*****

Aleb checked his phone, typing for a moment before replying. "In two months, it says. Does that have to do with your future memories?"

"It does! That game would change all of Masen!" Milya shouted, letting go of her father.

"Elaborate?" Her mother asked seriously.

"Well…" Milya hesitated. "You might think I'm crazy though…"

"We won't say such things, Milya. Did we do that when you told us about it earlier? We trust you, so you should trust us as well." Her mother said, looking at her with her loving gaze.

Hearing her mother's words, Milya's tense shoulders loosened as she sighed before starting to speak.

"Thanks, ma. I really hope my memories are wrong but… here goes… at first…"

At first, the game Reality Colission Online was just another of the hundreds of VRMMORPG games. It leans more toward the popular side, but it was just your typical fantasy open-world MMORPG. It had the typical quests, levels, skills classes, etc.

That was until the mega expansion was released. At first, the main objectives of the players were to explore the new terrain and find new treasures, but that soon shifted to material hunting when the real nature of the skill "Collide" was discovered.

Through it, players were able to transform into their game characters with all of its powers for a maximum of five hours each day. They were able to access the game menu in real life, and through it, discovered that items labeled as materials were able to stay in the real world.

Immediately, all kinds of things happened in the real world. Sadistic players use their powers to cause suffering to the normal citizens, rouges used their abilities to sneak around and steal money or expensive pieces of jewelry to sell.

Those who were more righteous helped the police reign these people in. Within a day, the entirety of Masen learned of the terrifics a player could do.

They became feared, and soon they ruled over Masen. The large guilds allied themselves with the government and earned themselves a high political position.

A year after, the discovery of a way to convert the magical energy within magic cores. An alchemy material found inside monsters, acting as their core and as their biggest weakness. When it was mass implemented, those who worked in power plants slowly lost business, and thousands of employees lost their jobs, creating more unemployed citizens, and making job hunting even harder for those who didn't have jobs.

"…and that's the gist of it. Players took over all of Masen because of the revolutionary discoveries and useful things that the game materials brought." Milya said with a solemn expression.

Milya chose to omit the fate of her family. She just couldn't tell them the things that they had to do just to survive…

Throughout the entirety of Milya's explanation, the other three at the dinner table just silently listened in with serious explanations. But by the end, hints of concern could be seen on their serious faces. Either it was a concern for Milya's mental state, or it was a concern for the future, Milya couldn't tell.

"Damn…" Her father was the first to break the silence as he sighed into his hands. "That's a lot to take in."

Her brother nodded in agreement, while her mother had an expression of deep thought on her face.

"Y-you believe me? You don't think I went crazy or something?" Milya asked nervously, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"It's hard to believe, but there's the case of your eye and hair color suddenly swapping. No scientist out there can explain that. That might have a connection with your new memories." Her father sighed once more. "For now, we should believe you… if nothing happens after the release, then that's good and we'll see a psychiatrist, when something does happen, we have to be prepared for it."

'Oh right, I forgot about that…' Milya thought before she combed her hair with her fingers.

"Your father is right, Milya." Her mother finally broke her silence. "If what you said does happen, it will affect us unpredictably if we aren't prepared."

"I suggest buying a headset now along with the game. And making sure that no one else sees us do so." Her brother suggested, joining in on the conversation.

"You guys…" Seeing her family seriously taking her words and not treating her as some kind of lunatic, Milya couldn't help but be moved to tears. "Thank you for believing me… maybe I really could make a difference this time…"

"Of course we will, Milya. You should already have known that." Her father reassured her.

"Yes, pa… I know… but the memories… they cause me so much doubt, I still haven't come to terms that I died… I know who I am… but…" She said as she continued to sob, wiping away her tears with the sleeves of her hoodie, unintentionally mentioning something that she shouldn't have.

"Wait… died? Milya, what do you mean that you died?" Her mother hurriedly questioned. "Now that I notice it, you didn't talk about what happened to us. Milya, you trust us, right? So I beg you to please tell us, what happened to our family in the future?"

Her mother stood up from her seat and approached her sobbing daughter, clutching onto her shoulders as she tried to calm the girl down by drawing circles on her shoulders with her thumb.

"I…" Milya sobbed. "I'm such an idiot… now I have to tell you, don't I?"

Milya looked at each of their expressions, concern etched on their faces. In the face of such concern, Milya folded and explained the future her memories told her.

Their descent into poverty, her grandparents' deaths, her mother's prostitution, her father's illness, her brother becoming a gangster, her theft, everyone's malnutrition, and finally, her own death.

Everyone who listened to her in the room was shocked, their foreheads sweaty and their hearts beating fast at the thought of the things that they did. Now, every one of them only had one thought in mind.

"That's it, we're sneaking in one of those headsets along with the game no matter what." Her father said with determination and seriousness. "It no longer matters if what you said happens or not. If we don't act now, we risk our family falling into ruins."

"Agreed." Her mother nodded with the same amount of solemnity. "I suggest we buy one when they're about to close shop. The nearest gaming store is around five minutes away by vehicle, and they close at one in the morning. Honey, bring Aleb with you and buy one. Make sure no one can recognize you. We could order it online, but our neighbors might see the drone and recognize the box."

"Everyone…" Upon seeing her family earnestly believing her words, Milya was again moved to tears. Even now, she's still confused because of the memories she suddenly received, if she was the now or if she was the later. But the only thing that she was sure of was she had to tell her family, they would help her, if it was a mental illness, they'd be there for her, and if the memories came true, they'd tackle it all together.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But the memories caused her doubts, before this, it made her forget the trust their family shared. After reliving her future self's life, her future self's experiences made her momentarily scared of how her family would react.

After all, her memories of her present family and future family are overlapping. The now that are happy and trustworthy, the soon that are suffering and are losing their mind. The future them would doubt her, not trust her, push her away. The stress made them impatient, unstable, violent even. They lost the connection they once had, they became distant. Because of that, Milya was influenced by her future self's distrust and doubted her family.

But now, seeing the sight of her family discussing, their connections, their trust in each other's words, Milya could only cry in joy. Her trust in her family pushed away her future self's distrust and strengthened her current self's faith in her family.

Milya shook her head and herself of her negative thoughts.

'You're the now, Milya! Not the later! Get ahold of your memories, keep yourself together! You are the now! That Milya is different!' She repeated this mantra in her mind multiple times as she looked straight ahead, at her family.

"That's a good idea, if the release happens, people will start looking for the ones that have the needed hardware. We can't risk our family being targeted." Her father spoke, agreeing with his wife's decision. "Should we move to Father's house in the province when the release happens and the skill is confirmed?"

"We could do that, yeah." Her mother said. "They have a good internet connection there."

"Is it decided, then?" Milya chimed in.

"That's right." Her father nodded. "Until the release, I'll be searching for a job. When did we move to District Fourth? Does your future memories tell you that?"

"It was a bit more than a year and a half. With nearly everyone jumping on the game and doing nothing else, daily necessities slowly rose in price and our leftover savings could no longer pay for the bills so we moved to District Third in about seven months. Everything was fine until then. It was when we were forced to move to District Fourth that everything crumbled after a year in District Third. The next six years were painful…" Milya spoke with sorrowful solemnity as she dug into her future memories. Doing so was unpleasant, as remembering things makes her partially relive those moments.

"I see…" Turning to Aleb, her father continues speaking. "For now, we'll be waiting. When the clock turns twelve, we're heading out to buy that headset and the game."

"It's settled, then." Her mother sighed as she leaned back on her chair. "Game affecting reality… never in my wildest dreams…"

"Then can I head back to sleep, ma, pa?" Milya said. "I'm still trying to get these new memories settled down, so I want to sleep…"

With a look at each other, the mother and father duo imagined how suddenly having memories plugged into your mind, and it was quite unpleasant. They can only imagine what kind of mental crisis their daughter is going through at this moment.

"Of course, dear. Go ahead, leave the rest to us adults." Her mother said.

Turning back, Milya headed for the stairs. After she entered her room, she laid down on her bed, staring at the white and slightly dusty ceiling for a moment.

"What now…" Milya uttered. She looked at her hand, open, close, she folded her fingers and made them pop with her thumb. She pulled up her hair. Silver, different from what it was supposed to be.

"This helped convince them, huh… I'm kinda glad for it, plus it looks good…" She let her hand fall to her sides, staring at the ceiling once more.

"I'm glad… I bet I could deal with this alone but… it's better that we solve family problems as a family, right?'

Milya looked to the side, her digital clock saying 9:45 pm. A bit more than an hour passed.

"Right… I should head to sleep." Milya tucked herself under the blankets, closed her eyes, and dozed off.

*****

"Should… wake… up?"

"… think… should…"

"On second, we should let her sleep more."

Milya slowly stirred awake to the familiar voices of her father and brother, judging from the volume they should be behind the door.

"I'm awake now…" Milya pulled herself out of the blanket and walked to the door, opening it. Her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the hallway, where she found her brother and father looking her way, her brother and father holding onto huge boxes, on top of which were other small boxes.

Yawning, Milya's sleepy brain processed the information provided to it by her sight before her eyes widened.

"Are those the headset and the game!?" She hurriedly asked, to which her brother nodded with his usual gentle smile.

Milya smiled widely, her drowsiness blown away by the revelation. Immediately, she went to hug her father.

"Thank you! With this…" She sniffed as she held back from tearing up, "…we'll be able to secure a better future!"

Her reaction was quite overblown, it was as if she received her most sought-after Christmas gift. Years of yearning for the game, for a better life, made her current self quite emotional. Her future memories are influencing her again.

"Calm down, Milya!" Her father chuckled loudly as he patted his daughter's back. "For now, head back to sleep. We'll set this up tomorrow morning."

"I can't! I'm so excited right now that I won't be able to sleep at all!" Milya quite cheerfully shouted. Combining her gamer spirit and her future memories resulted in this.

"As expected huh…" Her father chuckled exasperatedly, fully expecting this kind of reaction from her daughter.

Milya urged them to enter her room, not wanting to be loud in the hallway when her sisters and mother were sleeping.

"How do we set this thing up?" Milya asked as she kneeled before the two boxes, examining their exteriors. "But why buy two?"

"For you and myself." Her brother chose to respond this time. He said before putting down the boxes he held. "Yours were bought by pa, I bought mine with my money."

"Yeah. The more the merrier, he said. Not so sure about the merry part after he spent half his savings though! Haha!" Her father chuckled loudly, making Aleb wince a little.

Milya reached out for the drawer beside her bed and took out a cutter. With it, she cut open the plastic seal and removed it. She opened the box and pulled out the headset while ignoring the styrofoam balls that came with it to keep it from being damaged. In her hands, she held an object akin to a biker's helmet which covered the entire head. This headset extended to the back of the neck where the cervical spine could be found, and a pair of electrode pads and earplugs both connected to a wire inside the headset fell from inside.

"Here's the instructions." Her father said, pulling out a piece of paper from the small guidebook that came with the box.

Milya read the instructions, learning how the headset works, what are the purpose of each external part, and where they should be attached to the head before usage.

"So basically, we should first attach these pads to the forehead and then put these earplugs on before wearing the headset," Milya says while looking at the instructions paper. "It also says that we need to secure the strap to make sure that this part in the back stays in contact with the cervical spine at the back of the neck."

"Welp, the last part should be simple since you need to lay down on your back anyway before playing the game." She said before folding the instructions paper.

"With how you're acting, I'm glad you're on vacation before the next school year." Her father spoke. "There should be another three months to your four-month school break, that's more than enough time until the game expansion."

"Schools got canceled due to the dangers of the players who went and became criminals. It was hard to identify them, after all. It was like that for a whole year until researchers made a breakthrough and made magic cores a viable energy source." Milya shrugged dismissively.

"I see… daughter, you gotta mention those things too." Her father commented as he kneeled down to her level, opening the smaller box.

"Right. But it only comes up when mentioned. Some memories are blurry and only become clearer when someone says something related or it has something to do with what I'm doing at the time." Milya explained.

"Makes sense." Aleb chimed in. "I'll sleep now."

Aleb left the two and went to his bedroom, carrying his boxes with him.

"I'll go join him. You should sleep too. Even if you're excited you still should sleep." Her father left as well with these parting words.

Milya watched as her father closed the door behind him before returning to look at the headset and the game box in both her hands.

'I'm sorry pa, but there's just no way I can sleep now!' She grinned as she installed the game card into the headset.

Doing as the instructions said, Milya put on the headset before lying down on her back on her bed.

"Let's do this…" Milya took a deep breath before pressing the button at the side of the headset. Immediately, the hum of the fans inside the headset could be heard by Milya.

From within her mind, Milya heard the voice of a female. "Welcome to Full Immersion. Please select any of the installed programs to use."

"Program? Does it mean the game? Then I select Reality Collision Online!" Milya responded in her mind.

"Program selected, now entering full immersion."

Right after the female voice finished speaking in her mind, Milya abruptly lost consciousness before finding herself standing in the middle of what seemed to be a white space with nothing to be seen in all directions. Looking at herself, she wore her nightgown just like in reality.

"Feels very real…" She uttered.

Then from nowhere, a floating screen appeared in front of her.

"This is?"

[Welcome to the customization section of Reality Collision Online! Before we begin, please register your email account or make a R.O.B account!]

And came under it was a column of text boxes.

"Oh right, that's a thing." With a grin on her face, Milya started setting up her email account to bind with her game data.

On this night, the account named [Vermouth] was created.

*****