallways, wondering how anyone could stay so joyful this early in the morning.
After searching around for a while, Eli finally found his class ,9A. After silently opening the door, he began to search for his seat, "Perfect". he muttered in his head.
his eyes fell upon a seat in the back of the class right next to a window. He made his way toward the seat he had spotted, plopped his bag under his desk and prepared for another day of lectures, quizzes, and awkward introductions.
The teacher, a tall woman with sharp glasses, walked into the classroom, the chatter died instantly as students rushed to their seats. while they were settling down, Eli noticed something shining outside, like light bouncing of something metallic, and for some reason that made Eli feel like something about this day would be special.
The day went how you would expect it to go, introductions, then straight back to work. Eli nodded when he was supposed to, copied notes when the board was filled up, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. He was thinking about what he'd do when he got home, pretending, poorly that he wouldn't immediately boot up his favorite game, Decked Out.
The game had been out for years, but to Eli, it might as well be yesterday. He had spent thousands of hours on this game that no one even played. Or rather, no one could play. you see decked out isn't your normal game, where you can go can you to the app store and download. No. To even access it you need to fully complete an entirely other game called 'The Outer Worlds' another one of Eli's favorite games. Getting all the endings, characters, and abilities were just some of the prerequisites needed to finally access decked out.
The rest of the morning blurred past, and before Eli knew it, the lunch bell rang. Students started running in the hallways, laughing, shouting, and shoving past one another as teachers struggled to keep order. Eli waited in the classroom, not wanting to go to the hell zone that is the hallways. Unfortunately for him after the teacher gathered her papers, she glanced at him and said "lunch" in an authoritative voice.
that was enough enough to signal to Eli that he had to leave. He slung his bag over his shoulder and stood, avoiding her eyes as he headed for the door.
Eli was walking through the hallways inattentively, heading toward the lunch room until he bumped shoulders with someone.
"s-sorry" the person mumbled.
"it's alright" Eli replied
In a flash the person ran to the opposite direction, In those few seconds Eli recognized who it was, it was one of his sisters, Luna parker.
Luna was technically not Eli's sister, you see , the only blood family Eli had truly know was the one he spent every day of his childhood hating, a father who temper always exploded at him, and a mother who turned away when bruises bloomed. When Eli's family died during a mass shootout it didn't take his family from him, no, it freed him from the hell that was that family.
It didn't take long for the parkers the notice the small little boy in the corner of the orphanage, Eli hadn't known why they chose him. from his spot against the wall, he had watched them come and go, Daniel first then Elena and her three daughters trailing behind her like they were on an errand that they didn't want to run. the girls all had sharp eyes and quick voices, Luna twirling her hair nervously and scanning the room like she was looking for an exit, Emma hiding behind her mothers leg, looking tired from walking all day, and Alya walking fiercely like she owned the place.
Elena asked the caretaker a few questions while casting a few glances towards Eli, but Eli kept his head down, he knew the drill, someone comes in, acts interested, then leaves. But this time it was was different, Eli had been called out of his corner which he had spent months caving in, the parker family greeted him with warm smiles, well everyone but the children, after a few words being exchanged and papers being signed, he was suddenly apart of the parker family.
Eli snapped back to reality as he bumped shoulders with yet another person, this time it was someone he detested, Marcus.
"Watch your step punk!" Marcus exclaimed louder than he needed to be, as he walked of into the distance, Eli's face contorted in sympathy at awkward phrasing.
"typical Marcus" Eli groaned in a low voice.
"tell me about it," a voice whispered from behind him, Eli jumped back startled but he realized it was just his friend Leo.
Eli and Leo met back in their first school, 'astral academy' from there they became friends due to their aligned interests, gaming!.
Leo while not a super fan like Eli, was still a fan of 'decked out' and 'the outer worlds. Big enough of a fan to call himself pretty good at those games, although no where near as good as Eli.
"don't scare me like that" Eli sighed relieved that it wasn't some demon
"we should probably hurry, break is going to finish before ya know it!." Leo advised.
they walked to the lunch room, it was packed as always, students excitedly lined up for the slop the school served. Eli and Leo walked by the school canteen, as today they brought their own food, it was bad, but still better than whatever substance the school was trying to insert in their bodies.
Sitting down on the wooden chairs Leo started staring at Eli's food
"Fried chicken?, typical." Leo snickered
"I didn't take you for a racist" Eli replied with a hint of malice
Eli was by no means dark skinned, he was just a bit on the darker side, light skin, you may say.
"just stating facts" Leo persisted
"anyways how's that challenge run of yours."
What Leo was referring to was the challenge run Eli had started a while back in decked out, he had been struggling in this run even with the knowledge that comes with having 2k plus hours in the game. The reason being is that he was playing with the worst character, 'sully'.
Decked out had multiple characters that you could play as, and even though it was a turn based team game, you could only have one 'Main character' which you chose at the start of the game.
sully being a joke character that was made for die hard fans that wanted a greater challenge than the game brutal difficulty mode.
But choosing the worst character wasn't the only reason why Eli was struggling, it wasn't even that big of a problem to him as he beat the game as Sully multiple times, no , the problem was he was doing the entire game at level one with no magic skills or companions. Making the game near impossible to beat, well, for anyone that's not a super fan like Eli.
"The runs going well, I almost beat the game" Eli replied with a joyful tone
He had been doing this run for more than 6 months and was just glad it was almost over
The duo spent the rest of the break talking about decked out and other similar interests until the school bell rang, signaling the end of their break.
"well that was fast" Eli mumbled slightly irritated at the fact he could not finish his food.
"told you" Leo smirked
"yeah yeah mister know it all." Eli contorted
they navigated through the cacophony of students and made their way to their classes, unfortunately for Eli, Leo wasn't in his class, so they parted ways midway through their stroll.
"welp time for another round of classes" Eli exhaled tired from the constant lectures
As he entered the class he noticed that his classmates were standing around a suspicious looking circle in the floor, that reminded him of the magic circles he saw in games.
The weird occurrence's didn't just stop at that, no ,all the tables and chairs that used to be there were gone, creating this empty room where everyone's voices echoed on the walls.
"Is this some kind of prank?"
"What kind of weirdo would do this"
"That circle gives me the chills"
worried mummers spread across the classroom as the circle in the middle got increasingly brighter
"WORRY NOT EVERYONE, I MAY HAVE FOUND A REASON FOR OUR PREDICAMENT" a loud voice spread throughout the class, a voice Eli was all too familiar with.
"that's my Marcus, always having a solution for everything" a girl softly exclaimed
A girl that Eli too was familiar with after all it was his sister, adoptive sister, Emma parker, and unfortunately one of the many leeches that were after the show boy known as Marcus reed.
"I Thank your praise Emma, but now is not the time, we have to confront the scoundrel that I suspect committed this grave act of vandalism!!. Marcus's loud voice echoed again around the class annoying Eli every so slightly.
"oh, and who might this scoundrel be Marcus" a female voice trying, poorly, to sound compassionate appeared.
This girl was another one of the leeches that was after Marcus, 'Avery Collins'
"WHY THE LAZY ELI PARKER OF COURSE" Marcus exclaimed
Eli found his left eye twitch in anger as those words left Marcus's mouth, and he found the heads of his fellow classmates turning in his direction
Eli's relationship with Marcus had always been a strained one, their conflicting beliefs being a huge reason for this, but to go so far as to calling him out like this.
'Is he looking for a fight' he angrily thought
"WELL ANYTHING TO SAY ELI PARKER" Marcus spoke again saying my name extra loud so that every one heard him clearly.
"could you provide some proof, before you spout nonsense that small brain of yours" i replied letting malice seep into my words.
" WHAT MORE PROOF DO WE NEED, FOR ONE YOUR A NERD , FOR TWO YOUR A NERD , AND FOR THREE YOUR A NE-"
Cutting off his spout of nonsense, was the circle that was glowing so bright it was blinding, the glow gave of an ethereal feel that enveloped the bodies of everyone present ,and before the students knew it, their sight was compromised and their bodies transported into another world?.