hacked // a newtmas au

00.001

tw // extremely brief mention of self harm

Newt pushed his hair back as he squinted harder at the screen. His eyes were starting to burn, but he couldn't break focus. He was running, not actually running, but running on the screen. On The Game.

The game was exactly what it sounded like. It was a sort of virtual reality video game that let you not think about the world for a while. It was a twist on reality, a self led quest to the highest levels. It was owned by the biggest high rising company of the time, The Right Arm. It was their first game which was why it came as a shock that it became so popular so fast. The Right Arm was led by a man named Jorge, he was very for the players not the profit which was probably one of the reasons why the game did so well. WICKED usually trumped the game market, but the money that Right Arm made off the game easily put them ten times ahead of WICKED which their CEO wasn't too happy about.

The game could really be played anywhere, on a computer, through VR glasses or even through chips that really made you feel like you were in it, but those costed more than a house did in some cases. Newt was saving up for a VR headset, but for now his old computer pushed away in the darkest corner of his basement worked.

The game came out a few years ago, it blew up almost instantly which wasn't really a surprise. There was no other game that bent the line between reality and fiction that well.

Everyone played the game, well everyone who wasn't over forty, the adults really didn't get it. But, within the younger generation, it was really unheard of for someone to not have it.

Newt was Sang in the game. It was a screen name his sister made for him when they first got the game together. Lizzy. Lizzy started playing the game with him two years ago. That was before...well it didn't matter anymore. Sang was another version of himself, the version he wanted to be. He still had messy blonde hair but he looked less like a malnourished stick and more like a, well a hero. Sang had muscles, he was taller and he had cool markings on his arms. Sang wore armor and jackets and thick soled boots, which was a total change from Newt's normal style of jeans that were always too big and plain crewnecks that fit the same way.

Newt also had friends in the game which was something else he didn't have in real life. He had a group, they played at the same times, fought the same fights, did the same missions and spoke behind voice changers until the sun peeked through the towel covered windows of his basement. His group consisted of a characters Oben, Delario and Kilee. Oben and Kilee were guys too. Kilee played an overly buff tank with rippling arm muscles and a long hair that was pulled behind his head. Oben played a thief, he was small and sticky but he was good at what he did. Delario played a girl, the character was short and skinny and was always dressed in boy clothes, but she had a hell of a dagger and was the best assassin Newt had ever come across in the game. They were quite the group. Newt had no idea who any of them were, he only knew that they were all around the same age, but it really didn't matter. Newt smiled more with them than he ever did in real life.

Newt adjusted his headset microphone in front of his mouth. It broke a while ago, but he didn't have the money to fix it so it was secured with a piece of tape.

"Is Oben back yet?" Newt asked into the headset.

"No," Kilee replied, "he's been AFK for a while."

Newt nodded as if they could see him. "When he gets back do you want to run the maze?"

"YES!" Delario replied, the excitement was obvious in her voice. It was her favorite stage to run through, she begged them to do it almost every week.

They had a garage styled base on the game, it took them weeks to pool their money riad money together and buy it. They eventually built rooms and made them each their own bedrooms in the garage. It was fun, nice, they felt like a family.