A Paradigm Shift
Middle of the day,
The sun is bright and hot as hell, but contras to this, a solem feeling weighting down the heart. The words "heavy heart" has never rung more true than it does today, as terrence wave goodbye to his parents which are sending him off the the airport.
"It was a nice and long weekend, one that was sorely due... But all good things must come to and end..." terrence whispered sadly in his heart as he walks slowly away from his parents car.
But hey, as things end, new one begins. While heavy was the weight in his heart, he knew that this only meant, the clock to his next trip back to penang has just begun. While it may be 6 months ahead, a journey of a thousand steps start with a single step.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound of the auto checkout machine rung as terrence checked into his flight back to KL. Its now 12.12pm, boarding was at 2, he had time to spare, but frankly speaking, nothing much to do.
If you don't know, it's 2020 now, the world has been hit hard by Covid-19, and while Malaysia has been handling it relatively well, it has left many places closed, the airport food and beverages shop being one of them.
"Ahhhh what the heck, might as well just find a seat and get some shut eyes..." the voice in terrences mind boomed as he scanned at the rows and rows of closed shops.
As luck may have had it, there was a few rows of chairs stacked by the wall not too far away from the self checkout kiosk. Seeing the seats are empty and ripe for the taking, terrence begun his journey there.
The seats weren't bad, it was padded with cushion. The temperature was just right, not too hot, not too cold, with gentle whift of cool air hitting his skin once awhile. There were many there to make a ruckus, and there was ample amount of space to stretch out. If not for suddenly announcements and calling for passengers, it wouldn't be wrong to say Terrence would have dosed off to dreamland the moment his glutius touched the chair.
And yet, even with the sudden announcements here and there, it was hard to fight the call of nature. As his eyes slowly closed asleep, a weird lullaby serenade his ears, as if pulling his soul into another, bringing his vision to black...
...
...
...
Drip...
Drip...
Drip...
"Ugh" Terrence mumbled as his consciousness fades awake from the sound of dripping water. "What on earth are you doing..." Terrence taught with his eyes still closed, about whoever that is sitting nearby him now and whatever in the world is he doing to produce that ungodly sound.
Drip...
Drip...
Drip...
"Hey!..." unable to take it anymore, Terrence opened his eyes and turned to the source of the sound, clearly ready to lash out at whoever that was making it, only to see gray staglamite and stalagites surrounding him.
"What in the world..." Terrence rubbed his eyes as he scanned around. The airport he was at was now gone. Infront him now was a room of gray and black, filled with dirt, rock and stones. It is without a doubt, a cave.
"How did I... What the fuck..." Terrence mind whirl at incomprehension as reality sunk. He stood up and begin touching the stones and dirt that surround him, perhaps hoping that these were just illusions or VR. But no, the more he touched, the more frantic he become, clearly, those were stones and he was really in a cave. But something strange was happening.
The stones were real, but everytime he touched it, a menu bar appeared, as if this was some kind of vr/ar mmorpg.
"Am I just being punked?" Terrences head continue to race as he tried to figure out what exactly is happening. After awhile of more touching and not really managing to figure out anything, Terrence decided to take a closer look at the words on the menu bar that is poping up instead. "If this was a game, perhaps reading the description would help" Terrence though as he stated at the menu bar that pop out as he touched a nearby staglamite.
Beep.
Comprehension completed.
Name: rock.
Description: just a rock.
"I don't know what I was expecting" terrence said as his face became the emboidement of =.=
" Dengar tak?!"
A loud an horse voice can be heard echoing across the cavern.
" Was that..." Terrence's brain started to whirl again, that language was familiar to him. As a Malaysian, how can he not know what language it was, it was malay. Does that mean this really is a game and there are fellow Malaysians that are here as well? Why then was he chosen for this... Beta test?
"... Dari situ!"
The voices grew closer, comming from the far end of the empty cavern. "Should I go and talk to them?" Terrence thought when suddenly it crept to him, "... Are they friendly?"
As a person who has played many games himself, Terrence was no alien to the term PK, player kill. If this truly was a game, who is to say that they poeple that is frantically searching for a random voice in the dark isn't comming for malicious reasons? How can he be sure?
"Perhaps I should hide!" terrence thought to himself. The more he did, the more it made sense to him. There was no harm in hiding, if they were friendly, he would just reveal himself, if they weren't, at least he had options after that.
With that in mind, he quickly scatter around to find the largest stalamite he could see and hid behind it, waiting for the owners of the voice to come over.
Dup, Dup, Dup, Dup.
The sound of terrence heart and the footsteps started to mixed as both grew louder and louder. It wasn't long before from the tip of his eyes, he could see a sharp spear appearing from the cavern entrance not too far away...