Ziro raised himself up from his bed, staring at the blank, dull grey ceiling. Sighing he grabbed his legs and swung them over the side of the bed.. He wiped the sleepiness from his eyes, then looked around his rather spartan bedroom. He looked at the contraption near his bed with disgust, grabbing it despite his feelings. With effort he managed to get into the wheelchair, he looked down at his spindly legs. Thin and useless, the very things felt alien to his body. Useless.
Two years ago he had made a choice that defined his life, he had tackled a girl from the front of a speeding truck. Only to get hit full-on himself, his spine had snapped, paralyzing his lower half. Ziro's life had already been shit, personally he thought giving his life for another was the right choice. Except he hadn't died, his life had only been dragged through the gutter more. To make it worse the girl he had saved was the daughter of a billionaire. An owner of a major company of some sort.
First of all the girl he had saved was arrogance incarnate. Just remembering the cunt made Ziro seethe in anger, losing his legs for a woman like that had not been the slightest bit worth it. Her father however was a rather decent man, he had thanked him for saving his daughter numerous times.
He then made sure that Ziro would never be wanting for money for as long as he continued to live. On the surface this seemed great, living a life of easy luxury, who would not want that.
The thing was, Ziro had never been the most motivated of people, now he didn't even have a reason to find a job or go to school. Ziro sighed once more, realizing that most of it was fault of his own. There had been a slight upside to his life though, after many years in development a virtual reality mmo had finally been created. As quite the avid gamer himself he was looking forward to it, which cripple wouldn't he mused. The chance to do everything you couldn't in this drab life. A new start, he got giddy just thinking about it.
He rolled to the fridge, opening the door to check the contents. Not that much left, although he could order food or have the nearby supermarket deliver it to his home, he chose not to do so. He forced himself out of his apartment to do his own groceries. He had to keep a small amount of contact with people at the least. He refused to let himself become a compleet social outcast. He grabbed one of the bags and stuffed it behind his chair, he rolled to the front door and looked at himself in the mirror.
A young man with black hair, and clear blue eyes stared back at him, accompanied with a haggard face and a not-so-neatly-shaved beard. Ziro grunted to himself and opened the door and rolled out, The sun was already quite a ways in the sky. Marking the time at slightly before noon, he made his way to the elevator only to see someone already standing there. Menacing eyes and a pink mowhawk, that came with a shit-load of piercings and some punk-rock styled clothing stared back at him from the elevator.
Ziro grinned, the punk grinned back .
“Yo wheelz, you out early today.”
“Even a wannabe cyborg has to eat every now and then.” Ziro retorted.
A ding announced the arrival of the elevator. The door slid open and the punk entered the elevator, waiting for Ziro to join him. Ziro painstakingly maneuvered his wheelchair into the elevator. Punk, as Ziro had nicknamed him didn't try to help. This was definitely one of the reasons why Ziro liked the guy. He treated him like every other person, maybe a bit more friendly though. They both didn't have much of a thing for people with authority. Comes with a delinquent background he assumes.
Punk had gotten himself arrested once for possession of illegal drugs, Ziro had been the one who payed bail. They gamed together every now and then, but unlike Ziro, Punk had an actual job. He worked at a punk rock radio station. Apparently he was even somewhat of a celebrity.
The odd combo headed down the elevator, soon with another ding they reached the bottom floor. Ziro rolled out, with punk close behind him.
Walking off to his car Punk put up a hand. “Cya wheelz, im headin to the station.”
“Try not to impregnate any fangirls!” Ziro shouted after him causing the people in the street to look at them weirdly. Ziro could almost see Punk face palming himself even though he couldn't see his face. With a smirk he started rolling down the street to the grocery store.
Although his mood had elevated a bit due to the encounter with Punk, the stares of pity the people in the street gave him soon turned his mood for the worse. Grumpily he made his way down the street, and then the part he hated the most, up the hill. He had to put in so much effort to get to the grocery store that it almost counted as a gym session in and off itself.
Pushing himself to get to the top of the hill, making sure to carefully brake before he rolled his wheels again he eventually reached the store Molmart. Although a lot of people made fun of Molmart and its clientele, the store was large and had everything he would need. Aswell as being easily accessible by wheelchair.
Going through the aisles he threw some of the food into his bag, although he was a decent cook he mostly didn't feel like cooking so buying things like chips or micro-meals was his go-to. After having filled up his bag with about a weeks worth of food and drink, he made his way to the counter. Ignoring the glances and stares he received, the cashier wasted no time with talking and just told him the price and waited for his credit card, he slid it through the machine and left the store.
Making his way back was a lot easier than the way to the store, after all going downhill in a wheel chair was quicker. He had to be careful not to go to fast or he might hit a rock or something and end up flying down the side walk. Getting back into the chair after having fallen was a pain in the ass. The stares he got when doing so, would to no small amount, piss him off. He reached his apartment and got into the elevator to his floor. Then to his surprise there was a package in front of his door. It seemed to be the capsule for the Virtual mmo, he hadn't ordered anything else of this size, but he shouldn't have gotten the thing for another week orso.
Then Ziro realized an issue, more like a big friggin problem. Those Fatex cunts had already left and the big ass capsule was now just standing in front of his door, how the hell was he supposed to get that thing inside. He was happy that it came earlier meaning he had something to do, but seriously! What kind of customer service is this, they might even have managed to break the thing knowing them.
Grumbling to himself Ziro opened the door and tried dragging the box in, to no avail. The thing was by far to heavy for one person to drag it inside. He then had an idea that would really suck to use, he got out of his wheel chair, sat on the ground and then lifted one end into his wheelchair. Climbing over the capsule, like a possessed zombie, he crawled outside and turned around dragging his legs behind him, He then pushed the capsule using the wheelchair as an aid.
After a lot of pushing and heavy breathing he managed to get the capsule inside, he had to admit that despite the Fatex fuck-up he was really looking forward to using the capsule. He placed the box in his bedroom, he had enough space there anyway. His computer and desk were in the living room after all. He rolled to the kitchen to grab a knife and cut away the packaging, revealing a jet black shining capsule. A full bed model like the ones he had seen in some movies. However, the capsules he had seen on adds was silver-gray, this one was a jet black. Not that he was complaining, it certainly looked a lot cooler.
He cut away the box so it only left the bottom part for the capsule to sit on, he should probably remove that part as well. But then he'd have to somehow lift the capsule again and he really didn't feel like doing so. Opening the capsule he saw that it had some kind of weird gello inside, thick , and paste gray. There was a form for a human body pressed into the gello, sort of like that movie with the blue aliens.
Inside the capsule was a box, the box was filled with cables that had to be connected and he also found a letter adressed to him. He opened the letter and read.
Dear Ziro,
I felt like i still owed you a debt for the life of my daughter, This is one of the capsules with access to the Beta game, meaning you can start a week early. There are only a thousand players that have access to this capsule but i procured one for you. Make good use of it.
From, Mr. Zelsweiser
The letter fit the man, short, clear, straight to the point. So he now had access to the beta version of the game. His heart pounded as he started connecting the cables, with his fingers shaking slightly, it was a bit difficult to connect the cables. After about ten minutes of reading the manual and figuring things out, he finally managed to start the capsule. It emitted a blue light and a soft buzzing as whatever parts it had were kicked into motion.
He quickly scanned the manual to see if there was anything else he needed to do. The game apparently was already installed into the capsule itself, the only thing left to do was lie down, close the capsule and get started on the game. He breathed excitedly as he moved his wheelchair and opened the capsule, he dragged his legs in lay down and closed the capsule.
The gello started to glow white and in an instant he could feel himself getting drowsy, he felt his consciousness slipping away, before he realized what happened he found himself in a different room. If you could even call it a room, the floor was white and stretched out as far as the eye could see. He took his time to look around, there was nothing much to see though. Then it hit him, he was standing! He looked down at his feet and started grinning, he jumped up and down to test his legs and everything worked as he remembered.
“Why do you jump?” He suddenly heard a faint nasal voice ask.
Ziro turned around to see, a young man stand before him in a robe of sorts. It was black with silver engravings on the sides, it fit snugly around his torso while it flowed loosely behind his legs. He was wearing black pants beneath them that almost seemed to flow straight into his shoes. Silver hair was neatly cropped around his head augmented by a look in his eye comparable to a curious child.
“Why do you jump?” He repeated.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Because i used to not be able to, i am paralyzed from the waist down.” Ziro replied.
“Do you like jumping?”
“Well it feels good to be able to move around again, being confined to a wheel chair is shit.”
“What does shit mean?”
“Well it means really bad?” Ziro answered tilting his head at the man.
“Why do you ask me if it means really bad?”
Ziro stared and cocked his head looking at the strange man, he had already figured out it was probably the AI in charge of running the game and helping the players. First time online with actual players must mean it still had a lot of information to learn, after all letting an AI loose on the internet was not really the best course of action. He remembered reading somewhere that the AI created for the game, would learn from the players that played it.
“Well i wasn't really asking you, it was more that i was wondering why you would ask, being a bit confused i turned my sentence into a question i guess.”
“I see, welcome to Millenia?”
Ziro chuckled at as the AI spoke his own questioning sentence. “Thanks for the welcome!”
“Would you like me to assist in the character selection process?” The AI asked.
“Sure! Could always use the bit of extra information, thanks! Uuuhm whats your name?”
The AI copied him again by cocking his head. “I do not have a name.”
Ziro blinked. “Why not?”
“I have not been given one.”
“Then can i give you one?”
“If you wish”
Ziro rubbed his chin. “How about Zoltan!” He said grinning ear to ear.
“Very well i shall now use the name Zoltan to identify myself”
Ziro had trouble keeping himself from laughing but tried to say with a straight face. “Tell them you will take them on an intergalactic journey to meet alien species.”
“This process is possible, i will add it to my greeting” Zoltan said seriously.
Ziro could already imagine the faces of the new players entering the game and being greeted by Zoltan, he decided to improve upon his design. “You should change your garb to bubble wrap, and wear your other clothes underneath!”
“Is this fashionable?”
“Extremely.”
With a blink of light Zoltan changed to wearing see through bubble wrap with black shorts and a tanktop underneath.
This. Is. PERFECT! Ziro thought laughing to himself. The little boy in him grinning from ear to ear.
“You are now the 1000th beta player to enter the game, shall we proceed to character creation?”
It made sense that Ziro was the last one to enter, the others had probably been waiting for the countdown so they could enter. Leaving Ziro slightly behind. Not that it bothered him any, Zoltan brought down a circle with all the available races. The sheer number of choices was surreal, He could scroll through all the races and for experimentation he clicked on the elf as race. Races had a racial ability, these however were marked by question marks. Upon asking Zoltan it seemed they wanted to keep these racials a secret so it wouldn't effect peoples choices.
He could also change as much to the aesthetic appearance of the elf as he wanted, it started out looking similar to him. He continued changing it until it looked like a certain archer elf from a certain movie. He grinned and continued scrolling through the races, Elves, dwarves, draconians, gnolls, gnomes, orcs, lizardmen, frogmen, centaurs, minotaurs even mermaids were available. Eventually he came across a race that really pulled to him.
The race was taller than a human, with slightly more angular features. Their hair seemed to be made from flowing shadows. Pasty white skin nearly translucent, he could almost see the veins through it. He clicked on the race and then saw the figure in front of him change into something resembling him. The eyes were a bit peculiar, the color of the white of the eyes and the pupil was switched. The normal eye white was black instead, with a snowy white nearly glowing pupil. The iris colour was a blue like his and made the eyes a bit eerie in his opinion.
Long story short ,he loved it, it was like some bad-ass creature from the dark. They had called the race Shadow-spawn. Ziro only changed one thing on his character, making the hair as long as it would go. It now resembled a shadowy mass nearing his ankles, it seemed more like a magical cloak than hair of any kind. He made the character walk and as he saw the shadow flowing behind it he knew what his choice would be. He clicked the character and selected it, then the prompt came asking for his username. He thought for a second and then choose 0 as his username.
Why 0? Well first of all Zero was supposed to be his name, his mother having been to cracked up on meth had somehow managed to write Ziro instead. That added with his last name had caused an excess of bullying. A guy named Ziro Stones, was after all an easy target for those dumber than rocks bullies. Thinking back on it he grimaced, shaking off his memories he looked back at Zoltan.
“So what now?”
“You may now choose your start area”
“Any advice on that?”
“I would recommend this area.” Zoltan said pointing on a map that he had summoned out of nowhere.
“Then i guess that is were i'll go.”
Without any further ado, Zoltan teleported Ziro to a forest clearing. He stood there for a moment confused by the sudden change in surroundings. Then his senses got bombarded by everything around him. The smell of the forest, the feel of the ground on his bare feet, the sounds of birds, the sight of greenery all around him. He was awestruck by the sight, trying his best to take everything in. Here and there he saw some curious creatures stick there noses out of the bush and stare at him.
Ziro sat down on the grass, relishing in the feeling. He hadn't been in a forest since he had the accident. Dirt and grass were not very wheelchair accessible, people underestimated the simple pleasure of being able to go to areas like this. Enjoying nature was extremely underestimated in todays society. A curious rabbit jumped out the bushes and wiggled its little nose. It seemed to try to smell Ziro, honestly he wasn't sure if rabbits even had a decent sense of smell. He did know they had great ears, and those little tufty things were also pointed in his direction.
The bunny hopped carefully closer, strangely unafraid of the new creature that had suddenly appeared in their midst. Eventually the creature was only a few feet away, Ziro carefully turned his hand so the palm faced the rabbit. The fuzzy critter edged towards his hand before he was merely a few inches away. He then stopped to sniffle his hand before pushing his head against it, Ziro surprised by the sudden touch more out of reflex than anything started to pet the critter. To his surprise the rabbit greatly enjoyed the touch and started rubbing its head against his hand while stamping his foot on the ground.
Its soooo cuuuute!
Enjoying the contact with the furry critter a blissful smile crept onto his face. He had never felt more at ease than right now, not that he could remember anyway. Soon enough other forest furries started joining them, a few squirrels, something that seemed like a fox but didn't have the canines to be a carnivore, even a deer showed up. Soon enough he was surrounded by animals who were all either grazing or letting him pet them. The fox-like critter took its place in his lap and started snoring softly, soon enough Ziro lay back and fell asleep as well, all the critters bunched up on him like a scene from Wizney.
A few hours later Ziro woke up again, wiping the drowsiness from his eyes, the fox and the rabbit were still sleeping with him but the rest of the critters had wandered of. Not wanting to get rid of the fuzzy little things just yet he started exploring the various menu's and screens. Once he got to his Character Screen he noticed a few things. Most if it was pretty basic, a hundred in both mana and hp, and 10 in each stat. What stood out was one of the skills, he had a skill called Honest Aura. What he could make out of it was that the skill basically let some creatures or even people 'see' his personality.
That explained why all the critters felt so at ease with him, it wasn't that they had never run into any creatures that wished them ill. They knew, somehow, that it was safe to be around him. It seemed to otherwise be a rather useless skill but Ziro was quite happy with it none the less. How many would get to have this kind of sensation, maybe zookeepers or animal enthusiasts. He looked down at the fox-like creature with a lopsided smile and started softly petting it,and it started purring, sending small vibrations through its tiny body. It was heart-meltingly cute, Ziro took a shaking breath and carefully placed the little fox on the ground.
He stretched a bit and looked down into the forest, opening up his mini map he headed for the nearest town.