Chapter Text
Leeroy Mateo.
That was her name. A delivery woman, working in and out of jobs, trying to paying her bills. She was homeless for a while. But she managed to get out of her struggles and make herself a better person. Life has been better than what it was some time ago. Especially after she had transitioned. She had a stable social life as well, she made new friends, and she constantly visited Riley's bar, the triangle bar, enough so, that she was loved there by everyone for being a regular. She loved visiting the bar, it was a welcoming place, especially to people like her.
And she couldn't have her great life. Any. Other. Way.
She was a good person to be around. Everyone loved her, the bar loved her, her friends loved her.
She was also happy with her personal life as well, she had recently started dating Abigail Brooks, a small YouTuber, who mainly did videos on exploring run down apartments and liminal areas. She had gained quite a cult following by her fans and was popular with the people that knew her, mainly due to her tendencies to be like a therapist towards others. She was also loved by Leeroy due to her being accepting of who anyone is, despite whatever they did, no matter how bad.
Her and Abby would constantly visit the previously aforementioned Triangle bar, ran by Riley Versalis. Riley was a chill person. They were accepting. They were a really helpful person. They helped Leeroy during some of their toughest times. They were also the most accepting person to Leeroy when she had came out. They not only worked as a bartender, but also previously as a tattoo artist, but they dropped the job to start their bar, and they were proud of how far their bar had come.
Along with Riley was Zoey, Zoey was a more quiet, compassionate person, who loved to draw their own webcomics inspired by the art style of 90s manga/anime. She worked as an artist who sometimes did commissions for friends and such. She also mainly worked on her webcomic in most of her time, trying to get better at her art, with the help of her friends.
However, one day, one conversation between them all in the bar, had turned into something that none of them could expect.
"Urrgghh, shit!" Leeroy groaned.
"Everything alright?" Riley questioned.
"Just work, it sucks kinda hard. But it's the only I can afford to do anything" Leeroy replied
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes jobs can be stressing on us, that's why I chose to open here, it's something I like so i can balance work and life."
"Yeah, but I don't know if I could, I would need more qualifications."
"You could try Youtube, or being a media star of sorts." Abby joined in.
"Yeah, and post about what?" Leeroy gave a question, her hands made a gesture giving in to the fact that maybe social media was too big of a job for her to cover.
"The only reason you're eating well with that is because you got lucky, it's all based on luck." Leeroy gave a statement.
"Yeah, but you could cover whatever, if it makes you happy."
"I know, but we're talking about this jobwise, which for niche topics, aren't covered well by the algorithm."
"True." Replied Abby
"If one of your adventuring videos hadn't blown up, with you changing the way you make them, you probably wouldn't be in this room today. You'd probably would still be back at your old accounting job that you hated."
"Well, as I told you before, the channel started out as a side project of mine, nobody really watched my videos, until one of them randomly blew up. The one about C & A."
Leeroy was struck by what Abby had just said, not talking about how her side project had turned into her full time job, but how she mentioned C & A.
C & A. Where had she heard that name before. It was all too blurry for her. Like an old friend or face you haven't seen since primary school. She started to think back, until she remembered. She crashed at that building when it was abandoned back when she was homeless. It was mainly just empty, nothing was really there of any value, apart from an old headset that didn't work. She was disappointed by that, she thought it would lead to some virtual reality adventure game of some sorts, at least one with high stakes.
She knew it didn't work though, she tried it before, nothing happened. Now that she was remembering back to it, the headset did seem ancient, a grey box type headset with some bulk onto it for the awful technology they had back whenever they made it. The appearance had quite a bit of yellowing on the plastic areas as if it was left out for years, along with a miniature logo of the company.
C & A. That name still stuck out to her, after all these years.
She wanted to ask Abby, about C & A. About what she did there, what she thought of the building. What she thought of what she found. What she thought of the headset, if she tried it on. So, she did.
"Hey, uh about C & A." Asked Leeroy.
"Yeah?"
"What did you think of there, did you find anything cool?" Leroy asked, eager to find out if she had something new to cover about that old place.
"Nah, I mean, there was this old headset lying around. I tried it on, it looked like there was some sort of game, with vibrant colours and sorts. But i tried to do something. It didn't work." Abby complied.
Bullseye.
The headset still did not work. I mean, it never did in the first place, according to what Leeroy had found when she tried it on.
But maybe it could work? Maybe she could try it on, once again.
She just would need a way to get back there.
"Hey, uh, Abbs." She asked.
"Yeah?" Abby replied.
"Could we, like, maybe re-explore that creepy C & A place sometimes."
"Eh, I don't think I could with too much work on my hands, I could give you directions to the location, if that's okay." Abby said.
"That's fine." Replied Leeroy.
She had hit the jackpot, she could return to that building, she was already planning on what to do there, spray paint awesome graffiti. mess about with all the technology, and most of all, see whatever the fuck that headset was all about and find out the true reason it doesn't work for anyone.
So, she just needed to go.
It was early in the morning. Still before the sun started to rise. The wind was chilling, breezing past. The sky was filled with grey clouds, lining the stratosphere like swirls of cotton candy.
Leeroy was looking down at the note that Abby had gave her, this was the correct location. She does remember crashing at this place after running away from her past.
She took a deep breath, she put up the black hood on her hoodie, she crumpled up the paper and placed it safely in her hoodie pocket.
She entered the building.
It was dim, eerily dim. Even for an abandoned building. The hallway looked run down, a solid flooring which was trashed by whatever the hell was placed there by whomever, drinks, litter, and miscellaneous items that people wouldn't want to hold on to. The wall had strikes teared out of the wallpaper, revealing the insulation in the walls.
Most of the doors were locked. Which was unsettling, not as if this place unsettled her like crazy in the first place, she didn't remember it being this creepy when she crashed here. She just thought of it as a little place to call her home while she just was away, cut off from everyone.
After coming through many hallways after hallways, looking through different areas, such as the lounge area she passed by, which was completely trashed, with a knocked over potted plant, with it's soil seeping into the cracks in the ground. She had arrived at the room where it was placed.
The office. most of the computers were off, as they would be, this place looks like it hadn't been touched since the late 90's, or the early 2000's at most. The computers didn't look in good shape too, all except for one of them.
The computer that brought her here in the first place, it was still connected, and powered on, somehow. It looks it has been running that same session for years. She was wondering how it was still on, and who was even paying the electricity bills.
She had found it, the computer that had been on her mind for the past few hours. She wanted to see whatever was up with it. Alongside the ancient monitor and PC was a headset connected to it.
She remembered how it didn't work, her curiosity was all focused on the headset. What was the headset even meant to be displaying? Could it work again?
She was too hooked onto it, but first, she wanted to see what sorts of shit was on the computer...
Nothing much, apart from this thing called CAINE and these "scans", whatever they were. She then quickly opened more programs beginning to play around with the Windows Media Player skins and the shitty 90's games and rip-offs that were downloaded on here.
But then, it was finally time to put it on.
She had memories of the headset, of a past time, when she was at her worst. She was a different person. Sure she went by the same name, but she was different. She was homeless. A horrible person, who had ran away from home after an argument with her mother. She had grown since then. She had a stable job, a girlfriend, and many friends who were caring for her.
She picked it up, astounded by the weight of the headset, as if it was more heavier than the last time she tried it on. She tossed it around her hands for a bit before taking the Velcro strap and pulling it, snapping the Velcro apart from each other in the process.
She looked inside the eyepiece for the goggle. It looked like a game, vibrant colours and all, a lot of red however, she was thinking why couldn't it be more purple as a joke.
She took the Velcro strap, put the goggles on with her hands tying the strap and-
"What-"