The game of their lives

One particularly lonely boring weekend, Camila was at her house, she was alone again, as it has been happening for the entire last year. Her husband has been out of town pretty much the entire year, he has been working a lot and usually goes out of town for two, three or even four weeks at a time, to then return on Saturday afternoon, stay the day, to then go out again next Sunday morning. Her husband is out of town now, on a four week trip to another company subsidiary, so, this is weekend number one, and she feels the emptiness deep inside her. She has been feeling so unhappy for quite some time now, but she refuses to accept it, at least out loud, the fact that she is in second place in her husband’s priorities breaks her heart, his job comes first, always first. She was bored and started scrolling down through f******k. Today she saw for the umpteenth time a small clip promoting a mobile phone game. She got annoyed and decided to install the freaking game to see if that makes the clip stop appearing. She started playing and realized that the game was way different from what she expected. She knows the farming type of games, and she thought it would be something similar, something that you play along and grow things within time. To her surprise the game was much more than that, and quite different, way to different. She was struggling with the game due to her lack of experience in battling type of games. A couple of days passed, and she figured that she needed to apply to a group of people called guild, because several game features did not work if she was not part of one. She clicked the guild search button, and several recommendations were displayed there. She reviewed the list and decided to apply to three guilds. She continued playing and an email arrived. She checked the email, and it was an acceptance letter, she realized that she was now part of a guild called The Seven Seas Family (7SF) that has fifty four guild members. ‘Great!' she thought. The language of the guild was listed as English and people from every nationality were welcomed. ‘This will be interesting!' She said and then she wrote on the guild chat. Kam5: ‘Hi everybody’ But no one said anything on the public chat, she thought, ‘That’s weird, no one talks’ but she didn't mind though and just wrote Kam5: I am a woman from Mexico, thanks for accepting me. Then someone answered her. MathLover: Hey there, nice to meet you, I am Math Kam5: Hi Math, nice to meet you too ;) (wink emoji) Kam5: Where are you from? MathLover: I live in California Kam5: That’s great, how is the weather over there? MathLover: Pretty nice right now, what about you? Kam5: Right now, we are in fireballs falling from the sky season :P (sticking out his tongue emoji) MathLover: You are funny Kam5: Thanks ;) (wink emoji) MathLover: I will do some other stuff if you need anything let me know Kam Kam5: Oh wow, great, thanks a lot, I have never played a game like this before MathLover: Let me know any doubt or whatever you need Kam5: You are such a sweetheart, I appreciate it a lot :* (kiss emoji) MathLover: See you around As Kam is quite chatty, she found that game feature really interesting. Later on, she learnt how the guild was organized and also Math, her guild mate, explained to her the rankings, in another interaction they had. The guild rankings are: Top rank (R1): General - KindKiller Second rank (R2): Lieutenant - Hattori Third rank (R3): Major Fourth rank (R4): Captain Last rank (R5): Private She was accepted by the only Lieutenant of the guild. His nickname is Hattori. He is stern and not chatty at all, the complete opposite from her. He sometimes comes off like rude, at least she had read how he often answered other guild mates’ questions on the public chat. She thanked him for accepting her and he just texted ‘NP’ which she thought probably meant ‘no problem’. She asked him on the chat, about a specific feature from the game she did not understand, and that she has been trying to figure it out for several days now, most of the guild consider Hattori as an expert, he just told her ‘google it’. She thought he was a bit harsh, but she googled her doubt anyway. She learnt a lot by googling the game, she was surprised by how much information about it was on the internet. As she realized already, this is another type of game, the game community is quite large and even when she thought Hattori was not a nice person, his advice actually ended up being really helpful for her. Other guild mates started being nicer and chattier to her. When someone told her ‘hi’, she always greeted back. She usually asks about their real names or how they like to be called, how old they are, where they live, from where they are, what type of job they do, etc, as much information as they want to tell on the chat. She always shares her basic personal information, obviously never sharing contact information, but she is not that secretive as some other people are. She shares her real name, that is pretty much related to her nickname, that she is a Mexican female and an engineer. She believes it is better to call a person by their real name than by a weird or exotic nickname some people have. *********** Some time passed and after all she was happy in this guild, several players talked to her and they laughed and joked a little, or they talked about their daily life, asked her about her daily life, work, so she has been feeling great at the guild and not that alone. One day the General, KindKiller, asked her to install an external chat app, so she could be part of their chat room there, it was an easier way to communicate, and also could be a more private way to talk. She installed the app and told him about her username for the app through the public chat screen. He immediately added her to a closed chat group called ‘R1 & R2’. She was surprised because that title meant they were all generals and lieutenants in that chat and she has a private rank, she was an R5, the lowest rank on the game. There were KindKiller and Hattori from their guild but also several people from other guilds that she hadn't met. So, it looks like they have been playing the game for quite some time and they have alliances and plans developing that most of the guild people were unaware of. She kept silent just reading the conversation unfolding in the chat room. Hattori took a leading role in most parts of the conversation, and he even joked with most of them. She was so amazed about participating in a top rank discussion, not sure how she ended up there, she was relatively new, she has been playing only for three weeks now and some of them have been playing for months and some even almost a year, which meant some of them started playing from the official game start. As she just learnt in that high rank discussion most of them have played other similar games, so most of them knew the important things they must all do in order to grow and to develop the guilds. She was actually surprised by what just happened, she was so amazed and also in shock by that weird event. The high rank chat ended, and Kam returned to the game. A notification in bold italic letters popped on the guild public chat ‘KindKiller has promoted Kam5 as a Major’ Several guys texted her ‘Congratulations’ and she felt so happy, she sent heart eyes emojis to everybody that congratulated her and thanked Killer for the promotion. Kam5: Thanks a lot Killer KindKiller: Thanks to you for being a great member Kam5: I haven’t done anything special KindKiller: You brought life to the guild chat, the chat was pretty much dead before you arrived Kam5: Well, I am a chatty person, what can I say? KindKiller: This was a great suggestion Hattori gave me, I am glad he did it Kam5: Hattori suggested my promotion? KindKiller: Yes, honestly, it was his idea Kam5: Hattori, Thanks man, I appreciate it Hattori: NP Kam5: ;D MathLover: Do you want to rally to celebrate? Kam5: Hell yeah! Hattori: Math, do you start? MathLover: Hattori, you have a bigger War congress than me, could you start? Hattori: Yep