Allen was tied to the beds turned to torturing rack and could barely move any of his limbs, pain permeated through his body, broken bones, cuts, intusions and other damage done to his body in the last hour that seemed to take forever.

"Did you ever have to play a crippled NPC?" The short man asked Allen, "and i dont mean wounded", he was looking at something on his display, "i mean cripple as a main feature" he seemed to choose something as he nodded.

"I had to play a cripple once", Devo started talking again, "it was a private contract", something twisted in his hand, "the man asked for the full immersion pack on the AI description", his voice got quiet, "you think its just a game", he measured Allen with some slimy rope, "but it does something to you", he leaned close to Allen's ear.

"Deep down it touches you", the hot breath in his ear contrasted to the ice spell that permeated in the room, "but that wasnt all of it", he kneeled near the bed, "sick fuck had a twisted thing for a crippled old man", he touched his forehead to Allen's temple, "tortured me for almost a year by the contract", he put a hand on the tied man's forhead, "after the psyche evaluation the company settled with me for three things"

A finger touched Allen's forehead "one was that i will never have to do contracts again", another tap on his forehead "two was that i would get to play as the sea serpent for as long as i like or until i died", a third tap "and i could use credits to make one character crippled any way i want"

A hand clamped on Allens forehead and held his head and he fealt something terrible slithering into his ear, the pain made him scream and he could feel the thing crawling inside his head, he lost control of his bowels, he could feel his right arm and leg go numb, his tongue was dry and heavy in his mouth and then his mind started slipping away.

The lamp that was used to hurt his eyes became dim, sound was starting to lose its edge as Allen fell down a black infinite hole, all he could feel was the pain, all over his body it fealt like fire under his skin and he could feel nothing else, all the interfaces that made up his life were shut down and replaced with pain.

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"What the fuck did you do?" Trent shouted at Devo, "his blockers are down" he grabbed at his head "we fucking hacked his interface".

"Good" Devo replied, "motherfucker should suffer for what he did"

"You probably killed him" Trent was pulling at his hair in frustration.

"So fucking what?" Devo turned his head to look at trent's tantrum, "its just a game".

"No you moron" trent was screaming "his blockers were down" he ran towards the bed "it means whatever you did fucking hit his brain".

"Well why didn't you stop me then?" Devo started to panic, "do something"

Trent used his access to read Allen's interface but all he got was a blank screen with no response, he dropped to his knees and hit his head on the bed staring at the black interface window.

"Come on man wake him up" Devo was whining beside Trent, "dont fuck me over this piece of shit".

Trent had an idea and started shuffling through menus and furiously entering commands.

"What are you doing man?" Devo kept pestering him as trent uploaded more data into Allen's interface.

Allen's chest moved and his eyes snapped open, he tried to move but found he was tied to some sort of surface, trying to sit up resulted in no change so he just layed back and waited for new input to be added to his enviroment.

"You did it man." Devo exclaimed excitedly and then punched at Allens' stomache, "you fucking shitstain", he hit him again, "damn bastard", when he raised his hand to hit the tied man again Trent stopped him.

"He cant feel anything" relief and anxiety were warring inside him, "lets wrap this up before his shift ends".

At the end of the shift Allen logged off, when the bell whistled he got up and walked to the cafeteria, he sat down next to Tom and started eating.

Tom stared at his friend with wide eyes and his jaw dropped, Allen dragged his leg and was using only one hand, he was holding a knife and trying to cut his food single handedly, his right shoulder twitching with the movement of the knife but his hand wouldnt respond.

After staring for three minutes Tom started getting chills up and down his spine, then recognition hit him like a bat to the face, Allen Pearlson, his best friend for eleven years was a walking corpse worked by idle protocols like an NPC in the game.