Honestly, after my very much undesired early rising, I decided to pull out my laptop. An excellent time killer. Have I mentioned how much I love the endless battery life I enjoy in Equestria? A thousand thanks to the ever brilliant Azure Spark! May all her designs be praised for all eternity!
After setting it up on the pony sized desk, I dithered for the few seconds it took to boot up, unsure if i wanted to play a game or type out a story fragment I was kicking around. With a touch to the fingerprint scanner my desktop popped open, and my eye caught sight of a certain mining corporation logo. I grinned and fumbled for my Xbox controller and headphones. If I was going to be playing a game at oh dark hundred, I might as well play something meant to be played in the dark, Dead Space. One of my favorite horror games. I fumbled with the controller’s USB cable, failing to plug it in on the first try as is customary for any USB device. Seriously, only computer Jedi or Betty White could get that right on the first try.
“Hmmmm, might as well start from the beginning.” I mused as I double clicked the icon with one hand and plugged in the headphones with the other. The steam loading box popped up and I put on the headset, grinning broadly at the wonderfully creepy sounds accompanying the EA logo. Snagging my controller, I settled in for an enjoyable morning.
...
Just as I was about to reset the environmental controls and battle the leviathan in food storage, I heard a knocking on the door behind me. Being immersed a bit to deep into the masterful atmosphere of the game, such a sound in the real world caused me to whip my head towards the door with the spike of fear that blasted down my spine.
“Michael? You up?”, a very much not Ellie voice said.
With a sigh I put a hand over my racing heart. With a deep breath, I set my controller down and slid the headset to rest on my shoulders, “I’m up! Come in Sparks!”
With a click the door opened and the pegasus mare walked in with a yawn, “Morning Mike, I was going to tell y… Oh! What'cha doing?” The mare suddenly perked right up seeing me doing something with my laptop, looking like a mildly bored puppy that someone just offered a bone to. Seriously, I know she is a super intelligent runic engineer, but sometimes she just gets these moments where she looks childishly and criminally cute. Hmmm. Maybe not childish, more like innocent. That look of wonder at seeing something new. Priceless, also known as man kryptonite. Geeze, the cute on this gal. I grinned, a little evilly I admit.
“Hey, Sparky!” I waved casually, then winced as I stretched out my legs from their crossed position. “I woke up a bit early, before sparrow fart early, and decided to play a game while I waited for you to wake up.” I went through a few limited stretches before smiling again, “Want to see?”
With a mild look of confusion she trotted over, “That has games? Like those arcade games? I thought it played music and films. I mean, that’s what you showed me when you first showed me that…uuh laptop?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out my Bose Mini link and prepared to power it up, “Yeah, it does that and a lot of other things, like writing documents for school, work or pleasure. Making music, art, blueprints for machine parts or models. So, work an entertainment in a single unit.” I unplugged the headphones and the soft tones of the creepy music and environmental sound of the Ishimura filled the air. With a press the Bose speaker powered up announcing its connection to my laptop. The slightly robotic voice scared the blue mare enough to pop her wings out a bit, then looked unsettled as the game sounds followed afterwards.
The eerie scraping of the violin accompanied with the metallic creaking of the spaceship seemed to get to her. Flicking her eyes to the screen her eyes went wide, “Holy Horseapples! What are you playing? This is a game? It looks like one of those movies you showed me!”
I snagged the controller and moved the view and character around a bit, “Yep, its a game. It’s called Dead Space, it’s about a mining space ship called the Ishimura and it’s long range communications failed. My character,” I pointed, “and a couple others are a part of an emergency maintenance team sent out fix the problem. I control the actions of that guy. His name is Issac Clark by the way, the most badass engineer you will ever meet.” I settled back down and continued to play for my roomie’s benefit.
She grinned and wagged her tail a bit as she looked closely… then her smile dimmed and her ears laid back a bit, “Uh, I have to say that place looks really creepy, and the music really sells it…”
I smiled a bit more as I reset the oxygen mixing fans. My companion jumped a bit at the garbled robot voice announcing the restoration oxygen levels and the unlocking of the door to food storage. “It’s supposed to be like that, it was considered one of the most atmospherically immersive games in it’s genre.”
“There are Genres? There are enough games for that thing there are genres?” she asked, eyes transfixed to the screen as I activated the door, “What genre is GASP!” Her eyes popped open as she flinched back from the screen. The door opened and the lights in the tunnel came up with the swelling ominous music, showing the glass tunnel and the twisted flesh oozing and pulsing wetly behind it. “Uhh, Miiiike?” the suddenly apprehensive mare prodded me, unable to tear her eyes away from the horrifying scene on the screen, “Tell me … that ...uh that Isn’t…” As I went through the second door and put the antigen into the system, she flinched at the pained roars of the leviathan.
I looked at her with a faux innocent expression, “What’s wrong, Sparky?”
She kept watching the screen like one watches an oncoming car, “What is this!? That was … “ Her jaw dropped as Issac entered the storage area, the dismembered corpses floating in front of the character. “What the HAY! What kind of game is HOLY CELESTIA! WHAT IS THAT?” she yelled as the leviathan awoke with a roar and began attacking my character.
My voice was tense as I focused on the boss battle, “Oh, that’s a Leviathan. It’s a giant monster made out of the animated repurposed flesh and bones of the dead crew.” I answered. The clicking of my controller became more pronounced as the situation made me mash the controls with more force than necessary. A few minutes were spent jumping around and dodging giant, raw, fleshy tentacles while firing my plasma cutter at the glowing weak points. At the conclusion of the battle, and the boss was in the middle of its death cry, I finally looked at Sparks with a relieved smile only for it to dim at the look of horror on her face. “Uh Sparky? You okay?”
She turned to face me slowly, “You play games like that for fun!? Why!?”
I blinked, “Well I do enjoy horror genre games, and this is one that I really liked the mechanics and the story of.” I blinked as she paled.
“You enjoy that?” she gasped, “All that blood and death and…. and...horrors I’ve never even conceived of?”
“Yep,” I answered glibly, “All the above. But I don’t just like horror games you know. They aren’t all like this. There are adventure, empire building, tower defense, puzzle, exploration, FPS, and strategy genre games. Everyone has their own taste, and a lot of companies have developed games across all those genres to appeal to more people. Kind of like the difference between those who enjoy adventure and mystery novels.”
She was just staring at me like she had never seen me before, or was seeing me for the first time. I just smiled innocently back. Then she shook herself like a dog with a few shivers afterwords, “If I have nightmares because of what I just saw I’m dumping ice water on you when you least expect it. Come on, I got breakfast ready while you were playing around in horror-murder-space.”
Author's Note
Thanks for reading my little snippet! I know it's not much, but I figure writing small snippets will help me put together longer stories with actual plot and development. :
This is just one of the fragment's that have been floating around in my brain soup. Seriously, brain soup is better without floaters.
