Afterlife Dream

"Wait. Our deaths???"

Lara and I were slack-jawed. We stared at Theo as if he were a madman. Based on what he just said, he might as well be a madman.

"You want us to kill ourselves???"

Waving his hands in front of us in an effort to placate us, Theo nervously said, "Listen to me. Have you guys never read a story like this before? Some people are trapped in a dream world and when they kill themselves, they go back to the real world?"

Lara rubbed at her forehead. "This is not a dream world, though, Theo. This is a time loop."

"Time loop might be similar," Theo argued. "It is a way to break through a world."

"It is, but we don't know where we will land for sure," I pointed out. "If we land in hell or heaven, that also counts as breaking through a world."

Theo slumped forward dispiritedly.

"I don't know then," he said.

"It is an idea, but it is not safe," I tried to comfort him. "Why don't we try another?"

"Like what?"

"Like..."

I sighed. I was racking my brains but nothing came up. All I could remember was Afterlife Dream and nothing else. I couldn't even check the game information. I had no friggin tablet.

"Oh, I got it," I said, snapping my fingers.

Theo and Lara looked at me. "What is it?"

"Why don't we start with Afterlife Dream? We can try playing the game again."

"Erm. We don't have any electronic device so..."

"We can go to game cafes?" Theo suggested.

Lara shrugged. "I have never been there. Can you play from there?"

"Yup! I often went there when I skipped school!"

Lara stared at Theo who just realized that he had misspoken. "Cough, I mean during the holidays when I had no school."

Lara rolled with her eyes. "Whatever," she said, throwing her hands in the air. "Let's go to the nearest game cafe."

It was quickly apparent that Theo used to skip school to go to game cafes. He knew where to find one immediately, all without being aided by online maps.

"I knew that you faked it when you said that you had study groups and stuff," Lara muttered under her breath. Not loud enough for Theo to hear, but enough for me. I had to giggle and earned myself a glare from her.

"Sorry," I said. "I couldn't help it."

Lara shook her head.

"Theo is a game addict. He likes playing games and he is also good at it. When he once had to write an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up... do you know what he wrote?"

"He wanted to become a gamer?" I asked.

"Bingo. Mom and Dad were so furious."

Well. My Mom would not be that furious because she would already be happy if I stayed alive. I guessed that the expectations for children were different depending on their potential.

The game cafe that Theo led us to was located on the second floor of a barber shop. It was clear that he visited that place often. When he came in, the barber shop owner even greeted him.

"Yo, Theo! Long time no see!"

The boy grinned from ear to ear. "Old Jackson, I am here to play some games."

The owner, an elderly man with silver hair that posed a huge contrast against his dark skin, roared in laughter. "When are you ever here to get a haircut? Go upstairs, you silly gamer."

Theo bounced toward the staircase and we followed him wordlessly. I tried my best not to look in Old Jackson's direction. Needless to say, we arrived on the second floor and I had to say wow.

There were altogether five rows of long tables. Each row had around ten computer monitors crammed on top of the tables. There were around twenty people or so, mostly young adults, who had their eyes locked on the screens. They did not speak to each other. The room was unbelievably silent although they were all playing animated games. All of them wore headsets to prevent the noises from their games from disturbing other gamers.

Theo pulled at my and Lara's sleeves. "Over here," he whispered and pointed at three empty seats side by side in the middle row.

Lara and I took our seats clumsily. Theo happily showed us what to do.

"You can do a lot of things here. Browsing, gaming. But most people come here for gaming purposes. Either way, the hourly rate is the same."

"What, do we have to pay???" Lara asked in disbelief.

"Of course," Theo blinked at his naive sister. "They charge by the hour."

Lara crossed her arms before her chest. "Why do I have to waste my money in here? I refuse!"

"But your money will come back the next day..."

Upon realizing that Theo was right, Lara's clutch on her money pouch slackened somewhat.

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"Just try to find out as much as possible within this short period of time," Theo suggested.

We put on our headsets and switched on the computers. As soon as we managed to log in, we all started to search for "Afterlife Dream" in our own ways.

I googled "Afterlife Dream" and was led to the game's website page. A piece of melancholic background music played into my ears as I browsed through the page. At first look, it was no different from any other MMORPG that I had played in my life. The art was nice, the character classes were interesting, and the skills were nice.

What really attracted me though, was the game description.

"Your last life on earth has been cut short due to very unfortunate circumstances and we are deeply sorry for your bad experience. We greatly hope that it does not discourage you from giving life on earth another try.

In order to compensate for the past unsatisfactory journey, you are herewith reincarnated into 'Afterlife Dream', a virtual world that allows you to gain as many life points as possible to use as leverage when starting your next life on earth. More information on this feature will be provided in the Game Guide under Life Points."

I scrolled down on the game guide and read everything there was. It was a unique game description, but it was still just one of many games. What was so special about "Afterlife Dream"?

Lara poked at me and gestured for me to take off my headset. I saw that Theo had already taken off his and was now staring eagerly at Lara's screen.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Hey, Daniel. Check this out."

I scooted over and looked at what Lara had found out.

Every game website usually came with a forum to discuss gameplay and make friends. Lara was browsing through the forum and she found an interesting thread.

The thread starter went by the name "ZhaoYun".

The title of the thread was "Time Loop".

The content went like this :

"Hello, is anyone among you trapped within a time loop? Please contact me at XXXX-8172636 or message me at [email protected]."

It was very brief.

"Do you guys think it is a prank?" Theo whispered.

"Honestly, no idea. It could be, or it might not be."

"We have no phone to call him. Try an email?"

"The problem with emails is that we won't be able to read any answer unless we stay here the whole day. Even then, he might not come back online to read our reply in time."

"I can ask my parents for a phone tomorrow," I mumbled.

"Tomorrow will again be your first day of school. I don't think that your parents will make a detour to a phone shop just to get you a phone before school."

"So what are our options?" I queried.

Lara grinned at me.

"Leave it to me. I will steal some money tomorrow and then go buy a phone. Can you skip school tomorrow, Daniel?"

"Uh, sure. Where should we meet and what time should we meet?"

Lara hummed. Theo was the one to answer me.

"Here? This place opens at 8 AM."

"Daniel, can you remember the way here? It is not too far from school."

"I will try," I said.

We decided to part ways and I went home on my own. When I arrived back home, the house was in chaos. My family thought I went missing. If I did not come back that night, they would have alerted the police.

"Daniel, you are grounded!" Mom howled furiously as she pulled me into a hug.

"Just what were you thinking? We were sick from worry!"

I swallowed hard.

Dad shook his head and gave me a sour look.

"Danny you can't just leave school like that. Not on your first day of school! Come on!"

Sorry, Mom and Dad, I thought. I did not want to hurt them but I needed to get out of this time loop.