First night on campus

You let out a sigh, flopping down onto your bed. It's been a tiring day: lugging your bags to the train station, with your parents' help, then lugging them from the station to your dorm without such help, as only people attending the university were allowed on the special underground train that lead to the campus.

After going through the whole process of collecting your keys, finding your dorm building, hefting your bags up a couple flights of stairs, getting all of your basics unpacked properly, like your bed sheets and toiletries, as well as setting up your laptop to connect to the internet, you feel about ready to call it a day. There's still a week until your course starts proper, after all.

But, you know, this week also has some importance to it. Fresher's week is the time set aside for all the new students to socialise and get accustomed to life here, after all. And most important of all is the evening of the first night. Even though the official induction isn't until tomorrow, tonight is when friendships are made, and if you skip out on it, you'll be behind socially for the rest of the year.

Although, that thought really doesn't bother you too much. You aren't the most social creature, after all. You're glad you were able to get into a dorm that had single, en-suite rooms; the thought of having to share your bedroom and bathroom, of having no true private space, sounds like a nightmare to you.

Then again, you aren't guaranteed to necessarily keep it. You glance at the rectangular device on your desk, the one you had been given along with your keys. The GAME Tracker, they'd called it. You pick it up, flicking a button on the side to switch it on, and glance at the display.

It's pretty fleshed-out, having five different tabs available: Phone, ID, Wallet, GAME Play, and GAME Stats. The first three are pretty self-explanatory, though it's interesting to have your phone, bank card, and student ID all in one device. You glance at your wallet page, and see that your student loan has come through and been converted successfully, giving you 5,000P to live on for the term. Slightly less than some students would be getting, thanks to your more expensive dorm room, but worth it, you feel.

The other two tabs seem to relate to the mysterious GAME system in place on this campus. The stats page shows figures for GAMEs won and lost, and seems to have the option to open a more detailed GAME history as well, while the play page just shows a list of everyone else in the building, which you guess you use to challenge them.

You sigh again. You aren't too sure what to make of the GAME system they use here. You'd read all about it in the brochure they'd sent you, of course, but you don't really feel like you can appreciate what impact it will have on your life here until you witness it in action first hand. You probably wouldn't have chanced it, if it weren't for the fact that this university had offered you a lower grade requirement to get in, which you had only just managed to meet.

Putting the smartphone-like device away in your pocket, you turn your thoughts back to the issue at hand: to go out tonight, or stay indoors?