She looked in.

The window opened up on another world, a place she had never seen... She looked in, and fell into it's depths.
She was lying in what she knew to be a forest, having seen pictures of them in their last days. The leaves above swayed gently in the breeze, turning the ground into a great pattern of filtered sunlight. Flowers blossomed all around her, filling the air with a perfume that didn't seem quite right. Somehow, it was fake. A scent like something you might spray from a bottle.
Ignoring this flaw, she got up from the leaf litter she had been lying on, and watched as a four-legged creature stepped daintily towards her. Deer, she thought, and stroked its velvety nose. Birds tittered in the trees above, their melodic calls awing her.
She had never heard birds before.
The deer walked away, then glanced back, as if willing her to follow. Its soulful brown eyes appeared slightly glassy, but that didn't matter. She strode after it, following along twisting forest paths. Eventually it stopped before a bubbling stream. The water was clear and pure, and the sound of it rushing over the rocky bed was like millions of tiny bells. Wrong, said a voice in her head, but once again she ignored it.
Small fish darted toward her as she stepped into the stream's depths, tickling her bare feet. The deer bent its head and drank, and she had a sudden urge to do the same. But she couldn't, she knew she couldn't. If she did she would be thrust away from this place, and she didn't have enough money to return.
The world around her had already begun to darken and disappear. She sighed, annoyed. Surely it hadn't been fifteen minutes already?
"I'm sorry." Said a metallic voice from above, "Your session is over."
The Virtual Reality booth materialized around her. She pulled off the VR goggles, and stepped out into the world of plastic and metal. The world where there were no forests, no birds, no deer, left. She exited the Arcade and looked up at the sky, comparing the swirling darkness to the bright blue of the fake forest. Had it really been like that, all those years ago? Or was it, like the Politicians said, all just a tale told to make the human race seem evil?
She supposed that she would never know.

Exercise.

Black... White... Light... Dark...

The colours of the battlefield that is never stained with blood. I await the orders of my King as I glare over at the opposition.

There, opposite me, they make their first move. A white man moves forwards two steps, at the ready. I come up to meet him, and there we stand. Both unable to attack the other, each immovable in an eternal stand-off until the other either moves, or is killed. A white horseman jumps over his fellow man, threatening attack. I am tempted to run, but I am loyal. I will never turn back. Another knight comes forward, one of ours, to protect me. I nod at him, thankful, and he grins back, eyes full of blood-lust.
Out comes one of the white kings advisers, his bishop, ready for action. He is so close, I want to attack him, but I know my sword will not reach.

And so the arrangement of the troops continue, like a dance. One is threatened, the other defends, and so on. Until, finally, in a clash of weaponry, a bishop kills the knight that once defended me. One of my fellow infantry immediately avenges him, but I am no longer defended! And then I am dragged off the field, while the white night takes my place. And all is darkness...

"Ha!" Comes a voice at the edge of my consciousness. "I'm up a pawn!"

Pawn? What on earth is that supposed to mean?