Chapter 8: Fake lore

Parker sits on the couch awkwardly as Tim’s mother, a very young-looking woman with red lipstick, moves around the house in her office clothes.

Tim inherited her sandy blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. She could be mistaken as a model by anyone. Mrs. Lane is beautiful and has a body that is extremely attractive. Parker gulps as she bends forward in a rushed attempt to clean up the house.

"I wake up to leave for work early and Tim never helps. We live so close to the university, yet he doesn’t offer assistance with chores" Mrs. Lane complains. The woman puts her hair in a ponytail and gives Parker a kind smile that makes him choke on his own saliva.

"You boys can go hang out upstairs while I make dinner" she says and Tim jumps off the couch.

"Sure mom, I’ll give Parker a tour of our home" he says and Parker nods to hide the fact that he has been staring.

"Thank you for having me Mrs. Lane" he says in an estranged voice.

"Oh, please call me Suzy" she waves pleasantly and Parker nods again before going with Tim to the grand staircase.

Tim didn’t look like it while they were at the university earlier, but his family is rich. Not just rich, buy extremely wealthy. The Lane family house is a big one with a nice chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Parker has only ever seen those types of things in movies.

The two young men walk down the hall and Parker’s observant eyes find a family portrait hanging on the wall. It displayed a man who looks old enough to be Mrs. Lane’s father, Mrs. Lane herself—and a very young Tim.

"Your grandfather?" Parker asks, jerking his thumb towards the picture and Tim lets out a good-natured laughter. "Of course not! That’s my dad" he says.

"Woah...he looks pretty old" Parker says with no filter and Tim joins him in looking at the picture.

"I was nine in this picture" the other guy says and pushes up his glasses with his index finger. Something was unsettling about the image. It looked like a normal family portrait, but the emblem of a strange seal on Tim’s father’s shirt seemed like something out of an eerie movie.

"What’s that?" Parker asks and points at the picture. "A fake lore" Tim says plainly.

"A fake...huh?"

"Come on to my room, I’ll tell you all about it. I’m so excited, I have so much to show you and I have no friends" Tim says while buzzing with excitement and pulling on Parker’s hand. Parker lets the guy drag up the stairs.

Tim’s room is a gamer’s paradise. A cool neon green gaming PC is on an expensive desk. There is a console in the corner that makes Parker’s jaw drop. There are posters of different E-sports and video games ranging from LoL to CoD. The rest of the wall is covered in a cyberpunk cityscape wallpaper.

"Woah..." Parker hears himself whisper before he can stop it. Everything looks like they came from the future. Did he regress to twenty-three years ago or did twenty-three years ago move forward instead?

Parker wasn’t a gamer himself, but it was a pleasant shock to see the insanely cool setup.

Tim grins nervously and shoves his hands into his front pockets. "You see, my dad is a game company CEO, so my life is surrounded by games" he says and Parker’s lips form an O.

"Oh...is that what you meant by fake lore?" he asks curiously and Tim nods eagerly.

"Dad is working on this sick game where celestial beings help humans do crazy tasks"

"Like what?"

"Like reliving their lives through the game and making plenty of choices. It’s fun because each person gets a demon or an angel or a mythical creature to support them" Tim explains and Parker listens with fascination. It sounds a lot like something Parker would enjoy to see. It already feels somewhat similar to his experience, except he has a system and not a demon.

"So the fake lore my dad created for the game assigns a cool demon to a gamer, it goes crazy. At times, it feels like the seal sucks you into the realm" Tim chuckles like he’s having so much fun explaining.

Parker wishes he had something as impressive as this in his life. The only thing he has is a dad who cares about gambling their family money away and a mom who works tirelessly.

"They said the future is going to be advanced; I can’t wait to play the games like I’m really in the world with the game characters" Tim continues to yap and Parker nods cautiously. It sounds interesting.

After eyeing the room up for a few more minutes, Parker finds himself wishing his system would let him play at least one of the games to win a point or something.

"Boys?" Suzy peeks into the room with a pleasant smile on her face.

"Yes, mom?" Tim responds and Parker clears his throat; he’s again reminded of how gorgeous his new friend’s mom is.

[System: yeah...keep ogling a wealthy man’s wife.]

Parker clears his throat again in embarrassment and Suzy looks at him with concern. "Are you okay? Do you have a cold? Come on, I have some cough remedy in the kitchen" she beckons.

"Come on, chop chop, boys" Suzy says and leaves the door.

"Your mom is awfully nice" Parker says to Tim and his friend smiles with pride.

"Thanks, can you believe she’s forty-two? She had me pretty young, but she stays forever young."

They walk down to the dining room, and the closer they get, the more the delicious smell of a feast wafts towards Parker’s nose.

[System: go crazy and devour BUT make sure you eat light enough to be functional at midnight.]

"Huh?" Parker asks with a saliva-filled mouth.

"Did you say something?" Tim asks and Parker shakes his head.

Ugh.

Just great; he gets to eat the best meal of his entire life and suddenly he has to eat light enough to be able to wake up at midnight. Isn’t that cool? In case it wasn’t obvious...his question was meant to be sarcastic.

[System: your attempt at sarcasm is embarrassing. Never do it again.]

’Whatever’ Parker thinks to himself.