"Ugh!"
With a sigh, I looked down at the muddy mess of mud and snow beneath my shoes.
I could already feel my feet beginning to freeze as my socks became waterlogged.
If the weather reports had said anything about snowfall beginning so soon I would have worn more practical footwear!
Remind me again
, I thought,
but just why the hell do we go to the lake house every year for winter
?
I hauled my baggage out of the trunk grudgingly, then reached into the backseat of the car for my precious cargo; my laptop.
Anything in my bags could burn in hell for all I cared as long as my mechanical conduit to the online world remained intact.
I clutched it to my chest as I began the tedious walk up the path to the family lake house which was nestled nicely into the mountainside, overlooking the great lake below.
I trudged through the snow, mumbling curses under my breath.
It was bad enough that even in my final year at college I was still being forced to make it to these family gatherings, but why did it always have to be here?
Sigh*.
As I followed the muddy pathway up to the house, I was in an especially rotten mood.
Usually the long drive up to the lake house for our annual family getaway alone was enough to piss me off.
I mean, this was precious down time from school that I could spend playing my favorite games!
Who the hell really would really want to come up to some stupid secluded house in the freezing cold anyway?
Especially when the scenery looks
just
as good at 4k resolution and a steady 100 fps framerate!
Of course I'm kidding.
4K resolution?
100FPS?
That was infinitely better than real life.
Just thinking about it now, I couldn't wait to get to my room where I could get set up and logged in to
Fantasy Realm
again.
My little laptop couldn't hold a candle to my gaming rig, but I'd accepted for some time now that it was not practical to move that mechanical monster the 200 miles from my university apartment to this place.
But that doesn't matter now, as long as I had
some
means of getting online I'd make it work... even if it meant that I'd have to lower the graphical settings to do so.
I cringed at the thought.
"Breathe, Kev. Breathe. You'll make it."
"Struggling to get up one teeny weenie little hill?"
Ahh!*
I shrieked, almost throwing my travel bag to the ground (not even a scare would make me take a hand off my laptop bag), as the words came whispered creepily right into my ear from behind me.
I spun around angrily to grab the offending party, when the little bugger dashed past me while giggling wildly.
"Catch me if you can, little brooo!"
"I'm your big brother moron!"
Just where the hell did she come from anyway?
"Besides, I wasn't talking about the hill, idiot, I meant this ridiculous stupid trip!"
"Aww, don't be like that. I mean you
are
getting to see your one and only super special ~awesome~ little sister!"
I tried to kick some snow at her as she came charging in at me again in a gleeful fit of giggles, but only succeeded in kicking up mud and slosh onto myself to her further delight.
"Ugh! When are you
ever
going to grow up!?"
Every. Single. Year.
My little sister Allie made my life here a living hell.
When we were little we were inseparable, but somewhere along the way she became a wildly precocious insolent little brat intent on dedicating every waking second to my torment.
If she wasn't so
unbearably
annoying I might even be impressed by how dedicated she was to making me miserable.
But now she was almost nineteen, and had absolutely no excuse for her continued childish shenanigans.
I mean, seriously. Didn't she have anything better to do at this age?
I banged on the door as I got up the steps to the house, tightening my grip on my laptop bag as I did.
"Mo-om! Allie won't let me in and my hands are full!"
"Just put the bags down, genius."
I watched her with a scowl.
She was smiling innocently, and I was sure she was up to something.
Besides, I knew better than to let my guard down around her.
One false move and she'd be off with my clothes tossing it down the snowy hillside and leaving me with nothing to wear for the next two weeks.
The door swung open while I was still banging on it, keeping my eyes firmly on Allie.
"Whoah there son, no need to go all Viking on us."
"It's all those video games, dad. I told you it would make him violent."
I entered the house with a scowl, but dad still had a big smile on his face.
"Now now Allie, you promised you'd be nicer to your brother this year."
Dad merely chuckled as Allie hopped about, just out of my reach, like a wild animal waiting for the right moment to pounce.
"Why don't you help your brother get your things upstairs? Your Mom and I are almost done getting dinner ready."
"She is
not
touching my stuff."
"Why not. You hiding something in there? Couldn't be weirder than that tentacle porn magazine I found in your bedroom."
"Argh!"
I almost dropped my bags again as I lunged at her.
"That's
not
true!"
"Ahahaha. You kids are precious. It's okay, Kev. You know we don't judge anyone for their preferences in this household," my dad said as he walked off to join mom in the kitchen.
"Wha- hey, it's not like that, I really don't have anything like tha- h-hey!"
Allie, halfway up the half-spiral staircase, wrapped her scarf about herself and clutched onto the banister, putting on a show as if she was being dragged away by some tentacle monster against her will, and moaning as if being violated in the process.
"You bitch!" I cursed under my breath as I scrambled up the stairs with my baggage in chase, but in vain.
The sound of her laughter faded as she bolted up the stairs, down the hall and around the corridor to the relative safety of her room.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard her door slam shut.
I quickly made my way down the corridor, and as soon as I got to my own room, I shut the door and locked it for good measure.
"Finally," I muttered under my breath.
She always found
some
way to torment me, and make my stay here that much more hellish than it needed to be.
It was bad enough I would be stranded for
two
precious weeks of vacation time where I was forced to play from my laptop rather than my usual gaming setup.
But all was not lost.
At least we had good Wi-Fi out here.
Since I had left home for college, mom and dad had been spending much more time out at the lake house, so to keep up with work and such they'd upgraded the Wi-Fi here.
Thank god
, or else I'd have to play on 5mbps broadband like some sort of
savage
!
I quickly unpacked my belongings and began setting up my computer.
Ah*.
Luckily my parents did design this room to accommodate me, so I had a pretty good Tv set in here to use as an external display.