Cas

A Story by Lily

A sterile white room surrounded me, I attempted to get up from the cot I was on, but I could only tug at thick leather bonds around my head, wrist, solders and legs. A man in a stark white lab coat leaned over me and calmly said "Shushushushu, don't worry, this won't hurt a bit." I one green eye, and one blue, as well as a few missing teeth. I felt a cold sensation in my forehead and looked up as best I could to see a scalpel, open a slice of my forehead open. I began to scream in horror, the pain drawing through my head.

threw my body forward in my bed, sweating and thrashing about, my hands instantly went to my forehead, feeling for a scar, but, much to my relief, there was nothing there of any concern. But the dream still have me a start, even though I've been having the same dream every night for the past week. Even so, somehow, the man cutting my head open did not appeal to me much. After I shook off the initial shock of the ordeal, I began to think of what I had to do that day. It was Saturday, and I had finally saved enough money for a new X-box 360, so I decided that I would get it today along with Boaderlands two, I still had old games from my now broken X-box classic, but I have already played through each of them once or twice. I went to a electronics store in town and got both of the items. I had plenty of time to kill, so I tried playing boarderlands.

I stayed up half the night competing the game and went to sleep at twelve in the morning. I woke up and after after coffee and breakfast, I got right back to boarderlands. I was high level, so all the enemies were impossible to beat. I yelled at the game to give me a better weapon, loudly. Just as I finished yelling, I saw a weapons create off in the corner of my eye, as a habit, I checked it for what was in it, and you'll never guess what was in it a Orange level high damage scattershot. I had to fight a boss in the mission I had, so I used it against the spider queen, which had one of the higher end health levels. Every shot I took was a one hit kill, untill I got to the spider queen, I kept shooting it and it's shield would not go down. Regenerating at eighteen energy per a second, and I could only bring it down a twelve energy per a second. I yelled at the game again, throttling my controller. Just then, a small explosion came that knocked out his shields, letting me easily take him out.

I stared at the screen, pausing the game. What had happened, the game did something to stop it from killing me, I would have ran out of ammo eventually, and melee would only hold it off for so long. I heard a raspy breath, but my flat mate had minor asthma, he had a inhaler next to him in be, so there was no real problem. I was done with Boarderlands, so I took out the game, and put in Halo 2, and when ever I had a problem, something would arise to help me, be it a Brute charging me, or a hunter swarm, then something would intervene, like a kamikaze grunt. I never died. But I heard the strange voice raspy voice again. "PUT ON THE HEADSET!" it chocked out. "IN THE BOX, THE HEADSET!" it chocked.

A headset, I didn't buy one, I didn't see one in the box, even so, I checked. A headset was in my box, but it didn't have a logo or brand on it, just a headset without anything on it. I plugged it in, and heard a familiar click of the headset turning on. A voice came through it, "oh, good, your still there," it said, I hadn't paid attention until now, but the voice sounded strangely feminine, "I'm Cas, what's your name?" it asked, sounding suddenly more relaxed,

"I'm not really comfortable saying." I answered. I heard a faint giggle, and then a sigh, it must have come from this person.

"Well, that's understandable, oh, would you like to continue your game?" it asked. Turning the screen back to Halo. This Time me it team smoothly, opposed to the regular lag scratched game this dish played. But after a short while, I grew tied of the X-box, so I switched it off. I took a two hour nap, longer than I normally did. It was still Sunday, so I got back on the X-box and put on the headset. The second I plugged in the headset, I heard a "humf." "Cas, is that you," I asked.

"You didn't say goodbye." She stated blandly and simply. "Why didn't you say goodbye?"

"Sorry," I said, "didn't think of it. Azerat, by the way."

She gave a sigh and said, "fine," and let me access the menu. I began to play boarderlands, and decided to face of with the "hardest boss", according to the fourms, Teramorphious. It was a challenge, but I could ask Cas at any point, though I tried not to, and when I did, for a bit of help, and she would respond with a faint sigh and changed something for me, but I would apologise, and she would respond with a "humf" as I'd to say "yeah, whatever,"

"I gotta go, Cas. I'll be back later." "As soon as you can?" she asked, giddilely.

"Yes, as soon as I can."

"Okay bye." She said, and I turned off the consul. I went to bed, woke up, and went to work, first turning on the X-box to tell Cas that I would be gone all week, but before leaving, I asked how she had gotten into my X-box, "oh, in not in your X-box, I'm simply connected to you directly. It's just I couldn't reach you until now, there were no compatible devices."

"What do you mean, 'compatible'?"

"I needed a microphone."

I looked around, and she was right for the most part, no devices with microphones, but "what about my DS?"

She giggled, "The microphone is broken, your roommate didn't test everything on it."

"Okay, well, how were we connected?"

She gasped a little, "that, is a long story."

"Okay, let's hear it." I said, not thinking about it.

"Well, uggh, it started with a friend, a good friend. And we were talking, about video games, and he said he found a way to make us able to control the games with our minds, uggh, and he, uggh, betrayed me. Uggh, he took me to his house, and he put, uggh, hold on." She put up a picture on the screen, "you aren't paying a game. But, he put a chip, a computer chip in, uggh, my head."

"Cas, are you... dead?" I asked carefully.

"Um..." She trailed off.

"Never mind," I tried to interrupt.

But she kept going, "my body is now a lifeless ball of meat if that's what you mean."

"I'm so sorry," I said walking towards the screen, raising my hand, and laying out on the T.V. Cas walked forwards, her brown hair wrapping around her shoulder, starting into me with her deep blue eyes. She raised her hand to where mine was on the screen. And there we stayed for a while, until she chooses her eyes, and turned off the screen.

And I left. The next weekend, I came home late Friday, turned on the X-box and put on the headset. "Hey Cas, how are you?" I said, slumping down on the couch.

"Hey, I'm fine, you look exhausted," she said popping up the picture again. "What happened?"

"Huh, that's a story for another time, I was wondering though, when a camera or something sees me, can you connect to it?"

"Yes, but it is not something I do ever since that time the convenience store you were in was robbed."

"Huh. Well I gotta get a shower, then, I'll play boarderlands for a while. See you then," I said. I took a short shower, got out, went into my room to fetch some clothes, and was given a fight by Cas, who had turned on my DS and announced "great news, I managed to make the headphones slot accept input for a Mic!"

I clawed at my chest, making sure my heart was still beating, upon feeling it was, I sat up, and picked up the DS and shook my head, I felt fuzzy and wore nothing but a towl around my waist. Instantly, the picture of Cas turned red, "oh..." she said, "sorry, I didn't... never mind..." and shut the DS off.

I looked around, my eye catching on the mirror I kept in the room, I saw my face, beat red. I quickly got dressed and came out to talk to Cas. She already had the X-box on with the game on it's main menu.

"Cas? You there?" I asked.

"Yes, sorry about that..." she said, "by the way, your roommate came in here over the week, he played your old Halo. He's looks familiar."

"Yeah, he has one of those faces," I said, sitting down. I played for a while, but I couldn't get in the zone, like something was distracting me, but I kept ignoring the feeling. I later decided that I should go to bed, told Cas I was going to bed, and nodded off to sleep.

When I woke up, I felt a starting pain in my forehead, like one of my dreams, but intensified I stared as strait forward as I could, focusing on a hole in my wall, not caring that it wasn't there when I went to bed, I was consumed by the pain, I felt like I would pass out, so I waited for the darkness to come, hearing Cas yell "don't worry," she yelled, barely auditable, "the pains only temporary!" But I just waited for the darkness, but it wouldn't come, like I was washed on a shore, urging myself to pass out, but the waves of pain would not down me in the darkness. Until, eventually, I saw nothing but red dripping in front of my eyes. And I fell into darkness. When I woke up, I was in the sterile white room of my dreams, except, I could move freely, I stood up, there was a splitting pain in my head. I nearly fell over, but caught myself.

I looked around, the room was black save for a single glass window, through which, there was Cas, "hey sleepy..." she said nervously, "you okay, I got worried when you began top gibberish, thank God your okay." She raised her hand to the glass, I did the same pouring mine against her's.

"What it's this place?" I asked.

"That's a question I can't answer. All I know is that door," she pointed to a wall, which suddenly had a door on it, "is how I came in here, in the, how should I say, cyber-world. How I was linked to you."

"Does that mean, I'll be linked to another person too?" "Yes, the way the man sees, your just the next in line."

"That's... awful, so what can I do here?"

"You can stay or leave. It's your choice." I looked at the door, thinking of all it entailed, and looked at Cas, "I don't want to go..." I sniffled out. My eyes watering.

"Azerat, shshsh, don't worry, as long as you're here, you can relive memories of your life and make new ones."

I was about to say something, but I heard the door click open, "do I go in now?" She simply nodded. I walked towards the door, it swung open, revealing Cas on the other side, she looked at me smiling with open arms. I gave a weak smile back, walking into her arms, letting her wrap her arms around me. She whispered in my ear, quietly enough that if it were any quieter, I wouldn't have heard it "now we can feel the embrace total oblivion together." I nod slowly, feeling a strange sensation as my concesness slips from my mind. Then I see one image, it just read "conculed subject four, beginning transmission of subject four to subject five."

© 2014 Lily

Author's Note

I plan to make this story over many times, posting reach as different stories, I will leave a number next to the title to indicate which it is. This is the final version of number one.