Author's Note: This has been rewritten. Revised chapters will have V2 next to the chapter name. Click Here to see V1

Chapter 1- Server Update

***???***

***29A***

"What the hell happened?"

          I opened my eyes in a daze, staring at the gray stucco ceiling. Trying to get up from the floor, I try to push myself up with my right hand. It betrayed my expectations, though. Nothing moved. I couldn’t even feel my hand on the floor.

"Huh?"

          I tried to wave my right hand frantically, but nothing happened. I couldn’t see my hand moving at all. In fact, I don’t even see my hand. Remembering the last thing that I did was falling off the chair, I expected the worst.

"Don't tell me I broke my spine and I am paralyzed. Fuck me."

          I tried to will myself to get up. To my total surprise, Instead of sitting straight up, I started to float towards the ceiling. I attempted to turn around. To my horror, I saw my body laying limped on the floor with a pool of blood near my head.

"Fuck me sideways."

          An imprint of my head was on the drywall. In the center of the crater, there was a nail coated red with blood and bits of pink matter sticking out of the wall. Even though I was dead, I had to laugh at the situation.  

"Well, that's a lame way to die." 

         Curious at what I look like right now, I turned to the full-length mirror I had in the room. I saw no reflection of myself in the mirror. It was as though I was just a ball of invisible consciousness, floating in the air.

"Huh, on the bright side, at least, I am not fat anymore."

         With nothing to do, I stared at the ceiling for a bit longer hoping to see a ray of light and get beamed up like they do in Star Trek. After a while, I figured that since I was not going to heaven, I must be headed to the other place. I shouted at the ceiling.

"Since there is an afterlife, I guess there is a God, do I get sent to hell for all my terrible jokes?"

         I waited a bit for a reply to my question. After a minute or two receiving no answers, I started to look around the room, trying to find some answers. When I turned and looked at the computer screen, it showed a lich raising his flag on the edge of the cliff side along with his underlings. I then realized that something was wrong, something was different.

"Wait a minute, why is everything frozen?"

          Having a bit of an idea of what was happening, I looked at the clock on the wall intensely trying to prove the theory in my head. It showed 8:14. Since the clock has no second hand, he had to stare at the clock for over 5 minutes, making sure that my intuition is right. The minute hand did not move at all.

"Time is stopped at the moment of death?"

           Looking for further proof of my theory, I floated towards the window, hoping to take a peek out of it. When I reached the window, I tried to lean against the glass to get a better view of the outside. To my surprised, I didn't stop when I leaned against the window pane. I went right through it. Going through the window, I slowly floated to the ground from the second floor, landing in my grassy backyard, I made a small joke and chuckled to myself.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"IDSPISPOPD"

            When I reached outside, it was a fine summer day. The blue sky did not have a single cloud. The sun was already blazing in the east, giving warmth to everything. Gazing around, I finally spotted what I was looking for. It was a small sparrow, frozen in mid-flight. This scene confirmed my worst fear.

"Time is stopped or stretched out indefinitely. Sounds like the writers of Constantine got the idea hell right, minus all the hell fire."

             If someone like me deserved to be in hell, then I don’t want to be in heaven next to God. I know I wasn’t not the nicest person to be around because of my dark sense of humor, but I didn’t do anything that could be considered “evil”. If God sent someone like me to hell, I don’t think I want to be with him. Without anything to do, I stared at the sky, pondering what to do next. Should I just float around, traveling everywhere or stay where I was, accompanying my parents. I was in arguing with myself when I suddenly notice a message floating in the sky.

World System Message: Server is shutting down for the new updates. Please log out.

            Reading the message in the sky, I slowly realized that the reality that I perceived is nothing but a simulation. It was just a game. Nothing is real. Multiple thoughts about my existence shot through my head.

"Crap, so am I just a part of a game? Nothing I did matter? What about my hopes and dreams?  Bah, who am I kidding, I didn't have any hopes and dreams. So what now?"

"Meh, it doesn't matter if I had free will or not, I am a part of a game anyway, it's not going to change anything."

“Man, if I knew about this, I would have totally taken a lot more chances in my life.”

“Wait does that mean I am a self-aware A.I.?”

“What does the outside world is like?”

“Who are the players?”

           Being a gaming junkie, I am more interested in the game itself. What type of game is this?  All I know was that there was a new update to this world. Does that mean this world will change? What was getting updated? Did this happen before? All of these thoughts ran through my mind before I stopped and realized something. Even if I got the answer, the information was useless. I was already dead. Whatever I think or do right now, wouldn’t matter. Suddenly, something popped up in my view. It was a transparent blue menu screen.

System Message: Respawning in 29

           Respawning? Does that mean I get to live again? Does this change anything at all? If I had to make an educated guess, I would respawn with my memory wiped. Before the countdown was finished, everything turned pitch black.