Trapped in a Game Pt. 01

I was supposed to take them nightly to regularize my sleeping pattern, but instead of taking them as prescribed I saved them for the nights when I really needed a quick route to unconsciousness.

Like right now.

With a heavy sigh I shook one pill from the bottle, then after thinking about it for a moment or two, I shook another one out.

I looked around my bedside for my water bottle, but it was empty, so I shut my eyes tight and swallowed them dry, cringing as the bitter taste hit my tongue.

The demons were already whispering, and I was desperate to shut them out.

I rolled over and grabbed a pillow, searching my mind trying to find anywhere else to be while I waited for the pills to take effect.

Why was I like this?

Why did it turn out like this?

The questions would go on all night if left unchecked, but my meds were nothing if not effective, and it wasn't too long before my double dose came into effect.

When I woke up, it was cold but a curious feeling of warmth seemed to wrap me in a comforting way that I could not describe.

"Tracey..." I muttered absently, before shaking my head.

No.

Definitely not.

There was only one person who could make me feel warm like this.

Kelly.

I rolled over, and like a dream, she was there.

Strands of her blonde hair moved across her silky soft cheeks as little wisps of air came out with each, soft little breath.

She always slept like an angel, so peaceful and serene.

Watching her sleep used to bring me such an unreal sense of ease, but now I could only wonder how such a perfect beautiful creature could even share the same genes with someone as wretched as me.

I brushed the little strands of hair from her face, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

"I love you," I whispered, softly and sweetly to the precious dream that I didn't even deserve, but as her eyelids fluttered awake, she looked at me with a cranky little smile.

"I love you too," she whispered, before shuffling over to me, and pulling my arms about her.

"This is a nice dream," I whispered absently, and she giggled.

"Is it now? Hey, Josh, what kind of dream is this exactly? You weren't having your way with me, were you?" she winked at me teasingly.

I blinked stupidly at the question, and tried to take stock of the situation.

This... was a dream, right?

Kelly couldn't be...

But she had that goofy smile on her face and it erased any remaining doubt.

I put my hands over my face in embarrassment.

"Oh God, how the hell did you get here?"

"Well now, someone wasn't answering their phone no matter how many times I called since last night, and when I got here you weren't answering the door either. So I let myself in," she replied with a 'isn't that obvious?' tone.

"Since when do you have a key?"

"Since your bitch of an ex-wife threw it at me when I tried to talk to her..."

"Oh? When did you talk to-?" I shot up, but Kelly glared at me and I slumped back down with a sigh.

"I'm sorry- you deserve a key more than she does anyway."

"Hmnn. Well I think I can forgive you, now that I know you ~super love~ me!"

She was kicking her feet back and forth gleefully, and I covered my face in shame again:

"Oh god, just kill me now."

"Is that what these were for?" she held up the bottle of sleeping pills in front of me, and I groaned again.

"They're for helping me sleep."

"Do you even know what time it is?"

"Wha-?"

"It's midday Josh. I've been here all morning- you were out cold."

"I was up late."

"Bullshit- I came last night too. The lights were out, and you weren't answering the door. Do you have any idea how crazy I went worrying about you?"

"Jeez, Kelly- I'm sorry."

She sat up, resting a hand on my chest as she studied me seriously.

"Were you trying to overdose?"

"No."

"How many did you take?"

"Two..."

She threw the bottle at me, hard, but I did my best not to flinch.

"Last week you asked me what I'd do if something happened to me, but what do you think I'd do if something happened to you? Do you think I want to lose you, Josh?"

I sighed.

"You're right, Kel- I'm sorry."

She looked at me with her arms folded across her chest, before her glare softened slightly.

"I want to help you Josh, but you keep pushing me away. This is hard, and I get it. But stop trying to go at it alone."

I nodded as she spoke, and she slid over to me again, wrapping her hands around my own.

"From now on, no more secrets- okay?"

I nodded again, and she pressed her forehead into my hands, before getting off of the bed to draw the curtains, letting some light illuminate the unnatural darkness of my room.

"Come on. Let's get you something to eat. We've got all day to talk."

"Alright."

"I brought clothes, by the way."

"Huh?"

"The game launches in two days and I took some time off, so I figured I could stay here for the week?"

"Oh, okay."

"Did you take time off too? For the launch at least?"

I sighed.

"Nothing to take time off from."

She walked over to me and put her hands on my cheeks, with a worried look in her eyes.

"Well- maybe that's for the best, Joshie. You need time to heal."

"Please don't call me that."

"Why? I always did when-" her words trailed off as I withdrew, unable to hide the little sting that the nickname delivered, and she just looked away with an uncertain gulp.

You weren't the only one who used to call me that.

"Just- shower, okay? I'll see what I can do about lunch," she muttered, as she headed off for the kitchen.

When I was done bathing, I joined Kelly in the kitchen, where she was trying her best to breathe new life into some old, frozen, chicken nuggets.

"Are these nuggets even good? They look freezer burned to death."

"Dunno, but I am gonna fry the hell out of them," Kelly muttered with a 'challenge accepted' look of determination on her face.

"How about we go shopping? I'll cook us a real meal and we can get some frozen stuff for our gaming binge."

She turned to me with an angry frown.

"Are my nuggets not good enough for you?"

"No offence, but I think all life left those things with my ex-wife..."

Kelly giggled at the comment, and I smiled.

Somewhere inside it still hurt to make a joke like that, but the smile on my little sister's face made it somewhat worthwhile.

I needed to lighten the mood anyway.

Kelly was determined to cheer me up, and the last thing I wanted was to make her feel like if she wasn't succeeding at all.

We made a quick groceries run, making sure to stock up on snacks, frozen foods and lots of soda.

These were the staples of a binge gamer, and we would definitely need them all in copious amounts if this game was anywhere near as engaging as the reviews indicated.

We chatted a little as we prepared lunch and ate, but thankfully the talk was a lot more light hearted and carefree.

The next day, Kelly gave me a crash course on what to expect when we started playing, and we followed it up by going through some of the game materiel available online.

From the beta-test, Kelly was familiar with some of the core mechanics and gameplay, but a lot of it was new even to her, so by the time the day of the launch came we were both pretty psyched to finally get into it.

* * *

"Ready?" Kelly asked.

"Yup."

We'd fully charged our headsets the night before as recommended, though they were to remain plugged in at all times while we played anyway.

I put my headset on and a little red light blinked somewhere off to my right.

"What is that?"

"Your tracking beacon."

"My- what now?"

"Tracking beacon- the VR disables your motor functions while you're in the simulated space. If something happens someone will need to come get you."

It was unnerving to think about it, but I did remember reading that the headset intercepted all signals from the brain that would be sent down my neural pathways telling my muscles what to do.

So instead of moving my hand while I was in the game, my brain would tell my virtual body to move its hand instead.

"Remind me again how much you paid for this?"

"Not a chance."

"That reminds me, how do we eat while we play?"

"You can't."

"Huh?"

"Gotta log out if you wanna."

I eyed the nachos I'd left close-by disappointedly, and Kelly giggled.

"You won't even know you're hungry when you're in there."

She tapped the headset.

"This interacts directly with your brain. Your body just goes on autopilot."

"So how am I supposed to know when I'm hungry?"

"You'll have to time your meals. When you get hungry in game, eating game food tricks your brain into thinking that your hunger is satisfied. If you aren't careful, you could starve without knowing it. This was on the release forms you know."

"Uh- I may have skimmed a bit."

She tried to aim a kick at my shins but she couldn't reach me from her perch on the loveseat.

"Why are you all the way over there?" she asked, with a little pout.

"Because this is my favorite couch, and thankfully it's just far enough."

She folded her arms crossly, when a little timer went off on her phone.

"It's up! Let's go!"

I tapped the initialize button on the side of the headset and immediately felt a curious sensation, as if my body had been plunged into a deep dark pond.

My senses went blank in an instant, until a little light in the distance appeared.

As the light drew closer, I suddenly noticed that more lights were appearing, and I suddenly felt as if I were floating through space.

I looked to my left, and my right, and while the disorienting feeling of being weightless and unable to see my own body still bothered me, there was an exhilaration to it that I could not describe.

It was transcendental almost, and I found it hard to believe that this was just the title screen alone.

Mythic Lands Online, the letters appeared in a styled font formed by the floating specks of light.

As the production team and studio mentions appeared and faded into the floating space, I suddenly felt the sensation of falling, and just like that, there I was.

I looked down and sure, there was my body, arms legs and all, clothed in some typical fantasy themed rags.

My immediate concern was that Kelly was nowhere in sight, but I quickly recalled her mention of the tutorial section which took place in a separate space from the main game server.

"Hi there. You must be new."

I turned around to see a little girl looking timidly at me from behind a stall counter.

"Um- hi."

She smiled at me, and I couldn't help but wonder at the novelty of the whole situation.

Her design was so realistic; even though there was a clear difference between the appearance of a human and this 3d rendered image, the way she moved, it was so fluid and natural, and she looked perfect in that way that only a computer generated image could.

"Are you lost? Papa said that if anyone showed up, I should bring them to him. Do you want to go there now?"

I pondered the question.

Sure this was probably the start of the tutorial, but I found myself wondering what would happen if I broke away from the script.

"Not just yet. I think I'll just take a look around first."

"Okay! Can I come with you?"

I nodded, and to my surprise she came around the stall and took my hand.

This sent a jolt up my spine.

Her hand was warm, and it felt as real as any hand I'd ever held.

Wow, I thought, I can even feel goosebumps in here!

"My name is Lina. What's your name?"

"Josh," I replied, then cursed myself as a little ping went off in my head.

Did I really just name my character Josh?

She started humming a cute little tune as she walked with me, not pulling me in any particular direction but merely following along with wherever I wanted to go.

Hmm, I thought.

Even in this tutorial world there was nothing that imposed a sense of urgency, or anything to railroad me along.

And if I didn't know better I'd swear this kid was real.

I walked around a bit wondering if I should test the limits of her programming, but thought better of it. After all, Kelly would be waiting for me on the main server.

I met up with the girl's dad, who took me through some basics of how to interact with the game world under the guise of teaching a 'green youngster' a trick or two that he'd learned over the years.

It wasn't very difficult getting through the various exercises.

After all, Kelly had more or less gone through most of these with me before.

Apart from that, my younger days of gaming were coming back to me (to my relief), and I quickly grasped the basics of how the game worked so it wasn't long before Lina and her papa were waving me off.

"Come back and visit us sometime!" Lina yelled, as I made my way to the edge of the town.

A little donkey-drawn cart awaited me to take me to what the driver referred to as the mystical land of Fey.

When I got there, the first thing that struck me was that loads of other people who I instantly recognized as players like myself, were coming into the city in droves of carts like the one that I was now on.

I had anticipated that the tutorial would end with some sort of loading screen before I went on to join the main server; but apparently the tutorial was merely a part of the actual game world itself.

The attention to details, I had to admit, were simply fantastic.

I was still staring in awe at the sheer beauty of it, when a little ping went off in my head.

I lifted my hand, and extended my index finger, and sure enough a little menu appeared in front of me, with a little red dot indicating that I'd received a message.

Did you really take that long with the tutorial, or were you fucking around?

How did I reply?

Oh right, 'cast message,' I thought.

I was surprised by how easily the interface found Kelly's character name, but then again- I wasn't really using my hands. This input was dependent on thoughts, and it seemed to be working almost seamlessly.

Where are you? And can you blame me, this is beyond anything I could have imagined.

She sent me directions and thankfully, I was able to access a map of the town from my character journal.

"Oh my god, you look nothing like you," she teased, as soon as she saw me.

Although character creation was done entirely prior to the launch, we had each done our own characters in private, so it was the first time we were seeing each other.

"Isn't that kind of the point? Besides-" I leaned in closer to whisper, "You know, yours aren't that big."

"W-wha?" I glanced subtly at her chest, and she almost immediately blushed, before quickly stalking off.

I waited for her to look back before catching up.

"So... what do we do first?"

"Choose classes."

"Right. The guilds?"

"Yeah. Your starting village should have given you a supply pack. There's enough gold for you to at least pay for your first skill tree."

"Okay. So let's do that and meet back up here?"

"Yup. Don't take forever this time, kay?!" She yelled, as I took off for the guild at a sprint.

I could feel the wind blowing past me as I ran.

This was amazing!

I wasn't exactly unfit, but it felt as if I'd been transformed into an Olympic athlete overnight.

It was unlike anything I'd ever felt.

I quickly pulled up the map as I ran, then located the guild hall I'd chosen to start out with.

Kelly and I had already settled on a class combo that suited us pretty well.

Ranger/Rogue.

And it would be pretty good if she was as good with a bow as she claimed to be.

Nonetheless, we met up less than twenty minutes later in front of the town's fountains.

"Yes! Now this is where it really gets good. The woods! They're amazing! You can feel the wind, taste the air! It's fresher than anything you ever felt!"

She was practically grinning with excitement, and I couldn't help but get caught up in the infectiously good atmosphere that she carried with her.

"Okay! Let's go kill some woodland critters."

One of the more impressive features of the game was the level of immersion that it offered the players.

For instance, you had to find some means to feed your character at regular intervals during play to sustain them; a feature that most games pretty much avoided because it risked bogging the players down with unnecessary things that got in the way of killing random shit.

Due to the level of immersion that Fey encouraged however, it was already being touted as one of the few instances where this sort of immersion was a welcome addition, and I could see why: A simple thing like hunting for food was wildly enjoyable simply because of the sheer level of detail that this virtual world had to offer.

"Kelly-" I dashed up to my sister, and snuck up behind her, giving her a surprise hug.

She gave a little shriek, then relaxed.

"Thank you... you were right- I needed this."

She smiled, and patted me on the head.

"Don't worry about it. Now- let's kill some critters!"

We snuck around the forests on the outside of the starting town, taking out little game like rabbits, small birds, and squirrels, and collecting along the way some herbs and other stuff that could be used for cooking and potion making that Kelly was able to identify due to her class supplied hunting guide.

We kept it up for an hour or two before I actually noticed that my stomach had begun to grumble hungrily.

"Whoa- is that?"

"Yup. Feels just like being hungry in real life, huh? The game sends the same signals to your brain as your body would if you were hungry."

Even though I read about that and understood it in theory, actually experiencing it was an altogether different thing.

"So. What do we do? Eat here, or log out and have some nachos?"

"Oh, we're eating here. You need to experience this. Besides, it's been what? Three hours? It's barely lunchtime, idiot."

She stuck out her tongue and teased me, before getting started on a fire.

While she got the fire going, she instructed me on which herbs to crush and add to season the meats, which she then roasted over a spit.

She was practically licking her lips as the meat roasted over the open flame, and I couldn't help but chuckle as I remembered what an awful cook she was growing up.

"You wish you could be this good at cooking," and she shot me a quick glare.

"What's wrong with my cooking?"

She grumbled a little more before getting back to the task at hand.

When she was done, she gave a little 'tada' as she presented the roasted meats on neat little skewers.

Some of them 'vanished' away into her backpack in a glowing ball of light, leaving two rows of juicy looking meat before us.

"Well? Eat up!"

She began eating her own portions, while I eyed the food suspiciously.

This was Kelly's cooking after all.

"We can get better cooking gear when we level up the skills a bit, then I can make stews, bread, and all kinds of pastries," she added enthusiastically.

"Who are you and what have you done with my cooking impaired sister?"

She glared at me again, so I quickly took a bite of the meat and to my surprise it was absolutely superb!

"Holy shit, this is actually edible."

"Keep it up, Josh. I'll make you level up your own cooking skill."

I quickly gobbled down the two skewers of meat and Kelly was glowering over me with smug look of satisfaction.

I rolled my eyes, knowing she was waiting for praise, but I eventually relented.

"Fine, fine- you did well, sis," I muttered, patting her on the head with an exaggerated show of reluctance.