My names Benjamin Atlas. I’m 29 years old and I live in what used to be New York city. I haven’t been outside my apartment in 5 years. The only people I talk to are my maid and my doctors. See I have some very serious mental health issues. I’ve been anxious my whole life. I have a handful of anxiety disorders, all of which make my live practically unlivable. To make things worse my mental issues have begun to affect my health. The doctors are only expecting me to survive a few more years if I can’t decrease my anxiety. My entire body is starting to fight itself, causing all sorts of crazy physical symptoms.
The whole point of the Treatment is to help me experience the mental effects of combating my problems but none of the physical. This way I can treat my mental issues without worrying about my heart exploding. No, it won’t actually explode. Either way this treatment is new and I’m the first person its ever being used on.
In order for me to do this sort of thing they needed to highly modify an Insertion Pod. They are top of the line. They make everything you feel in the game, feel just like it was happening to you in real life. Pain, pleasure you name it. These sorts of modifications come with huge risks though.
“The separation of mind and body could cause tremendous strain on your body Ben.” A young doctor explained to Ben. “We have no idea how this will affect your ability to play the game, let alone survive the jump into virtual reality. These modifications have never been tested and we have no way of knowing what will happen.”
The doctor was clearly unsure of whether I should go through with this or not.
“Let me ask you one thing doctor. How many other options do I really have? I’ve been trying the treatments and all the meds and nothing is working at all.” Ben explained to the doctor as if he hadn’t already known that. “I understand there are risks but if this works then they are worth taking. I just want to be able to live my life.”
With that the doctor began to understand were the young man was coming from.
“I understand. So, in that case we need to get you a full physical and every possible test we can to have a base line on as much of your physical self as possible. We need to be able to monitor if the treatment is even working. If it’s causing things to get worse then I’m pulling the plug Ben.” The young doctor said looking Ben in the eyes.
“I understand.” Ben answered.
The next few days were extremely busy. I was given 48 hours to take care of everything I thought might need to be taken care of. This treatment was going to last as long as it was helping me. Once it became more damaging than not, they were going to pull the plug. That meant that I had no idea how long I would be in there for. For all I know It could be a few days or a few years.
After another few days of tests it was finally the day that I was to log into the game for the first time. I choose a game called The Server. It sounded cool. Something about multiple games all sharing certain aspects of your character. From what I understood it was like playing a game that had multiple other games inside of it. All of these games had a unique character of mine in them but they were all connected or something. Sounded interesting in the least so I went with it.
The initial jump is said to be the hardest to I was preparing for the worst. This was also making me extremely anxious. This intern was making this whole situation much more stressful.
“The pods ready and as long as you’re ready you can begin logging in whenever you want.” The young doctor said to ben as he opened the door to the pod.
“Okay?” Ben said as he stepped into the pod. “I guess this is it. Wish me luck.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Ben was terrified. He had never played VR games because they cause so much anxiety. The realism was just too much for him. The doctors spent quite a bit of time reassuring ben that the pod had been modified heavily. This would allow him to not feel the physical effects of his anxiety. He may have to suffer for a few minutes but once the Pod had logged his mind into the game he would be free of the pain and discomfort of his physical symptoms. At least while he was in the game world.
Ben looked at his reflection in the glass window covering the door of the pod. He took a few deep breaths and reminded himself that if things weren’t getting better they would pull him out. As he slowly began to relax and reassure himself he was ok, he decided to hit the log in button.
With that he saw a huge flash of white light. It was so bright it was blinding. Once his eyes began to adjust he realized he wasn’t in his pod anymore. He rubbed his eyes and looked around.
He was in the Server Hub. This was the only thing he really had time to read about the game so far. He didn’t really have a lot of time to do any research on the game world.
Looking around he noticed that everyone looked sort of the same, aside from gender differences. There were male and female body shapes but everything else was mostly the same. They all had greyish skin and it didn’t really look like skin. All of them were essentially the same body with different faces. It was kind of weird to get used to.
As Ben continued to look around he saw 3 portals. They were massive in size and he was pretty sure you could fly a plane through them. Each one had a message above them with the destination the portal led to. There were currently 2 working portals. The one to the east was the labeled, “Crystal Shard Online”. The portal to the West was inactive and didn’t have anything written above it other than the words “Under Construction”. Behind me was another active portal that read, “Desperation”. Straight ahead of me was what looked like a modern town but very small in comparison to the real-world thing.
As I finished looking around I noticed an amazing aroma in the air. As he starting to take his first step in this new virtual world, a window popped up in front of him.
“Welcome to The Server. The multi-universal Virtual Reality games service. You are currently located in the Hub. This is where you can interact with players outside of the specific worlds that the many portals lead to. This is where you will change from one game to another and also were all non-world related games mechanics are handled. Such as in game purchases and any other none in game currency transfers. Now that we have explained that how about we give you a little tour.” Once ben was finished reading the introduction message he clicked the continue button at the bottom of the window, indicating that he would like a tour.
“This game is broken up into many different worlds. Each world is governed by its own rules and mechanics. The only thing that connects them is you. What you are looking at now are called Blanks. They are your Multi-world self so to speak. Everything that happens in game is saved in your blanks memory. Each encounter, each item received and each achievement unlocked. All of this will go with you into all the other games.” Ben was in shock. He couldn’t believe was he was reading. This sounded amazing. “All Game worlds have their own currency but all of them are interchangeable here at the hub. Each world also has its own experience, but we can get into that later.” Once Ben had finished reading the window he took a minute and thought to himself just how easy it would be to move from one game to another. All you had to do was transfer your fortune and other than leveling up a new character everything was already taken care of. Ben pressed the Continue button on the bottom of the window, signaling he was ready for the rest of the introduction.
“Currently we only have 2 active worlds. Desperation: our new sci-fi survival RPG game, and Crystal Shard Online: our flagship fantasy RPG game. These are the only 2 games currently available. We are also working on a Fantasy Western game currently. That is why we have a portal gate under construction. Anything more about the games can be found at the information booth we have set up in the Town of Blank. In case you hadn’t noticed there is a town in the Hub. This is where all Server related news will be posted. Any other information about what news will be posted were can be found at the information booth. We hope you enjoy your time playing on The Server. Please have a wonderful day and always remember that there isn’t just one universe, there are many.” And with that Ben pressed the end button on the window and watched as it disappeared into nothing.
“Wow, this place is amazing.” Ben said. Realizing he was thinking out loud still. “I guess some habits aren’t just attached to my physical body.” He found it funny that he still was audibly narrating his thought process at random times. Hopefully it doesn’t get him into as much trouble as it did in real life.