Digitally Lost: A Short Story

He stared at the glowing screen with a controller in hand. “Mike?” a female voice called, but he didn’t hear. “Mike.” The voice called again in a scolding tone. “Mike!” the voice shouted. He suddenly jerked backwards and away from the screen. “Hold on Nick, I’ll be right back,” he took off his headset, “Yes mom?” Mike shouted. He didn’t get a reply to which he walked out of his room, controller still in hand. “Mom?” Mike called out. He walked to the kitchen where she usually was around this time, since it was time for lunch. He turned his head towards the kitchen table where some vegetables were lain, untouched except for a half-peeled carrot.

Mike was starting to get worried, his mom had disappeared all of a sudden. He shook his head and walked outside, no one. The only sound was the light patter of the rain. CRASH! Mike ran to the find the source of the loud crash which came from a few houses down the block but could barely see anything due to the forming fog.

“Hey you!” a boy’s voice shouted. Mike didn’t reply.

“You do realize, I see you.” The boy suddenly appeared in front of Mike to which he jumped back.

“Wh-what?” He asked in a frightened voice.

“Calm down dude, I won’t hurt you.”

“Whatever, what do you want.” Mike basically demanded.

Ignoring the irritation in Mike’s voice, the boy replied, “Have you seen anyone around? I was gaming when I realized my parents disappeared.”

“You sound deranged.” Mike plainly said.

“Oh? Then where are your parents? Why did the neighborhood suddenly decide to shut up?” The teen protested to which got Mike thinking.

“You’re kind of right.” Mike hesitantly said. “Say, what’s your name?”

“Right now, it doesn’t matter, let’s go.” The boys walked for a while and Mike saw they’d come far from their houses.

“Where are we going?” Mike cautioned.

“When I said I won’t hurt you, I wasn’t lying, so how about you keep your mouth shut till we reach.”

Mike came to a halt and rebuked, “Listen, I don’t even know who you are and we’re already too far than we’re supposed to be from the neighborhood, so you could at least tell me your name and where we’re going.”

“My name’s Nico and we’re going to the neighborhood closest to ours since we couldn’t find anyone there. Is your mind at rest now?” He retorted.

“Yes! Thank you!” Mike said in relief.

“Anything else?” He asked with irritation in his voice.

“Yes, actually. If you live so close to me, how come I’ve never seen you around.”

“Well, my parents are almost never home and I don’t have any siblings so I sit around playing games all day.”

“Oh? Which ones?”

“Mostly this game, Celestial Sky Grounds.”

“Cool. I play it too. Which version?”

“Latest.”

Something rustled in the bushes to which both boys turned to. It kept moving so they moved back, cautiously.

“It’s the wind. Let’s go.” Nico pulled Mike’s arm.

“You know, there’s this guy I know, I play CSG with him almost every day. We haven’t really met each other in real life but we’ve been online best friends for years. His name resembles yours.”

“What? Me?”

“Yeah.”

They finally reached the nearest neighborhood, Maple Gardens. Here they walked around silently for a while then noticed a static noise coming from inside a house. Hence they decided to walk into it so as to conduct a search around for a bit.

“Nico!” Mike called.

Nico rushed to him inside the room and found him sitting on the laptop with CSG on the screen.

“I logged into my account.”

“I have a theory, and boy is it crazy.” Mike smiled.