Post by Trith on Apr 25, 2017 3:58:24 GMT
"You know what I get that you don't have the time right now and neither do I, we are all busy with school and work and life. I mean think about it, I have both work and school, you only have school. You have it easy compared to me." Trith Tilken; a young man living in southern Ontario, a province of Canada. He was on the phone talking with another young man's voice, "Dude I get that, but remember you are taking less classes so you can work more, plus you have more money than I do..." Trith's voice again, "And don't I know it. You only ask me to lend you money like every other day..." "You know that isn't true, it's more like once a week. Plus you know if I worked and you went to school all day long I'd be buying you gifts all the time!" This went back and forth for a good half hour. "Look I'm going to be late for work, I'll text or call you on my break... Have a good exam Yohish, don't blow it or your parents will kill you. In fact I'd be willing to bet they would come all the way from where is it again? South east Asia? Just to kill you in person." Yohish laughs on the other side of the connection, "Dude I tell you every time you bring it up and you always forget and just clump me into one part of the continent. I am from Singapore man.... Singapore. It isn't that hard to remember." Trith laughs, "Fine Singapore... Your parents will come from Singapore and beat you senseless if you fail this course." Yohish laughs again, "They will not, they can barely plan a trip together, never mind get themselves here to kill me... I thought you had work?" Yohish asks after a pause of laughter. "I do... I'm running late. I'm here now. I'll call you later." "Later like your break or later.." *Click* The phone is slid into his pants pocket and he winds up his ear buds which he had tucked in his shirt from when he was listening to his favorite band. Moments later he was at the punch box of the local grocery store and he was swiping his card into the punch box.
Trith a twenty-nine year old part time produce worker and part time student was living with a roommate when he and his four best friends bought the game they waited out the door for, SAO. It was supposed to be the best videogame ever created. Sure they had other games that were similar but this one was really special, none of the others even came close in technology, this game was voted number one by the beta testers in all categories. Trith saved up for months to buy his, while three of his friends including Yohish used their student loans to pay for it, his fourth friend Joseph came from money, so he really didn't have to worry that much about it. They as a group decided that they would try it together. They had each played in a Dungeons and Dragons group together for a few years and even tried their skill at LARP once or twice, Trith was the one who loved it more than the others, Yohish and Joseph were the warrior types, but Alex and Brant didn't really get out much unless they were forced to tag along with the rest of the group. Brant especially had a lot of anxiety problems, which Trith really pushed him to do more and break out of his shell, looking back that was one of the main reasons why Trith felt so guilty when he thought of his old friends.
"Babe?" A young woman's voice from the other side of the connection answered, "Hello wonderful." Trith says as if he knows he's about to get into a lot of trouble. "Don't you hello wonderful me, I heard what happened to our date plans, you said we were going to hang out tonight and then you said you had to work and couldn't, but you couldn't only because you and your friends are going to play SAO. That isn't a good reasons..." "I'm sorry, I know I made plans with you, but my friends and I made plans for this a while back and I just forgot to write it down, you know me with calendars... I am terrible with time and dates and everything..." Trith cut the girl off. "First you make plans with me, then lie about why you can't then interrupt me while i'm giving you heck about it... That isn't very nice Trith..." "Liz, I said I was sorry. I'll hang with the guys tonight and tomorrow you will have me from the time i'm done work until bed time. I promise." Liz who had been dating Trith for about 10 months had been blown off by him on more than one occasion, each time was for his friends. Each time was made up with a promise to spend the whole next day with her and each time she remembered how hard he worked to please her. "You know eventually I am not going to forgive you so easily... What happens if one day you make this promise and then can't even make the date...?" Trith laughed, "Babe, come on, what is going to happen to me, it's not like I am going to play this game and then sleep and wake up and get hit by a bus on the way to work... Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise. I'll head hope play this amazing new game, which is supposed to be like the game to die for, sleep, eat yummy french toast cause my roommate is on this new recipe thingy... Then walk to work, work... Then come get my girl for a night she will never forget. I promise..."
Not only did he break his promise to spend the night with her, but because of what happened next he wouldn't be able to make the next promise to meet her the next day. As soon as he finished the call to her he dialed another number, *Ring Ring*, *Ring Ring* "Hello?" Yohish's voice sounded tired like he was napping, which often happened after a really bad exam, or in this case a really bad exam at the end of an all nighter of studying. "Dude, I don't have long, Liz just called and flipped about me bailing tonight, I'm just about done my break and... Nope never mind my break ended like five minutes ago.. I got to go! I'll call you when i'm off." "Yeah okay... You didn't even ask me how my exam..." *Click* Trith was back inside the grocery store right quick with cold pizza in hand and a bottle of ice tea in his armpit. When his shift ended he paid for a jug of milk and headed to his break room for his skate board then heading for the doors out. Saying goodnight to his coworkers he balanced his milk and cold bagel from before work started and started running into a jump onto his board in the direction to home. Getting there he felt a buzz in his pocket, "Yeah hello?" What happened to calling me back eh?" Yohish was wide awake this time. "Sorry I had to buy milk and balancing for me has never been easy so I made a judgement call..." Trith opened the fridge door and put the milk in, sizing up the ingredients for the french toast in the morning one last time with a lick he headed towards his room. It was filthy, laundry clean and dirty everywhere, papers from exam notes and gum stuck to his carpet, work paperwork for new insurance he'd be getting in a few weeks.. "and of course... a burnt out light... But no matter I have one in the closet..." Trith said heading towards the closet, "Dude, you talking to yourself again... That's not good man..." Trith laughed, "It's fine to talk to yourself, it's only bad if you answer yourself..." Yohish also laughed. "You ready yet man... I've been looking at this thing for like an hour... Alex and Brant are already there..." Trith spit out the milk he had in his mouth when he heard this, "What!" *cough cough* "They didn't even wait for us? That's not cool. We were going to do the dive together at ten... bummer. Oh well. We'll see them there. I'll be ready for the dive... still twenty minutes. I'll grab a shower quick and meet you there." "Yeah okay that sounds fair" *Click* "Opps... I better stop hanging up on him... He's going to end up betting me up in there..." *Ring Ring* "I'm sorry I hung up on you..." Trith said without looking at the phone, "What? No it's me Joseph..." "Oh hey sorry I thought you were Yohish." "Yeah I figured. All is good for the dive at ten? I heard Brant and Alex..." "Yeah I heard." Trith cuts him off, "Dude you need to stop interrupting us man... We're going to beat you with a stick or something on the other side..." Trith nodded, then responded as Joseph couldn't hear his nods, "Yeah, ok, sorry. Shower then dive. Chat on the other..." *Click* "Did he just hang up on me... He did... Jerk." Trith showered quickly, closed his door and put on the head set. He looked once more at the clock which just turned to ten, then he put the visor over his eyes. "Here goes nothing... Link... Start!" He immediately was whisked away to a whole new world. Like nothing he had ever seen before.
The world was so different than any video game he'd ever played, just as good as everything he'd been told. He had a rough start with learning how to do the basics and eventually found his two closest friends Yohish and Joseph, Joseph being another Long Sword user he got some tips from him, but Yohish was a spear user, the only one in their group that wasn't a long sword user. "They don't start you with much do they? Only three bottles for healing..." Trith said looking at his inventory. "You won't need to use them with us around... We will take on all the levels together." Joseph said pointing up towards the rest of the levels. "Yeah sure... Fine... What about Brant and Alex?" "I sent them a friend request, but I only heard back from Brant, he'll be here soon and we'll go fight some wild Boar..." Yohish said as he looked around for the other two. Trith also looked around. "The Town of Beginnings... This place is small compared to back home, I sort of expected a large city to start in... with castles..." Trith said looking around. "Hey guys sorry I'm late... Where's Alex?" Brant had just arrived. "We haven't heard from him yet... not sure where he is. Maybe he got lost?" Yohish said still looking for him with all the people walking past the group. "Even so... wouldn't he be able to receive the message?" "Oh there he is... No I mean he just messaged me.. He's running late he was chatting with a pretty girl apparently." Joseph said smiling. "You know that because we all look different that pretty girl could be a balding grown man right..." Brant stopped what he was doing and looked at Trith who just said that, "Dude dont make me puke... I just chatted with an attractive girl... Now all I can think of is a balding man..." The whole group laughed, all except for Brant who just looked disgusted until Alex showed up. Then they were off towards the plains.
After a whole ‘afternoon’ of battling boars they heard a sound coming from the Town of Beginnings. A sort of beeping pinging noise. Then they noticed players in the plains disappearing. Then they themselves were disappearing. “What’s going on?” Trith said finding himself in the Town of Beginnings, near a tower in the middle of a courtyard. The others were as surprised as he was. They too were asking others the same thing until what happened next happened. Trith listened intently as the Game Master explained their new situation. At first he was really excited, well worth blowing Liz off for, but slowly it turned into more and more of a nightmare. Especially when he saw the posts of people who had died and were now in the news. Some of those people were from Canada, but also so many other countries around the world. Could this really be a joke? Could it really be real? Each time the Game Master said something greater panic set it. “Holy crap… Could this be true?” Trith asked, but no one answered him, until the Game Master had finished speaking barely anyone spoke up in all of the courtyard. When the skies returned to normal there seemed a chill silence and then an eruption of chaos and fear. Trith stayed close to the others. Each of them filled with a type of loss and fear and confusion. The first few days after is when some of the worst things Trith has been a part of happened, both Brant and Alex each on a different day jumped off the ledge of the first level… Both of them decided to end their lives. It seemed to his Trith most but Yohish and Joseph were hurting too. About a month later Yohish died fighting the level one boss. Joseph was able to escape, but died less than two weeks later in a trap room. Trith had a hard enough time with Brant and Alex, but when both his best friends died, especially after spending days begging him to continue on with them… Trith couldn’t cope. He couldn’t take his own life, but he couldn’t continue living his life anymore. So he shut himself up in the Town of Beginnings. There he remained.
**A lot of this time in his life in SAO sort of blurred into this past paragraph of information. Everything else was just too painful. As time passes, maybe he will be able to explain it in more detail… But for now, this was all he could really remember….**