And so two days had passed without any noticeable event if one were to exclude the growing impatience; people can wait years for something they desire, but the moment they’re close to obtaining it, the more impatient they get. A human nature, really.

Which meant that Dariusz was desperately trying to keep his mind from PR in any way he could. Right now he was coming back from the kitchen after a quick breakfast with Dad; Mum, unfortunately, had to go to work already, something about ‘important case’, though he didn’t ask for details. It was like the world itself decided to conspire against his parents, deciding to give them tasks too important to ignore or ‘delegate’ to others.

He passed the living room before walking up the stairs to his room. While the first floor contained all the sleeping rooms—his, his parents, and two guest rooms—on the ground floor was everything else: aforementioned kitchen and living room, but also a garage, small library, and their workshop. Though Dad had his own ‘office’ with its own workshop, he still wanted to have his own personal one at home. Much smaller, but still enough to craft whatever they wanted.

All in all, it was a pretty big house—some might even say ‘villa’, though he didn’t agree with that—in the ‘mixed district’ of Lviv’s suburbs. Dad told him he had never had much love for his country, even after White Revolution, so when he met Mum in Tehran he didn’t have any problem leaving with her to Ruthenia. And so they’ve decided to live here, with Poles, Ukrainians, Litvin and other nationalities of Commonwealth in Ruthenia Autonomous Region.

Probably for the best.

He opened the door of his room; it was fairly spacious, with light beige walls and dark wooden furniture. Old-fashioned compared to modern standards, but he liked it this way. A bed, wardrobe, a few bookshelves, and two joined desks—one for his PC, and the second for his other hobbies, mostly calligraphy or bookbinding.

He is a son of a goldsmith, it shouldn't be too surprising he finds other types of handiwork interesting.

Now, how could he kill time then?

He stepped closer to his bookshelves, looking for anything he hadn’t read before. Though they had many books in their library, they were mostly bought by his parents and fit their interests. But these? These belonged solely to him, paid with his money.

Which he earned as his dad's apprentice. Hey, it still counted.

He had always been a bit of a collector, not surprising considering his parents were similar. As such, the books he had were about anything that interested him at the time of buying—calligraphy and bookbinding manuals; gold- and normal smiting, with the latter being much fewer in number, textbooks; books about mythologies and religions of the world; fantasy and sci-fi novels. Most of them were either in Polish or Persian, his two native languages, with a few other in either Ukrainian or English. Ah, the perks of not only having parents from different nations, but also living in a region with many nationalities.

…of course, he didn’t find anything. Really, did he expect to suddenly find some kind of a book version of Holy Grail after checking same shelves nth time?

He sighed, that was stupid of him. So what else could he do? He currently didn't have enough patience for calligraphy, smithing would take too much of his time. The best choices would probably be to simple waste that time doing whatever on PC. Or sleep, that could work too. Or maybe…

He turned to the right side of his room. There, awkwardly situated between a wall and the bed, stood—though ‘laid’ might be a better word here—the recently installed FIS. Despite its name, it didn’t bear much resemblance to an actual sarcophagus; if anything, it looked more like a suggested prototype of a cryo-pod he’d seen some time ago. Around three meters long, more than enough to comfortably fit any human, with a slick, monochrome design and transparent glass. Futuristic, even today.

He hated the fact that even after moving his bed he couldn’t find any good place for FIS. Eh, at least he would have no problem getting from gaming to sleeping this way. Although couldn’t a Sarcophagus also work as a bed? Food for thought.

“Might as well.” Dariusz turned to his desk where he’d left a lengthy user manual and attached jumpsuit he was supposed to wear whenever he used FIS. It seemed weird to him, but hey; it’s in the instruction.

He had read it before—or at least the most important parts—so he skimmed past all the info until he got to the ‘too long didn’t read’ page, with all the most important information to check if he remembered everything correctly. Both vocal and manual activation possible, always wear the provided jumpsuit and nothing else—wait, does this include underwear?

Huh, it does. Well, he was supposed to be engulfed in some kind of stasis gel, with a too complicated formal name he couldn’t bother to remember, so it didn’t surprise him too much, as uncomfortable that idea seemed to be. Alright, what next? No foreign materials, obvious; always wear the respirator before full activation, the same thing; don’t use more than twelve hours, reasonable; before—

…

Before activating FIS, please use a toilet first.

He chuckled. “Yeah, that seems like a really good advice.” Dariusz put down the user manual back on the desk and quickly changed his clothes into the dark red jumpsuit.

Alright. Time for the moment of truth.

“Sarcophagus, open.”

Voice commands worked as promised; FIS’ hatch opened. He awkwardly crawled over his bed and took out the previously mentioned breathing mask from the now opened Sarcophagus. It protected his whole face and was connected to FIS through a flexible tube to pump air. Well, no reason to waste any more time.

Dariusz put the mask on and laid down in FIS. Huh, he didn’t expect it to be so comfortable. Maybe he really won’t need that bed after all?

“Okay…not so bad so far. Sarcophagus, close.” Though his voice was muted because of the mask, it still listened to his commands, and the hatch closed. Curiously enough, the glass slowly turned opaque and over his head appeared a question with only one word.

Begin?

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

A shiver went down his spine, his breath slowly getting heavier. It was…unnerving, actually. He’s been awaiting this moment for over a year, but now when he was so close, the reality of this situation starting setting in. If what DEM had said and shown was true, then what awaited him was not a simple game but truly a new, alien world. This…

“Ah damn, this is ridiculous,” he murmured in frustration. What was he getting all anxious for? Yes, it’s natural for humans to be scared of alien and unknown, but at the same time they draw them, fuelling their desires and ambitions of great adventures or leaving a heritage. He may as well embrace that part.

“User?” The message above him changed, and with it, a feminine, clearly synthetic voice resounded around him.

“GAH!” he screamed, almost hitting his head against the hatch. Too close.

“Do you require help User?” Did he hear it wrong or was that a genuine concern for his well being? Was it an actual AI then, or just a well-made program? Wait, PR might have corrupted his idea what constitutes as ‘real’ a and what doesn't.

Well, whatever it was he definitely didn’t expect it to talk to him.

“Ah…no. No, I’m alright just…didn’t expect to, you know, hear anything in here. No offence.” He added almost as an afterthought to not sound ungrateful; it did sound concerned, after all. Besides, there was no need to be rude to our future AI overlords, was there?

“None taken, though voice functions should be explained on page 173—”

Ah, damn. Should have read the manual much more closely then.

“I will file a report to include this section to the shortened manual. More importantly, I have detected an increase in your heartbeat and stress level. Did you feel unwell?”

But still, how did—waaait. Jumpsuit maybe? Although its design was different, he had to wear something like that in hospitals before. If the jumpsuit’s creators implemented sensors similar to those, then it would make sense for the manual to be so insistent about him wearing it.

He really was starting to regret skimming over the manual.

“Nothing serious, I’m okay now. Just was anxious for a second there.” He didn’t really have to answer it, but…why not? He was talking with a real AI, after all. Well, maybe.

“I see.” There was a brief pause, probably to check the current state of his vitals. Or maybe just to make it appear as if it did so, to make it more human-like. “Then are you ready to begin, User?” The big ‘Begin’ screen appeared again.

Yeah. Yeah, he was. “Yes.”

And then there was darkness.

Aaaand then he was back in his room, though with his previous clothes on rather than the jumpsuit.

Scan complete.

Synchronisation complete.

Welcome to your Personal Space, Dariusz Sławomir Zargar.

A blue, translucent windows message appeared in front of him. It followed his sight, moving to wherever he was currently looking at but not limiting his view. Huh, cool. Though he wondered why it included his second name.

He looked around what appeared to be an exact copy of his room, his gaze stopping at the mirror on the wardrobe.

“It looks so real,” he whispered while looking at the mirror. Most of his features he had inherited from his father. Although not as tall as him, he still stood over metre eighty tall, with the same skin colour as Dad. His hair though, which he had recently decided to tie in a high ponytail as to not annoy him during the tedious process of letting it grow, was dark brown and a beginning of a stubble started appearing on his face. His most striking features were his eyes—as if God decided to honour both his parents, the inner part of the iris was light brown while the outer part dark green. Central Heterochromia, if he remembered the name correctly.

So…what was he supposed to do again? Oh, right.

“Options.” Because the first thing you always do after buying a new game or console is to check options.

Interface Configuration

Personal Space Configuration

Avatar Configuration

Software Configuration

Games Configuration

Another window appeared, making him all giddy. God, he felt like a kid with a new toy.

He checked the first option. It was, as its name suggested, about the interface—popup colours, placement, additional info like date and time et cetera. Useful, if boring. On the other hand, now he knew he still had…ten hours before release. Joy.

Ah, damn. Whatever, he might as well get used to all these options at least now that he had already entered FIS.

The second option was all about his surrounding, be it changing the room into an entire mansion or maybe a homely cabin in a forest, with many presets and customization options available. It was nice, if not something he really cared about right now. He almost definitely will change it into something more to his liking, but right now he just didn’t have any idea. Though…maybe a library preset? He did include his digital bookshelf to synchronise with FIS during installation, so why not try it, just to see if it works?

Everything changed without waiting for him to say a word. No longer was he in his bedroom, but an ancient library filled with not only hundreds of books, but also modern magazines and comics saved in his cloud. This dissonance was a little bit jarring if he had to be honest.

“Thoughts are enough here apparently, good to know. And the next option waaaaas…Avatar.”

A holographic version of himself appeared, with even more options and sliders than the previous category. Curiously enough, most of the more fantastical options were greyed out. When he focused on one of such options, some four-armed hybrid of a dog and a lizard called ‘Towi’, a new window showed up.

This Avatar is blocked until Project Revelations’ Character Creation. Please wait.

Not helpful at all, though it wasn’t like he actually wanted to change how he looked right now. Software then.

This category didn’t bring any interesting information, unfortunately. Well, FIS was only recently released so it’s understandable. There was, however, one interesting feature: time dilation, up to three times slower or faster than in the real world. If he was a student then he sure as hell would love that feature.

He stopped at that thought. Student, huh? He didn’t think he would be able to attend a university before, but now he realised he could. If he wanted, which he wasn’t entirely sure of. He already had a job he liked, and his future was essentially set so…was there any need for that? Maybe something linked?

He shook his head, trying to get away stray thought; he didn’t want to start worrying about this right now

Time to check the last one, Game category. This one showed, naturally, only one position. Unlike the other options, however, when he focused on PR icon rather than a new hologram or window appearing, it was a new set of doors instead. One locked with heavy, brass chains and with a piece of paper attached to it. Huh.

‘Official Opening - 8 p.m

Character Creation - 4 p.m’

Okaaay, that would be nice to know beforehand. Was it a recent decision, or what?

He looked around the library once more. It really didn’t fit. Hmm…Reset Personal Space?

Immediately after, he was back again in his room, though the doors to PR didn’t disappear, instead occupying the spot of the entrance door. Not that he’d have to use them here

He sighed. Still six hours of waiting…