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Video games were a waste of time and effort. They were the mental equivalent of a bacon-wrapped doughnut: deliciously entertaining for a moment, maybe two, but completely devoid of anything beneficial to the point of being dangerous if indulged in for too long. There was no real strategy required to press a limited number of buttons in the correct sequence in order to achieve victory. The graphics ranged between unrealistic and flat-out bad. The music was loud, tinny, and annoying.

Going to the scarecade Taima's secret vice. It was hardly taboo to visit a place that was meant to attract visitors by way of bright lights and cheerful music, but it wasn't exactly a constructive use of her time, either. It wasn't that Taima had a deep and abiding love for video games--she hadn't played any before coming to Amityville--but the scarecade was full of light and noise and screaming scarelings. Combined with the way the games allowed an individual to zone out completely, it was a perfect place to let herself get overwhelmed, to bury the things that even hours of flight couldn't relieve.

Making others stomp off in frustration as she beat them again and again was also somehow satisfying.

Taima had been visiting the scarecade more often lately since running into someone that laid to rest the question of her sanity, but brought with them a multitude of questions that she desperately wanted--and knew that she shouldn't--pursue. Some days it got to be too frustrating, and the need to disconnect, if only for a little while, was overwhelming.

Today was one such day. Taima walked through the maul with a singular purpose, not even feeling the vague sense of guilt that usually accompanied these little trips, the knowledge that she could be doing something better with her time. She made a beeline for the scarecade, but paused before going in when she caught sight of a ghoul lurking hesitantly near the threshold.

"I hear it works better if you actually go inside," Taima said, not unkindly but rather understanding perfectly; she had felt no small amount of trepidation before going inside her first time, too. "It's okay, the machines don't bite. Well," she amended, "some of them do, but they stop if you bite them back."

Taima was unmoved by puppy-dog eyes in even the best of circumstances. Fortunately, she was always happy to impart knowledge to the curious. "Terra," she repeated, "I'm Taima, and yes, many of the games can be played alone, but I would be happy to show them to you!"

She slowly started for the entrance, fully expecting Terra to follow. "The bright lights and sounds seem to attract the scarelings' attention," Taima replied in response to Terra's question, "and in truth, many of the games are probably designed with scarelings in mind. While the video games aren't quite like skelephones, there is still the potential for interaction--albeit indirectly and through the machine, rather than directly through actual speech." Taima paused, her grin turning rueful. "Stop me if I'm going too fast. It can be a lot to take in the first time."

"That's not a bad analogy," Taima said, "only rather than the potential for victory lying in a player's luck or skill, a video game is limited to a set of preprogrammed moves that are triggered by certain input commands--such as moving the joystick a certain way in combination with pressing a specific series of buttons--" annnnnd Taima had lost Terra. She followed the direction of the other ghoul's gesture, watching as the game was played.

"That's a perfect example!" Taima continued excitedly. "Those ghouls are playing with--or against--each other by stepping in time with the directions that pop up on the screen. They're not communicating directly with each other; they're using the game as an intermediary between them. Rather than interacting with each other, they're more interacting alongside each other. Does that make sense?" This outing was slowly turning into less of an escape and more of a social research project. You could take the ghoul out of the library...

Taima was a little less happy than Terra seemed to be, but she allowed the other ghoul to lead her to the game. It wasn't one that Taima had spent a great deal of time studying for the simple reason that it was laughably predictable: all of the songs had preset steps, with the only variance being in difficulty level. Hardly worth the seeds to play it.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that Taima had never managed to actually finish a round. Graceful and agile as she might be in the air, on land she was just as clumsy as every other teenager who couldn't claim dancing among their talents. "Okay," she said, only a little grudgingly, "but you're paying."

One game would be plenty--more than plenty, even--to demonstrate to Terra how people interacted through video games. Because that's totally what this was. Taima tucked her wings tightly against her back as she stepped onto the platform, silently hoping that at least this time she wouldn't fall off of it. "You might want to pick an easy song," she suggested, "like the ones with only two or three claws next to the names. You know, just until you get the hang of it."

"I think you just..." Taima looked down at the glowing directional squares, experimentally stepping on the one pointing upwards. The selected song changed to something with five claws next to the title, but they would be able to fix that later.

Or they would have, if Taima had been paying attention to the small countdown clock on the screen instead of Terra. "Yeah, when a direction shows up on the screen, you have to step on the corresponding button on the pad when the arrow matches up with the row of arrows on the top of the screen. Sometimes two arrows will show up at the same time, and you have to step on multiple buttons at once--"

"Song selected!" A cheery, artificial voice exclaimed.

Well, crap.

"Step on the buttons when the arrow gets to the top of the screen!" Taima shouted to be heard over the blaring song, her attention torn between the game and the other ghoul--who seemed to be having a good enough time, despite the fact that they were absolutely going to lose. Taima found herself grinning in spite of her distaste for this particular game; it was nice to play it with someone as bad as she was, instead of snot-nosed little scarelings who obviously spent more time in the scarecade than at school.