Mickey reached his townhouse home some fifteen minutes later. It was a short bike ride from the college—a welcome convenience and a definite factor in Mickey’s decision-making process when he’d decided to attend.

“Grandma, I’m home—Oh. Right…” Mickey lowered his voice and his shoulders slumped. “Gran isn’t here… She’s still in the hospital.”

Mickey sighed and took off his shoes, tucking them neatly beneath the shoe rack. He placed his bookbag on its hook and went to the small living room where he kneeled before a hutch with four urns inside.

“Hey, I’m home. I hope you guys are still at peace and up there with the little angels…”

Mickey continued reciting a short prayer, one for his departed family—his parents and two younger siblings—and one for his ailing grandmother. He wasn’t particularly religious, but like his grandmother had said to him, “It wouldn’t hurt to wish them well.”

If his family still existed in some form and if a short prayer, not even thirty seconds long, could make their afterlife easier, well he would be remiss to not give them that much. Mickey observed some silence, sighed, and went upstairs to his room.

The room was a small 9x8 foot dwelling, with bare and muted walls. There was a single bed and a desk with two monitors and a computer on top of it, opposite the bed. Against the wall, between the desk and the bed, was a bookshelf with all of Mickey's video games, tabletop books, and programming books.

He sat at his table and turned on his computer, tapping on the desk as he mulled over the card that promised prizes. He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it onto the desk.

Cash prizes, huh? If it was in a USB drive, I would have tossed it out immediately.

Stories of tech sector employees ruining their computers and networks because of USBs they’d found in parking lots were popping into Mickey’s mind, each one getting a chuckle out of him.

I really shouldn’t be buying this, he told himself.

But yet, he couldn’t fully bring himself to disregard the card. His grandmother was sick and if she got worse—which was a likely possibility— she would need more drastic treatment, more than they could cover with their dwindling finances.

What Mickey was experiencing was the desire to take a leap of faith, fueled by his desperation.

Checking out the game wouldn’t be the worst thing, right? But I should do due diligence.

Mickey jumped onto the web and ran quick searches, querying what exactly was "Hidden World Online." To his surprise, what he found were webcomics or web novels made by random users on various content-sharing sites. There were no records of a game by that name popping up. If anything, all Mickey learned was that Hidden World was a popular name.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Annoyed that he spent a little over an hour looking for information, Mickey relented and checked out the download site, Tralasportal.com.

Interestingly, the site didn’t show up when Mickey tried looking with a search engine. He tried five others and still nothing. The only way to access it was to go to the site itself.

For a second, Mickey gained hope. It’s hidden? Is that by design or because they neglected to get indexed by the search engines?

Mickey pondered as he waited for the site to load. If access to the game was by invitation-only, he could come up with reasons why not being easily search-able would be desirable.

The website loaded, however, and Mickey’s hope took a hit.

It looks so cheap.

All Mickey was greeted with was an image of a portal he could swear was ripped off from another popular game and a big, obnoxious “Download Now” button.

Mickey groaned, cursing how far this card was taking him. He clicked the button and went along the motions of installing the new browser. Along the way, he also scanned the files with every tool he had on his computer. While waiting for the installation to complete, he also brushed up on what precautions someone should take when surfing the darknet.

Sounds easy enough, Mickey thought as he prepared his environment. I’ll just check things out for an hour max.

Putting a time limit on it made everything feel better. He would check out the nodesite, and if it was as sketchy as the download site, he’d burn the card then and there without scratching off the access code.

The install was done. He opened the new browser—the landing page was as typical as any other browser’s landing page and it had all the typical search features.

"Tralas," huh? I wonder who made it…

Mickey found the bookmark for the HiddenWorld Node and with a shake of his head, clicked it.

Mickey’s body throbbed. “Oww!”

He looked all around his room like a deer caught in the headlights. He then inspected his body passing his hands over every part.

What was that?! he wondered, terrified.

He looked at the screen—it was still loading, with a “Connecting” message on the screen.

Mickey took one more look around the room, and then at his mouse before finally looking at his hand.

Was that just a weird spasm? Maybe I’m nervous?

As he calmed down, a ding and the sounds of an angelic choir singing scared him again, causing him to jolt out of his seat.

“Oh. It loaded… It’s prettier than I thought.”

The site had loaded. Before his eyes was the landing page for Hidden World Online. The title was in big bold letters superimposed over an image of a stone gate in front of a waterfall. The production value was high—way higher than that travesty of a page he saw earlier.

The “Sign-Up” button appeared at the foot of the gate and other links appeared along the top of the page.

I’m surprised they don’t have flashy characters on the screen. Let’s see, what are these links?

Along the top were the labels: Game, Explore The Hidden World, and Support.

“Let’s see, what should I do? There’s no point in looking at the game requirements or going to support if I don’t like what I see. Let’s ‘explore the hidden world.’”