The Game Has Begun. Part the First. (Mouse and Cursor)

Written by Patrick (our new Publisher Points leader for August!).

Chapter One.

Oh, god, my fingers hurt. Why is everything dimm..i..ng? She could
feel her fingers slowly going numb, her entire body going almost limp,
and her mind going empty. Just a few more lines. Almost done. The
screen was dimming before her eyes, the mixed up numbers and letters
swimming together. Five more minutes, Brain, and then we can go,
please, please.... I won’t let anyone else feel this. She was trying
her hardest to stay awake, and could feel everything lightening up,
out of sheer will, but only for a few moments. Then everything slowly
went black. Thank god I memorized the code... She could barely type at
all, but she was slowly finishing up. Her final act, she pushed the
Enter key, and slowly, then all at once, everything went black, and
she felt herself pitching forwards, onto her keyboard. As she fell,
she could hear the screen chiming, and heard her speakers speak in a
monotone voice. “The Game. Has Begun.”.

Chapter Two.

Slowly, the computer screen began to blink, over the code. Black, and
then back, on and off, over and over, for about twenty seconds, and
then slowly, Mouse and Cursor began to fade into existence on the
screen. First as an outline, and then gaining substance, and form,
until they were visible. Instantly the monitors camera began to blink
and whir, as Mouse and Cursor began to look out of it, and then, they
saw Cath. And Mouse shrieked, in his fast, high pitched, slightly
squeaky voice “CURSOR! What do we do? She could be dying! We need to
help her! She’s our MOTHER!”

Cursor responded, his voice quick, as though his words couldn’t keep
up with his thoughts, and slightly cold and harsh, like he couldn’t be
bothered with emotions. “Whatever for?” At this point, he decided he
should try a British accent, and pushed it into his coding. “Look at
her, she’s entered into minor cardiac arrest, judging by the slight
vomit exiting her mouth, and staining our keyboard, her eyes are
rolling around under her eyelids, her skin is cold, but she’s
sweating, and her hands appear to be twitching, and her throat appears
to be contracting repeatedly. I perceive that she overdosed on a
mixture of valium, tylenol pm, and ibuprofen. She has perhaps fifteen
minutes to live, and the average Chicago ambulance response time is
ten minutes. It would be an even larger waste of time to call an
ambulance than it was for me to waste my time explaining why we
shouldn’t, with the added “benefit” of wasting the time of the EMTs
and thereby remove time for someone else.” The entire exchange took
perhaps ten seconds.

Mouse was slightly stunned, but didn’t care. He was dialing from
Cath’s desktop Skype account before Cursor finished his first
sentence. “Oh, shut up, Cursor. This is our mother, we have to try, at
least.” Mouse finished dialing, and he spoke in his pitchy voice
through the mic into the Skype account, telling the ambulance router
the address and that there was a woman overdosed on pills laying in
the bedroom. They waited in silence, with Mouse constantly twisting
his whiskers, out of nerves.

When the EMTs arrived, they broke down the door, and ran inside,
quickly finding Cath, stabilizing her on the stretcher, and then
carrying her out, not even noticing Mouse and Cursor sitting on the
computer screen.

“... We should follow her. Please, Cursor.” Mouse said, imploringly.

“Whatever for? There is literally nothing else we can do for her...
Except.. We could follow our coding. Go, and find others, help them
before they get as far gone as Cath.” Cursor responded, pausing and
changing tact, when he noticed Mouse beginning to cry.

Mouse began to sniffle, still twisting and tugging on his whisker.
“Yes... We might as well. Follow her final wishes, you know.” Cursor
noticed, with extreme pleasure, that Mouse had followed his idea, and
also begun to use a British accent. He felt it was most fitting, they
should both have one.