[OP] F1 - Like the Virtual Birds

[KaraMitskune 0]

Mitsu watched, sitting on the same bench in front of the same empty park she'd been at only a few days before. Looking at the same nest in the same tree. Watching the same bird. Once again she thought that she'd be better off like the virtual birds in the virtual trees. The virtual birds who felt no pain. Who felt no happiness or sadness or pain. Mitsu would fit in perfectly with the virtual birds.

It was a colorless world. Even the things that seemed like they could bring color into the world, only brought more darkness to Mitsu's painting of reality. Every coloring book was filled with different colors. Until one saw Mitsu's. It was one color. Everywhere.

Black.

In an attempt to stop her from changing, she made sure her reality couldn't change too. The color black cannot be made to be any other color. That was her reasoning, then. Never did she think it would go as far as it did. Never did she think it would become the reason she loved the virtual birds so much. The virtual birds that reminded her of herself.

How many pixels of space does a bird take?

Mitsu found herself wondering the same unanswerable question again.

"How many pixels of space does a bird take?", she asked aloud. As far as she was concerned, no one was there. But who knew. Mitsu could call it stress relief if anyone asked.

[Hunie 0]

Hunie had been taking a stroll around the park, which was oddly quite deserted today. The reason Hunie walked around here, was to remain in a crowd, while enjoying her solitude, which made her feel rather at peace. She couldn't spot anyone so far, so she strolled around, in search of someone to share the space with in serene silence. 

Despite the game being rather realistic, occasionally, with some keen observation, the blonde could track the path that the virtual birds flew around the trees, there was some variation, but even the variation, if watched for long enough grew predictable. Even the light oscillatory motion of the leaves that hung from the branches, was repetitive. If someone paid attention to such detail, they could find themselves a little disappointed at the minor inaccuracies in their escapade. Hunie thought it was safe to assume that most hardcore gamers, used games as a way to escape some cruel reality that they were dealing with. This was because one tended to reflect their own conscience on others and she had gotten into gaming to escape her disability. 

Hunie had only found herself paying attention to details like this a few times over the course of her time on SAO. It helped her put things into perspective and also calmed her nerves a little bit. It was something she did back when she was home with her family too. She would sit by the largest window in the mansion, or sometimes even out in her backyard on a rocking chair and just watch the sun streak across the sky and the people walk around, going about their daily business.

Now that the game had given her the freedom to walk, Hunie felt the need to milk it for what its worth. One deserted spot followed the next, till finally she noticed a figure of a seemingly younger teen girl sitting on a bench staring at a tree in a fashion not alien to the blonde. The wind carried the words pixels and birds to Hunie as she strode up to the bench and took a seat next to the dark haired girl. While there was the option of sitting in comfortable silence, staring the virtual world do its thing, Hunie inquired "Did you say something?" in attempt to make sure that she wasn't hearing voices.

[KaraMitskune 0]

Mitsu barely noticed the blonde sit down beside her, until she spoke. Her question had been heard. She looked up at the birds again, as they repeated the same flight pattern again, before looking slightly to her side. 

"I was questioning the habits of the birds. How many pixels does a virtual bird take up?" She found herself asking the question again, without meaning to. Once again, Mitsu found herself thinking about the birds. How she would be so alike to them. Without feelings or anything. 

But she was not like the birds. For the birds did not have to feel the only thing that was left once the feelings were gone. The birds didn't have to feel the emptiness that inhabited one once they lost all emotion. Sometimes, Mitsu wished she were one of them.

[Hunie 0]

Hunie smiled at the girl without looking at her, instead her eyes traced the movement of the avian species that flew around the tree. "I'm not actually sure..." Hunie thought, she was not very good with predicting numbers like that, but there was something else to the question, as if the girl wasn't really seeking a numerical answer but something deeper. "Why do you ask?" Hunie inquired, while they both kept their gaze fixed. It was silent for a bit again, except for the programmed chirping of the birds. Finally Hunie turned to the girl and intuitively found herself trying to read her face. Hunie found nothing, which was odd because Sophie had always been really good at picking up emotional cues from people's face. Did the game not project expressions properly? Hunie considered briefly, but she had never run into such a situation before. 

The blonde's stare intensified without her realising. The dark haired girl's face looked like a blank canvas almost eerily impassive. Hunie could see she was no older than about fifteen... This was rather odd. The blonde recalled all the emotional turmoil that she had gone through when she was at that tender age, all which had shown rather starkly in her expressions, but that wasn't the case with this girl. This wasn't even the indifferent face a lot of teenagers were found sporting, it was genuinely blank. Hunie tried to get through to the young one, once again something that she was rather good at. "I'm Hunie, you are?" She asked, hoping to take the conversation forward. 

[Snow 0]

"Thanks for the fish!" Snow called out to the marketplace vendor as she turned toward the central park. The blonde waved to the friendly NPC she had grown to know. His stock was always full, and the ingredients were always fresh. To Snow, this seemed like good business, regardless of the fact his wares were digital and limitless in this programmed cage.

As the girl ventured toward the central warp gate with her paper wrapped fish stacked carefully in a basket, she noticed foot traffic was less than usual today. The sun hung high in the sky, and the ever-present cool breeze that passed through Aincrad's floors felt refreshing. Since the castle didn't exactly have seasons, its weather was dictated by its location on the grande world below. If curious, one could walk to the floor's edge and see what part Aincrad hovered over at any given time of the year. With a deep breath, Snow noticed the faint aroma of saltwater. Aincrad was likely over an ocean today.

As the young Valkyrie entered the central plaza, she walked past a bench with two ladies. One of them mentioned something about birds and pixels. It caught Snow's attention and she slowed to a halt some few feet from the pair. With a turn of her head, Snow looked back at them, but her attention drifted toward the little finches and starlings that played in the branches above.

"Pixels?" Snow mumbled to herself.

"That's right..." the girl internally reflected, "This is a game..."

Snow then looked down to the fish in her basket. Each piece was professionally wrapped in butcher's paper and tied off with twine. Each piece perfectly prepared. Too perfect. The basket which held them also an intricate weave of sticks and straw. Each strand different, but at the same time patterned. The longer she looked at it, the more she noticed repeated knots in the stems or coloration of the bark. The more she paid attention to the fine details, the less and less it felt... real. The thought alone put a kink in Snow's positive and optimistic personality.

If only for the briefest of moments.

Then, she looked back up at the two. One girl morose, the other bright eyed.

Snow felt compelled to introduce herself. Perhaps she could help? This world wasn't just pixels, it was alive. It was learning, just as they were. NPCs remembered names, faces, conversations... This place was just as real as their world, only disjointed by menus, stats, and health bars. As with their world, it still took effort to see the beauty of things when times dictated otherwise.

"Hello?" Snow greeted in a sheepish tone. "I couldn't help but overhear you talking about the birds. Have you heard them sing before?"

She hoped to turn them away from the ugly truth of the world. Even in this place, each bird's song was different. Perhaps they were the same, but had a vast variety of to choose from. Regardless, the melody of chirps, whistles, and tweets still sounded like music. Just like their world.

"If you listen carefully," Snow continued, "Each song is different."

 

[Sinful 0]

Sinful listened to the conversation with open ears. "Each song is different." This was a surprise, he didn't see many optimists in this game, most were just pubescent teenagers who thought they were very emo cause they're trapped in this death game. He himself was pretty young, but emo he was not. Approaching Snow, he offered her a plush toy in the shape of a fox and smiled. "Thanks for showing me a new idea, I hope you enjoy the fox." The fox plush was very fluffy, especially around the belly area. Most people would be tempted to rub the belly of the fox because of how cute it was, but Snow might be different from the rest.

[KaraMitskune 0]

Why did she ask? 

Not even Mitsu knew. For some reason, she just wondered. Perhaps she wondered how insignificant, or significant, they were compared to the articulate world that was stretched out over the world of SAO. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just another random thought out of random thoughts that meant nothing but to be random thoughts.

She sighed, ignoring Hunie's first question. "My username is KaraMitskune. I go by Kara." Out of the corner of her eye, Mitsu say a few others join in. First came another blonde girl. She commented on the birds' songs.

Everything was different. That's what made it so hard to understand. Nothing was ever predictable, even in a game. That's what made everything so hard. No matter how hard Mitsu searched, there would never be anything exactly the same as anything else. But then again, she didn't care. She only cared about finding something before she woke up. Woke up from her once beautiful world. Now even the colors were dull. Even the song of the virtual birds had become ambient noise to the silence.

The next was a white haired boy, who seemed too "happy". He gave a small fox plushie to the new girl, the one with the views on birds.

Mitsu cleared her throught, before looking up at the boy. For a minute, she was shocked. Maybe shocked wasn't the right word, because she wasn't shocked. She wasn't surprised either. But she felt surprised. From all her time pretending, she'd begun to almost feel. Which she wasn't actually feeling.

His eyes weren't happy. Or sad. They were excited. She guessed that's what it was. But there was something else. Something she couldn't quite make out. He was smart. She'd seen that look once before, and it had been on her. But she didn't want to remember it. 

It would be best it she stayed away from him. Mitsu knew what would come of something like that. She'd seen it, she'd done it, before. She wasn't ready to replay that part of her past again.

[Allania 0]

Allania sat, legs crossed, nestled in the bushes of the park, using the soft bushes as a back to the seat that was the floor. Allania was oblivious to her surroundings, to what was happening on the ground around her, her thoughts were instead in the sky. She was gazing at the clouds, their fluffy edges wisping out towards the blue that was the sky. The Sun was brilliant, tinging the edges of the cloud white with its dazzling glow. The white edges of the clouds slowly faded, perfectly blending to the mild grey at their center. Allania was hardly breathing, the sight being breathtaking.

Breaking from her trance, taking a deep, slow breath. Allania lowered her gaze, turning her head away from the dazzling brilliance of the sky. Letting her eyes adjust to the darker ground level around her. It was then that she noticed there seemed to be quite the gathering around one of the benches within the park. Some of the people in the group were staring at the birds in the sky. Allania curious as to what the fascination was turned her gaze on the birds also, watching them dancing and diving, swooping and singing, each feather in their wings were individual, no two were alike. They may have been just pixels to some, but to her they were as real as the world from which they all had come from.

Turning her vision back to the group, there seemed to be one person that was not enjoying themselves, they seemed to be decidedly gloomy in fact. Wondering what could be the matter when she was surrounded by others marvelling at the world, her inquisitiveness took the better of her. Standing up with a groan, hands on knees to stop herself from falling over on her cramped legs, brushing herself off and straightening her dress, Allania started to walk towards the group, an absentminded smile on her face as her thoughts had wandered once again to the dance of the birds.

 

[KaraMitskune 0]

What was it with all the blonde people? Seriously, Mitsu was the only person who didn't have light hair. Another optimist, she guessed as another person joined the growing group, from the naive look on her face. But, like everyone, her eyes were empty. Full of nothing.

Barely acknowledging the newcomer, Mitsu looked back up at the birds. They all paused in mid-air, for a moment that couldn't have been any more than a millisecond, and then continued flying again. But she still noticed. A glitch. A lag. Even a perfect world had its flaws. Suddenly they all stopped chirping for a second, and then flew off together in a bee-line for a far away tree. The sky was silent again, only for the ambient noise of the wind and the trees.

Edited March 19, 2016 by KaraMitskune

[Yuzamei 0]

Yuzamei sat on her bench as usual, admiring the view in front of her. "Naze son'nani ōku no hitobito ga koko ni arimasu ka? (Why are there so many people here?)" The corners of her mouth slowly shifted into a frown, she was dazed again. "Kore wa watashi ni zutsū o ataete imasu... (This is giving me a headache...)"  She said nothing and closed her eyes. When they opened again she forgot about what just happened and looked at KaraMitskune without saying a word. Yuzamei looked around her, there was nobody except for this happy crowd of adventurers. Everything was too loud and it drained her energy very quickly. Before going back into a slumber on her bench, she opened her mouth and said a word "Oyasumi! (Goodnight!)" Yuzamei's crimson glasses were bright on a day like this, its temple placed symmetrically on her head. "I ga... Hātsu... (Stomach... Hurts...)" It would now appear that she was sleep talking.