Reality Heist - Geordi Riker (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

It's a miracle that I can grab the pillow beneath me and plop it on top of my head, leaving me to hear Will only as loud as a yowling cat. We really need to talk about these problems she has, babbling nonstop about some stupid movie. My only hope is that mom starts preaching one of her sermons, I don't even care if I hear the recap tomorrow, just please shut the brat up!

My stomach groans in another painful twist. I ball up my fist, squeezing a bit of the pillow as the pain doesn't fade. I drag the pillow off my head, and fling it to the floor. Slowly, flip onto my back, the exertion sending another wave of pain and nausea flooding through my system. I manage to keep my food down, but not before the taste reaches my mouth. I debate whether or not it's worth it to try to drag myself to the kitchen to find something to force the taste out of my mouth. It's not, and I try to fall asleep.

I must have, because pretty soon, I'm surrounded by a desolate landscape, with nothing but water for miles around. somehow, I can stand on the surface of the water, despite the waves that ripple past. I'm still dressed in my cargo pants and baby blue t-shirt, but my feet are bare. the sun above me is cold and distant, and I shiver as spray from the water splashes me. There's a cloud nowhere to be seen, and the air is clean, different from the New York smog-filled air I'm used to.

I can see a form shimmering in the distance. I try to see who it is, but their face is cast in shadow by the sun behind them. They are dressed in black, the sleeves of their shirt flowing in the wind. From this distance, I can't tell if it's a guy or a girl. "Hello?" I yell over the wind that has suddenly picked up, "Who's there?"
It seems like the figure hears me, because it starts moving towards me, long hair flowing out, blowing into it's face.

Suddenly there's a whoosh, and the water beneath me lurches, parting away from my feet, nearly knocking me from my feet. a wooden surface beneath my feet becomes visible, and I'm rising, the wooden deck pushing me higher and higher. the wind becomes stronger, and it takes all of my strength to keep my balance. the figure is standing still, but is rising on a similar platform. We're close enough that I can tell that she's a girl, maybe a few years older than me. Her hair is black, darker than the black shirt and loose pants that she's wearing, and from here I can tell that there's something wrong with her eyes. She tilts her head to one side, and I can see her lips part, but whatever she says is lost in the wind howling about us. I notice that the platforms have stopped rising, a good eighty feet separating us from each other and the surface of the water.

The wind dies down, and she glances up. I follow her gaze to the empty skies, just in time to get a raindrop in the eye. I duck my head and blink rapidly, rubbing my eyes as I turn my attention back to the girl. She is looking at me, and runs to the edge of her platform. What is she doing? She reaches the edge, but runs into some sort of force field that becomes visible ion impact. She is knocked from her feet, and lands on her back a few steps away from the edge. She sits up and stares at me, walking to the edge of the platform and reaching out a hand to me, her lips moving. I think she's yelling at me, but I still can't hear her.

"I can't hear you!" I yell as the rain falls faster. lightning flashes across the sky, followed closely by thunder. I panic, it's one thing to be caught in a lightning storm in New York, it's another thing to be the tallest object for miles around with lightning this close. I try to move closer to the woman, but my feet won't obey me. I can't move, all I can do is talk.

The woman's shoulders slump as she stares at me. She's still trying to tell me something, trying to get through to me. A lightning bolt flashes between us, striking the water. The force and heat of the blast shove me to the edge of wooden platform, further away from the woman. She's yelling something again. The rain slowly dissipates, and the thunder booms further away. Slowly, the sunlight returns, shining pale warmth across the landscape. But instead of returning to the light of before, the light grows more and more, until everything is consumed by light, leaving me by myself.

A quiet voice whispers, "Hear me. I am..." Her voice is swallowed up by the light, along with everything else.

Suddenly, I'm plunged into deep darkness. Too bad it couldn't stay dark. All too soon, I wake up, stomach ache and headache gone, along with my room, replaced by two big blue eyes filled with hatred.

“What the hell do you think you're doing here? How do you get in here?” The voice is livid. I blink rapidly, trying to clear the sleep from the corners of my eyes as I attempt to make sense of what he's asking me.

Rough hands grab my arm and haul me to my feet. I try to protest, but my mouth is dry and I can't seem to make words to come out. My head spins as I try to make myself understand where I am. Everywhere I look, there are beds without sheets, in neat rows, with plenty of walking room between them. I turn my attention instead on the man who's glaring at me, rambling on about something. He's in his late forties by the looks of it, with a bald spot already forming in the middle of his pointy head. His blue eyes are surrounded by wrinkles- in the corners of his eyes, on his forehead, the corners of his lips. His ears are huge, and I can see, with disgust, that there's hair there. He's dressed in a dress shirt and tan pants and shiny shoes. Over his left breast pocket is a name tag declaring him to be the manager, Bob Thornton. The pieces fall in place. He's a salesman, meaning that this is a mattress store.

I must have a blank expression on my face because suddenly his angry forehead creases disappear and he looks at me with something else. “Look, kid, I get it that you're probably homeless like half the city, but that doesn't give you a right to hole up in my store. I'm opening soon, so I'm going to need you to leave before the Law suspects me of housing Curses. I'll let you out the back.” He grabs an object from the bed I had been sleeping on, and I realize that it's a backpack as he gives it to me, “I'm guessing this is yours. Smart.” I take it from him. Despite how full it looks, the bag is actually pretty lightweight, and I pull it onto my shoulders, still unable to speak.

He sighs and starts walking, I lurch and try to keep up. For some reason, my feet aren't working right, plodding slower than I normally walk, and I notice that I'm favouring my one leg. He glances at my gait and mutters under his breath, “ 'Course, it has to be a Fig.” Then, a little louder, “Don't normally see your kind in this area. Darn brave of you to risk coming to a richer section of town. Brave and stupid. Go home, kid, whatever's left of it. No one here can help you, even if they wanted to.”

He glances expectantly at me. I open my mouth, but instead of words, a raspy cough seizes my lungs, causes me to stop in my tracks and bend over, gasping for air. Eventually, the cough fades enough for me to keep walking, and he leads on, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. We walk through storage out the back, passing mattresses wrapped in plastic to keep them safe. He opens the brown door at the very back, peeks around the corner and shoos me out the door. No sooner am I out than it slams shut forceful behind me. I try the handle, but he's already locked the door.

I groan silently as I take in my surroundings. The door at the back of the store leads out into a small alleyway lined with brick walls of the same drab grey as the garbage cans knocked sideways on the ground. Loose garbage scatters as a sudden gust of wind bellows around the corner. The silence is like a physical presence, gripping the walls, the garbage and the sky in a dead embrace.

I try to understand what just happened. I went to bed with a stomach ache, unable to even drag myself to the kitchen. I fell asleep, had a weird dream- which is completely normal for me- and woke up in some random store. That's what I don't get. How did I end up somewhere else in New York City, without even noticing? I sleep walk, yes, but I've never left the apartment while sleeping. Mom set up the place strategically so that every piece of furniture would stand between me and the door, sure to make a noise if I ever left my room.

I dig into my pockets for my cell phone before remembering that I had dropped it on my desk by the Commodore before stumbling to my bed. Just my luck. And I don't think I have any cash either, not even enough for a phone call from a payphone, let alone enough bus fare to get me home. Another blast of wind tears through the alley, scattering the remains of a newspaper across my path. One blows up against my leg and I stare at it before an image causes me to grab the paper and read the article in it's entirety, hardly believing what I was reading. This must be some sort of really vivid dream, that's the only possible explanation I have for what I'm reading. I must have been thinking about school too hard, and somehow my brain drew the connection from school to history class, and from there to history in general, and my subconscious twisted the plot line of history to make a weird dream.

Because there was no way Hitler died of at the ripe old age of a hundred and three at Bethesda Hospital after winning the war in 1944.

Creating a New Home

 According to the article, Hitler died in New York, after attending a gala to commemorate the victory of the war and the peace treaty with America. Since then, it's been a strained alliance, one tested when Russia invaded Germany ten years later and the U.S. refused to come to their aid. But things soon settled over when Russia invaded and conquered Alaska, a feat that took them a