Pedestrians put away their wet umbrellas as the last drop of rain hits the pavement. The waft of street-food, now unrestricted by the weather, reaches Rando’s nostrils. Yet, he hungers not for local delicacies, but for the digital magic contained in a flash drive firmly held in his right hand. His left hand, meanwhile, brings pages worth of Nora’s notes before him, and his eyes casually skim across the words dimly lit by street-lamps as he walks. He is unable to comprehend any of it because of a voice that follows him persistently.

“Yeah, I’ll be staying over at a friend’s place,” Nora informs her mother on the phone while cradling a large box. “Please take care of George for me. Love you. Bye.”

“I can carry the Dream Vision,” Rando tries to shoo her away. “You can go. George needs you more than I do.”

“Aw, I can’t play favorites here. You two are equally important to me.”

“Don’t compare me to a dog. Also, what’s with the black marker?”

“To make a doctor’s day if it comes to that,” she smiles innocently.

He glares at her. “You don’t have to worry about me, Nora.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m worried about those poor NPCs I may have unleashed a tea-bagging monster on. I want to make sure your journey is family-friendly for all our sakes.”

“Nora, they’re not people. They’re data. Ones and Zeroes.”

Nora sighs. “Yeah, I wonder about that.”

“Yeah?”

Nora stays silent. Rando notices this and repeats his last question with a more exaggerated gesture.

Then, Nora hesitates, as if trying to steer clear of her own thoughts. “This game blurs the line between NPCs and players somewhat, if not completely. If some unfortunate and, frankly, insane fellow like yourself is also playing this game, I would prefer you… behave yourself.”

Rando recalls the lecture Nora gave him earlier while making notes. One thing she uncovered in her research on gamers falling unconscious was that, though the incident occurred roughly the same time as when the game disappeared all platforms, the direct cause was something else entirely.

“So we don’t end up killing each other in an accidental Player-vs-Player scenario, because the trigger is in-game death?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though there might be nobody else playing this game? Assuming the server is even running?”

“Let’s hope it isn’t running,” she mumbles to herself.

“So what did you actually want to say, instead of repeating what you’ve said before?”

Nora bites her lip and stays silent. Rando notices the awkwardness in the air and forces a laugh.

“If you die in-game, you die in real life? That’s a cookie-cutter plot I’ve seen a thousand times in anime. Besides, why on earth would the authorities allow the sale of Dream Vision if it can microwave my brain?”

“Yes,” she echoes his sentiments. “The device itself is perfectly safe.”

Rando plays the Devil’s Advocate. “That ain’t no mere VR device, my lady. It scans my brainwaves and everything.”

“Yes, but it has been through several audits, and the safety commission itself has given its stamp of approval. It hasn’t broken any compliance as far as I recall. Yet players fall unconscious anyway, and only while playing this one game too. Why else do people think it’s cursed?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Rando groans.

“Don’t yeah-yeah me. You promised. The only reason I’m letting you do this is if you can take care not to die, not even once, not even for a joke.”

Rando smiles and gives her a one-handed hug to reassure her.

Moments later, they arrive at their destination.

“Welcome to my abode,” he tells Nora before he opens the door for her.

Rando turns on the lights, revealing a cozy, single-bedroom apartment. They take off their shoes before stepping inside. The living room, although clean in general, is still littered with all manner of CD cases and video-game peripherals next to a computer and television at one corner.

Nora ignores her distaste for Rando’s semi-disorganized lifestyle, and expertly zig-zags her way towards the computer without pause as if she has been here many times before. She is, after all, here for one reason only.

She unpacks the Dream Vision and copies files from her flash-drive into the computer, while Rando brews some coffee.

“If we’re lucky, we wouldn’t need that caffeine hit,” she informs him without glancing.

Rando does his best to sound heart-broken. “You don’t have to diss me for my home like this…”

Nora sniggers. “I mean… The software is just a client that needs the backend server to function.”

“I see.” Rando gazes at Nora, whose eyes refuse to leave the monitor screen. Her hands, though smoothly gliding across the keyboard with precise taps of every memorized shortcut imaginable, shake every moment they stay still or grip the mouse. He tells her, “Let’s hope it’s offline, then.”

Her hands pause mid-air, as if her own thoughts have come to a halt. To her right, she spots Rando’s college accessories, particularly one notebook and two pens with different colored inks. The fate of each page is uncertain to her, and so too is the choice of pen.

“…Yeah,” she responded softly. She takes in a deep breath and continues clicking the mouse.

“Do you have a movie you like? Or would you rather play a game tonight?”

“Let’s go with a movie, I can do with some relaxing.”

“I think I have the perfect one for the occasion. See, it is a love story between a man and a woman who are so deeply in love that nothing can tear them apart.”

She arches her eyebrows, curious about where this is going, but refrains from making any snap judgments. “Wow… I mean… that sounds quite a romantic–”

“And then the man dies.”

“What?!”

“But he knew one day he’d have to go, so he arranged for a cat to be sent to her after his death, giving her a reason to carry on.”

“Aw, that’s so–”

“And then the cat dies.”

Nora stays silent, suddenly feeling unbearably stressed.

“So she picks up her gun and vows vengeance against those who killed her beloved cat.”

“Sounds like… uh… it could be a good and, you know, fun story.”

“Yeah, I’ve been dying to watch it!”

“Right now, though, maybe I’m too tired to truly appreciate it.”

“The possibility isn’t zero, is it?” He smirks, handing her a warm cup of coffee.

She smiles back to him, accepting his hospitality, and takes a soft sip from the cup. To her, Rando was as warm as the cup that she cradles with her palms. Despite their bickering and his frustrating antics, she can’t deny the comfort she feels around him - a comfort she’s afraid to lose.

It is that same fear that keeps her from proceeding to the next step.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Shall we go?” Rando asks her, to which she hesitates at first before giving in with a nod.

Once the installation is complete, Nora launches the client, fearing for the worst. Thirty seconds pass while they stare at the loader patiently. A part of Nora secretly hopes it remains this way. A minute passes with bated breath, yet the client still fails to connect or update.

She sighs of relief and smiles cheerfully at Rando, whose face is flushed with disappointment.

“We tried,” she shrugs and places the cup on the table. “Can’t tell if we’re lucky or unlucky, but I think it’s probably for the best. Now, about that movie–”

She gets on her feet to put the Dream Vision back in its box, but halts as Rando’s words penetrate her complacent consciousness.

“Oh! I forgot to connect to the internet! Silly me. There, it’s fixed now. Oh, look! It’s updating!”

To her horror, the client was, in fact, updating. Despite her anticipation to such a possibility, she feels all energy drain from her limbs. A part of her did not want this. Every fibre of her reasoning tells her this should not have been possible. She ponders, if Oroide Digital no longer exists, who is hosting this game?

Her vacillant demeanor does not go unnoticed as Rando gently places a cup of coffee on her weak hands, as if to tell her that she needs this after all. The warmth of the cup brings her back from her stupor. She takes a moment to compose herself, reminding herself why she is here. In the back of her mind she pictures her brother, holding this game for the first time with a smile.

“Alright,” she commands Rando with a soft voice. “Slip it on.”

“Yes, your highness.” Rando attaches the Dream Vision to his head and grips the dual-controllers tightly with his hands. “If something happens to me, tell my family I love Gothic Rock.”

“I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” she opens the game’s assistance window on the monitor screen, which mirrors the VR device but from third-person perspective. “Okay, as we’ve discussed, the first thing you’ll encounter is a character-creation page. After that you’ll be transported to La Komenco where the game will give you every equipment and items you need to… to…” The visuals on the screen distract her from conveying her instructions coherently, “Who are you trying to impress with that hair-style?”

“I’m just being myself.”

“That looks nothing like you.”

“It’s just like how I am on the inside. Wait, hold on…” His smile disappears as quickly as it emerged a few seconds ago. “The game won’t let me use Rando as my name. It says the name is already in use.”

“Oh, great! There are more self-advertising trolls like you out there. It’s a miracle the world hasn’t ended yet.”

Rando makes up his mind and types Rand0 in his character-name field, and to his pleasant surprise the game accepts. The character-creation screen dissolves into a worm-hole and he finds himself falling through a creatively designed loading screen that feels far too real for him to calmly dismiss. He can’t help but scream, as if he’s been pushed out of an airplane, but it only lasts for a short while as his descent slows and his feet gently touch a hard, solid ground.

The Dream Vision has no feature for tactile sensation, and yet he can somehow experience an illusion of touch through pure optic and kinaesthetic sense. The more interesting discovery, however, is that his feet respond to how he wants them to move without the need of his controller, albeit clumsily.

“This… this is amazing…” he gasps.

“What the actual hell?” Beyond his vision, Nora’s horrified voice floods through the grey clouds in heaven like the wind.

It occurs to Rando that her sudden outburst is caused by what she sees on the screen. So he lowers his gaze to the world around him to see what she sees. He stands upon a circular tower connected to the castle by a long stone bridge. The world beyond it appears to be endless, but the array of rounded merlons only gave him a single passage to go through.

That passage is a tableau of carnage. Stone and metal debris scatter besides and above a myriad of corpses and skeletons, from which decaying entrails flow messily across a cracked stone path begrimed by dried blood.

“Uh, Nora? We are at La Komenco, right?”

“Yes,” her voice echoes from the skies, trembling at its own weight. “This is where every player appears for the first time. This is where NPCs were programmed to greet you with a smile, teach you about the game’s mechanics, help you level up, and… and…”

“I’m assuming it’s no sunshine and rainbows like you said because they’re all dead,” Rando hunches over one of the skeletons and picks up a sword from its grip. “I wonder if it’s because of some limited-time story event that we’ve missed in the process. Some games do have a tendency to change things up a bit. Also, man… even though I need to use my controller to command this body, some minor movements like that of my fingers just need the power of my thoughts.”

He waits for Nora to say something as he walks cautiously towards the edge of the bridge, but she doesn’t. Below the bridge, he can see the meagre sunlight glistening through a crowd of gnashing teeth. Unbelievably large predators, some scaly while others covered in feathers, crawl in the moat. Upon seeing Rando staring back at them, their eyes sparkle at the prospects of nourishment as if they have been famished for years.

“Wow! It’s roughly 40 meters drop from here to the jaws of what looks like George’s cousins! I take it these guys caused the apocalypse here. They weren’t here before, right?”

Still no response.

“Nora?”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she chokes on her own voice. “This is too creepy for me. Look… I think we should quit and call it a night. How about that movie you mentioned?”

“I think you’re overthinking this. I’ve played online games, and stuff like this has happened before. It was probably just an event. No big deal.”

“Please, I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Hey, chill. An NPC might still be around to show us the ropes. Oh, speak of the devil…”

He curiously watches a young boy marching cheerfully towards him, wearing an emoji mask representing happiness and holding a twirling baton. This NPC appears to have no name but “???” above his head; it makes Rando wonder if the discovery of his name is part of a quest or dialogue option. Regardless, Rando grins and imitates the boy and marches towards him, though he has a harder time skipping over corpses which comes natural to the NPC.

“Look at this dude,” Rando remarks. “He doesn’t even notice the muck he’s walking on. No wonder people find this game buggy as all hell.”

“Welcome, Rand-zero, to La Komenco!” The boy stops and greats him through his smiley mask, doing his best to pronounce Rando’s character name precisely as it is written.

“Hey, kiddo!” Rando greets back. “So, uh, do you know what happened he–”

“La Komenco is the center of this mighty and infinite world of possibilities,” the boy continues his introduction as if he hears nothing from Rando.

“Right, right. Hey, what is your name, and how do I level–”

“Unfortunately, over the last few hundred years, the demon army of the Dark Lord, resurrected by a wretched Backslider, has threatened the entire world. Then one day, an oracle appeared with a prophecy that a Hero of Legends will emerge from another world with a promise of salvation.”

“Yeah, buddy, I’ve heard that a million times before–”

“Many such brave warriors have come and gone, but I pray, Rand-zero, that you are the prophesized one who will bring this world to ever-lasting peace.”

“…Yeah,” Rando checks out and gazes at the sky, spinning his sword in boredom and annoyance. This felt like having a conversation with an automated calling system. “State-of-the-art NPCs, huh? So realistic they’re indistinguishable from the player, huh? Totally not scripted, huh?”

“I’m just as confused as you are,” the feminine voice responds from the sky.

“But before you can embark on this journey of swords and sorcery, oh great Hero of Legends, you must first pass three trials of passage,” the boy proclaims before tapping the ground with his baton, causing it to illuminate with numbered boxes. “The first trial is–”

“Hopscotch?” Rando asks, bewildered. “You want me to play Hopscotch?”

“This trial is to test your ability to navigate this world through your borrowed body.”

“Hm, makes sense.”

Rando prepares himself by focusing his mind on his legs. Sure enough, just like with his fingers before, he is able to lift one leg. However, to jump with his other leg requires a precise controller movement. He successfully hops to the first grid, but stumbles on the second two. Synchronizing the two movements – one governed by the controller, and one directly by his thoughts – feels new and incredibly challenging.

“With movement like that, your battle with low-level slimes alone will be legendary,” the boy laughs.

“Shut up,” Rando scoffs as he examines his limb movements. “I think I get it now. This is just a tutorial. So, what’s the second trial?”

“Oh great Hero of Legends, Rand-zero, I pray this second trial finds you triumphant unlike the one before. Five apples will hail from the sky. These five apples are yours to grab as swiftly as you can.”

The boy waves his baton at the sky, and one by one apples fall to the ground as quickly as they appear. Rando rushes to catch them, but misses every single one, with his closest success barely grazing his fingers before slipping from his grasp and tumbling down the moat into the mouth of a monster below.

“Faster than these apples, I believe, you may end up catching a cold,” the boy derides Rando.

“This tutorial guy has a mouth, I’ll give him that,” Rando sighs, only to be met with a muffled chuckle from the sky. “I heard that!”

“For your final trial, oh great Hero of Legends, you must do your best to catch these shining balls.”

“Balls?”

With a wave of his baton, he conjures four tiny spheres of beautiful luminance. They float towards Rando and accelerate with each second but not enough that he would miss them. Unlike hopscotch or catching apples, this trial appears to be the easiest. So he casually walks towards them with his sword, extending his arm to catch them.

“Wait,” Nora calls to him. “Something’s weird about this.”

“Like what?” He looks to the heavens.

Distracted from his task, he allows all spheres to fly past him, except one that touches his sword by accident. It detonates and shatters that sword. The blast flings Rando backwards. He notices his Health Points deplete. The unexpected impact has now wiped the earlier expression of silliness and annoyance from his face, replacing it with one of terror.

As the dust clears, he sees the boy rise above the ground and address him with a mocking tone. The eyes of on the emoji mask open and its smile grows larger. His voice modulates slowly and unnaturally like a bad audio file, sending chills down Rando’s spine.

“Oh great Hero of Legends, you have failed all three trials. I remain validated that the prophecy is nothing but an error.”

“Log out,” Nora begs Rando, “Log yourself out. NOW.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Rando mumbles to himself, still befuddled by what is going on before him.

“You promised me that you would do everything you can to not die. Please… Don’t die.”

The boy with the emoji mask waves his baton to conjure more shining balls and hurls them forwards. Rando runs towards the castle in a bid to avoid the balls and dodges them one by one with great difficulty. On instinct, he drops to the ground and grabs another stray sword from a nearby skeleton, just in time to avoid a sphere hurtling towards his back. That last sphere, however, swivels in mid-air and hits the ground before him, causing the bridge to collapse and his feet to lose their footing.

He falls into the moat with stone and corpses as if in slow motion. The monsters below eagerly await his descent like a once-in-a-lifetime treat was just tossed towards them. The boy fires more explosive spheres in his direction. Nora's voice now feels more distant than ever.

Perhaps Nora was right. Perhaps he should have logged off when he had the chance. He wonders if he’ll have time to apologize to her for breaking his promise.