Lucky Day [Neku]

She hugged her stuffed black cat close to her chest as she looked up at the dark, starless night sky. Holding Mr. Mew almost always comforted Shiki, but it didn't seem to be working right now. At first, she thought that the hooded figure telling her she couldn't log out was simply a scare tactic that was part of the game - after all, this was the first major title to be released on the newest VR hardware - but as a few hours had gone by and Shiki still wasn't able to exit the game, she had become slightly worried. What would her friends and family think when they realized she was gone? Would they even care? "What about Eri?" Shiki said to herself softly. Without her best friend, she might as well be a non-entity.

Determined not to let herself get too down by the difficulty of her situation, Shiki explored the corners of Traverse Town. Unlike her home of Shibuya, the town was relatively slow; there were very few people outside. Whenever Shiki tried to approach anybody, they gave her a generic response that told her about the mechanics of the game, cluing her in to the fact that they were all NPCs. After messing with them for a little while, Shiki decided to move on to the Second District. Hopefully she would get to actually interact with people there.