Pay to Win

Sluggishly crawling on the floor of the narrow alleyway, I sit upright utilising the weathered dumpster for support. The light pitter-patter of the rain provides a soothing atmosphere, a relatively decent distraction from the excruciating pain of the puncture in my lower abdomen. Placing my hand over the wound in hopes that the applied pressure would slow down the bleeding. “Cat” I call out, a small cloud burst happens in front of me and a small cat-like creature appears “Aye sir?” Staring at him silently for a few seconds before asking “How bad is it?” “Unless you pay the price…I’d say about nine-minutes before you die.” In his usually emotionless eyes, I saw a look of not sadness but pity, “How much is it for a full recovery?” “fifteen-thousand.” “And a partial recovery?” “depends how long you want to prolong your time for.”

I hear a bunch of loud rustling some distance from me interrupting our conversation without needing to look I already know who it is. “Come out, come out where ever you are~” the man exclaimed in a mocking way. Given the location of my hiding spot I figured it would be a while till he found me and when he does it would mean my demise.

As I lay there in my hiding spot weighing out my options and the current situation was bleak, on one side I could pay the price for a full restore and go run or go for a one-hit kill, on the other hand, I could pay the partial recovery and hope I’m able to run away in the given time or once again go for the kill. Neither option was appealing to me as both would still require me taking a life, something I wasn’t too keen on doing. Whilst in my headspace of deciding, my thoughts drifted, time felt like it was moving slowly and I found myself reflecting on how I even got in this situation in the first place…

5 Day’s ago…

“The formula for this problem is x equals y…” My mind trailed off from the lecture, Friday lectures were always the worst, I found them rather tedious given it is almost the weekend and the lecture would be posted online for after class review anyway. I wasn’t a bad student, if I was I would never have gotten the prerequisite score to enter this highly sought after engineering course at such a prestigious university. But I wasn’t a genius either it took me a while to pick up on things and I always needed to study to retain the information. I guess you could say I was normal or dull. As the professor's voice started fading into the background my attention was drawn to the buzz on my laptop, immediately clicking onto the Messenger tab a friend had messaged the group chat.

“Wat r we doin tnite?”

“Feed?”

“Yeah I’m down”

“Keen”

“Where at tho?”

“Kbbq??”

“Sounds good everyone good with dat?”

“Yis”

“What time?”

“5:30”

“5”

“Same”

I was going to opt for heading home instead I realised it’s a Friday and having a chat with my friends over some food might be a nice change of pace given this boring lecture. Screw it may as well go I thought. Deleting my message on the text bar and replacing it with

“ 5:30 also”

“sweeeeeet”

“the usual joint?”

“ye that’s the best one”

With everyone in agreement, I closed the tab and patiently counted the minutes which felt hours until the class was over.

Our usual Korean barbecue spot was packed. Luckily we managed to get there before a line started to form at the entrance, we ordered our usual sets and got to talking about our day and some memes we saw on social media. As we were eating my friend Aaron brought up an interesting topic “If you guys were in a room with another person that you don’t know and you had a gun with one bullet and the guy that put you two in that room said to you…kill him or I kill you would you do it? And if you kill him you get set free.” We weren’t strangers to introspective conversations like this but this one really made my friends rack their brains for an answer. “I’d do it! In a heartbeat” My friend Khoi answered as fast as he’d probably kill the other person in the room. “That was quick.” I replied “Survival of the fittest bro” He answered justifying his reasoning. My friends all went silent as a way of suggesting that they all agree with what Khoi said, Aaron looked and me and said “What about you Red?” I stared at him for a few seconds before saying “I wouldn’t know, to be honest, wouldn’t know unless I’m actually in that situation.” After I said my piece my friends all agreed it was the end of that and changed the topic. We finished eating after an hour and headed our separate ways.

My house was half an hours drive from the city, although the travel time wasn’t particularly long I felt a wash of exhaustion hit me as soon as I entered through the front door. Dragging my feet upstairs into my room I took my laptop out and threw my bag into the corner lazily. I approached my walnut desk and as I put my laptop on its stand I noticed a little black book that I had never seen before sitting in the middle of my desk. Curious I picked up the book and on the cover it wrote in cursive ‘Moleskine’ I opened the book into the middle pages and a bright surge of yellow light came out from the book, the light shone for a few minutes before in seized. After calming down from the shock and having my eyes adjust I looked around and saw my room was fine. Looking back into the book I saw written in red ‘$20,000’ Furrowing my eyebrows in confusion I hear a ‘poof’ sound and an orange cat-like creature appeared floating in front of me. Surprised I fell off backwards in my seats by its sudden appearance.

“Hmmm so you’re my host” it spoke “You’re not real” I blurted in my panic “Technically I’m not,” it said “technically?” “I am merely a figment of your imagination seen only by your eyes” I blinked staring at it “You mentioned I’m your host?” “Yes, that’s right by opening the book you have officially entered into the game of the Gods!” “What game?” “A fight to the death if you win you are granted one request from the Gods themselves” “To the death? Against who?” “Other contestants i.e other humans and yes to the death, you use your Moleskines” “The book?” “Yes that book, did you see the $20,000 that was written on it? “Yeah I did” “That’s your…” He paused for a second “…bank account shall we call it?” “What’s it for?” I asked with more questions in my head. “By being part of the game you’ve been granted the blessing of the Gods, with that money you’re able to…have super powers as you humans call it” I stared in silence, taking it as a cue it continued “You fight other humans with Moleskines, you all have the same amount and your powers go as far as your imagination, however, the usage of such god-like abilities come at a price, the goal is to beat the other Moleskine users.” One word in his explanation rang in my head ‘Kill’ the word gave me a sense of deja-vu. “That’s a lie! This isn’t real!” I yelled hoping that this was all just a dream “Afraid not” All of a sudden all the objects in my room started to float “What’s happening?” “Merely showing you proof that this is all real” As I sat on the floor frozen I knew that I had to concede that this was reality. “Fine! I believe you” The objects in my room returned to the ground. “A few more things think of me as merely a guide” The Cat continued as if nothing happened “I can support you and give advice if needed but the decision making lies on you. Also, don’t let the amount in your Moleskine drop to zero” “What happens if it does?” The cat looked at me with eyes of pity “You die” my mouth gaped in shock “So how am I supposed to get more money if I’m spending it on fighting” I finally managed to get out, “Two ways” replied the Cat “You get $1000 per day or you take the other humans Molskine and merge it with yours. Simple.” An idea came into my head, thinking the chances of meeting a Molskine user was slim to none I could probably get by with not fighting at all. Thinking that this was a solid idea I replied to the Cat “Sounds simple enough” and with a small cloud burst the cat vanished. I released the breath that I didn’t know I had been holding in all this time. Looked out the window to see it had started to drizzle a little leaving me in a daze, my distraction was broken by the sound of my phone ringing.

Aaron had called me out to a somewhat abandoned industrial estate “Hey” I greeted him as I approached him, a glowing light appeared on him and a shot of lightning was aimed towards me that was partially blocked in time.

And that’s how I ended up here on this alleyway all banged up with nowhere to go. Like the question Aaron put before the group at dinner I was finally in a similar situation and now I can safely say I have my answer. “Cat?” I looked directly into his eyes “Yes?” He replied, “How much do I have left?” “Around 18,000” “That barrier was 2000?” “Yes, and it wasn’t enough sadly” “Then how much would it be for my plan to work?” I told him my plan keeping it concise as to not waste unnecessary time. “Hmmm…” He pondered “You’d have 1000 left IF you do manage to pull it off” That was good enough for me, I closed my eyes giving a silent prayer hoping that my plan would work “Let’s do it” The pain in my abdomen started to dwindle little by little, I stood up from my hiding spot and faced Aaron, my opponent and my friend. “You don’t look as bad as before” “You know how the game works, I’m sure you can guess what I did?” “Probably, but it won’t work. Sorry to say it had to be like this” Aaron pushed his palm towards me to begin his attack. As lightning started to form in his hands I readied myself “I’m sorry” He said with melancholy, I could only reply with “Me too” He released the lightning in his palm, but, I was already in front of him instead of going for the kill-shot I ran to his side as I figured he couldn’t keep up with my speed and started to spin circles around with him at the epicentre. After a few hundred revolutions he passed out and I stopped my attack.

When he came to a few moments later still in a daze, I stood there fully recovered holding his Moleskine, fear came across his face. “Well this is it I guess,” he said sadly. “No,” I told him “it’s not” “I’m keeping you alive, on the back of our Moleskines there’s a code used for merging, I’ve taken some of your money and I know your code, don’t even think about going after me. Goodbye.” With that, I left him confident that I could manage this game without needing to kill and maybe my method might be of use in the future.

-END-