Literature Device Short Story

Ring! Ding! Ring! Nick groaned and whacked his alarm clock to turn it off. Nick’s bed was as old as the soil his house was built on, and it creaked and squeaked as he struggled to get out. He did not want to to go school today. Little did he know, his day was going to get much, much more exciting. But for now, all he is is a scrawny 14-year old named Nick Bosh trying to get through freshman year. And the most exciting thing of the day right now was finding clothes to wear. Nick looked around his messy room, with comic books scattered everywhere. He would absolutely love to read those books, if only he had the time. Life wasn’t very exciting for Nick, so you could imagine what he might think of books filled with humans with extraordinary powers.

“Nicky! Wake up!” a feminine voice called from across the hallway that connected all the bedrooms together.

“I’m already up, mom!” Nick replied. He absolutely hated being called Nicky. He peeked out of his window and looked outside to see what the weather was like. Because of where his room was, he could see the road and sidewalk from his widow. As usual in Miami, it was blazing hot. The Sun was shining bright, and the trees were dancing to the song that warm breeze sang. This city was truly beautiful, especially at night. All the lights from building would be shining, the palm trees waving in the wind, and ocean would just be perfect. You could lay down a towel on the beach and just smell the fresh salt in the air and feel the soft sand in your feet. Oh, how amazing that would be.......

Nick shook his head, breaking free of the trance he just put himself in. He didn’t have time to think about such luxuries. His schedule for the rest of the year is as follows: Wake up, eat, go to school, go home, eat, homework, sleep. The next day: Wake up, eat, go to school, go home, eat, homework, sleep. And you wouldn’t what the day would have in store: Wake up, eat, go to school, go home, eat, homework, sleep. No time for hanging out with friends, even if he did have any, and if he did any sports, he would have no time to participate with the constant homework. So as you could guess, he was a little busy at times. He pondered how his day was going to go as he ate his bland breakfast of soggy cheerios. His most favorite class was STEM, and he heard that a new addition was being made, but it was a surprise. Luckily, for him, STEM was Nick’s second class, right after gym, so he would be seeing the new part of the class first.

Gym went by in a blur. In this class they were playing soccer, and like most team sports, Nick didn’t get passed to at all the whole time, so most of his time was spent running around the field and waving his arms around to get passed to. He must’ve been just another blade of grass to his teammates, because everyone just went right past him without even a second glance. However, Nick couldn’t care less of participating in the meaningless game, because he was looking forward to whatever was going to happen next period in STEM. Eventually gym was over, and Nick was the first to change back into his regular clothes and get to class. Whatever the new thing was, it was going to be presented in the library. He quickly took a seat and waited for their teacher to introduce the new addition. He already noticed that tape square was laid out on the floor, with some kind of cameras on a pole each.  Once the bell rang, the teacher rolled out a big object covered in a big cloth. Once everyone quieted down, he started talking.

“Class, what I’m about show you will blow your mind”

Nick loved their teacher, Mr. Williams. He was great at introductions.

“This is the the future of technology, and what will shape everything you do forever.”

Mr. Williams threw off the cover and under it was a stand with a weird looking headset with two handles next to it.

“ This is called VR. It stands for virtual reality. Basically, it puts you inside some kind of video game in a first person view. With the game we will be trying today, you’ll feel like some sort of...... superhero. There are many different kinds of VR, but the one we get to have is called the Oculus Touch”

At this point, Nick’s heart was beating out of his chest. He had heard of the Oculus, and the amazing things it could do. The idea of playing a game where you’re the superhero main character sounded amazing to him, even when he was staring at a computer doing it. With this virtual reality, he could literally be looking through the same eyes as the hero.

“So..... who would like to go first?”

Immediately, Nick shot his hand up. Mr. Williams beamed at him. He loved Nick’s enthusiasm and noticed his hand shooting up before anyone else's.

“For his great enthusiasm, Nick gets to go first!”

Nick shot out of his chair and towards the headset. It took all of his strength not to just take it and put it on now. With the teacher’s instruction, he put his hands through the safety loop of the handles. He noticed that they had a series of buttons on them. Once Nick got in the middle of the tape square with camera’s all around, Mr. Williams turned on the computer and told Nick to put the headset on. When he did, his world completely changed.

The name of the game was called Super Hot. In this game, you have to take down a certain amount of bad guys. ALl of the characters in the game were kind of like 3D stick figures. But there is an awesome quirk to the game; time moves only when your character moves. By using this game mechanic, Nick could dodge bullets and grab weapons out of the air to use against his enemies. For the short amount of time that he played, Nick felt like an actual superhero. Sadly his turn was over in 10 minutes. After he took his headset off, Nick only had one question left.

“When can I go again?”