Chapter Text
A young woman with long messy brown hair and wearing a black headband around her forehead, is on her computer in her bedroom. It just so happens that this young girl, named Kate, graduated high school recently, and she is now on Pestercalls (the updated Pesterchums that allows you to go on video and voice calls) to talk to her friends about the news. Kate[KittyCat] is on a call with her friends Ash[FalconPunch], Beren[IdkBro] and Cassidy[MagicalGirl]. Ash’s camera shows him recently waking up in his room, with short messy blonde hair. Beren is in the afternoon, eating ramen, with slightly longer blonde hair that is covering one of his eyes. Cassidy has mid-length brown hair with dyed red streaks, and is awake the same time Kate is as she is drawing something in her sketchbook.
KC: I just came back from the ceremony.
IB: Now we’re all free from school.
KC: Yeah, I guess so.
KC: What do you guys plan to do now all of us have graduated?
IB: I dunno, I’m mainly just vibing until I figure it out. Maybe I’ll do an apprenticeship.
FP: Me neither! I don’t really know where to go from here.
KC: Yeah same.
MG: It does make sense though, we’ve all been at school for a while now, now that has changed, it’s hard to get used to it as we get to control what we wanna do for the first time.
MG: Instead of being thrust into lecture after lecture.
KC: I guess, I kinda wanna go to college.
KC: But the student fees are nuts!!!
MG: Makes sense.
FP: Guys something really weird happened recently!!!
FP: I got this weird package at my doorstep, no name or anything.
FP: I opened it and it’s some weird game! I’ll probably try and find the original owner.
IB: Hold on
IB: Can you get it right now?
FP: Yeah, it’s over here
Ash goes under his desk to get out a cardboard envelope. Inside of it, he took out a shrink wrapped keep case with the box art being a logo of a green house split into several squares, with text above it saying “SBURB BETA”
FP: I didn’t install it or anything, this might be someone else’s that just got given to me-
IB: ...I got sent that too
FP: Wait, really!?
MG: Yeah same!
KC: actually I got a package like that too
KC: I didn’t bother opening it though
KC: Let me check now
Kate lowers down to grab the package on the floor, she rips it open to see the same game inside.
KC: uh… guys?
She looks at the screen to see everyone else showing off the fact they got the same package.
MG: Maybe… we should install it?
IB: Why?
MG: Like, I dunno if it’s just a coincidence we got given the exact same package with no name or label, with the exact same weird video inside. Like, maybe someone sent it to us?
IB: Hold on
IB: I’m searching this up, I’m not getting any info at all about this game.
IB: aside from some weird restaurant?
FP: What if it’s a virus?
KC: Imma download it.
FP: KATE NO!!!
Kate already tore the plastic off the cover and cracked the game open before slotting the disc in her pc.
KC: What?
FP: Let’s pray to the stars that your computer doesn’t get hacked.
KC: Eh, I have an antivirus, it’ll be fine.
After a while of loading, the game was installed. There was a moment of silence and anticipation, waiting to see if the computer was gonna detect any malware. But… nothing.
KC: huh
KC: who would’ve thunk.
FP: That was soooooo risky.
KC: It says I need another user to be able to start playing
KC: Something about a “server host”?
MG: Eh, if it worked for you then I think it’ll be fine.
IB: Sure, why not.
FP: this is such a bad idea…..
They all start installing the game together, as they are waiting, some new user joins their video call. The camera showed a weirdly youthful lady, with the cleanly cut short white hair being a stark contrast, showing her true age. She was wearing a white hood with a lime green bowtie and a grey cloak with a symbol on the centre showing wavy green swirls. The area she is in is abstract, the sky is a dark purple and she is sitting on the roof of some sort of building. Her signal is slightly laggy and glitching. Her user handle simply states “Maria”. She looks up at the camera and faces everybody else.
M: I need your help.