Seulgi padded her way to the couch and practically sank into the furniture. She had just finished showering and was ready to unwind after a long and tiring day at work. She had grabbed a quick bite to eat on her way home so that she could immediately relax and make use of the little time left before it was time for bed.

She stared blankly at the wall before deciding to boot up her game console.

“Do I play games..or do I stream some dramas? Aaah the difficult choices in life…” Seulgi asked herself as she waited for the main menu screen to finish loading.

Seulgi grabbed her controller and scrolled her digital library for something to help relax when a shiny icon caught her attention.

It was a game that was highly recommended by her friend, Yeri. It was, according to her, a relatively short and straight forwarded game where players’ main objective was to traverse the barren lands and make their way up a mountain.

“Sounds simple enough..” she mused. “Sounds like something that doesn’t require a lot of brain power!” She beamed and selected the said game.

Once the game had loaded, Seulgi concluded that it had to be one of the shiniest games that have been made. Everything simply glowed under the hot desert sun in the opening scene of the game.

“Man..this game is even shinier than that guy in that vampire movie…” she rubbed her eyes and squinted before following the instructions displayed on the screen.

Everything seemed relatively simple, even the controls were basically just to jump and to make chirping noises every now and then. Seulgi took her time exploring the vast desert, looking for collectibles before deciding to move on to the next area.

It was then when Seulgi saw something.

Seulgi saw another character avatar in the game, a fellow player like herself. Yeri had mentioned before that they were able to meet other players in the game but they would not have any means of communicating with them since the game did not have a built in chat system. All they could do was to chirp at one and another and hopefully get their intentions across.

She swiftly moved towards the other player to get their attention. After a few chirps, they seemed to have come to an understanding that Seulgi wanted to accompany them as they journeyed to the mountain top. And so their adventure began.

As the game progressed, Seulgi found herself beginning to relax at the simplicity of the game. Seeing how barren the landscape was, she was glad that she had met this other player along the way. The journey seemed like it would be very lonely and boring if she had played it all by herself.

Her companion seemed to be a veteran player, or at least had played the game before, judging by their special white cloak - Yeri had mentioned only those who have found all the collectibles were rewarded with it, and how they showed Seulgi where all the collectibles were located and guided Seulgi to unlocking in-game achievements. It made Seulgi smile, how kind of her companion to show her the ropes.

The relaxing game suddenly turned stressful as they had to hide and run from predators. Seulgi found herself being super focused on the game, never letting herself lose sight of her companion as they guided them both safely through the dangerous portion of the game. It was nerve wracking to say the least. Being stealthy was not one of Seulgi’s strong points and it showed in her gaming style, the predator managed to damage her a little. She was more of a ‘charge in first, strategise later’ kind of player, preferring to go charging in and win through brute force.

Before she knew it, a couple of hours had passed and they were at the end of the game. It was kind of bittersweet, she was having so much fun with this companion of hers. As they entered the last stage of the game, her companion chirped at her repeatedly, as though to thank Seulgi for the good time.

Seulgi pouted and chirped back at her unnamed companion, reluctant for the game to end. But alas, the ending was inevitable, they had completed all the levels. Seulgi sank back into the couch and watched the ending credits roll with much disinterest. She was about to skip everything when the game displayed the ID of the companions players had met along the way.

Cabbage_Patch329

“Aaaaw...Cute name!” She yawned and checked the time. “Oh it’s already almost midnight!” Seulgi scrambled to turn off everything and went to wash up for bed.

Her phone dinged just as she was about to fall asleep. Checking her phone one last time before passing out, she barely registered what the notification said and drifted off to sleep.

***

Initially, Irene had booted the game on a whim, after having not played it for months. She was bored and wanted to kill some time before going to bed. Little did she know she was going to have quite a lot of fun replaying an old video game with a complete stranger.

“Yah, where are you going???” She practically yelled at the monitor screen when her companion wandered off on their own. “There’s nothing over there, silly!” She hit the chirp button repeatedly until her companion finally got the message and came back to where she was at. Irene realised later that they must be a new player and wanted to explore the area, not realising that there wasn’t much to explore in the game besides the few collectibles that they could find.

She sighed and shook her head, she was like that too when she played it the first time, having wandered off too far and losing sight of her companions, she ended up having to finish the journey on her own. It wasn’t very fun alone. “Alright, you..we’ll go wherever you wanna go.” She smiled at the screen and followed wherever her companion went but put her foot down when they went too far off their route. A few chirps and her companion seemed to get the message and came scurrying back to her.

“Stay close…” she mumbled to herself as they were crossing the area where predators lurked. It was possibly the hardest part of the entire game but not entirely impossible to make it out of there undetected. “Yah where are you going?! Stay close or-” Irene’s eyes widened when the predators spotted them and she chirped at her companion to make a run for it. She quickly ran into the safety of the shadows while her companion was not as quick and sustained some damage from the predators before scurrying into the shadows.

“Oooh that has got to hurt…” she grimaced as she watched her companion get attacked on screen. It wasn’t pretty but at least it seemed like the damage was not substantial. “Now..stay close or it’ll happen again..” she warned, as though her companion could hear her.

When the game ended Irene all but pouted in her seat. It was fun and also a little emotional as the two of them struggled all the way to read the top, through the blazing hot desert, the creepy predators and the blizzard nearing the summit. It was a lot of fun guiding her companion around the game. Her companion seemed rather amusing and fun, chirping happily all the time during the course of the game.

“Let’s see who you are…” Irene waited patiently for the ending credits to show her their name and smiled when it was finally shown.

Seulgom94

“Gom? A bear? Cute.” She grabbed her phone and went to the game network’s app to look for this Seulgom. Without giving it much thought, Irene sent a friend request and went to get ready for bed.

***

END.