Arthur MacArthur
As Arthur awoke that morning, he found his girlfriend glued to the screen of her tablet. A mortified look was plastered all over her face. It appeared that whatever she might have been reading was definitely having an effect on her.
Arthur joined her at the kitchen table, noting that she had already prepared his breakfast for him, just the way he liked it. A bowl of halved strawberries in unsweetened soy milk, fork on the right side of the bowl, napkin folded into a triangle with the hypotenuse tucked slightly under the bowl, sat before him. Truly, his darling was the dearest of angels.
As he grabbed the fork and skewered the first of the strawberries that he would eat, she slid the tablet across the table and then excused herself to take her morning shower with a light hand on his shoulder and a kiss on the forehead. He smiled after her until she had left the room and then picked up the tablet. He shoved the strawberry into his mouth and began to chew until it was shredded into a thick pulp. Then he began to read what was on the screen.
It was an article from Truth News, a rather dubious news outlet that had been known to make rather extreme and conspiratorial claims on a regular basis. They were one of the worst of the worst when it came to insignificant tabloids. However, their article that released today struck Arthur hard, causing him to prematurely swallow his second strawberry, the clumps nearly getting stuck in his throat.
For the first time in months,TerraSphere found its way back into the news. All media coverage about the game had suddenly ceased a while back, and any attempt to find archived articles on the internet ended in failure. Even users on popular and fringe forums had stopped talking openly about the game. It had been a big mystery for a time, but all that had already blown over.
He read how an employee from Nexus Corp had supposedly been a player of TerraSphere, and how she was mysteriously murdered, the murder weapon was suggested to be full-dive device that had been burned to her face. To be honest, it all seemed like it was just an accident, her death being chalked up to a freak malfunction that even the manufacturers couldn't duplicate.
But now he was reading that there was apparently more to the case. An investigator from Japan who was looking into the employee's death had turned up dead themselves, seemingly suffering the same fate as the one whose death they were looking into. It was all a bit too coincidental for Arthur to give any serious credence to. However, it seemed that the article had left a profound effect on his love.
He sat the tablet down and finished his breakfast in silence. He heard the usual sounds of his girlfriend walking from their bedroom to the front door, telling him her goodbye for the morning, and leaving to go to work. He sat at the table a little while longer, trying to understand what she could have gathered from the article.
Is she thinking that I might get hurt from playing TerraSphere? Like, actually hurt? Does she worry that I could end up like the people in these ridiculous articles?
Arthur brushed his thick, black hair back out of his face. He sighed, a million thoughts rushing through his mind as he resisted the urge to go back to bed and forget about trying to be productive today. He stood, scratched his derrière, and went and changed into one of his usual outfits.
As he walked to the door, he pulled the leather jacket up over his shoulders and put on the black sunglasses that he kept in the breast pocket. He lit a cigarillo as he exited the apartment, taking a deep inhalation before slowly blowing the smoke out of his lungs. He locked the door and clipped his keys to one of the belt loops of his pants.
It's going to be a long day. He decided.
I'd better pick up some chocolates and wine before I come back home.
