Sarah had trouble getting up in the morning having her thoughts keeping her up much of the night. She had finally been able to fall asleep, but her sleep was cut in half almost. It made getting through her classes difficult with her eyes trying to shut on her every few minutes. The short period before her next class she allowed her eyes to rest. It was not much, but it was enough that she was more alert through the rest of the day. There was only one consolation to the day, the classes she had were her lighter ones. They were just simple general education courses rather than focusing on a major.

Classes were over however and for that she was glad. The day was still early, but she was too tired to stay late and work as she usually did. She could actually avoid the evening rush to go home. All that was on her mind though was her bed and how warm and soft it was at the moment. Her was thoughts were snapped back to reality as train arrived at the station.

The train ride back was quiet as she kept to herself in the corner with her glasses up close to her eyes. She paged through one of her textbooks to look busy, but her eyes were barely scanning the pages. Her fatigue was making it difficult to concentrate on anything. It was making the ride home even longer for her as all she wanted to was just rest for a while.

She looked up from her book a moment to see where she was in the ride. They were still in the inner city. It was probably no more than a few minutes since they had left and yet it felt so much longer. Everything was moving at a slow pace, even the people walking through the car. Just watching the view was making her tired. She closed her eyes for a moment to yawn through her book only to find that her stop was being called. Sarah stood up quickly and looked around to see that it was truly her stop. As she was collecting her things to get off it dawned on her that she had fallen asleep, it only made her panic even further.

Sarah stepped off the train with plenty of time as well as relief to be home. Her nap, though unwelcome, did leave her well rested. Several people pushed around her to get on to the train as one of them caused her to drop her book she was holding. She had rushed to get off the train that she did not pack it away. When she bent down to pick up the book there was another hand going after the book as well. She tilted her head up as she continued to reach for the book until she paused in surprise.

It was the man from yesterday on the train, the one that had spoken to her. She did not know what to say to him at the moment. There was only one thought that was running through her mind. “What are you doing here?” She had not meant to say it out loud to him, but she was not able to stop her mouth. Her face turned red the next moment, as she wanted to take it back.

“Hello to you,” he said with a smile on his face even though she had been rude.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No, it’s alright.” He picked up her book, as she had remained frozen. “Here you go.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said bowing quickly once she had stood up.

“You don’t have to bow to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t offend you.”

“N-no. Don’t need to be so formal.”

“I’m sorry.” Sarah was pushed aside from the masses of people trying to enter the train. The two decided to find their way to the side of the station out of the way of the traffic. Sarah was unable to find enough words to form much of a sentence. She did not know what he wanted and why he happened to be at the station she was exiting on.

“It’s a little crowded here, want to take a walk?”

“Uh…what?” She had barely managed to find something to say. He kept leaving at the edge of having words to say. Everything was so confusing at the moment.

“A walk, there is park nearby. If you want to that is. Just thought it might be a little easier than standing around here.”

“Oh…sure…” Sarah followed behind him down the stairs still trying to figure out what was happening. She was remaining cautious, since she did not know who he really was. There was the part of her that thought he was some con man trying to get her and another part thought that he was just normal person. She did not know what to believe, so many of the people she knew did not like or trust her. It made her distrust others just as much, but there was something about him that she was having difficulty not trusting.

As he had said there was a park nearby to the station. The area around the station was mostly small businesses and a few apartment buildings. It was packed around tightly to make use of the lack of space the city had to develop in. So the park was a valuable piece of land, since it was the least developed and took up a city block. There were few parks in the city, but it was important to have some greenery around all of the metal and cement.

Sarah remained quiet during their little walk to the park, but the silence was making her nervous with uncertainty. She looked over at him, as he seemed to be walking as though she was not even next to him. One moment he was asking to go to the park and now he was pretending like she was not even visible. She narrowed her eyes a little behind her glasses and turned herself towards him a little. “Who are you? Why were you at the station just now?”

“I was waiting for you. I’ve been waiting since last night.”

“What? You’re not serious?” she said looking at his clothes, they were different from the previous time she meet him. He was wearing a business rather than the casual appearance from yesterday.

“Well not the entire time, I did have to sleep,” he said with a grin.

“Be serious.”

“Actually I was on business and I was just returning to the city when I saw you leaving. I had hoped to see you again soon. You ran off so fast the last time.”

Sarah stepped back from him in surprise. “W-why did you want to see me again?”

“I wanted to see how beautiful your eyes were.”

“W-what? Y-you say strange things.”

“May I?” he said approaching her just one step closer.

She backed away from him nervously. He was acting unusual for her. Everyone ignored her and tried to be cruel to her that she did not know what to do about someone that actually wanted to be closer to her. The man was actually interested in her and did not care who she was, he even knew already. “I’m sorry,” she said holding her hands up around her face to push her glasses further up her nose. She kept her hands up to protect her glasses from being taken away.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of them. Don’t worry about what everyone else thinks.” He raised his hands up to her hands slowly to see if she would back away. Sarah wanted to back away, but there was something else inside keeping her still. He placed his hands on Sarah’s hands gently. She could feel the warmth from his hands. They were soft; she was expecting them to be coarse. He pulled her hands away from her face slowly along with her glasses. The tint that was blocking out the sun was gone making her close her eyes briefly as she reacted to the brightness. “They’re quite beautiful.”

Sarah’s face was turning red again as he was staring at her. She did not know what to do. Her feet had the urge to run and give herself some distance, but her mind was still curious. A sound in the distance alerted her to someone walking through the park. Out of instinct she turned herself away to keep herself out of sight. It was enough to pull her out of the fog that was filling her head. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself have I? My name is Sean. And you?”

“Sarah, Sarah Toya,” she said before letting out a yawn suddenly.

“Heh, a little tired?”

“Its your fault that I am,” she blurted out at him.

“Huh?”

A light on her glasses flashed suddenly drawing her attention. It was only supposed to flash when there was something important coming through to her. It made her confused what would be coming that was important. There were not too many things that were set to alert aside from her parents. She interrupted Sean and put her glasses back on. With the activation of the packet a news feed came across her lens.

Sean was looking down at a device at his hip that was suddenly going off as well. “Breaking News?” he said puzzled by the text he saw.

“You too?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know yet, its some news report. Its on all of the channels.”

“Does your glasses have an open video port?”

“Yes?”

Sean pulled out something from inside his jacket pocket. He opened his palm to show her a portable image projector. It was an expensive piece of equipment, but it would allow her to send the feed to the device so they both could view it. They sat down on the bench out of the way as Sarah connected to the device. After a minute the news feed was being projected in the air in front of them with audio coming out of the small device.

“…possible act of terrorism?” the woman at the news studio said before the video switch to someone else at the scene of the incident.

“It is uncertain at the moment what is causing this. All traffic and business has halted at Grehn Square with onlookers frozen in fear or confusion. Many are fleeing the area afraid of what may happen next. Not even the police know what is happening at the moment. There are reports that it is malfunctioning holo-projectors that are the cause of this anomaly. However, it is all speculation right now.”

The video showed images of the people staring and looking up at something. There were a few blurred shots of what they were seeing, but it was too hard to make out clearly. It seemed familiar to her, though it did not seem possible that she would know what it was.

“If you’re just joining us. All activity has stopped in the Grehn Square block of Herm City on Planet Arkineme. Early reports from those at Grehn Square say that it is an animal or monster roughly thirty meters in height. At 12:05 Arkineme time, the animal appeared in the middle of the intersection bringing an immediate stop to all traffic. The animal does not appear to be real as it has passed through several objects already, but the scale of the image is causing mass panic throughout the city.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sean said.

“What is going on there?”

“According to reports we are receiving right now the animal has disappeared. The police are instructing people to continue about their business, trying to return the city to normal. Electronic investigators are arriving on the scene to begin their work to solve the mystery of the appearance of this animal in Grehn Square. The disappearance ends the twenty-three minute…”

Sarah turned it off, as they were not going to get anything more out of the report at the moment. “What was that? A malfunction in image projection matrix? Or did someone hack into it as a prank?”

“Strange…”

“Yeah,” Sarah said yawning again suddenly. “I’m sorry. I should be getting home. I’m too tired to stay out here.”

“Alright, have a safe walk.”

“Thanks. Oh, wait, I didn’t catch your last name.”

Sean was already walking away. “Its Ralstone.”

Sarah took a minute to process it and looked up in surprise as she tried to find him. He was already gone. “Ralstone…Ralstone, the largest corporation on the planet!?” She was in shock for a moment to know that she was talking to the son of the CEO of Ralstone Corporation. It took her several minutes before she pulled herself together and began walking out of the park. She slowly walked home thinking about both the news report and meeting Sean Ralstone.

The news report was coming up in her mind more frequently as the image of that animal seemed to be familiar to her. She ran a search through the uninet when she got home to confirm her belief. It was a monster from Fantasy Hour Online. She had seen it many times while wandering the game, most people had. It was a fairly common monster; she could not believe that she did not think of it before. “What is a monster from the game doing in the real world? It must be a hacker…but why…”