A warm, inviting ray of sunshine danced across my face. The bed below me felt like a cloud and the sheets were somehow softer than the silkiest satin. I felt absolutely rested. I stretched my arms and yawned. Somewhere in the distance was the smell of freshly brewed coffee with a hint of cinnamon and spice.

“Yes,” I thought. “This is luxury… Wait? Where am I? Who am I?…How did I get here?”

I thought there might be a soft hand resting against mine for a moment. I rolled over, my hand Stretching across the bed, questing for her soft lovelyness. “Cold. Where is she? Did she leave me?” I thought to myself “That's an odd question to ask when I don't even know who I am.”

I opened my eyes and stretched. I was in a luxurious soft bathrobe. Around me was in a well-appointed hotel suite, decorated in white and silver. I was in a large, pillowy king bed. On the table sat flowers and through a crack in the curtains I could see an immaculate blue sky. The sun was a large gold disk rising above the horizon, and at it’s center I could make out the HR logo of the Hill Rest Inn.

A voice that sounded like childhood nostalgia and comfort spoke from everywhere all at once “Hill Rest Inn luxury. Hill Rest Inn peace.”

“Did I just hear that or think it? Those advertisements must be getting into my head.” Something about that felt real. I knew there was something horrifying about an advertisement, but the pillows, oh the pillows!

A new smell teased my nostrils. Eggs and french toast. I felt like I hadn’t had a proper meal in days. Throwing aside the covers and standing up, looked around. A beautiful blue sky through the opening in the curtains caught my attention. I could smell the wild flowers and grass; I could feel the kiss of the sun on my cheeks. Rolling hillside with a lake and a forest in the background looked more like a painting them a real landscape. “I could look at that view for hours.”

Something about that thought left a sour feeling in the pit of my stomach. I peeled my gaze away and looked around the room. It was beautiful and well decorated. A painting hung on the wall between two doors. “Maybe she's behind one of the doors? I should look for her.”

The closet door didn’t creak as I opened it, but it wasn't like a regular door. It jumped inch to inch without passing through the space between, instead of moving smoothly. There was nothing in the closet. A very flat, smooth, nothing. I tapped the blank wall behind the closet door, but it was solid.

“Damn, not there. The bathroom maybe?” I muttered to myself. The bathroom door moved much more smoothly, like a proper door should. The smell of lavender soap and rosewater was carried on a bloom of gentle steam, like a hug inviting me in to the candle lit tub. “Did she set this up for me?”

As vivid as the bath and vanity were, not every thing was quite so sharp. I found my eyes skipping past the corners. The sink and...

“The toilet?” It looked only grey and blocky. Setting my eyes on it, my head seemed clearer. As if just looking at it was a fresh breeze clearing out a musty room in my head. Having a moment of clear focus seemed to change everything. I could think. I sat down on the pixelated bowl and started to sift through my thoughts. ”Where am I? Last I remember, I was with Kara at the Waffle Hutch“ Okay, that seemed real. But was it? I mean, I had been to Waffle Hutchs in real life. Kara I'm pretty sure is real.

I remember her tan skin and braids. The bright white of her smile. That feeling of acceptance and peace I always seemed to feel when she was around. The Birkenstocks that somehow never fell apart, despite years of hiking.

A memory starts to surface. Someone calling “Nate?”

Not convinced it's me, but sure. That at least sounds like a real person's name.

Another memory came back: a campsite. The old man, still wearing his tweed jacket even though it had lost a leather elbow pad. What had he told us? “No simulation is perfect. Find the flaw. Find the place where you can feel your mind waking up” But that wasn't important, or even relevant. What was important was that I had to find Kara.

I stepped back out into the bedroom. Someone had laid a tray with french toast and a glass of orange juice on the table. It smelled heavenly. I just had to taste it. Without thinking, the glass was in my hand, and I took a sip. I could pick out the complexity of the orange juice, every tart nuance, every sweet, sun-kissed note. It was orange juice more vivid than any orange juice I had ever tasted. Then a bite of divine sweet and savory French toast was in my mouth, with strawberries and syrup.

“No, no. Stop. You're getting distracted. Stop. Focus. We need to find Kara.” I said to myself. My eyes rested on the front door. “That might be it.”

The door was heavy, stuck fast, like it was never meant to be opened. I closed my eyes, felt the texture of the handle, focused on the sensation of turning and the memory of squeaking hinges. “Kara has to be out there.” I pulled with my whole being, and it opened.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I was looking out onto a boring gray hallway. Not concrete or stucco, not textured in any way, just gray. As if the color was made in to a substance. That gray nothing stretched on in an endlessly hallway. The doors on either side looked two-dimensional, like they had been painted on the walls to suggest that there were other rooms rather than really being there.

“Kara? Are you out here?” I pressed on, stepping out into the strange hallway.

“Server error. You are outside of designated Focus Zone. Server error,” a flat artificial female voice intoned.

Was that good or bad? I didn't even know. My brain felt jumbled and my sense of up and down shifted and turned nauseatingly. If I was going to find her I would have to press on no matter how disorienting this place was.

“Server error. Please do not move outside of the designated Focus Zone.”

I moved down the hallway. The increasingly flat, detail-less hallway. The walls seem to flicker, like a light bulb about to burn out. Like a neon sign at 3am that doesn't promise so much an open establishment, as a cautionary tale.

I wasn't walking really, but floating toward something. Had Kara gone this way? I was finding it hard to even keep track of my body as I continued on.

I looked at the doors on either side of me. You couldn't really call them doors. They were more flat, like computer screens or windows. One of them had a picture of a pastel couch and the words 'Mega Home Space' where a room number should be. The next one had a picture of someone fighting a dragon. It was labeled “'Endless Adventure Online’.”

I paused. I knew I shouldn’t, I needed to find Kara, but Kara wouldn't mind if I stopped to check this out, would she? I had become increasingly on edge the further down the hallway I went, and a distraction seems like exactly the sort of thing I needed to take the edge off. “What's the harm in peeking?” I looked to my left, I looked to my right and coughed as I made an overly exaggerated show of casually opening the door.

“Final warning: Please return to Focus Zone.”

Static.

Static like an old TV tuned to the wrong channel while you were searching for the one hooked up to your game console. Not just with sight and sound, but with taste, smell, and touch. Searing pain and ice cold speckled my body along with aching and the flavor of soup and hair. The pain of stitches and and an orgasmically good sneeze tap-danced on my kidney.

You might not know this, but there is a 6th sense: the sense of your body in space. You have no idea how disconcerting it is to have your toes refuse to line up, and your lungs try to relocate themselves.

“Loading Character Creation Menu.”

“What? What is this? Ouch, why do words hurt?”

“Please select Character Ancestry.” The voice was taking on a softer, kinder quality. More a greeting than a command.

At some point I realized the static had been replaced by a black void. Purple iridescent flames flickered into existence. They settled into stone braziers, and began to cast a gentle warmth. Floating in front of me in the void were several mannequins, each vaguely humanoid shaped. As the light level rose I could tell that each was dressed differently. Each form had a slightly different size and shape and some took on odd skin tones. Each one had my face.

Gradually the space around me came into focus and I was standing in a large wooden room. Like an ancient long house, lit by fire and torches. The humanoid shapes had become statues of me dressed like fantasy characters. I could walk around and inspect them from every angle.

“Does Ancestry selection always hurt this much?” I was solid, I had a body, and IT HURT!

“Please select an Ancestry.”

“Could you please speak a little quieter, my liver can’t hear you when you speak so loud. Or is that my neck?”

Near me, the forms were somewhat normal and above each one floated helpful text labeling what Ancestry it represented. They had names that sounded familiar: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Dragonkin.

“Now this is more like it.” I couldn’t remember much, but some things go deeper than memory. Some things you spend so much time with you don’t know when you learned them, you just always knew them. This room hinted at one of those things: adventure.

Once I sorted out what was a knee and what was an elbow, I ventured further and the Ancestries depicted got stranger. Nightstalker, Martian Oligarch, Cat-girl...

“Gross they just had to call it a cat girl, like reducing the entire ancestry to a preteen fantasy.”

Demonkin, Bunndarian, Baconizer with Cheese (which had the extra label, ‘Limited time, promotional’).

Eventually the shapes started to get further and further from a bipedal human. Cthulhu Spawn; that one seemed to have four legs, wings and a mass of tentacles for a face. I honestly had no idea what a Hooloovoo was; it just looked like blue light.

“Please select Ancestry,” the room repeated.

“I must be doing better. That time only my head and ears hurt.” I was in no mood to do any deep thinking or consider the possibility of adjusting to extra limbs. I figured I was better off with something more basic. Elf, Dwarf, and Human all sounded like things I recognized.

Was I oversimplifying? Maybe I should spend some time to really think this through. If I'm gonna be in this game for a while, maybe I should strategize and come up with the best option. I wouldn't want to spend six months building up a character only to hit a brick wall and hate the build.

I had a vague recollection of having done this before; not here but somewhere else. I think maybe it had something to do with magic. A dim image of a loud bang and a distant flying enemy bursting into flame surfaced in my brain.

What was I saying? My head hurt and I wanted to get out of here. “If they knew I was doing this again… If who knew?” I needed to get out of here and find… someone. I should just pick something familiar so I can move on and get out of this place.

“Magic. Elves are good at magic right? That sounds right.”

“I’ll be an Elf.” I called into the void.

“Ancestry selected: Elf. Please choose Variant-Ancestry: Light elf, High Elf, Dark Elf, Swamp Elf, Solar Elf, Frigid Elf, Arctic Elf, Chaos Elf.”

“Swamp Elf?” I thought.

“Swamp Elf selected.”

“No, no, no! Cancel! Cancel that!” I yelled at the room.

The floor beneath me disappeared. The room dissolved and I fell screaming into the void.