by Max Jager
"Did you see anything odd or out of place, or anything we could use to escape in that building we were in. Before we got into the game?" Estellese asked him. "We are trying to picture the place and search for clues."
"No I did not." Zanath said simply before disappearing behind the shelves again.
"He's working on something, and he was spaced out for like, the entire time we were there. Let him do his thing." Kaden mused. "I remember you two were sitting next to eachother, and I was off in the corner. And after an hour or so of silence I started the conversation." He said, as the group tried to remember the day of events that lead them here.
–
The four of them were in an empty white room, there was nothing but the four of them and a few chairs in this waiting room. "This game is going to be groundbreaking for the gaming world. The very first, perfect virtual reality game. I can't believe I won that contest." Kaden finally broke the long, awkward silence before glancing up at the others.
Estellese smiled a bit and nodded "Yeah, me neither. So there was only four contest winners for the alpha testing of the game?" She asked.
Mendelen nodded and opened his eyes. "Yes, only four. But surely we can have fun in the game with just four of us." He said.
Estellese sighed lightly, a bit disappointed she was the only girl there. But she shrugged it off. "So what's everyone's names?" She asked.
Kaden looked up from his ticket, "Kaden." He answered simply. "Master thief and evil genius." He added jokingly.
"Wait, you're a thief?" Estellese questioned, giving Kaden a strange look.
"Only in the video game world. When playing games, I play to have fun and I do everything but play nice." Kaden said, "Are the rest of you going to introduce yourselves?"
Estellese sighed and rolled her eyes a little, shaking her head at the guy. "Just don't be a troll and screw up the game for everyone else. I'm Estellese, or Estell for short." She said simply.
Mendelen nodded "I'm Mendelen." He answered simply. "Nice to meet you everyone. I think we should stick together and work as a team here, at least until we understand the game enough to go solo."
"Where's the fun in that?" Kaden countered. "That's like getting a new game and playing on easy or normal first. It's boring as hell. Start on the highest difficulty, learn as ya go, never take the easy road-"
"Be a showoff who doesn't know when to stop talking." Estellese finished Kaden's sentence for him, earning a pout and a glare from Kaden.
When they finished talking Zanath looked over at the others, "And I'm Zanath. I'm mainly interested in how this game will work really. That must be some crazy advanced technology to actually make virtual reality like this possible. It's interesting, I want to know how the machine works." He said.
The door to the room finally opened, and what looked like a scientist in a lab coat walked out. He looked at the four young adults, "Do all of you have your tickets?" He asked. To which the four of them all held up their tickets. "Good. We will begin the alpha testing now."
"Finally" Kaden interrupted. Stretching a little and putting his hands behind his head as he waited for the scientist to lead the way.
"Just follow me to the pods. You four are the first people, beside the game developers, to see this game. Make the best of your time here." The scientist said before turning and walking back into the room he came from, gesturing for the others to follow him.
The four of them followed the man, and listened as he continued to speak. "The alpha testing, as always, is not the final product. The game is subject to change while you're playing it. Some things may be added, some things may be removed." He explained, then stepped into a room with four futuristic looking pods. He gestured to the pods "Climb in, and close the pod. You will feel yourself fall asleep, and then you will be in game." He said.
"Alllright!" Kaden cheered. Only half listening to what the man said as he quickly darted over to a pod and climbed into it. He laid down inside it and closed the pod over himself, before immediately pressing the start button and closing his eyes. As the man had said within seconds he looked to be asleep.
Estell sighed and shook her head as she watched Kaden finding his childish behavior a bit annoying. But once the scientist finished speaking she climbed into her own pod and closed it, noticing a few buttons on the inside. She pressed a few of them and was toying around with them for a moment. Before she also hit the start button and closed her eyes.
–
"That's the last I remember before entering the game." Estellese finished. "The waiting room was just an empty room with a buncha chairs. Not even a magazine or a plant in there. And the pod room was the same, an empty room with the four pods and nothing else." She said.
"Well, before we entered me and Zanath had a conversation with the man running it." Mendelen said. "Zanath was asking him how it worked, and the man was avoiding the questions. Eventually he just said he hadn't made the game and was just there to run the test. But I think he was lying about that." He said.
"Well, duh." Kaden stated simply. "This whole thing was a lie."
"What happened while you two were in the game? Before me and Zanath entered?" Mendelen asked.
"Not much, we were trying to figure out what happened. And I was laughing at Estell's hair." Kaden said. To which he got a glare from Estellese.
"Why would you laugh about her hair?" Mendelen asked.
"It's pink!" Kaden laughed. "She had brown hair in the real world, like Zanath. But when she logged in her hair was suddenly pink. At least Zanath changed his hair color to white, that looks sorta normal. But pink?" He chuckled. The look on Estell's face showed that she was trying really hard not to smack him.
"It looks fine." Mendelen stated. "Anyways, once we were in the game, did anyone see anything in the game version of the building that could be used to get out?" He asked.
"I noticed that the building had become a lab of sorts as I walked out. Once outside I was too distracted by the goblin" Kaden replied.
"What happened there? You left the building being all cocky. Then when we went outside you were getting your ass kicked by a goblin." Estellese stated.
"Hey, I thought it was just a game. I didn't know getting hit would hurt." Kaden sighed and began explaining exactly what happened. Starting right as Mendelen and Zanath joined them in the game, a minute or so after Kaden and Estell had gotten in.
–
They were in an empty room, the same room the pods the had just gotten into were in. Only the pods were now gone and a table with books on it was in the palce of the pods. "So this is the game? I guess they weren't kidding when they said the game was realistic then. You know it's realistic when you can't tell the difference between the game world and the real world." Kaden laughed lightly. Then turned to see Mendelen and Zanath appear in the room.
"Is this the game?" Zanath asked as he looked around, inspecting his surroundings and the people in the room.
Kaden nodded "We think so." He said. "You two just appeared out of thin air, so I'd assume it is. Lets get going now that everyone's finally here."
"What are those books on the table?" Mendelen asked as he walked over to the table and picked up a book. Examining it before opening it to read a few pages.
"Who cares? We're not here to read a book. Lets goo" Kaden replied.
"They are game manuals, that say how to play the game." Mendelen said, inspecting the book in his hand. Estell and Zanath quickly walked over to him and also each picked up a book and began reading.
Kaden rolled his eyes. "Come on. What kind of newbie actually reads the game manual before playing the game? Leeets gooo." He complained.
"The kind of newbie who want to know how to play." Estell muttered quietly, they hadn't even been in the game for ten minutes and she already wanted to find a sword and stab him. She was looking forward to kicking his butt in this game later on. Maybe that would fix his cocky attitude.
Kaden let out a long sigh. "Fine, I'm going ahead of ya then. D
on't come crying to me to save ya when I get all the good stuff 'cause you where all too busy reading useless books. The controls are exactly like real life, we don't need to know the controls when we've been doing it all our lives" He said, before turning and leaving the room. "Heck, if I hadn't gone into the pod and seen the three of them appear out of thin air, I would've thought I was still in the real world... Which is kinda creepy if you ask me... If I had been unknowingly placed in this world..." He murmured to himself as he walked.
While the building was the same exact shape it had been in the real world, he was starting to notice a few changes in it. It was no longer an office building. As Kaden looked into the rooms he passed it looked like it had become some high tech laboratory, or something of that sort. He shrugged it off though, he did have a little interest in the lab but was more interested in just playing the game. Figuring he could come back to it later if need be. He walked outside and looked around.
As he had predicted, the outside looked exactly like the real world, only a little more empty. He didn't see any cars driving down the street, or any people outside. Although, one thing did catch his eye. A five foot tall human-shaped figure, that was green and wielding a club. Kaden easily guessed it to be a goblin, despite not being too short, by it's green skin, pointed teeth and rather savage appearance.
Kaden took note of the fact that he had no weapon, and the goblin had a club. But he picked up a small stone anyways, thinking 'What's the worst that could happen? I die and respawn back in the room with the others?' He took careful aim and hurled the stone at the goblin. Hitting him right in the middle of it's forehead. "Heeey! Dumbass! Over here!" Kaden taunted the goblin, waving his arms over his head.
The goblin stumbled back from the hit, then looked up at Kaden and growled furiously. It raised it's club and sprinted after the man. Kaden was a gamer, he had never been in a real fight before, and quickly learned it was much harder then it looked. He lunged forward and threw a jab for the goblin's throat, but before he could even reach the goblin, it used the club's longer reach to smash him in the shoulder with a sickening crack. Kaden shouted in pain as he was thrown backwards from the force of the hit, slamming into the wall of the building behind him. He quickly reached his left hand up to grab his wounded right shoulder.
Kaden groaned in pain, cussing loudly "I get that this game was supposed to be realistic... But really, did they need to make the pain perfectly realistic too?" He complained. That alone made him instantly regret starting the fight, he didn't think it'd actually hurt to get hit, or at least not that badly. Why would they make a game so painful? He would've been more careful had he known.
He looked up, trying to clear his mind of the searing pain in his broken shoulder. Only to see the goblin inches away from him swinging the club down at his head. Kaden shouted and cussed as he quickly threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding being killed. He pushed himself back up onto his feet, stumbling a little as he got up. But before he could do anything else the goblin lunged forwards and swung the club at his ribs again. Causing Kaden to have to stumble back to evade the club.
He may have been alright with dying before, but now he knew he could feel pain and wasn't too keen on being killed. He really didn't want to find out how much being beaten to death by this goblin would hurt. But there was nothing he could do, the goblin kept pressing the attack faster then Kaden could retaliate, throwing attack after attack after attack at Kaden. The black haired man was struggling just to avoid getting hit, never mind getting a chance to swing back. With each attack he was getting worn down, it was becoming harder and harder to continue dodging. And it took more effort to dodge then it took to just swing a club, so Kaden would be worn out long before the goblin would.
Kaden was panting heavily and backing away, watching as the goblin approached him for another attack. Although, what happened next confused him. He saw the goblin suddenly get tackled to the ground from behind by a pink blur. Then, seeing that the goblin was down Kaden just fell backwards onto his butt, panting for air.
"Estell! Are you insane?" Mendelen called out as the other two guys came out of the building with her. Laughing a little at the sight of the small girl almost wrestling with the goblin after having tackled it.
"Yes I am. Is that a problem?" Estell chirped in a joking manner, making the other two guys laugh lightly. She had jumped on the goblin's back, attempting to ride it's back, but she had knocked it over instead. And now was wrestling with the goblin as she sat on it's back, trying to keep it pinned to the ground while the other two guys ran over and quickly pulled the club out of it's hands. Although Estell couldn't keep the goblin pinned for long, the goblin threw her off itself, knocking the pink haired girl onto her back with a grunt as she hit the ground.
The goblin sprung back to it's feet, but it didn't matter. Estell's distraction was enough for the other two guys to make their move. Zanath, who had disarmed the goblin, smashed it's knees with the club while Mendelen quickly delivered a powerful elbow to the back of the goblin's neck. Making the goblin fall limply to the ground, knocked out cold.
Estell laid on her back and threw her fists up in the air. "Woo! We killed our first monster. That was actually kinda fun." She cheered.
"Yeah that was." Mendelen said as him and Zanath chuckled, high-fiving each other before they both held out a hand to Estell. Who used both of her hands to high-five Zanath and Mendelen at the same time before grabbing their hands and pulling herself back to her feet.
She looked over at Kaden and chuckled lightly, "Only two seconds into the game and I've already had to save your butt. What happened to the cocky guy in the lobby?" She teased.
"I got hit." Kaden stated. "There's a major problem here, the game's a little too realistic. The pain feels completely real. I really feel like I broke my arm." He said in a very pained tone.
"I'm sure they wouldn't do that for a game." Zanath said. "That doesn't make any sense. I can understand a little pain, but completely real? Nobody would play a game like that." He pointed out.
"Yeah, you're just being a wuss. Deal with it." Estell said simply, grabbing his arms and pulling Kaden up to his feet as well. Making the man cringe and yelp in pain as she tugged his broken arm.
"I am not, they really made it way too realistic." Kaden argued. Shooting a glare at Estell for pulling on his arm.
Mendelen thought about it, then pinched himself as hard as he could. He looked up at the others, "Kaden is right, pain feels perfectly real. Pinch your arm to find out yourself." He said them. "Should we log out and inform the creators about it? I mean, that may just be a small mistake they can fix before we play." He said.
Kaden nodded "We definitely should. Just imagine how much it's going to hurt if we get stabbed, or clawed up, or burnt. Things that happen constantly in games, it needs to be fixed before we continue." He said.
–
Mendelen nodded a little, trying not to laugh as he listened to Kaden's part of the story. Although Estellese couldn't help but to laugh at him, and when Kaden glared at her she just stuck her tongue out at him. "Hey, you had that coming." Estellese said.
"And that's everything we did yesterday. Right? After that we figured out that we couldn't logout, and decided to wait out the rest of the day until they pulled us out of the game. And they never did." Mendelen said. He was quietly hoping there was more to what happened, because he couldn't find anything in their recollection of their first day here that could help them get out.
"Yeah, that was it. After a day we gave up on waiting and set out to find food, got chased by a dragon, and ended up here." Estellese replied. "I can't remember anything that could help us get back to the real world."
"There was nothing there we could have used to get out." Zanath's voice said as he walked back to the group. He was carrying what looked like a few pieces of wood with nails sticking out of them. "Right now, our only hope is that someone notices we are gone and comes to get us. In the meantime, we need to survive. If the cr
eator was sick enough to make pain realistic we don't want to find out if death is too." He said as he handed out the pieces of wood. Upon closer inspection they were the legs of a wooden chair, apparently Zanath had broken the legs off a chair and hammered a few nails through them to make them into makeshift clubs.
"Nice work with the clubs Zanath. You have a plan?" Kaden asked as he took his makeshift club and looked it over.
"No, I do not. Although we need food and weapons. As well as medication." Zanath said. "I suggest we hit the grocery store, there should be a pharmacy and food there and if it's as deserted as this town we can just take what we need. And if we hit the hardware store, maybe we can grab some tools to use as weapons." He said.
"That means going back up into the city though." Kaden said. "We will need to be stealthy, and look out for the dragon. I am pretty sure the noise was what drew the massive swarms of monsters to us, so as long as we're quiet and sneaky, we should be able to move about on the surface without being mobbed again." He said. "I have no doubts that we're going to have to fight our way through town though, now that all the monsters are here."
