FICTION | SCI-FI

To the Bottom of Game Over

Fall three times and embrace your fate

Ihave told myself to make my bed a million times, but somehow, I still couldn’t seem to manage to do it every morning before school. It was the stupidest thought I would get every day at school and my mom would make sure it was something I thought about.

On January twenty-first, I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm. The loud sound soon re-started as I moved to press the stop bottom.

I kicked the bed sheets and sat up, waving my arms wildly and listening to their incessant cracks. I narrowed my eyes looking around and trying to remember what I was about to do. To fully awaken and get up took me longer than five minutes. There were clothes strewn everywhere. Cups, mugs, and buckets littered the floor. My head throbbed and I couldn’t recall what I ate last night.

Walking down the stairs, trying not to trip over my own two feet, I heard a noise in the kitchen. My mom was standing near the sink while my dad was eating breakfast with my little sister at the table. My mother gazed at me with a disgusted expression.

“You haven’t even changed yet, Sean!” She said walking towards me. “Go on now! You have practice in fifty minutes.”

I might have misunderstood her. “Practice? Practice for what?”

My mother’s wrinkled eyes narrowed, and she stared at me with a mask of confusion. “Soccer.” Then she looked at my father. “Have you been drinking? You just turned seventeen. Don’t tell me those friends of yours are using drugs!”

She was furious and I was as confused as my little sister as she looked down at the homework paper her teacher had given her.

My friends were total nerds who couldn’t even get into a house without taking off their shoes. There was nothing wrong with them!

“I don’t understand…”

“DRESS UP RIGHT NOW, SEAN!”

My ears were ringing from her yelling, but I had no other choice but to go running back to my room and get changed.

It might have been true that I had used some kind of drug last night, but I was sure that I had never gotten onto the school’s soccer team.

“Stones! Get into the court.” From the stands, I heard a coach I had never seen before. All of the players were already on the field. The coach walked around with his mighty whistle around his thick neck. His lack of hair greatly distracted me. How was it so shiny? “We got an hour of practice today. No interaction with the girls in the stands. That applies especially to you two, Smith and Stones!”

The boy named Smith had a smirk on his face. Apparently, the guys were laughing at me because I had my mouth wide open. It baffled me why, of all people, he would call me out about girls. They didn’t even look at me in school!

I tried to pretend everything was fine when the coach whistled. It was clear that everyone knew their positions and how to start. All I did was stand somewhere nobody else was, and most stared with confusion at me.

When the game began, we started running against each other to catch the ball. Except for me. I couldn’t predict when the ball would reach me because it was being passed around so fast. A heartbeat later, I realized how long I had been standing there.

Suddenly the ball was at my feet. I couldn’t figure out how it got there. However, I knew that if it was there, I would be gone in no time. The high school students raced towards me. For some reason, they seemed very angry, or maybe it was just my imagination. They were all ready to take me down.

Desperately, I kicked the ball. A moment later, it returned to where it had been. I was stunned by what I saw. Although the ball had bounced up and down, it hadn’t moved forward. Maybe I was panicking, but all the other times I tried, it would not move. What was happening?

Knocked by about ten players, I was done.

“What is wrong with you?” It had been the coach’s voice in my ears. “You looked like a little bird in midst of predators!”

My eyes barely opened when I looked up at my bald coach. He was still there and my whole body was crying in pain. How could my own teammates do this to me? How could my coach be even mad?! After all, I was still alive, wasn’t I?

“Who are you anyway?” I asked. “I don’t play soccer and I never have. How did I even get into the soccer team?”

“You have always been our best player since sophomore year! I have no idea what happened.” He said looking at the nurse next to him. Where had she come from?

“Don’t worry, Doctor Melissa is going to take care of you to make sure you are in good health before the next game.” The coach said before moving a few steps away. I sat down at once looking around for anyone I recognized, but I knew no one. “Calm down, Sean.”

Was I dreaming?

My eyes went wild, and I tried to stand up, but the woman stood in front of me. The coach walked towards her whispering in her ear something I could clearly make out: “He knows.”

The first thing I grabbed was the empty tray of food next to me, knocking the doctor out. While the coach lunged for me, I dodged and ran to the nearest door, shutting it behind me. I was standing in the corridor of some kind of hospital. As people in white started whispering and pointing at me, I ran as fast as I could, avoiding doctors trying to grab me. The good thing about doctors is that they are trained for one thing but are never prepared for runners. I was thankful for that.

The alarm went out and suddenly every one of them was sprinting after me. When I got stuck in a corridor with no way out, the only choices I had were the shiny doors. I tried pushing each one, but none of them opened. The doctors were closing in.

“Where is my water?” A patient was standing with his door open. He looked to be around my dad’s age and was very angry with the doctors.

I pushed past him, closing the door behind me. He tried to say something, but I silenced him by placing my finger over my mouth. As several doctors knocked on the door, he sat back down over his hospital bed, ignoring my existence. They would be inside soon, and I would be…

The window.

As the door barged open, I looked back once before jumping out of the window.

“You never learn, do you?”

I jumped out of bed in an attempt to understand what was happening. I was wearing my pajamas and was in my room. Everything was clean and organized. Only my bed wasn’t properly arranged. I felt my chest rise and fall rapidly. My arms trembled, struggling to support me, and the worst of all: my coach was seated right next to me. The black suit he wore adorned his body, and his bald head shone as bright as ever. Gray eyes stared at me.

I fell out of bed, trying to get something to defend myself.

“Run and you’ll keep ending up in the same place.” He smiled. A weak, yellow smile. “Dream simulations are very hard to make, and I do not intend to waste on a wimp.”

I walked towards the window of my room.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Sean?”

I jumped.

However, this time, only darkness was seen.

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