"You serious?" I asked astounded as I turn around. The man, Gregory, was smirking at my disbelief.

"Well, you seemed a bit sad of a lad, maybe this will do some good for you. I can procure one of these later anyway."

Now that he was all turned towards me, I was bit surprised of his outlook. He seemed to be around 30's or 40's, but most peculiar detail was a scar on the left side of his face. It went from over the left eyebrow, all the way to his chin, and it had few diverting thinner streaks, going towards his nose and ear.

"Well you up for it or not, you can fill in the paper yourself so I can't see your personal info, if that's what you're concerned about". The man was getting slightly annoyed of my stare. I quickly responded so that I wouldn't lose this chance!

"Of course sir. I will be in your debt, so should we happen to meet in the game, I will most likely go by the name Ramon. If you need help, don't hesitate to turn to me. I hope to repay this to you."

"Hahaha, all right lad. I haven't thought so far yet, but ill be sure to grab on the offer."

Gregory turned towards the manager and asked; "I assume you have no complaints about this?"

"Of course not, Mr. Saltbridge. Now, if the young gentleman could follow me to the counter, so we can get this done?" The manager answered unfazed, keeping the business smile intact.

"Well then, Ramon. I wish you luck. Try not to be too depressed, the world is not dead yet and you're still young" He winked as he left. I was quite surprised, as I didn't notice him paying attention to me, but somehow he read me to that extent....

"What a sneaky old man."

__________________________________________________________________________________

I gave my farewells to Greg and moved to the counter. After filling in the form I went home, only to see the delivery already on my front door, waiting for me. Small truck was parked in front of my front porch. One of things I liked about this neighborhood were the front porches and wide 2-lane road, giving nice sense of space.

My house looked kinda shabby from the outside, but the interior is quite good for the price. It's just small condo in the suburbs, squeezed between many buildings alike. It has bedroom, kitchen, small living room and bathroom. Decorated with mainly the essentials, it's what you can proudly call "the bachelor box". Luckily the city of Stenwood I lived at was quite small, so rents were generally on the low side here.

As I approached the small front yard, the driver dressed in the clothes of local water company adressed me; "Mr. Flinger, I presume? If you could sign here please."

"Yes, Thank you." I nodded and grabbed the clipboard he was holding out.

I signed the papers, and checked through my package. It came with some free bottles of water. It was a small ruse to throw off anyone who would be interested of breaking into my house later, knowing that I'm in possession of a receiver. They really thought all this out to the end.

"Thank you Mr. Flinger. I'll be on my way then, have a pleasant afternoon!" He exclaimed as he entered his small truck, and sped off. I saw few alike packages on the passenger seat next to him. I realized I should bring the packet inside, before my neighbours would get curious. I grabbed my keys, unlocked the door and opened it. Just as I was about to enter, I heard a familiar voice which made me cringe.

"Good afternoon Mike! How are you doing today!"

"I'm fine Mrs. Rendwan, how are you?"

Mrs. Rendwan, the neighbourhood crazy old lady. Well, not so much on the crazy part, but she's your usual retired, elderly woman. Who thinks knowing everything about everyone and spreading that around was her responsibility in the area. She personally had broken quite a few relationships here, mainly either by exposing secrets kept between couples, or simply forwarding ill willed hearsay.

Somehow she also refused to take any responsibility for what she said, simply believing that the message is to blame, not the messenger. Thus, I regarded her as a wacko.

She was smiling like a good old grandmother of God herself, though I was little bit wary of the predatory glint in her eyes. "Fine as always Mike! I came out to see why the delivery man was so persistently waiting, but it seems he wasn't some sort of shady person. May I ask what you have there?"

I kept straight face, and played it cool; "Oh, just some water filtering equipment I opted to try. The water company was looking for people to test it out, and I somehow ended up with one. That's why I also got the complimentary purified water to do comparisons with." The story was pre-planned by the company, so I didn't need to worry about people digging up on this facade.

Looking slightly disappointed, she answered; "Oh yes, I heard something like that was going on. Apparently the car has been making few stops around these blocks, but i've yet to hear what it was delivering. Thank you for satisfying the curiosity of an old woman Mike, you know there's little what I can enjoy in this age anymore".

I inwardly sighed in relief, as she seemed satisfied with the answer. With little more small talk, she finally parted to continue her rounds, while I entered the house.

I brought the package to the living room, and put my jacket in the closet at the hallway. I went to the kitchen and checked my messages from the phone. I did have a smart phone, but I didn't have a number on it. It's quite useless these days, as all you need is wifi, or some sort of data package to use your applications to chat and call. Although I still had a landline at home only for my parents and officials to call to.

"You have two new messages, press # to listen"

I complied.

"Hey bro, its Kate! How's job hunting? I met couple guys while tending the counter, who were saying that they'd need some helping hands! I don't quite remember the details, you know how bartending is. But I have their numbers, so we can contact them if you want! Also, drop by at the bar sometime, i know you go out a lot, but you should also socialize a bit! Also call mom and dad, they've been worried still, even if your shit got sorted out. They keep bitching at me to keep an eye on you at all times, as you don't keep in touch with them enough. See ya!"

My sister was pretty quirky, but weirdly dependable. She was just graduating university as electrics engineer, but was in reality crazy about music. Not as a fan girl however, just that she's able to play various instruments and she's taking part in a lot of different projects on her free time.

Our parents had been worried about her for some time, but as she proved our worries wrong for many times, they didn't really stress about her anymore. I had bit complicated feelings about that, because now they diverted their full attention to me. I didn't quite enjoy the situation.

"Well, she can wait. I bet some guys were just making up shit to get into her pants. Again."

I shaked my head while smirking, and listened to the next message. a Melodic voice of a woman started talking.

"Good Day Mr. Flinger and once more, thank you for buying Instinct! We are proud to announce you, that the servers will be up and online at friday 6pm, 20th of november. The servers will start different times around the world, but always at the 6pm of friday evening local time. This non-synced start is compensated in-game, so that the time difference wont give you any leeway comparing to others. However, the receivers have already been activated, and you can use them to browse internet, watch tv, and so forth. Feel free to explore the appliances of the receiver, but remember not to use it too many nights in a row when sleeping. Although there's no physical drawbacks, we at Gorotech believe, that normal sleep is irreplaceable for the human psyche. Thank you for your time and we wish you luck in your endeavours!."

As I thought the message was over, a male voice blurted out a little too fast to sound natural; "this is an automated message, do not try to contact us by calling back.". I chuckled for the late clarification.

Well, the D-day would be tomorrow then. Actually it was quite good, now I would have time to stock up on supplies, and to get ready to totally immerse myself to the game. Though I probably wouldn't want to give up running. Nothing beats the feeling of your body complying to your will, being unstoppable.

Since I was a kid I loved running outside. Usually I ran through fields and forests, exploring and mapping out the areas close to our home. While i was in high school, this hobby was left to the side for awhile. But when I moved to the city, I saw some guys at night time doing a sport called Free Running. It became really good way to keep fit, and to get to know the neighbourhood at the same time.

At first some neighbours got little surprised seeing me in various random spots and backyards, but eventually they came to know me and didn't mind. I generally didn't trespass on other peoples property, but to some places I had no other way to go, or the other route would be just ridiculously long.

So as usual, I ate a little, and set back out again. I ran around for an hour and returned home. A shower and couple tv shows later, I was ready to sleep. It was the first time in few months that I had something to anticipate from tomorrow.

__________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up little after 9 am. Feeling anxious already, I went through my morning as usual and then gathered the needed supplies from the stores. After few hours I had all my needs covered, but it was only 3 pm. Since all my thoughts were in the game anyway, I figured to research what I can, before the game starts.

I turned on my old cranky computer, and waited it to turn on for awhile.

.

.

.

I turned it off, unplugged all the cables, opened my window and threw it out.

"Oh god how many times I wanted to do this when this piece of junk was acting up on me. I don't care if that hag makes up something out of this, but damn. I guess I understand now why the guys working as demolishers always seem so stresless and jolly." I thought considerably relieved.

After gloating on the feeling awhile, i noticed my face starting to hurt from the wide grin I had on my face.

If somebody saw me now, I would be wearing tight white shirt in a soft round room in no time. Maybe my head ain't as straight as I thought.

I outright laughed a bit and turned towards the package. It was still sitting on the living room sofa. I slowly unpacked it, savoring the moment. I realized before that I could access the internet with the helmet and get used to it at the same time. Thus I got rid of the computer and my frustration at the same time. Happy face!

In the packet there wasn't many items. Cables connecting for the power, and internet. The helmet. Surprisingly few manuals, but I guess paper versions were quite outdated by now. From the inbetween of the papers a cd popped out. It was labeled 'How to start up and maintain your receiver. Also includes few words from the creators of Instinct.'

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

My face froze, and I turned to look towards the table where my computer used to be. I then moved to the window. I looked out, and I saw my computer in one piece. Too bad its innards had shattered in about 2 meter radius of it.

"I call worth."

I felt a smile crawling on my face again as I shrugged my shoulders and returned to the living room. I laid myself down on the sofa, hooked up the receiver with the cables and put it on. It fit quite well, as the stretchy material lined itself around my head. Surprisingly it felt really comfy, and didn't press my skin nor hinder my breathing. Also from the inside the visor was easy to see through, so I could also navigate around my room while I was wearing the "helmet". I took a seat in my sofa, and pressed a button in the cord to start it up.

Instantly the visor went black, and a text "welcome" was projected on the inside of visor. I say projected, as it gave weird illusion that I entered a totally new room, and the text was on the back wall of that room. I turned my head to see if I was able see my living room, and the blackness turned transparent, abling me to see around again.

"That's weird, I didn't notice any commands or anything, maybe it reads my thoughts?"

I tested my theory, and focused on thinking about the welcome text again. The same blackness combined with the text appeared. I waited for couple seconds, and the "welcome" was replaced by several things.

There was time on the top right corner, and from the left top corner there were icons for different programs going to the bottom, and then forming new rows next to the former ones. Like in a smart phone. I inspected them for awhile, and then tried focusing on firebox-icon. That opened me the standard web page for searching, and I began my research.

After couple hours of googling and surfing, I was not much wiser than before. Most of the information was derived from other programs of Gorotech corp, which mainly consisted of war simulators and various applications for amusement of rich kids.

Apparently it practically feels like a new world, with high end reality. Everything you "feel", you truly feel. It was all pretty technical, as by using only your mind its quite hard to replicate the feelings of, for example, pain, temperature, physical exhaustion and so on. But it seems Gorotechs engineers somehow worked around that.  

At the moment you could feel pretty much everything as normal, with the exception of pain, which had been lowered to suitable levels. Apparently the "Suitable" was also varying between person to person, to make game fair to everyone. Reason was that people have different amount of mental pain resistance.

I looked at the time, and it was 5.28 pm. Being little bit exhausted from trying to grasp the little info available about the game, so I closed all tabs and returned to the home-screen.

I started going through other available applications. Apparently several companies had already taken note about how useful the receiver is. If Gorotech gave them approval, they could also make their own programs. So far Gorotech had made few demo's of their own, just for marketing purposes. There was couple programs for sports, few for studying and some miscellaneous ones, including dancing lessons, and a sexbot. Yes, they actually included a demo of a virtual lover. I was intrigued for tenth of a second, until I realized my self-esteem would burn down in flames if I caught myself using that.

Sorry Alise, we were not meant to be!

I felt my cheeks reddening a bit, until I saw the settings page. It seemed I could also change the time compression in this state. I felt astounded, as i didn't even notice that my mind was already being accessed. And the possibilities I saw so far were endless.

There was also option to sleep, which I guess would switch off my mind? They truly had thought a lot while making this thing up. This was quite convenient piece of technology, even if one is not a hardcore gamer. Your studying, working and leisure could be enhanced in many ways with this.

I added some time compression, and tried out few of the programs. The compression amount appeared under the clock, and a timer underneath that. Seemed the timer is to keep track of relative time I was experiencing. I tried out the sports programs, and one of the studying ones. It was amazing how you truly felt like being inside a real body. All the movements felt like your own, with no delay whatsoever. Also, the kid inside me wanted to do a sports competition with huge audience on easy settings, win it, and just bask in glory for awhile. Afterwards, I felt tad bit ashamed, but all together enjoyed the experience. I looked at the time and it was about time to start.

I once more returned to home-screen, and I focused on the word "instinct". Like flipping pages on a phone, a few tabs passed my eyes, until a totally dark page tookover. In the middle of that was not a thumbnail for the game, just the word. As I pressed concentrate on it, red eyes emerged from darkness. Suddenly my vision was filled with huge maw of a monster, and with a loud roar emerging from the depths of the hungry mouth. It quickly closed in and swallowed me whole!

"HOOOLYFUCKINGWHATTTAAAFAAK"

I tried to close my eyes and the maw disappeared.  Although I couldn't really close my eyes, the receiver somehow realized my panic. A text "You have been disconnected for 5 minutes, you can safely remove the receiver" was floating in the air in front of me. I saw my living room again, and I felt better. I checked my pants, but luckily somehow my body did not react in the way I was afraid it would had. After taking off the receiver, I went to wash my face and calmed down a bit. When the 5 minutes were full, I connected again.

This time when I started the game, I was ready for the scare. But instead the text just disappeared. After awhile, it seemed  like I arrived into space, stars twinkling all around me. Celestial music started to play gently in the background, and I tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly a voice started speaking to me, the same one that I heard on the phone day before.

"Welcome, you lost soul. I offer you a chance to remake yourself, are you willing to descend to a new world?"

In front of me a person, who you could only describe as a goddess, appeared. She was wearing a mask, so I couldn't see her face, but her Frilly dress, with lots of accessories, was accentuating her body. Her curves were quite good and the body was more on the slim side. Kind of your average gipsy queen of a look.

I would probably had been staring for a quite while afterwards, if not for two blue boxes appearing in front of that miracle of a body, reading "yes" and "no" respectively. I moved my hand and pressed the "yes" box, and they disappeared.

"Understood. Please sculpt a vessel for yourself"

A big chunk of clay appeared in front of me. Apparently this would be the character creation. For starters, I imagined my body and kept focusing until the shape turns into something quite close to it. It was still plain, so I imagined all the details on it. Couple scars, eye colour, hair style. I looked at the clock, and surprisingly it had already taken me already over 20 minutes to create myself. After finishing the sculpture, I smiled and said out loud to the goddess;

"I'm done, your holiness."

"Good. By the way, I'm in no way holy, so you can drop that. Now I wish you luck in your endeavours. 'Till we meet again."

"Wait what was that change of tone?"

As I thought that, I started feeling weird. My vision went black, only to return after a short while. Looked down, and noticed that I was now in control of my body. Kinda weird train of thoughts, but accurate description. As I wondered what was gonna happen, the stars around me started to disappear. A quiet, tinning noise started getting louder and louder. It finally became so loud, that I felt my head cracking from the resonance and pressure. Right when it got to the point that i couldn't take take it anymore, I lost my consciousness.

__________________________________________________________________

I woke up groggy, and I was assaulted by sounds of a battle. I heard roars of animals, and death throes of men and women alike. My vision cleared, the adrenaline started to pump and I froze in shock.

In front of me there was six catlike beasts. They were twice as big as lions i've seen in tv and generally looked like the ancient sabertooths. I watched in horror, how people closest to them got ripped into pieces, one by one. Four of the tigers had stopped to eat. Some were screaming and few other, luckier ones were trying to get away from the predators.

Behind the tigers there was an open gate, naturally attached to a wall. I looked around and saw a wooden cage built around and enclosing us with the beasts. The only way out was the gate! Somehow it seemed really misty outside, but anywhere was better than in this entrapment!

I didn't hesitate longer. Only two of the four beasts were actively killing on the right side, so I started sprinting to the left. Answers can come later, as its now questionable if I will live to see tomorrow. The game feels so real, and the scene is so shocking that i've long forgotten that this is not real. I felt the panic rising inside me, and I dashed past the first two of eating beasts. Only two more to go.

I passed another one without any problems. The last one gave me a quick glance, but didn't react when i circled around it. The distance wasn't that long, but it felt like everything happened really slowly. As I passed the last saber tooth, I turned my head to look behind. I failed to notice one thing about the beasts. Particularly their tails. In the end of the tail, there's really menacing looking spike, a jagged one, so that it hurts you more when pulled out.

Apparently the cats could dexterously use it for hunting, as I saw from the one pierced through my chest. The pain assaulted me a little late, and I tried to scream. Only a bloody gurgle came out, and I felt that I'm going to pass out. After couple seconds the pain finally ended and everything turned black. A blue box appeared in my vision as I was still shaking inside my mind from the horror and shock.

"I'm really getting tired of being unconscious all the time." And as I read the text, I was starting to hate this game.

You have died. Welcome to Instinct <3.

***********

As usual, feedback is appreaciated! The chapter lenghts will most likely vary, at least until i find a comfortable lenght for me. I'd suppose most of the time it would be between 2k - 3k