Cross My Mind

BETA TESTING.

Many streaks of passing light beams of different color filling up Garba’s entire field of vision is the only thing he could see for the next five seconds, the streaks of light beams suddenly transitioned into an empty blank white background with three status windows.

The first one showing information on how the game they are playing which is called Virtual Survival online and required each player to do only one thing, survive.

The second window contains information regarding game mechanics and player controls. It explains that the body each body has in the game is an accurate Virtual projection of their real physical bodies, their movement has been fine-tuned to mimic how freely and accurately their physical bodies move in real life and the passing of time is five times slower in the game that every hour in real life is five hours in the game. Elementary intention to move remains the same but the Neuraface transfers the signal information into the game application so that the Virtual body projections will move instead of their real bodies. The Neuraface also puts their real bodies in a state of light sleep so that they experience the game in a similar way to dreams; which also means that their perception of pain ad other feelings have been tuned down to fifteen percent while they are in the game.

The rest of the tabs explained to Garba that there are no modern weapons such as guns in the game and all players can use any means to survive. The game is taking place in a simulated island the size of two football stadiums with very diverse terrain structures.

Each volunteer has a choice of dressing from over two hundred different virtual costumes that range from simple casual wears, to military camouflage and even astronaut space suits; a player can carry up to two different sets of clothing if they wish to.

Garba put on a dark military camouflage tank top and a camouflage trouser with military boots. In his bag, he packed a track shoe and a pair of black clothes to change into during the night.

Since the manifestation of the subspace Garba is in, a Notice has been blinking overhead in a large window saying ‘countdown to lobby’ with a timer that is about to run out at this point. Once it reaches zero, Garba was teleported to a waiting hall where all the participants were teleported to one at a time. Each player dressed in their unique styles and choices. Some wearing overly flashy clothes and like Garba, some wearing military camouflage.

Garba looked around and it didn’t take him long to find Lucy, together they looked and found Mila too.

Lucy was dressed in a dark brown turtleneck and a military camouflage pant, Mila on the other hand is dressed in a grey tracksuit outfit.

Another timer appeared in the ceiling of the hall set to count two minutes, below it is a window showing instructions

‘select the area you want to spawn on the mini map before the time runs out’

the instruction says and instantly at the top right corner of each player’s vision appears a mini map. Garba instinctively tapped the map twice and it got enlarged, displaying the whole of the island. The island is not too big but for twenty seven people it certainly is big enough. Each of them suddenly realized. the island contains a dormant volcano in its center and two large forest areas to the left and right of the volcano covered in thick forest. There is small village and a beach area as well.

“I think we should tag together and spawn in the same location” Lucy said

“I think that is a good idea considering those military camouflage guys are tagging in a team of seven, our best chances for survival is to team up too” Mila responded in agreement to Lucy’s earlier statement.

Garba studied the map for a few more seconds and said.

“this game has only one rule, to survive. This is the only rule for the game which means that the base of this game is uncertainty; some players will definitely fight off others to increase their chances of winning and I have a feeling we will be busy fighting other things as well since if you think about it, they could have made any type of game but they made a survival game. We should expect the worse and be ready if we want to win this survival game”

“Where should we spawn, the timer runs out in twenty seconds” Lucy asked.

Garba studied the map one more time and said “we should all spawn in the small space where the forest meets the open beach area towards the coast of the ocean, there is a river that feeds a spring into the ocean; we’ll stay there until we figure out our next move”.

The timer ran out and each player gets transported to where they selected on the map.

As for Garba, Lucy and Mila, they were teleported to the edge of the forest where it meets with the beach and a river flowing into the ocean.

“this is around three o’clock in the evening, we should do a terrain check and be sure there are no other people or predators around, situational awareness is crucial to our survival” Lucy said

“She is right, we should do a wide sweep of this edge of the forest to see what we are sharing this space with; be it dangerous game elements in the form of monsters or predators or other players, we really need to know what we are dealing with so we can know how to survive it” Garba responded to affirm what Lucy said. Mila nodded in agreement.

The three of them checked their bags and picked out the default item it comes with. Garba and Mila got long durable ropes each and Lucy got a service knife.

They agreed to each cover about forty meters in three different directions and reconvene at the point Garba has marked on the map to survey the area and get familiar with the environment.

Garba ventured into the Forest towards the center, Mila in the direction of the Volcano following the edge of the Forest and using the forest canopy to hide while Lucy who has a knife a few months of Military service experience back in Japan ventured into the open beach to see for herself who or what may be nearby that can pose a threat to them.

Garba begin walking into the forest with his eyes widely open and his senses heightened, he moves slowly from tree to tree camouflaging around green creepers with his camouflage dress.

After a few minutes of sneaking through the forest, Garba heard a little rustling sound a few meters ahead, due to the heavy canopy of the forest and the long twisting creepers and tree trunks; Garba could not see clearly what was making the noise but it must be just ahead.

After he carefully sneaked on an inclined tree trunk to take a peek at what was making the noise just pass the group of trees in front of him Garba finds himself face to face with a giant Boa constrictor that was wrapped around the tree in the process of swallowing a person whose dressing tells Garba is definitely a player among the test subjects. The snake itself is about as long as it could possibly get and it is thick enough in diameter to fit an adult human in its abdomen without having to try hard.

A cold sweat broke on Garba’s face and his entire body becomes paralyzed with horror and fear, although he is still aware that this is a game, it felt very realistic to him and he feels that at that very moment, if he makes one bad decision that his life will be over. The constrictor has obviously seen him but as it is in the process of swallowing the other player, Garba suddenly realizes that he has a chance to escape.

As soon as he made the resolve to run, he jumped from the branch he is on to the main trunk of the tree which forms a slanted angle that leads downwards. As soon as Garba moved, the constrictor rotated it’s lower body and unwounded from the coil it made around the tree. With his senses heightened he immediately saw what the constrictor is doing and suspected that it is trying to hit him hard with it's tail to disable him from running away.

Although the giant snake already has it’s mouth full literally, it was not willing to simply let go of a prey standing right in front of it.

Mid-air before Garba could land on the slanted main trunk of the tree, just above his head the lower tail of the boa passed him by a few inches hitting the branch he just jumped off of and breaking it. Although Garba’s entire thoughts and attention are focused entirely on his escape route; he had to spare a thought on how broken his bones would be if he had been hit by the boa’s tail.

He landed on the slanted trunk and used the downward tilt to run as fast as he could to increase his speed and just behind him, followed the boa. He jumped when he was a few steps to the ground and just another few inches from where he landed, the boa hit its tail so hard on the ground that Garba got flung into the air, making him to tumble and luckily for him he landed roughly on his feet and took off in the direction away from the boa.

At his top speed, Garba still cant seem to be able to outrun the oversized snake, he is running as fast as he could but the more he turns back to take a glance the closer the snake gets to him. This time, there is no escape for him and he knows very well that fighting back is not an option because the boa packs enough punch in it’s tail to end his life in a single hit. Running isn’t much of the right option either but there is no other alternative. Just when Garba is about to be caught, he heard another rustling sound coming from the bushes just a few steps away from him.

Hoping for anything to show up and distract the boa enough for him to escape it’s chase, he rushed over. As he got passed the bushes, he saw one of the players skinning a rabbit he has apparently caught and instantly, Garba knew the guy is in trouble too so he shouted

“run for your life, a boa is chasing me” he has already realized that the guy’s life is over because he would never react in time to hide before the boa sees him and it will be Garba’s fault for bringing the boa over to him but deep down Garba feels relieved because he knew that he would somehow survive thanks to the guy being the boa’s next lunch instead of him.

The other guy was confused by Garba’s sudden appearance and ran in the opposite direction that Garba was running and unknowingly towards the giant constrictor. It took only three second for him to realized he is face with a raging giant snake and before he could react, it grabbed him with it’s mouth having finished swallowing the previous guy and crashed him hard enough on the ground that he made his last screaming shout that sent an echo all around the forest; Garba who has slowed down realizing he is almost back at his meeting place with his party members felt a sense of guilt and relief at the same time when he heard the shout of the other guy echo round the whole forest.

He followed his mini map to the point he, Mila and Lucy agreed to meet, on his arrival he met Mila already seated under a tree.

“you look like hell, what the hell happened with you?” Mila quickly asked as soon as she saw him.

“Oh my God Garba, you are bleeding and look at the scratch on your left arm, what happened”

“It is a long story, you’re not going to believe what happened; how unlucky and lucky I am all at once” Garba responded.

“The shout I heard just now, was that you?” Mila demanded

“not really, that was the guy that saved me, I was checking the perimeter as usual when I heard some noise in front of me among the bushes. I climbed a tree as stealthy as I could but I was so unlucky and at the very wrong place to be; a Constrictor of enormous size was up the tree swallowing someone it caught before I arrived and was right in front of me and you now, although this is a game and I know that, I was genuinely frightened that I may actually die”

“Wait wait wait, did you fight it off to escape” she asked while keenly looking at Garba’s Blue and brown eyes.

“are you kidding me? Did you not hear what I said, a Giant boa constrictor the size of a palm tree. How would I possibly be able to fight something like that. I barely escaped with my life thanks to the guy that you heard shouting. I was fleeing from the snake and there he is skinning a rabbit in the middle of nowhere so the snake’s attention went to him while I narrowly escaped. By the way, where is Lucy?” Garba asked

Mila now standing up and stretching her legs quickly looked at Garba as if she just remembered something.

“this is what I had intended to ask you but got side tracked when I saw you bleeding and messed up” Mila responded.

“lets go after her, this is an hour after the estimated time of our return to this point so I am guessing something might have happened with her perimeter check as well” Garba said

“I hope she did not encounter anything like your boa, it is getting late and will be dark soon” Mila said as the two walk up the beach and started heading away from the forest in the direction that Lucy went five hours ago. After an hour of walking the two finally saw footsteps and three ropes on the floor.

Garba grabbed the ropes, put them in his backpack and begin to run in the direction of the footsteps on the beach sand. A few moments later they saw three people running and fighting each other, two men were chasing Lucy around; one of the men was holding a rope and the other a knife.

The first man holding a rope charged at Lucy but got swept off his and immediately Lucy took advantage of the situation and pulled her knife at the guy. He held her hand trying to stop her from stabbing him in the neck, Lucy sat down on him and started to push the knife with all her strength.

The second man started charging at her from behind with his knife aimed at her open back.

Garba and Mila were charging at their top speed but both realized they wont reach on time and almost simultaneously, they each pulled their ropes and threw them at the guy with the knife behind Lucy. Garba’s rope untangled and hit the guy in the eye and Mila, whose rope had a bow knot at the very end roped itself round the guy’s neck, She pulled the rope so hard that the Guy’s neck broke instantly.

Lucy stabbed the other guy in the neck and the two guys disintegrated into a thousand pixel pieces leaving their instruments and clothes behind.

On the edge of the forest, where Mila and Garba left couple of hours ago, seven men dressed in military camouflage uniforms were scouting around and found the foot steps of Garba and Mila who left a the beach to look for Lucy.

“we have found some of the players, lets continue our hunt” the largest among them said and the rest of the six responded simultaneously with

“yes sir”.