Prologue- TSRIZCHRIS
looked away from his computer screen. He didn't quite yet want to press the ‘Multiplayer’ button- maybe after he got ready for a long gaming session. He stepped up from his chair and walked over to the kitchen. Humming to himself, Chris pondered the meaning of life and how it would apply to pizza. Eventually he decided that the meaning of life didn't apply to pizza, but rather the other way around. Having retrieved himself two slices and a beverage, he settled back into his chair and set the plate down beside him.
Now that he had a snack, it would be easier for him to concentrate. He opened up a browser page and picked out a song- he rather liked Living Tombstone’s work, and this one was better than the rest. Chris clicked on his browser bookmark for ‘Fimfiction’ and then pulled up Minecraft once again. Now he hit Multiplayer.
He stopped. Chris looked at the Harmonycraft option. There were several people on. This wasn’t unusual for the number of players online, simply that they were all on at once- the number just sat there unwavering. Usually, even though many people may come on in a day, they would not all be on at once, but rather some on in the morning and some in the evening. They had their lives to attend to, and each would get on in turn, to work around individual schedules.
Now there was an unsettling thought. It occurred to him that all these people he had met and gotten to know online were doing perfectly normal things- living normal lives. These were average people he socialized with. He just sat there, eating ham and pineapple pizza, drinking a mixture of Root Beer and Mountain Dew, reading fan-fics, and listening to Pony music. Chris sat and ruminated upon this awhile.
He was an oddball.
This was the conclusion that he settled upon. He announced it to no-one in particular, but he wondered still why his friends all had time to be on at once today, and what they were doing with their perfectly average schedules- behind the screens. His pixel facade of normalcy was nothing compared to their genuine normality. It was a bit depressing.
In order to see who was online, he pressed Tab.
