35 Indifferent 06

Neo, his name was Neo. They had a pleasant conversation in the morning over breakfast, but Muzzie had to go to school soon. It was also in the Virtual World because it was Tuesday, but Fox had a very real body to feed. He had been in the Virtual World for almost 18 hours and alarms were flashing all over his Heads Up Display.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s not going to fix my anorexia,” he muttered as he waved away several critical hunger warnings. He disconnected, not fully ready to return to a human body.

That was an understatement. The effects of the drugs, mods, or both, hit him all at once. He heaved with nothing to throw up, barely making it into the bathroom as his legs started to fail him.

His parents were already out of the house at this point, the Meta Device hiding the fact if Fox was sleeping or dutifully at school. Little did they realize the MultiPlayer experience that he now had access to. The only thing they bothered to bring up was that he should stop skipping dinner. Not that they had it together as a family anyway.

Fox stopped heaving, used to calming the nausea that hunger pains wrought upon him. He stopped weighing himself after he dipped under 100 pounds, it got too depressing. Better attempt to eat something, a few almonds should do for now.

Returning to the Virtual World was blissful until he realized he couldn’t go to school in full Muzz mods. It’s ok, he and his wallet accounted for this. He had a much more low-key Muzz, in the form of a simple headband with furry ears on it and a tail that could hook onto a belt around his waist. He had paws that he could summon onto his hands when he didn’t have to write, and his shoes now were encased by fluffy feet-paws.

He honestly wasn’t going to get many stares, the school had always encouraged students to get expressive in the Virtual World. When most of the classes they took were focused solely on the Virtual World, it would be far too ironic to suppress one of the main benefits of being virtual.

“Did you have a fun time yesterday?” Carl asked as Fox rounded the corner. Their lockers were close by, a godsend because Fox disliked most of the people who attended the school.

“Holy S**t,” Fox’s tired expression perked up, the server-wide filter muting the bad language, “it was incredible. I don’t think I could explain how much this changes things.”

“Be careful dude. But I totally feel you. School will never do the real thing justice. Well, virtual,” Carl raised his eyebrows at Fox, a wink for the all-too-common pun accentuating his nerdiness. What a chill guy. Fox wonders what shit he has seen or done. Apparently too much, his warnings were always far more serious than his typical attitude.