Through Your eyes - PARZIVAL; ready player one

3

BACKWARDS

F4ith stepped a foot inside her least favorite place in the whole Oasis. Halliday journals. She hated this place, Halliday's life was exposed to everyone, including people who just came here to look for mistakes and make the best out of them.

F4ith walked towards the front desk, the sound of her squeaky boots echoing around the place. She frowned when she noticed that nobody was there. The curator was nowhere to be found.

F4ith waited for a few minutes, but the cutaror didn't appear, so she started looking for him everywhere. F4ith almost threw her shoe at the robot when she saw him. He was with Parzival, showing him the scene, that if Parzival is intelligent enough, would give him the solution to the first key, but he wasn't.

She stared at Parzival, waiting for him to make a move, but he was focused completely on the screen and the scene unfolding in front of him. F4ith snorted when Parzival started quoting Halliday.

"A little obsessive aren't we?" F4ith said.

"Says the one that seems to follow me everywhere" Parzival responded with a glare.

"Oh, don't feel special, I'm not here for you "

"Are we finished?" The curator interrupted.

"I was looking for you, but since you're busy I'll come back another time." F4ith told the curator. She felt something inside her, that told her she should give a little clue to Parzival. She turned to Parzival and he was still paying attention to the screen.

"Are you done? I'm trying to focus here."

"Oh, Parzival, you seem like you've watched this scene a bunch of times, and you're way too stupid to figure things out. Let me tell you something that perhaps you might find helpful some day. You are the kind of person that always seems to go forwards, maybe it's time to go backwards." Parzival stared at F4ith, appalled. He had no idea, how to interpret her comment. What was she talking about? She called him stupid.

With that being said. F4ith left, and the curator once again asked Parzival if he was finished.

"Yeah, we're finished" he mumbled.

"Fine" the curator said, but the scene stayed there still reproducing.

"Why can't we go backwards for once? Backwards. Really fast, fast as we can. Really put the pedal of metal, y'know"

"Go back ten seconds!" Parzival screamed, running towards the screen, again.

The curator rewinded the scene again, and Persoval felt like a bucket of cold water just fell on him. That was the answer. Go backwards. He felt shivers down his spine, when he realized that F4ith told him the same thing. How did she know this?

***

F4ith waited for Parzival to show up, her patience running low. Until the trumpets started to make music, and the DeLorean appeared at the same time. She gaged at the music, it was horrible, she told Halliday not to use that music, but just to annoy her even more, he left it.

Parzival got out of his car. Admiring everything around him. He made it, he really did. He was the first avatar to finish the race, and it was so easy.

Suddenly, he gasped when he saw Anorak himself appear in front of him.

F4ith watched as Anorak gave Parzival a speech or something. She waited for Anorak to give Parzival the key.

F4ith started clapping, with a smirk on her face. She tried to jump the fence with style, but failed miserably and fell.

Parzival noticed her presence and he felt his heart pumping like an animal against his chest. What was she doing here?