Despite her resolve to find her parents, and all the reassurances from Rowan, Cassidy’s stomach was doing back-flips while keeping her eyes closed and listening to the incessant humming of the machine.

After the call with Olivia earlier that morning, her nerves wouldn’t let her fall back asleep. Rowan at least did manage to catch a few hours before they left to get their mind-copies created. Olivia was true to her word because when Cassidy and Rowan arrived at the facility, no time was wasted. As soon as they introduced themselves, the attendants hustled both of them further into the building. While walking through the halls with the attendants chattering away about the procedure, one attendant produced a small device and held it up to Cassidy’s eye. It produced a bright flash which blinded her for a moment, and she shouted in surprise.

“What the hell was that?” Cassidy asked, blinking the last few purple spots in her vision away.

“Sorry, they told me you were in a hurry.” The technician told her. “That was a retinal scan. Easier to do it separately from the mind-copy process.”

They were then directed to separate rooms to have their mind-copies created. The attendant instructed Cassidy to strip and stand on a circular platform, before giving her some privacy by leaving the room. At first it embarrassed Cassidy to be standing naked in the middle of a strange room. She kept looking around, expecting a group of people to suddenly walk in on her, so she jumped a little when a clinical voice over a speaker abruptly told her to close her eyes while the machine scanned and mapped her body. Once she recovered from her surprise, she closed her eyes as directed and the room came alive with the hum of machinery.

Now, she waited with nothing but her thoughts and a growing sense of fearful anticipation. Soon there will be a digital copy of her, living a separate life within a virtual world.

Cassidy thought about how she would go home after this, maybe have lunch with Rowan, then make sure she had everything she needed for her first college classes. And yet at the same time, another version of her would be in an unfamiliar world. She wondered what the mind-copy would do.

The humming stopped, interrupting her train of thought. The machines must have finished scanning, but there was no confirmation from the clinical voice to open her eyes. Cassidy fought the temptation to peek, but she didn’t want a stray laser to blind her if she opened her eyes too early so she kept them closed and waited for new instructions over the speaker. After several minutes had passed and still no instructions, she got restless.

“Hello?” She called out. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

There was no response. The room now had soft music being pumped into it. Not a popular music stream service either, but some kind of easy-going tune that she had never heard before. She cracked one eye open, and a gasp escaped her lips.

The room was devoid of the machinery she expected. Instead, she was in a pure white cube of a room with a wooden door set in the wall across from her. Holding her hands in front of her face, she gasped again. She had no skin at all, rather there was nothing but a cool blue wire-frame in the shape of human hands. She twisted and turned to examine the rest of her body and found the same was true everywhere. There were no distinguishing features at all. No gender, no hair, not even fingernails. Just the wire-frame instead of flesh and blood.

She was the mind-copy, a pure digital construct. Scratch that, she thought to herself; she was an Eternal.

A sense of impossible calm flooded her. In fact, instead of having a panic attack like she expected, Cassidy admired the seamlessness of her transition into an Eternal. She wasn’t even sure when the process had completed. One second, she was real and the next she was virtual. Rowan had in fact warned her the game dulled emotions like fear and anger for new Eternals when they first generated. She would return to normal in time, like a drug leaving her system. Once she acclimatized to the unfamiliar world, she wasn't even supposed to realize the gradual change back to normality.

Before that could happen though, Cassidy needed to create her character. As if sensing her thoughts, a window appeared reminiscent of the holo-displays from her smart-ring. On it was a list of choices about how she wished to appear. She could customize her looks to whatever she wanted. Even race was an option, providing her with the opportunity to be something other than human if she desired. There was a list of every fantasy race she ever heard of. Elves, dwarves, and orcs being the more popular choices. There were also lesser known races: fae; goblinoid; shifters; and others she wasn’t even sure how to pronounce. It was fun to experiment with the choices for a few minutes, fantasizing about being elf for the rest of her life was very tempting, but she already knew her choice. Rather than allow temptation to get its grips into her, she quickly selected human for her race.

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Rowan had already explained the options for character creation on the bus ride to the facility. When the machine scanned her brain to create the mind-copy, it also scanned her physical appearance. That way Eternals could mirror their real-world features using the scanned body option during character creation. Cassidy surmised that if she used her real face, there was a chance her parents could recognize their daughter even if she didn’t recognize them. It was a long shot, but worth a try. The chances of someone from Trinios recognizing her in game was astronomical as well, so she wasn’t overly concerned over anyone realizing she had bypassed their ban.

Rowan also told her that each race had a starting city, and if they wanted to start together, they needed to pick the same race. He wanted to be an orc and protested her choice at first, but her reasoning that her parents were probably human won him over. Since they had mind-copies created during the original development of Athanasia, they probably had limited race choices. In fact, it was so early the only race available would have been human. He agreed, even if he pouted like a puppy by the end.

Her race and body scan appearance set, a full body mirror appeared next to her. Looking at the reflection, she laughed. “I hope everything in Athanasia is this convenient,” she mused.

A unique opportunity presented itself. Vanity was never something that overly concerned her, but changing some smaller details wouldn’t be out of the question, would it? She looked herself over and came to a decision. Leaving her hair blond and the same shoulder length was fine, but she decided to remove the slight curls in her hair. She liked straight hair, and now she never had to mess with hair straighteners ever again. Her steel-blue eyes however, she left alone. There was a small scar above her left eyebrow from an accident with a door frame when she was twelve that she wouldn’t miss. Her parents wouldn’t recognize the scar, and she always hated it, so with a quick flick of her finger it disappeared. Pleased with the result, she looked for other blemishes she wanted gone.

Cassidy continued making alterations to her new body. She adjusted her breast size as well, reasoning her parents would never know the difference. Then she moved on to her height, a few extra inches taller wouldn’t be noticed by anyone either. A smaller nose was next, followed by a rosy color to her lips. Eventually, after more alterations than Cassidy cared to admit, she examined the final product and couldn’t help but gasp in delight. She was stunning, a flawless version of herself that she always fantasized about, yet she was still recognizable as Cassidy Grey. It was vain, she knew that, but it was too tempting to let this chance pass without seizing it for all it was worth.

Clothing options appeared in a new display after she finalized her looks, but they were lackluster since she was given almost no choices. The display only presented her with a rough homespun shirt and pants. Far from flattering, and devoid of any hint of fashion. Just standard peasant clothes, the only option she could change was the shade of brown. Disappointing, but not surprising. She selected the clothes with the default brown, and they appeared on her without her needing to get dressed herself.

Looking herself over in the mirror, Cassidy smiled at the result. While she wouldn’t win any fashion shows, she could certainly be a super-model. She then switched to the next screen on the display. It gave her the option to enter her name. She entered Cassidy but received an error saying that name was unavailable.

Again, Rowan had warned her, but she had to try. She entered a few other options and variations of her name she was fond of, but they were all unavailable.

She tapped a perfect fingernail on her new rosy lips in thought. She needed something that was all her, unique but a name that would feel natural. It didn’t take her long before she realized she already had the perfect name and entered the nick-name Rowan gave her when they first met. When she hit the submit button, the game accepted it with a pleasant ding.

“Seajee.” She read out loud, already liking the sound of it. This would be her identity from now on. Cassidy Grey was the girl she used to be, the one still living in the real world. Seajee was her name now.

A new message appeared on the display.

.

Prepare yourself Seajee to enter the world of Athanasia!

.

A countdown timer of sixty seconds appeared in the display. Two buttons were visible, to either enter right away or go back and make changes. She hesitated over the option to go back, but set her jaw and hit the enter button.

The wooden door in the far wall opened, revealing the starry blackness of space, a stark contrast to the white cube she was in. One star grew bigger and brighter until she realized it wasn’t a star, but a planet. Not Earth, but another world. And it was approaching fast.

Athanasia.

An irresistible force pulled her into the doorway as the surface of the planet rushed towards her at impossible speeds. The sense of calm she felt was refreshing. She didn’t fight the pull and took a step forward, looking forward to seeing this fresh unknown world.