Virtual Reality : Dystopian Tales Online

012.5 | Discrepancy

The morning starts early inside the Sagan Home. It is often composed of the mother cooking a feast, the father waking up the sleepyheads, and the younger children fighting with who should enter the bathroom first. Aries, as the first born, already enjoy the privilege to call the first dibs.

The breakfast tables have already been filled with sunny side eggs, half burned toasts, steaming chocolate drinks, and coffee when Aries walked in to the dining table. His lovely mother is still holding a pan and spatula accompanied by the sound of the sizzling bacon and ham. She noticed her eldest coming over, offering him a affable smile.

"Good morning," she sweetly said.

The creases on the sides of her eyes become prominent whenever she smiles. She placed a few pieces of bacon to a plate and opened another pack to start cooking. Aries went over to present his mother a kissed on the cheeks before sitting on his designated area on the dining table.

Just in the moment, his father entered the scene bearing the youngest child on his arms. The child is at least two years old that refused to wake up. It didn't bother his father though that even took the luxury to turn the television on. He sat on the master's position while coaxing the sleeping child to wake up.

Aries silently ate his breakfast while watching the current events on the television. Few of his siblings started to fill in the blank chairs in the table. He is already a quarter done eating when the dining table is finally full. His mother added some more food in his plate seeing that he is not eating a lot.

"Eat more," His mother chattered. "You're eating so little. You need food to grow."

"My brother is already very tall," one of the young boys complained. "What is there to grow more?"

Aries blinked. He's the mother's favorite so the other could only look in envy. Some of the female siblings snickered.

"Ma, don't give brother a lot, ah. Brother is maintaining his figure for the person he likes," she snitched. "He wanted to impress-"

"Ahem!" Aries stood up suddenly. "I am done!"

He drank the last drop of his chocolate drink and brought all his utensils to the sink. The mother who heard a secret eyed her eldest. Aries could feel the stabbing looks, but he ignored it. His disposition is never weak, so such threat wasn't effective to him. He turned around with a smile and bid her mom a farewell kiss on her cheeks.

"Hey, young man, your younger sister is saying something-," she said after recovering from the revelation.

"Don't worry, mom. I will bring them sometime," Aries reassured her.

It is too late for her to ask more questions since and just let Aries go. The father that is silently listening to their conversation while watching the television called Aries suddenly. Aries already got his bag on his back and is about to open the door out. He turned around and found his kind father looking at him seriousl

"Be careful on your way. A lot of accidents was happening recently," he said.

When he said these words, the inaudible television in the background suddenly became clear. A female anchor is enthusiastically reporting an incident that happened last night. It is a traffic accident where two people got injured. Fortunately, no one died.

Aries listened solemnly then nodded and left under his father's gaze.

There is actually few things the students in the generation have to do. Since the system changed the maximum requirement to one hundred years, the students could choose their electives and take it how much long they wanted. They could also take a break and not attend school, but it is limited to a maximum of twenty-four months.

Aries, as a language student, only have to attend a few hours of classes per week. Most of his time is spent on helping on his uncle's bar.

He only has morning classes today. Aries easily gathered the attention of the students the moment he entered the school. His towering height and natural smiling eyes always attracted people and could not help but to give a second glance. He also has a gentle disposition that increased his charm and charisma.

Teachers and students greeted him on the way. Aries consistently responded with a nod before proceeding ahead. His classmates immediately swarmed around him when he arrived in the class. The usual people invited him to some lunch or snacks but Aries refused them instantly. He is clear to their intentions and did not want them.

There's only one person whom he wanted to have lunch with.

The classes started, and things happened like the usual. The lessons are too easy to learn, so the whole time Aries is just aimlessly scribbling on his notes. He had written a short skit and translated it to five languages. He's on his way of translating it to the sixth ones when the bell for lunch rang.

He slipped very quickly out from class. The people that wanted to insist on inviting him were helpless. Aries is kind but he is too kind. He did not want to associate with his classmates and even to other people. It is quite ruthless, but they could not force someone to like them.

Then, it could be considered that the only people Aries treated as friends are the members of the guild.

It must be due to fate that brought them together. He liked how his guild members never forced him to join events - he is actually one doing it. The respect between them is very clear, and nobody dared to cross boundaries. He felt the most relax together with them, so he chose them for a reason.

Like Clover, his favorite would be the twins. The two teenagers never complained and always doing their job well. They don't have the syndrome of riding to someone coattails and even proved that they could stand and fight without their supervision. Clover commented that the twins was very rational that he wanted to spoil them very much

Leon and Shin also have their charisma. Leon is sophisticated, always doing stuff accordingly and very neat. Shin, on the other hand, is very reckless. He does everything he thinks possible to whom ninety-nine percent of the times leads him to death. The opposite characteristics balanced their duo that's why Aries would always pull them in making trouble.

About Frass and Xavier - err, there is really not much to say. The two people have their own unique set of personalities, though he did not dislike them, he did not like them either. Anyways, they are Clover's relatives so he could only adjust to show his sincerity.

The other people that he had met from the first server are also to his liking. They are the type that would go silent for years but will help you and reach out when you are in need. He had met some of them in real life and sometimes would go to his uncle's bar to get some drink.

Aries bought his lunch from a street shop and ate it as he walks around going to his uncle's bar.Aries bought his lunch from a street shop and ate it as he walks around going to his uncle's bar. People crowded the sidewalk while cars filled up the streets. Aries checked his watch to see if he could still catch the bus.

The city center is mostly occupied by skyscrapers. The high rise buildings showed the prestige of humanity that were able to survive against the harsh weathers. Few of these buildings have these large LED screens showing some advertisement. A certain building with the largest screen is broadcasting a short news clip.

The news clip contains the same stuff Aries heard earlier. However, there are additional information that sent horror to every people watching the news. It seems that not only one accident happened last night - there are at least eight accidents. Three of them are from road crashes while the remaining five is from unknown assaults.

The causes of road crashes have been concluded as wild animals suddenly appearing on the streets. As to where these animals came from and where they went, the officers has no clue. They scanned the monitoring devices around the area to see the actual situation but the only thing they could catch is the appearance of a blurry figure.

The assaults, on the other hand, were from wolves - sort of. The victims describe the beast to have furry body of black, blue, and white sporting with pairs of golden eyes. They are also bipedal-ed with at least three-inch red blood nails. The attack has been ferocious that two people died from the same case.

It has been a long time since people learned about accidents so it is quite novel to them to see such disasters. The people that are going to work stopped on their tracks as they look over the LED Screen to listen more of the news. The flowing stream of the crowd suddenly halted as they focused their attention to the screen.

Aries did not stop walking as he proceeded in his direction. He did not follow the news on the screen but instead he opened the news article in his terminal to read the extensive information. The faces of the victims were clearly captured, however, the said wild animals did not have any of it.

He had been busy reading the article that he did not notice the rising commotion happening around him. There was a sudden booming voice coming from the corner then people started running away. Aries only managed to take a glance just to see a floating ice cream truck that is about to knock him...