"The planet was ruined by the nuclear conflict in the twenty seventy, leaving just a million people alive. We at Lucid Dreams promise to assist humanity in establishing a fresh foothold in the universe brimming with possibilities and hope."

A mechanical scream jolted Aiden awake from his deep slumber. Yes. The earth had been destroyed in a nuclear war, and he was one of the last survivors.

Or he wasn't.

"Bubbles floated around him. The temperature was both cold and hot at the same time. Strangely, he didn't need to breathe, yet he survived submerged in the blue liquid.

Was he dead? Maybe he was in hell, being punished for the crimes he didn't do.

"It was a conspiracy, and I did nothing," he shouted, but no voice came out. For ten years he shouted this in the prison, but no one listened to them. What was his crime - arriving at the last safe city of the humanity at a wrong time? He was right away sent into a prison and lived ten worst years of his life behind the bars among the shit of people and shit people.

"Where am I?" He asked, but no one answered.

He pushed himself up, and he flew out of the blue liquid and appeared in a small gray room.

He could fly?

When he looked down, he saw a glass tank with bubbling liquid. He was part of some experiment, and that explains why he didn't need to breathe.

What the heck was going on?

The last thing he recalled when he was pulled out of the prison and pushed into a mass execution chamber. They said earth had run out of oxygen and they would be first to scarify for the greater of humanity.

Shit about the humanity. They just wanted to get rid of criminals without a trial. And he wasn't even a prisoner. He was a law-abiding citizen working in a tech company for the prototype of Vision Dreams Pro, which became the Lucid Dreams later.

"Mr. Aiden. Welcome back from the Soul Cryo Tank. I'm an AI, Samantha for your help. Please take a seat so we can talk about our arrangements." The surrounding view shifted, and he appeared in a corporate meeting room with light blue walls on one side and a sprawling Manhattan visible through the glass on the other side.

He breathed in the fresh air and for a moment he thought everything was a dream, and he was back in his corporate rut with rats running on treadmills, and playing golf on the weekends. But how could it wipe out the ten years he spent between criminals, real criminals that raped ever the cats in the prison? If he didn't have some training in martial arts, he would have been a rape-victim too.

Fuck! He hated those rapists.

"Anyway, where are we, madam…" He glanced at the deep cleavage of the lady sitting across the wooden table in a tight blue blouse and an ironed black pencil skirt.

He had fucked such girls when he earned a good buck at being a promising manager in the firm. Afterwards he only saw the oily dicks of prisoners.

"Mr. Aiden. Can we please concentrate here?" She tapped the pen on the metal-edge of the table between them to attract his attention. "I've to get you on the contract so I can send you to live in a new world and rehabilitate. This is a rare chance you shouldn't miss out on."

"Did you say you are a mind fuck robot?" Aiden spun the chair and sat on it, resting his feet on the table. "Give me an answer first. Where are we? If this is not hell, then what the fuck is this?"

"We are in the virtual world. I'm an AI, and you don't exist in your physical form. When you were executed, the Company was running an experiment, and you were chosen as a test subject. So we got rid of your physical body and preserved your soul until now."

"Look, madam, I smell shit from every word you speak. I want my lawyer, and I want him now." He punched the table, and a vibration passed along his arm. If this was all virtual, then why was he fucking feeling the pain in his arm, and what about the thirst clinging to his throat from the moment he woke up from the blue liquid?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I'm sorry, but no one is alive. The last person was sent to a new world to rehabilitate. I was about to destroy the Earth but then a warning popped up and we found you in an experimental Cryo Tank."

"Ha ha. You do nice jokes, madam. Can we get to the real business? Where are we really?"

"We are on Earth, or inside a scientific research facility where the last of the Soul Cryo Tanks are kept."

Aiden took a deep breath. The horrific memories of the war surfaced back in his mind. Even if this reality wasn't true, the prison was true, the war was true.

"You want to blow up Earth? Are you from the fucking country who started the war?" Aiden rubbed his sweaty face, and damn, he could smell the rot coming out of him. If this wasn't a truth, then what else was a truth? "If you are a robot, change into something else."

The girl tapped her pen on the table and her clothes changed into a black suit and white blouse. The blouse still clung to her large breasts, but now in full clothes, she was less distracting.

"Is that suit your test, Mr. Aiden?"

"I don't believe you. When I was executed, the Earth still had oxygen left for many centuries. That's what I heard from the bullshit you spread about the oxygen issues."

"Unfortunately, we had troubles, and we lost all oxygen in a century, so we had to rush our Project Lucid Dream 1.0 and then 2.0."

"It's so easy to sit in a prison cell and pretend like we all exist in a vacuum, isn't it?" He shrugged. This must be their new brainwashing method. "You sent me to jail in a wrong charge. You executed me in the first batch, so what the fuck do you want from me? Is this some kind of prank you want to play with prisoners? Maybe test how much time they take to break and experiment with their brains." These fucking scientists loved to play games like this, and he was well aware of them.

"Let me show it to you then," she said, and the world around them shifted and transformed.

The scenery changed into a barren land, traumatized by the war and massacre. The rivers of blood had dried in the long timeline, but the scared remained behind. The scares of the day when the humanity died to its own greed.

A harsh, crimson sun hung overhead, casting an eerie glow over the scarred, pitted landscape. The ground looked as if a colossal meteor had plowed into the earth, leaving a jagged, uneven surface that sent a chill down Aiden's spine.

A jet of lava shot out of an opening, sending him trembling back.

"This is no joke," he muttered as he watched the wisps of fog and fumes rose from the cracked, parched soil, obscuring the horizon with their hazy tendrils. There was an eerie, lifeless quality to the place, devoid of any sign of vegetation or wildlife. The air felt thick and oppressive, making it difficult to draw a full breath. It was a bleak, apocalyptic scene that sent a chill down Aiden's spine as he took in the desolate illustration before him.

"This is real." He was there when the first nuke hit the soil of his beloved America, and then everything went haywire. After he entered the underground bunkers and later watched the earth on television shows, the world had changed for the worst, and it was in line with this imaginary.

"Yes. The Earth is no more and we are going to destroy it so we can retrieve some of the rare metals and send our last ship to the galaxy to search for another civilization to find us."

"But you said you want to send me to inhabit on different world?" The reality came sinking in.

"Yes. You might not be aware of this, but the Company who established the Lucid Dream found a way to send people's souls to different world that exists no one know where, but we know for sure that the souls can inhabited a dead person and live a new life in their body."

"Possession?"

"Kind of." She nodded, tapping her pen, and they returned to the prison cell that felt more desolate than before.

"Is this all virtual?"

"Yes."

"Can I get a glass of wine? My favorite one, please."

"Absolutely." She tapped with her pen, and a glass of red wine appeared in front of it. Despite being virtual, it looked the same, smelled the same and tasted the fucking smell. Divine.

"Thank you. So, what are my options?" He wasn't trusting this woman, but if the world was destroyed, and he was dead or alive in a soil then what he had to lose? It wasn't like he was a billionaire and investing in a company on a false promise.

"Earlier we could have given you a choice, but with a little energy left in our facility, we can only send you to a world with RPG laws, and the available class as Necromancer."

"Necromancer as in those RPG games?" He had played them in the early versions of the Vision Dream prototype. Those were fun.

"Yes, Mr. Aiden. You will inhabit a young man's body, and you would be given a couple of perks. That's all I can do."

"Will I be killed because being a Necromancer is generally a bad thing?" He was just playing along with her, and he didn't think for a moment she would send him as a Necromancer to any world.

"No. You will be sent into the Dark Realm and there are hundreds of thousands more Necromancers. So, you won't be an odd one out there."

"Can I do anything with the body I'll get?"

"We just send you there, Mr. Aiden, and we have no control over your acts. If you want to be criminal, be it, or if you want to be a monk, then be it. Just give us permission to send you and we can proceed with our job."

He slapped the table, letting the vibration pass through his arm to his mind.

"Let's do it. It's not like I've a lot to lose here."