The Chronicles of Dan & Max and the Black Virtual Notebook

Just like that, the living room was empty. The brothers were long gone, leaving behind them nothing but the little black notebook.

30 minutes earlier

“Dan! Behind you!” Max warned his brother of the paintball flying towards him.

Dan immediately ducked, turned around, and fired right back towards his rival. SPLAT! The paintball flew across the battleground and dissolved into pixels of the virtual world.

“Thanks, bro!” Dan shouted back to Max on the opposite side of the battleground, whilst in reality standing opposite each other in their quiet and spacious living room in central London one Sunday morning. This is the closest the 2 brothers have been to human interaction since lockdown started.

They felt energised finally hearing real-life kids giggling around them even though the sound of laughter was coming from block-figured avatars running beneath the fake blue sky. At the end of the day, it was better than nothing.

“Damn it, my headset just died!” moaned Dan.

“It’s not fair! We started playing at the same time, how come yours is still going?” he continued whilst making his way over to the charging station.

Dan is the elder brother, he just turned thirteen. His parents would describe him as the more responsible one of the two whilst he considered himself as the smartest one in the family; taking pride in his passion for history and geography.

He quickly melted into the sofa facing Max who was now jumping and ducking all by himself in the middle of the room.

“You look like an idiot you know,” teased Dan whilst holding back his laughter.

“No need to be bitter bro! It looks like mine is about to die any minute now anyway,” replied Max.

Max is a cheeky fella. Despite being only ten years old, he somehow always managed to get himself into trouble by being too curious for his own good.

What at first appeared to be low battery to Max, quickly turned into something else. The game was glitching, however, it was a type he had never experienced before.

The virtual world before him began to rapidly switch between the paintball game and a blank white space in a matter of seconds. The sound of his teammates giggling was fading into the far distance until finally Max was left with nothing but an empty white room before him and complete and utter silence.

“Alright! I guess this is my sign to stop playing. I can’t seem to get out of here,” shrugged Max.

“Maybe that’s part of the game. Maybe that means you sucked so much that you died and went to heaven,” Dan joked.

Ignoring his remark, Max decided to actually take a look around. After all, he was the curious type. He teleported his avatar around the empty space but there was no end in sight. There were no walls, no ceiling, just an infinite blank room.

Suddenly, he noticed a tiny black speck floating in the far distance.

Within a split second and without a second thought, he was flying his avatar towards it.

“Yo! I found something!” Max exclaimed.

Once he got to it, he froze and stared at the odd sight before him.

It was a little black notebook floating within what appeared to be a translucent globe, spinning steadily.

There were no images on the notebook and no writing. It was a plain black leather cover back to front with a black rubber band traveling across its right side.

Max was itching to find out what could possibly be inside it and why in the world it was inside a globe. His feet and hands filled with impatience. Before he knew it, his curiosity got the best of him.

Using his controllers, Max cautiously slid his virtual arms into the depth of the globe to grab hold of the notebook. With a tight grip and all his strength, resisting the globes force, he managed to pull it right out.

“There, I got it! I found a notebook Dan!” he announced with pride.

Silence.

“Dan! Do you want to come and check this out or what?!” shouted Max.

Silence once again.

Even though at that moment, Dan had already gotten off the couch and was standing before Max in disbelief of what he was witnessing.

Struggling to get a word out, Dan finally stuttered, “Max, you are holding a notebook.”

“I know, I just told you I found one. Do you want to see it?” asked Max.

“I already can! You are literally holding a notebook in the real world. I don’t understand how this is possible!” replied Dan as he placed his hands upon his temples.

Max instantly reached to take off his VR headset but, right before he could do anything Dans’ arms flew up to grab his brother by the hands.

“Wait. Don’t! What if you take it off and it will all disappear?” questioned Dan.

Without either of them saying another word, they slowly lowered their arms.

“Let’s figure this out!” said Dan enthusiastically.

He then pushed out his chest, snapped himself out of his daydreaming state, stood beside his brother, and attentively began to stare at the notebook before him.

Max was the only one who had control over it and able to flick through it, yet, both were able to see its contents from 2 different realities.

Page by page, Max began making his way through the notebook. Every single page appeared to be blank until Dan yelled, “Stop!”

“That’s you! I see you! That is your character in the center of this notebook. Can you see it?” asked Dan.

Max couldn’t.

“Maybe that’s why you are in a white room. Perhaps that means you are in the midst of these white pages. Try to jump!” Dan suggested trying his luck.

Max jumped and to Dans' surprise so did Max’s avatar in the notebook.

"This is insane!” shouted Dan in disbelief.

“No, this isn’t fair! I’m the one in the VR headset and I can’t see anything!” replied Max as he slammed the notebook by his feet out of frustration. Just as he was about to take off his headset, everything around them changed.

In Dans' reality, something out of the ordinary began to happen. Scared for his life, he flung himself across the room to lock the door. Consumed by fear, he pressed his back against the door, held his breath, and shut his eyes. The notebook was unraveling at warp speed that the rustling noise of the paper became unbearable to the ears. The pages continued to unfold and began to cover the whole living room, leaving no space uncovered. It was as though it consumed all the furniture with it.

A few minutes later as the noise finally died down, Dan who was still afraid to exhale, gradually opened his eyes to take a peek. He was absolutely speechless to now find himself submerged within a 3D world map of some sort.

The Colosseum was hanging upside down in the center of what used to be a ceiling. The Great Wall of China was stretched across the room and the Great Pyramids of Giza was casually sticking out of the wall beside him, but in the midst of it all lay the opened notebook. There was a blinding light shining through it as though a portal. Dan did not dare make a move.

Whilst Dan was praying for his life on this side of the world, Max on the other hand was completely oblivious of what had just happened. He was still in his headset and found himself sucked into the translucent globe that was before him and was now spinning rapidly.

Like a whispering echo in his head, he heard the following words:

“Every wonder of the world, had a secret gone untold,

Never seen the light of day, for there is a price to pay,

One who finds them will be rich with the knowledge they can teach,

But be warned before you play, one wrong move and there you’ll stay.”

As if a bird, Max found himself being teleported and briefly levitating around the world.

At each destination, even for those very brief seconds, it felt as though time slowed down and he was somehow witnessing the 7 Wonders of the World being built before him, one by one. Feeling overwhelmed with emotions, he did his very best to remember everything he was seeing.

Just as fast, Max was back in the same white room and once again facing the steady spinning globe in complete silence.

The headset shut off.

Max finally slid it up off of his eyes and became almost paralysed to the sight of the same 7 Wonders of the World that he had just seen but all around the room and his brother completely glued to the door, looking back at him as though he had just seen a ghost.

Silence. Complete silence filled the room. Max shrugged when he came to realise the contents in his left hand. It was a stack of $20,000 with a note upon it, “You’ll need this for later”.

“Well, now that you know what happened here,” Dan broke the silence, “Perhaps you can shed some light as to what in the world it is you saw in there!”

Both brothers were quick to exchange their side of the story and Max recited the riddle he had heard.

"So... let's play?” asked Dan.

They both grabbed their backpacks, packed their VR headsets, and split the cash between them.

Hand in hand and side by side, the brothers stood before the glowing notebook in the center of their living room.

“Let’s play!" Max replied.

With a deep breath, the brothers took a leap of faith and disappeared into the unknown depth of the notebook.

The map folded itself back up just as quickly as it unfolded. The living room was back to normal and the door open once again.

Just like that, the living room was empty. The brothers were long gone, leaving behind them nothing but the little black notebook.