Chapter Text
SLAM!
“Emmy! What have I told you about slamming doors?!”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Gosh, what is it with you teenagers… just wait until high school next year!”
Emmy plopped down on the couch in her room, brushing the stray hair strands from her face. Slamming a door shouldn’t be her biggest problem. Maybe it’ll be her Algebra homework. Before she can go on to her least favorite part of the day, a light is seen from the corner of her eye, her phone buzzing rapidly with texts. God, what’s going on now?
Abbie: Hey Emmy! You gonna try out that game I told you about?
Emmy: which one? the one that was like- something time with the mustache thing?
Abbie: NO! Not that one! That one’s the one I’d rather be at your house since we only have one copy. The other one! The online one?
Emmy: the squid one?
Abbie: YEAH! Splatoon 2! It’s pretty new so I thought we could try it! Plus, I do love a good shooter. So easy to beat you >:)
Emmy: hey!! you’re so mean. i’ll definitely be better at this one! you’ll see!
Abbie: Uhuh. Sure you will, Emmy.
Emmy: i’m booting up my switch now so i can get a head start! haha!
Emmy set down her phone, turned on her TV, put in the new cartridge into the switch, and picked up her joy-cons. The screen flashed with the home screen of a Nintendo Switch. She clicked a few buttons to finish getting her switch ready, selected the user “Emmy”, and clicked “start”. The loading screen came on, sparking curiosity in Emmy’s mind.
Why did Abbie want me to play this? Why is it about- squids? Human squids? Are there any cute guys then? Also- shooter? Human squids combined with Call of Duty..? There were cute guys in Call of Duty. Hmm...
Thoughts aside, Emmy created her character then. Tentacles with bangs (much like her own hair), pale skin, and green eyes (also kind of like her own but not identical). She moves her joy-cons around, trying to get the hang of these new motion controls. And god she hated them. Nothing like she’s ever played before, even. Even more new things to learn. Great. She looooves learning. Whatever, she’ll have to deal with it (for the fact that Abbie will kill her if she bails on yet another game).
“Oooh! This Inkopolis Plaza place looks nice! I wonder what Abbie thinks of it!” She remarked.
She moved her little inkling around, reading all the little text bubble drawings people made. Plaza posts, they were called. For some reason there was a lot of people pointing out this really short girl’s forehead, the news girl! Emmy remembered her displaying some shenanigans about stages and modes. Whatever that means. Emmy liked her more than the other one though. She thought the other one’s wardrobe seemed too much for a kid's game, even though she did admire this weird-looking inkling’s intelligence. At least until the short one said something, then her brain seemed to go down the gutter! This sure is some weird game.
“Huh? Why is there some random lady over a sewer? Lemme see this…”
She moved her inkling over, the woman disappearing. Confused, Emmy followed down. She tried, at least. The screen, glitching and flashing blue, was acting strange.
“Is- is this normal? Maybe I should text Ab- AAAAH! WHAT THE- HELP!”
Silence. A small clicking sound of the drop of a controller. The sound of a TV turning off.
“EMMY! EMERSON ROSE ARE YOU OKAY??” Her mom screamed. No answer.
“EMMY?!”
~+~
Emmy’s eyes slowly opened on this odd landscape, trying to determine what just happened. She half- sat up and rubbed on her head, a small pain coursing throughout her entire body.
“What is- where am I? I need to text Abbie this is NOT normal at all and- huh? My phone? My clothes? What the-”
Mumbling is heard in the not-so-far distance by a feminine voice. Emmy freezes and slowly gets up, soon realizing that she feels off compared to normal. And no, she doesn’t think she was drugged- wouldn’t that just make her loopy? Even the touch of her skin feels different. If she had a mirror then she could find out what-
“Hey! You showed up!”
Emmy whips her head around to see a woman in some kind of kimono and an... umbrella? In this heat…? Wait, this is definitely not October in New York… more like July…
Her thoughts were yet again interrupted by that strange lady with the weird eyeliner talking.
“As soon as I saw you aimlessly wandering around the square, I knew you were the one. I'm Marie. Yes, I'm THAT Marie. You know...from the Squid Sisters.” She kept babbling about some celebrity status, or something.
“Hi uhm... excuse me but who are you?” Emmy replied.
“You've never heard of me? For eel?” Marie practically screamed,
“...no? Where am I even? What is happening? How did I get here?”
“Calm down kid- you were wandering around Inkopolis? Inkopolis Plaza? Then you somehow followed me down a sewer drain. Like that’s normal.”
“Inkopolis… Plaza? Like the place in that game Ab- my friend, told me about? How- what?”
“Do you have amnesia or something? Then I’d have to let you go back because an agent with amnesia would not work well-”
“No! I’m fine! Completely normal. Wait- agent? Like in spy movies and stuff? Miss- Marie or whatever- do you have any idea on how to get to New York?”
“Never heard of it. What’s a ‘New York’?”
“Oh no… this- how can this even physically work? I mean I’ve read about it in books and all but those are books, not reality .”
“Are you sure you’re okay kid?”
“Just- give me a minute.”
Emmy sat down and thought for a moment, about a lot but mainly what just happened.
So what happened was I was playing that “Splatoon” game that Abbie wanted me to play and then this woman named Marie was talking as if I was in… the… game…
“Oh shit.”