This Game is My Life by Nights Directory 1. I Would Like To Continue 1. I Would Like To Continue Darkness. I was surrounded by darkness. Completely and utterly dark with nothing as far as I could see. Nothing, save for the giant letters blinking in front of me. Big and red. The letters were the kind you'd see on an old school arcade game. There was nothing special about them except they were there. Why were they there? Why am I here? Where is here? The only thing I was sure of was that I had apparently been playing a game as the letters spelled out GAME OVER. The last thing I remember before being here was walking across the street, on my way to school, and hearing the sound of screeching tires. Before I had time to contemplate what had happened between then and now, I heard a door open. A door? I wasn't even sure this had been a room. As I turned around I found, sure enough, a door being opened behind me. Light seemed to flow out of it like a river, contrasting a little bit more than my eyes would like with the dark ... what was it a room? Maybe a warehouse. Was this some sort of government facility? The door opened and through squinted eyes I made out a figure walking through. He must have noticed I was having difficulty seeing as he shut the door behind him. Strange. Though we were in complete darkness I had no trouble seeing him. He was around my height, close to six feet, and he wore a black suit with a contrasting white tie. He appeared to be in his early to mid twenties. Clean shave and suave hair. In other circumstances I'd say he was a lawyer. "How's that," he said, walking my way. Apparently he didn't get the memo that I have absolutely no idea what's going on here. Despite the fear ... maybe it was just curiosity ... I'm not sure. Despite my feelings, I replied, "Better. Though the headache I can feel coming on might say otherwise." He laughed, it was obnoxious but I couldn't sense any maliciousness behind it. Who laughs in a situation like this? The one behind it, I suppose. He extended his arm, pointing at the glowing letters behind me, "Looks like you lost. So what did you think?" What did I think? Think of what? Had I been playing a game and just somehow forgot? Was there something I'm missing? "Think of what," I asked, furrowing my brow. What a strange thing to do. Furrow your brow. "What did you think of the game? My boss is extremely fond of feedback and wants to know if there's anything she could do better." I was becoming a bit annoyed, this guy should really check his memos, "What game would that be exactly?" "The game of life, of course," he talked like that made any sense to me at all. The game of life? He couldn't mean ... "I'm sorry, I'm just a little bit confused. You wouldn't talking about my li-" I was cut short by his sudden interjection, "Earth. People. Family and friends. From your creation to your demise. It's really quite intriguing that my boss could make such a difficult system. Animals and weather AI's are bad enough but then the players decided to look towards the skies and she had to code a system for the stars." "You can't be serious. You expect me to believe that life is a game created by some ... some person? That everything that's happened has been the result of some programming? Your boss-" Cut off again. This guy doesn't seem to care that he's more than a little bit rude, "The players have taken to calling her 'God'. I suppose it's technically true that she would be the god of your world but she doesn't really interfere much aside from the occasional patch." If it weren't for the seriousness in his tone I'd be laughing, well that and the overall bizarreness of the situation I'm in, "You're serious, aren't you? What kind of game are you playing here?" "Oh, no-no-no. We don't play the game. You do. We observe the progression from there," he nodded at the door he had came through. "I get the pleasure of talking to the players who lose, getting their feedback, and relaying it my boss. I'm actually a big fan of the game which is why I took the position in the first place." "I'd like to speak to your boss. I have a few things I need cleared up." "Sorry," he waved his hand dismissively. "She doesn't," he paused to think for a moment, "get out much." I couldn't control myself, the laughter just started flowing, "So wait, you're telling me that my life is a game. Everything I've done and seen has been the result of ones and zeroes. And to top it all off, it was programmed by a shut-in?" He didn't seem to find it as funny. He gave me a sharp glare and if looks could kill it would have, "I wouldn't call her a shut-in exactly. She prefers solitude so that she may focus on her work." My laughter calmed down and at this point I just decided to play along, "Okay, mister tie guy. What now? I lost so what happens to me now?" He regained his composure and said with a smile, "You'll be deleted from the system. Don't worry though, your memories will be archived for further evaluation." "So, I just disappear? Gone forever? That seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?" I started to take this a little more seriously, on the off-chance it wasn't a joke. "Like I said, your memories will be archived. You won't be gone completely, your AI functions will be formatted." "I want to meet her," I replied with such a serious tone it was scary. "Like I said before," he waved his hand again, "she doesn't-" Now was my turn to cut him off, "Yeah, yeah. She doesn't get out much. I think it's only fair that I get the chance to talk to her, as one of the players. I want to know what it was all for." "She's extremely busy, I doubt she'll want to talk." "Ask her." "I'm afraid I can't do that," he appeared to be getting annoyed. Too bad I was more annoyed at this point, "You said you give her the feedback. You have a form of communication. Ask her. Tell her that one of the players from her game would like to request an audience. Or maybe you're not as connected to her as you led me to believe." Looks like that was a button he didn't like being pushed as no sooner than I finished my statement he pulled out a cellphone. It's nice to know we share some of the same things. A few moments later he had the phone to his ear, waiting on his boss to pick up. She answered. "Hello," he said, "this is Aaron from QA. I have a player here requesting an audience with you. Wait, seriously? You're fine with that? Yes. Okay. I'll bring him up." He closed the phone and gave me another death stare before finally admitting defeat. "Come on," he turned back towards the door, "she wants to see you." I followed him to the door and looked back one last time at the giant GAME OVER floating in the air. This boss lady must have some strange sense of humor. Authors Note 1 I was looking around at some writing prompts and came across one about life being a game. Apologies to anyone who thought this was going to be similar to No Game No Life. This is one of the first original works I've done in quite some time. I'm attempting to keep this in perspective so if you happen to notice a spot where I change perspective/tense, as I'm often known to do, please let me know. Any other mistakes or feedback are welcome. Thanks for reading! -Nights
Hm, that's an interesting concept to think of life as a playable game. Makes Sims almost realistic-ish. Just a friendly critique, you might want to be careful about repeating words and phrases and change up the writing style a bit. For example, you repeated a lot of questions twice. It made me want to go "Get on with the story already!" Try little new ways of writing out your scenes here and there. I'm still learning that with my own stories. To me, in the beginning, it reads like "The soup was good, BUT it had too much salt." Now I'm just going to focus on the salt part instead of the soup being good. In this case, your character died. Game over. It's going to be hard to focus on other things surrounding that. If I'm making any sense here... Hopefully I helped... ish.
