Beep! Beep! Beep!
The alarm clock blared as Greg Windstor was awakened from a pleasant dream in which he robbed a bank. He had finally escaped the police when the alarm awoke him violently. He slammed his hand down on the snooze button and pondered if he should go back to sleep again or go to work.
“Fuck it! I’ll go to work. There is no substitute for money in this godforsaken world.”
He sat up slightly cranky from his dream and reached for a drink of water from the glass next to his bed. The glass was placed beside the alarm clock on the nightstand next to his bed. He put the glass down as he pushed the covers away revealing his tan legs and flannel boxers. He swung his legs over the side of the bed while he stretched his arms out above his head.
“Always at the best part! Why do the best dreams always get ruined by the fucking alarm?”
He stood up and walked to the closet at the other side of the room, he opened it and grabbed his work clothes which hung across the closet. Below the clothes a towel was folded neatly atop a wooden dresser, it was also taken. He closed the door to the closet, with clothes in hand he walked to the bathroom to take his morning shower. He turned off the water after he finished cleaning up, the room filled with steam as he stepped out of the shower. He wore his new clothes while the old clothes were tossed into the clothes hamper as he left the room heading towards the kitchen. He got a granola bar from a overhead cupboard, stuffing it into his pocket in a hurry to leave. He turned off the lights and made sure the door was locked as he left for work.
Greg worked as a grocery stocker at his local superstore. He worked early mornings after all the drug addicts and shady people went home but before all the normal people came in. His normal job routine entailed clocking into work and checking out a little handheld computer with a scanner attached from lockers. He used the scanner to scan bin containers in the backroom of the store, the bins were filled full of boxes of products from different departments of the store. He scanned each box in the containers from bottom to top, left to right and the computer would let him know if the product was low on the shelf. If so he would put the product on a cart and take the cart out to the sales floor when it was full of product. The cycle would repeat itself for 8 hours, he also might need to help cashier or do some special projects if needed. He answered any question the customers had making sure they had a good experience shopping at his store, considering he was paid to make sure the customers had a good experience it wasn’t that bad a of a job, just the same thing over and over again.
Greg finished work for the day and he deposited the scanner back into the locker as he headed home for the day. He scanned his badge at the sign out station when he noticed when he noticed John a fellow associate on his way out.
“Hey John wait up!”
He caught up as John waited.
“What’s up Greg?”
“I just wanted to know if you played the new vrmmorpg that came out recently? I heard it was really good.”
They continued together as they talked.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“No not yet, but I did buy the headset I’m going to play it tonight. My favorite streamer says all the pros are starting to play it, but they can’t release any footage yet since it's only been a month since release and they still want some things hush hush.”
“Yeah, I just bought my headset too. It should be delivered later today, $2000 dollars for headset is ridiculous but i'm looking at it as an investment I won’t have to buy anything for another 5 years I’m hoping.”
“Indeed, I’m really looking forward to all the action and swordfighting. I gotta go, I’ll call you later or something I need to get home to the wife. We are going to go out to dinner tonight.”
“Ok, Have a good night maybe I call later I might be busy with the game. Tell Cindy I said hello for me.”
Greg waved goodbye as they went their separate ways at Johns car.
Greg was excited as he got into his car and drove home. He anticipated what the headset would feel like and how it worked. He took a detour on the way home to a to McDicks a local fast food restaurant. He drove through the drive thru and ordered a couple cheeseburgers and fries. He ate them on the way home. A suspicious package was on his porch when he pulled up into his driveway. He parked his car and ran up to the package and noticed the logo on the box was from the gaming company.
“Fuck yeah, it’s finally here!”
He unlocked the door while he carried the package inside. He set the package down on the couch in the living room. He decided to take a shower first before he unpacked the headset since today was his Friday from work. He was going to play the new game all weekend with nothing else special planned. He took a quick 10 minute shower and put his dirty clothes in the wash before he arrived back in the living room for the headset.
He did some research on the headset before he finally decided to purchase it, especially since it was worth so much money. The headset would allow him to access the virtual world, it did so by stimulating his brain and connecting to his thoughts directly. The game he would be playing is called Crimson, a world where a basically anything is allowed. Time was faster in game then it was in the real world, a whole 12x faster which is the main reason Greg bought the headset, the other being an escape from reality. Time being 12x faster is amazing, he would be able to learn many things that could be used in real life and also do the things impossible for him to ever achieve limited by the scientific laws.
Crimson had no limits on level caps and exploration. The current technology level in game is around the medieval ages in real life, but as more people join and the artificial intelligence improves there could even be space travel and planets to explore, that doesn't even count the spiritual aspect of the game. Their might even come a time where if the level is high enough people can become gods or travel to higher plane of existence. Crimson had you start off in a random village controlled by your race on a novice continent. The continent quite large but the village you would spawn would be fairly populated, which would provide a lot of action and opportunities to experience all aspects of the game.
Greg unpacked the headset from the box and placing the box to the side while wearing the headset. He clicked the power button on the headset and waited for it to kick on, after waiting a minute nothing happened.
Why isn’t it working?
He removed the headset, flipped it around and examined it.
Nothing seems to be broken.
Nothing seemed to be wrong as he looked in the box, a power cord was seen placed at the bottom.
No shit it would need to be powered, I’m such a dumb ass.
He realized the headset didn't have any power, he placed it on the coffee table and plugged it into the power outlet. He decided to put his clothes in the dryer while he waited for the headset to charge enough to allow him to play.
He returned to the table after he started the dryer, he noticed that the headset was charged enough to start up. The indicator light was orange meaning it was still charging but ready to use. This time he confidently wore the helmet and pushed the start button.