The Eternal Sleep

Shutter's Gamers

Luca yawned as he pulled off the headset. The cloudy skies outside and chilly atmosphere reminded him just how sleepy he was. He stretched as much as he could on the bed, curling up under his blanket to enjoy the warmth. He was grateful that Sunday was a day he didn’t have to socialize with his family.

Jasper had to go back to college, Sean would be driving, and his mother would insist on going. As he usually did, Luca would refuse to join the motley crew and sleep for the rest of the evening, that was after he finished his homework anyway. Not that it would matter, since his school would be over in a month. As sleep became a gentle slope, a knock came at his closed door.

Luca groaned, of course one could only dream about peace. He tried to ignore it, pulling his pillow over his head and hoping that whoever at the door would believe him to not be worth the hassle. The knock came several more times, increasing in loudness.

Irritated, he threw his blanket to the side and pushed himself out of bed. Neither wanting nor bothering to check himself in the mirror, he threw open the door, “What Jas- Sean!” he choked on the air in his throat.

Luca was suddenly aware of his headgear hair and an arm of his jacket hanging off his shoulder, not to mention the fact that he hadn’t bathe yet. This was technically the first time he was appearing anything other than neat in front of Sean, and worst, he’d had been ready to yell at the man’s son.

Sean looked as surprised as he felt, his hand frozen in mid-knock. Luca rapidly pulled his jacket up and ran his hand through his hair, trying and failing to neaten it. “Uh Luca… is everything okay?”

“Yea, I’m great, how ‘bout you?” Luca leaned against the door frame as casually as he could, raising a hand to subtly check for stubble on his chin. Sean didn’t seem to notice his antics, instead glancing around what he could see of room, as if looking for invisible enemies.

‘Right, Sean used to be in the military, if I’m acting strange, he’s immediately gonna think I’m in danger or something probably, I don't know.’ Luca cringed internally, mentally kicking himself for forgetting that piece of information. Instead, he slyly kicked the door open more, sighing in his head as Sean seemed to relax.

Luca’s eyes widened as Jasper quietly slipped past, not alerting Sean and giving him a thumbs up, heading down the stairs. He should have known that Jasper was behind this, he was always trying to get the pair to talk to each other, admittedly because of his unnecessary guilt for not standing up to his father that night. Luca always tried to tell him that he had nothing to be guilty or sorry about, but it didn’t stop him from pushing them to talk at the most random of moments.

“…am I right?” Luca realized that Sean had been talking the entire time he was planning Jasper’s painful death.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Luca tried to scramble through his memory from the last few minutes to figure out what Sean was trying to say.

“Nothing, I was just rambling.” Sean stepped back, “Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to come with us?”

“Go with you? Where?”

“Shutter’s Gamers.” He grinned, “You mentioned it last time, so I told Jasper and he said he wanted to go with you, before he went back to college for the week.”

That was surprising, usually Jasper headed straight to college or they’d stop for lunch halfway as far as he knew. Then again, Jasper probably had an ulterior motive as usual. Luca tried to think of a way to get out of the situation a peacefully as possible, “Is mom okay with this?”

“Yea, I asked her, she doesn’t mind.”

‘More like she doesn’t mind because Jasper wants to go to.’ Luca thought bitterly, shaking his head to clear the bad thoughts, maybe it was time to get out of his own head for a little bit and do something that doesn’t involve stressing out over the game or his college future. “Fine, when do we leave.”

Sean had a grin on his face the entire way, Jasper had nudged him and smiled positively. Luca had just rolled his eyes at their antics, waved his mother a faint ‘hello’ and dropped himself in the backseat of the car, fiddling with his phone. He mainly agreed to go because he was certain the others would get bored in the first ten minutes.

Shutter’s Gamers is a place for people who enjoyed the latest technology and updates, it allowed players to use computer already set up for challenges and even just research for students. It was filled with an endless supply of games and merchandise, and to the back was a room just filled with arcade games. Luca loved it because it allowed him to just be himself, he didn’t need friends to go there and blow off some steam.

“This is a lot different than I expected.” Sean raised his eyebrows at the somewhat empty store. The front was just wooden shelves filled with comic books and other things, and assistants standing behind glass cases, playing with their phones.

Luca walked up to one of the cases, hands in his pockets, he noted the new consoles that just came in. Sean leaned over his shoulder curiously; Luca was ready to pull away when he saw some familiar faces. “Hey Dean, Kelly!”

“Well I’ll be darned, if it isn’t the prodigy himself.” Dean greeted him with a soft grin and a fist bump, his green eyes and blond hair had never changed since the day Luca first met him in the store. He’d told the workers about his college choices, hoping for some advice and wasn’t disappointed.

“And as I always say, not a prodigy, I just had some serious help.” He shook Kelly’s hand, the grey strands in her brown hair made her never ageing brown eyes shine even brighter.

“So you keep saying, but you gotta be some kind of smart to even begin to understand the work, ya know?” the pair leaned on the counters, “Musta made your mamma proud.”

“Speaking of, Dean, Kelly, meet my family, Sean, Jasper and mom, Alyse.” Luca leaned his hip on the counter, watching them wave at each other. Sean was hardly two meters away; Jasper had busied himself looking at comic books and his mother had chosen to sit on the bench near the door.

“My, you lot look nothing alike.” Kelly frown, resting her head on her hand, “But that’s not my business, I guess.”

“Speaking of business, did you hear what happened?” Dean whispered conspiratorially.

“I’m guessing you’re talking about ‘Eternal Sleep’, right?” Luca groaned, ignoring Sean looking at him from the corner of his eye. “Yea, I was in it when it happened, it was not pleasant.” He huffed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Same here, our daughter logged in as soon as she heard, it completely overloaded her main drive.” The older woman shook her head, “Did you get hurt, my boy?”

“Thankfully not, a friend of mines managed to shut our systems down and save our avatars. Nearly busted his gear but he made it out pretty good.”

“Yikes, to think Luna claimed their gear was the best.” Dean rubbed his eyes, “We’ve been trying to understand what’s been happening but even Kelsi has been lost.”

“It was Naijal and his co-worker,” Luca leaned in closer, faintly noticing Sean walking closer, “He posted the broadcast and everything. From what I understand, Sun’s wife, Camilla, claimed he quit the job, with that, his made final ‘assertion’ of the throne by going all out and trying to call a final quest I guess.”

“Sun quit? But that’s crazy, he kept saying that he had big ambitions.”

“That’s what the players been protesting for the last few days. Get this to, so Sun just released the biggest and most advanced technology of the century, he was earning millions in just the first day, and all of a sudden, he suddenly ups and drops the project like hot potato. No word, no explanation.” Jasper was standing on Luca’s other side, pretending to read the price tags on the games in the case.

“What about the other guy, his co-worker?”

“Aidan Jhonnes?” Luca sighed, “No-one’s heard heads nor tails of him in weeks. He said he was on a world tour but if Black Crown Industries is falling and her boss just quit, you’d imagine that her second in command would show his face.”

“This new generation is finally become too hard for people like us to understand.”

“You make yourselves sound old.” Luca wrinkled his nose, “You guys are literally still in your forties.”

“That’s old enough, son.” Dean pulled his weight off the counter and nodded at Sean and Jasper, who were literally now only feet away.

Luca rolled his eyes and drummed his finger on the counter, “But, I didn’t come to talk messy business, I was wondering-“

“Yep, still opened, it has some kids in there already, and we just got some new games