The Chip

I grabbed the sharp metal sword from the ground as it shone in a way I thought was super cool.

Ok, ok, this is a little out of context, so let's start one week earlier.

It was a good day in 2055 in a society run by chips. Brain chips, sight chips, taste chips, money chips, potato chips, you name it; there’s a chip for everything. I walked down the street in a large yellow sweatshirt, pink pants, and curly black hair, holding water in my hand, scanning the sharp silver buildings and large statues of Meowbi and Barkpi, who were our first evolved animals. Across the street, there was a larger statue. The most evolved chip in the known universe. The reality chip is colored black with many yellow stars.

I proceeded to walk forward towards my high school and saw Shlurp, my friend since elementary school.

“Ay wassup, Dave,” my bro Shlurp says as he daps me up.

“Ay wassup, mi boy,” I say, dapping that boy up in front of my high school, Brainchip High.

I heard the dap as it sounded like it could be heard from 40 miles away.

“Aw, sick.”

I carefully walk up the steps of the high school and meet up with my boys. Bobby, a kid with curly black hair, a yellow short-sleeve shirt, yellow shorts, and golden Crocs; Derpy, a blue-haired kid with a blue short-sleeve shirt and blue shorts; Shlurp, a kid with green hair wearing all green and a straw hat like Luffy; and Sus, a kid with red hair and a light brown sweatshirt. As I enter the classroom, I carefully sit in the nice silver chair. Real ‘noice’. The new teacher had a name tag that said, Mr. Milk. Mr. Milk started to call out attendance.

“Derpy are you - wait, who names their kid Derpy?”

“My parents watched K-pop Demon Hunters,” Derpy answered.

“Ugh, I hate gen gamma children.”

“Ay…Sus? Oh come on, what even are these names?” Mr. Milk yelled with a disgusted look.

“Here. And hey, we’re all children of Gen Alpha, so it’s your generation's fault,” Sus said while drinking water and chewing a taste chip.

Mr. Milk simply frowned and said, “At least we used AI for characters instead of putting those brain chips in our heads.”

“This was an evolution, teacher. You guys made literal brainrots. And it looks like you didn’t install the intelligence chip.” I chuckled with one hand on my forehead as Sus looked at me with a wide grin.

“GRR,” Mr. Milk growled, “EXPELLED, EXPELLED, EXPELLED. EVERYONE IS EXPELLED.”

Shlurp teared up and whimpered, “But it hasn’t even been five minutes, and I need these grades to impress my strict father. He might let me install the virtual reality gaming chip.”

“TOO BAD,” Mr. Milk yelled with his hands over his head.

The entire class just walked out sadly, some tearing, others laughing at the teacher.

“So we’re all expelled now, I guess,” I cried out while walking with the other four boys.

“Hey, cheer up. I can get y’all ice cream,” Sus said with a money chip in hand.

“Really, Sus, thanks,” I said as I cheered up.

On the walk to the ice cream shop, everything around seemed silver or gray, a little boring but beautiful.

Suddenly, everything turned black. And I felt a hand grab my eye.

“Huh. Guys, I guess I dropped my contact chip, sorry,” I said apologetically.

“Erm, you’re not the only one,” Shlurp said.

After that, there was a choir of me too’s until Derpy said, “Ugghh, I don’t wear contact chips, and I also only see black.”

I whimpered, “We might be cooked.”

I soon felt myself get snatched away and put into a moving truck. I felt something nuzzling against my feet, and I said, “AYOO WHAT YOU DOIN’ BOBBY GET OFF.”

“That wasn’t me,” Bobby mumbled.

I could finally see again and saw all the boys.

“Wait, what was nuzzling against my feet then?” I said.

I saw a deformed, slimy baby rabbit with a long lion tail and no fur against my foot.

“Ew, what is that ugly, slimy creature?” Bobby grunted.

A large, shadowy figure appeared in the corner of the van. As he walked closer, I saw an ugly man with slicked-back hair and a red and blue shirt appear.

“I see you’ve noticed my experiment,” he said.

“This guy is super weird and ugly,” Sus said.

The man then fell back in shock and died. I have no idea how that happened.

In a second, the man stood up and morphed into a handsome guy with red slicked back hair wearing all black.

“Ew, this isn’t the matrix. What’s happening?” Derpy said.

“I have no idea,” I answered with a confused face.

The strange man then said, “I made these creatures. My plan is to sell them to super rich zoos and make lots of money off them. And I’m also going to be evil for no reason. Mwahahaha.”

Why is everything so weird today? And did he just say he will be evil for no reason? I’ve seen better plot lines in movies with under 20% rotten tomatoes, I thought.

The man then snapped and the area around us changed into a large battlefield with skulls everywhere. There was blood riddling the floor and all the skulls. The man was now a giant. He had a lion's tail, sharp teeth, and really strong muscles.

He smirked and said, “Beat me if you can.”

Swords and axes spawned all around the battlefield. Derpy turned into a blue tiger, Sus turned into an Among Us imposter, Shlurp turned into a large slushie mascot, I stayed the same, and Bobby… he was still just Bobby.

This is almost like. A VIDEO GAME, I thought. The characters, the weapons. IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

Derpy tried to pick up an axe, but his paws couldn’t grasp anything. Shlurp grabbed a sword from the ground and got a good shot, but was taken out. Each of my friends got taken out one by one. I then saw a golden sword next to me and knew what I had to do.

I grabbed the sharp metal sword from the ground as it shone out in a way I thought was super cool. I jumped up towards the giant and then-

BOOM!!!

The man fell through the floor and disappeared.

Why is this so strange? This isn’t real, I thought.

The battlefield disappeared, and we all stood in a void of black. We looked at each other, then looked back into the void.

“This is weird, bro,” Sus said.

Words in white flashed in the sky, so I carefully read them.

“Error in reality chip. Please remove it. What?”

Sus frowned and yelled, “WHAT. HOW.” Then he coughed loudly.

His cough escalated louder and louder until he spat something out. It was small, black, and had a lot of yellow stars. The world returned to its normal state.

“WHAT!!! THE REALITY CHIP!!!” I yelled.

“It all makes sense,” Derpy said, facing Sus. “You created a new teacher to expel us because you needed a way to start this game of yours.”

“And you were the one who led us to get ice cream so that you could block our vision and get us in the van,” Shlurp said.

“And when you said that guy was ugly, he morphed into a different man because you changed him,” Bobby said with a disgusted look on his face.

“And the taste chip you were chewing in class, that wasn’t a taste chip, was it. I bet it was the reality chip,” I confidently said.

Sus laughed, brushed it off, and said, “Yes, that was all true. But I lowkey did it because I was bored.”

Everybody just laughed and chuckled.

Most people would hold grudges and stop being friends, but we’re different.

“Hey, let’s get back to class; the old teacher is probably back now that that chip is gone,” I said as I smiled.

We all walked back to class, grinning as Sus gave us all taste chips. And the reality chip? We threw it away in the school bathroom. I hope no one gets to it.