[ WP ] It suddenly becomes possible to gain XP and level up in the real world , but you can only do so by getting kills .

Human history has told us we kill because of hate, because of differences, that we fire on our kind for peace or some high-minded goal. We've always held each other at gunpoint, whether literal or behind two large maps of the world with blinking lights. Today, we come to know that as peace, but before the words that passed those lips were stalemate. There was no difference between the two back then, but now we've forged one. Out of sheer necessity. 
 
 You see, peacetime is only a construct that exists because of war. Peace was a forgotten definition until the night of November eleventh, two-thousand and fifteen. See, that very night, the world seemed to tick over into another dimension, without even realising. Something cosmic happened, is all I can describe it as. The veil was lifted, some would say, the rules were changed. Murderers, told they were spurned forward by some sense of progress, continued. Serials grew larger, populations shrunk. 
 
 People became aware of what it meant to kill. What it meant to harvest someone's flesh for your own material gain. It was for some reason, some galactic hiccup that launched a bubble into the quaint stream of time, that all our realisations came at the same time. 
 
 I nursed the revolver in my hand, wiping the debris off the badges one by one. They were little pins, clips that the first shot had walked in with, claiming they gave him power. `` Goddamnit, Wes, they're just pins,'' is what my mother had said, and what I said now to the morning breeze. I was still in my own home, a high vantage point in the shape of an upstate apartment. It was just me now, though. I'd collected their things, whatever offerings to the game they had. Each one was different, marking an individual for who they were, they were the modern passports. We called them pins. 
 
 Down there in the streets the thugs bashed at each other with upended signposts, shielding themselves with trashlids and broken hubcaps, caved in one side. 
 
 I winced as a mailbox came crashing down on a girl's head. Her arms went limp immediately. 
 
 I ducked, shuriken shot over me and cracked the window. The breeze greeted me, as did she, `` Pins, love.'' Two words, usually it was one when you met someone new, but this time the gangs were feeling especially nice. 
 
 I had to think of something witty, otherwise it was all for naught, `` You'll have to pry them off me.'' Well crap, there goes that opportunity. Screams and shouts from below welcome my fate if I choose to jump. `` Oh boy,'' I swerved and flung the revolver out, finger wrestling the trigger. 
 
 She was gone. I stood up, my eyes browsing the wooden panelling along the condo's pillars. A flash of pink, and I fired. Straight from the hip. I'd like to think of myself as a sharpshooter from the old west, but my aim disagreed. `` Fuck,'' I cursed as my flatscreen heaved with a mighty groan and crashed onto the floor. It took my Eastwood movies with it, like a wall of dominoes coming down. 
 
 `` Nice aim,'' she said, from somewhere to my left. Another shot, and a kettle blew steam. I'd like to think it was good I was hitting something, at least. A long, drawn out chuckle, with the sound of bubbles somewhere in her throat. `` How did you survive this long?'' 
 
 Oh this was a good opportunity. `` Because I know the truth, little girl.'' 
 
 `` Little girl?'' She brought up her huge pigtails, coloured pink for some odd reason. Then she ducked as a painting on the far wall decided it had had enough with hanging. 
 
 `` Yes, all this X.P nonsense that's been going around,'' 
 
 She hefted herself up again, arms somewhat shaking from the adrenalin. `` What, that the government made it up? Or is it a-'' and ducked, there goes my favourite mug, `` biological weapon?'' My arm recoiled, my second favourite mug. 
 
 `` Actually my favourite conspiracy was the one guy who thought we were all in an insane asylum, and the only way free was killing each other.'' 
 
 `` Right,'' a pursed-lipped whackamole, `` You do realise that he killed everyone else in his litle cult and got away with a mountain of pins?'' 
 
 `` Yep.'' No one understood the beauty of that one. `` But really, that's not the truth.'' 
 
 `` And what is?'' she jumped back up, straight into the path of a bullet. 
 
 `` Finally,'' I said, lowering my arms as the bullet travelled through her nose. She coughed and screamed for a moment, nothing that would n't be masked by the bloody war down below. My aim was true, she was still alive. It was not a fluke. Not at all. `` The truth, little girl, is that you just have to believe.'' I jumped over the kitchen counter, nicking the back of my pants on the sharp corner. Damn, it is hard to find a tailour. Sliding across the marble, I landed right beside her with a thump, like we were two peas in a pod, hiding from the gunmen that had just stormed our inn. 
 
 But no, it was n't that. I pressed the barrel to her forehead, and whispered. `` It is n't that we get X.P from killing, pinhead. It's that we've just realised we do.'' She was grinning, because there were footsteps from the stairwell. She was only a scout, it seemed. It was nice that people could band together in times of trouble. `` They're here, are n't they?'' She nodded. 
 
 All throughout human history, I told myself as the slug entered her frontal lobe, causing her last few words to be a jumble of forgotten tongues, we've killed each other. We told ourselves it was something high-minded, or something important. That we fought for causes, that we fought for something real, no matter how intangible. 
 
 I stood up from behind the counter, wearing my secondhand blazer across myself like a poncho. If it was my last stand, I would like to go out in style. The truth, at the end of the day was, we killed everyone for X.P. All the damn time, it should n't have taken us this long to realise it. 
 
 I aimed straight at the loosened doorframe, hand on the hammer. To those who say that's impossible, human technology and progress has been in leaps and bounds because of the abolition and denial of such horrible things. 
 
 But to that, I say, with my pistol in my hand: How did you think we got that far?
