Aya wakes to the disruptive blaring of her alarm clock going off at its usual ti, she hurries out of bed nearly tripping over the covers as she scrambles to hop into the shower and prepare for her day.
"It's a miracle I didn't oversleep." she says yawning tiredly, today was about to be another long day and she had no doubt she would be tired from how late she'd slept the night before.
"Oddly enough I don't regret it, the ga felt so real. I can only wonder what it'll be like when I finally fix up the Icarus gear." she says, pulling the sleeves of her uniform on. She ets the eyes of her reflection, taking in her tired eyes and slouching figure.
'I really need more sleep.' she thinks, placing on her hat and retrieving her backpack from the entrance hook.
Running out the door, she locks her apartnt just in ti to bump into the landlady her aunt. The woman sneers, walking up the old stairs to her own floor.
Aya shakes her head, exhaling through her nostrils at the woman's behavior. Aya's family life had always been complicated, from her missing parents to her ailing grandmother.
The only person she truly had left was her aunty who'd given her a place to stay in this crumbling apartnt, but from the start, it was clear the woman hated her guts.
She rembers her arrival like it was yesterday.
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An 18 year old Aya watches helplessly as the large apartnt building she was now to call ho, grows closer and closer with every second that passes. She looks beside her to Mr. Fido, a friend of her grandmother's that had taken ti out of his day to drive her to the place that was hours away from the old woman's cottage.
"Mr. Fido, will my grandma be alright?" Aya asks softly. She notices the man's grip on the steering wheel beco tighter, he frowns at first before quickly turning it to a smile.
"I'm sure she'll be fine Aya, but for now you'll be staying here. Your grandmother and I have taken the liberty of paying for a 6 month's lease for you."
"6 months! Will I really be gone that long?" she asks, tearing up at the thought of leaving her grandma alone in her house while she was sick.
The man sighs, trying to keep his patience with her.
"Aya, you're an adult. You have to look after yourself now. Your grandmother can only do so much and her constant worrying about you will only put her in a bad condition." he says patiently.
Aya thinks over his words, an anxious weight settles in her chest and a thought grows that sohow she was responsible for her grandmother's condition.
"Was looking after really that stressful for her?" she asks Mr. Fido. He shrugs, making a turn that brings them closer to the apartnt complex.
"Ah who knows, but you have to look after yourself now, the only reason the lease is so cheap is because it belongs to your aunt Lydia. She didn't charge much as a favor to her mother but that doesn't an you can live there for free." the man tells her.
"So I'll have to get a job and live here all alone?" Aya says nearly sobbing. How could this have happened? First, her parents and now her grandmother would be lost to her. She wipes her tears with the back of her hand, continuing to cry all the way to the driveway of the apartnt complex.
"Now stop that!" Mr. Fido snaps at her, Aya flinches wondering where the change in attitude had co from. She nods hesitantly, opening the car door to find a tall, thin woman staring coldly at her.
"It's nice to et you, ma'am." Aya says reaching out to hug the woman. Lydia, her aunt, raises a single bony finger to stop her.
"There will be none of that, I may be your blood but you are not my niece, simply another tenant in the building. I may have charged you lower as a favor to my mother but rest assured that will change very soon." the gaunt woman says. Aya's hands fall limply to her side. All thoughts of bonding with the woman, destroyed.
"I see." she manages to say, turning back to the car Mr. Fido's plump body was already moving her ager luggage from his vehicle. He lifts the two suitcases, coming to lay them down at Aya's feet with a nod of satisfaction.
"Good luck Aya." He says to her, ignoring the young girl's heartbroken face. "And don't worry, I'll take good care of your grandmother."
He hugs her one last ti, returning to his car. His engine rumbles to life, driving away without another word.
Now it was just Aya and Lydia.
"Follow ." the woman says, already making her way into the apartnt complex. Aya has no choice but to lift the two suitcases by herself and rush into the building with the older woman.
The stairs squeak as Aya lays her foot down, on the aged structure. Soon they reach the fourth floor. Still following her aunt, Aya finds herself in front of a nearly rotted wooden door with a faded plaque reading '443.'
She wonders how the door was still standing considering its age and its obvious terrible condition
Lydia digs out a key ring from her pocket. She takes one key and slots it into the keyhole, she twists until the door unlocks with a shrill creak. Lydia shoves Aya inside, making the girl lose her footing and nearly hit the ground.
"This is your apartnt." Lydia says, she plucks the key off the ring and tosses it at Aya. "There's your key, guard it with your life there are no spares." without another word the cold woman is gone, leaving Aya alone in the room.
Aya follows the woman into the hallway.
"Please Aunt Lydia, this is all happening too fast, what's going on? And why do I have to live here?" Aya asks desperately trying to understand her new situation. The woman turns around, pinning Aya with a cold look. She huffs.
"Life cos at you fast kid, grow up and get used to it." she says spitting the words as though they were poison.
Aya cries, unable to hide the hurt feelings swelling within her.
"Please you're the only one I have now, I can't do this alone." Aya begs, in a fit of desperation she grabs unto the woman's arm, continuing to plead. Aunt Lydia stares down at the young woman, smirking at the girl's distress.
"As I said, grow up and get used to it." she wrenches her arm away from the girl's needy grip, ignoring Aya's crushed expression.
With a loud cackle, Lydia walks up the stairs to her own apartnt complex above Aya's.
Aya stands in the hallway, dazed at the situation she'd found herself in. Without her consent, she had been packed up and moved to a city Mr. Fido told her, her mother used to live in. But now she was here, in a poorly kept, cheap apartnt in what she assud was the worst side of the city.
"Grow up and get used to it." Lydia had said. But this couldn't be what growing up ant. This couldn't be the world her mother and father loved so much.
Aya gathers the strength to walk back to her apartnt.
"Wow, what a dump!" Aya says balling her fists at the condition the building was left in. Upon laying her eyes on the cracked walls and rotten floorboards, Aya is overco with the urge to scream. Bugs scuttle around her feet, making her jump back in fear from the size of the creatures.
"I'm going to be living here?" she says to no one in particular. Dejectedly, she clears a spot on the floor and sits on her suitcase.
"Hey at least I'm not living in a box under a bridge." she says with a smile. "I just have to hang in there, isn't that what grandma always said."
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Aya shakes her head out of the flashback, hard to believe that was only two years ago and just as Aunt Lydia had said, her rent got higher and higher. The only places hiring back then were fast-food restaurants and low-level corporate positions.
Working at Nue Corp's mail room wasn't a dream but it paid the bills.
Aya dismounts the bus, taking her usual route towards the back entrance of the office where she would enter directly into the mail room.
"You look awful." Her boss says the mont she walks through the door. Aya winces.
"Geez, good morning to you too, sir." she replies dryly, ready to collect her batch of mail and start the usual delivery process. While retrieving her trolley she happens to glance at the newspaper her boss peruses while he annoys the hell out of her. Smoking while reading the paper?
'Talk about a fire hazard.' Aya thinks, though the newspaper catches her interest.
'New MMORPG confird a huge success by CEO.' The headline reads.
'They must be talking about Moon Valley.' Aya thinks as she loads her trolley into the elevator, making her rounds from the ground floor to the top floor.
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On her way to the top a figure approaches her, getting into the elevator with her, Aya recognizes him as the man from before who had defended her from Viviana.
The President of Nue Corp.
"Good morning!" she greets cheerfully, the tall, handso figure looks up from his phone toward the voice addressing him.
"Well you're certainly chipper this morning," He grins at her. "Good morning."
"Thank you for defending back there, Viviana's always on my case." Aya says with a laugh. The man narrows his eyes.
"Is that so?" he asks with an edge to his voice. "So she's usually that rude to other staff?"
Aya takes a mont to think of all the tis Viviana had snapped at other less important staff. Whether it was delivering ssages or speaking to the other managers the woman was always rude.
"Very rude." Aya says. The man lifts his brow already thinking up a way to reprimand his secretary.
"Thank you for telling this Ms. ?"
"Aya, Aya Brown." Aya replies, shaking the hand he holds for her to take.
"Atlas, Atlas Nue." he replies with a dashing smile, Aya's face reddens, blushing from the sight of the man's handso smile and piercing gaze.
"You've got a strong grip, must be from moving this trolley around." he says, grabbing the trolley handle and only barely managing to move it an inch. "A pencil pusher like would probably keel over if I had your job for a day."
"I'm sure that's not true sir." Aya says laughing.
"Please, call Atlas, sir makes feel old!" he whines.
The top floor elevator opens to the sight of the company president and the mail room girl laughing. Viviana can not believe her eyes.
Her beloved president and that commoner scum. She imdiately approaches them, the sound of designer heels clacking on the tiled floor alerts them to Viviana's approach.
"Mr. President," she begins in a sweet tone, recalling her outward display toward Aya had earned her a stern talking to. "You have an 11:00 am eting scheduled with the CEO of Lumos Incorporated." she shows him his schedule to which he nods.
"It was a pleasure eting you again, Aya Brown. Glad it was during a less stressful...situation." Atlas says walking towards his office. Aya packs up the mail ant for his floor and hands it to Vivian who snatches it out of her hand with fury.
"You!" she growls, jabbing a manicured finger into Aya's shoulder. "You think you can just cozy up to the president? No amount of mingling will ever help you crawl out of the bottom where you belong."
Aya folds her arms glaring. It could have been the exhaustion from staying up late to play gas but Aya was short on patience but full of snark.
"And you think you're soone that belongs at the top? You wear nice clothes and pretty shoes but that can't hide an attitude that cos from the dump." Aya spits back. Viviana pauses, processing Aya's words. She stamrs, trying to find a coback with as much acid as Aya's but she can't.
"Have a nice day." Aya says, pulling her trolley back unto the elevator and pushing the button for the ground floor. Viviana watches her, speechless and for a brief mont, Aya could swear the older woman was almost apologetic.
Almost.
"Geez I slay a couple monsters in a ga and suddenly I've got Yvlena's charisma." Aya giggles to herself. She leaves the elevator with her head held high, putting the trolley back in its appropriate place.
Taking a seat she notices her boss was not in the mail room with her, moving over to his desk she picks the newspaper up to read the article she'd seen earlier. Her eyes scan the pages, reading through the article as fast as she can.
The newspaper details the current revenue Moon Valley had attained within a few weeks of its launch hitting more than a hundred thousand players within its first month and surpassing all initial predictions. The ga had not been slow to catch on at all.
Aya nods, impressed by the numbers as well, but that also ant that there were tons of people ahead of her.
"I'm only playing for fun and maybe a little profit." she says to herself.
She continues reading, finding a minor headline about a man who had already made up to 10,000 Lue playing the ga.
"Ten thousand!!! I could buy a one bedroom in this city with that amount of cash! How did he do it?" she continues to read but unfortunately, the article provides no details. After all who would let the secret slip?
"It must be online sowhere, maybe if I investigate I could at least find a start."
"What are you doing at my desk?" the gruff voice of her boss asks.
"Nothing!" Aya squeaks, frantically stuffing the newspaper back unto the desk and then whipping around to face her boss. The man's accusatory expression does nothing to quell her anxieties.
The man sighs returning to his table and lighting another cigarette. He takes a long puff, blowing smoke up in the air. He stares at her, saying nothing.
Nervous beads of sweat form on Aya's forehead, on sensing her unease he waves her off. Aya exhales a breath of relief, she excuses herself, returning to her corner to check her phone and plan her next course of action, within the ga and outside of it.
All in All, she needed a plan.
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