"Thanks again for staying late and helping out with the project again Mr. Tang, if it wasn't for you always helping us we would have still been 2 months behind schedule."

Tack, Tack, Tack.

In a dimmed office late at night, a small group of software programmers were gathered around a desk as one man typed away at the keyboard putting the finishing touches on the project they had all been working on. They all praised him for his hard work knowing full well that today was actually his day off and he was staying overtime to help the night shift finish, in fact, it was the third time this week that he had stayed late to help them.

Tack, Tack, Tack.

'Why is it always me that get's stuck with things like this, shouldn't the rest of you do your job and get your own work done.' Tang Tang thought.

'I guess it's no surprise, as soon as I took this job it's been nothing but work work work, it pays the bills but I can never take time off or do what I want to do. I feel like I might die if this keeps up.'

Tang had applied to work as soon as he graduated from college and worked hard to become a supervisor in his department. However, it was really just a title without any benefit's that forced him to take all the responsibility but didn't give him any power to affect how the work was done. After all these years he had resigned himself to the fact that he had to do the work himself if he wanted to get anything done.

Tack, Ding.

"That's it all done." He said

"Wow you really are the best Mr. Tang, we can finally go home."

Everyone started to cheer and head to their own desk to pack up and go home for the night, but then the door to there office was pushed open and a tall man in a dark coat walked in.

From the position of the desk's in the office, no one could see the man but Tang, who was the first to notice the AR-15 the man was holding. Before he even had time to warn anyone in the office the tall man opened fire on everyone in the office.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang.

A series of shots rang out seemingly non-stop followed by screams of pain as the tall man shifted the end of the rifle side to side raining bullets in every direction. Tang was one of the first to be shot, taking three bullets to the chest and knocking him to the floor, the searing pain seemed to last forever as he listened to the shooting and screaming. Suddenly the office became quiet and the pain he felt left his body replaced by a cold numb feeling and the urge to close his eyes.

Tang was losing the struggle to keep his eyes open when he heard footsteps approach his desk. He looked over to see the tall man had come to his desk and was smiling while looking around the office.

Tang was startled to find that he actually knew the man that had shot him and everyone in the office, his name was Chen Dong and he had been fired after working at the company almost as long as Tang had. He was fired back when the department had fallen behind on the project they had just finished, the management had blamed him for the delay and used him as an example of what would happen the others didn't work harder.

'Is he smiling?'

Chen Dong had eye's full of tears and two streams could be clearly seen running down his face, but there was also a large smile covering his face. He looked as though he had just won the lottery and was content and happy with his life, as if nothing in the world could affect him.

Strangely Tang was not upset seeing the smile on his killers face and was instead a little jealous over how happy he looked. 'I wish I could have done something to make me smile like that before. I haven't been able to smile for some time now.' Tang thought.

'I wonder who will take care of my work after this.'

That was the last thought Tang had before darkness took him and he died on the floor of his office.

*

"Si...Sir are you ok?"

"Sir, did you understand what I said?"

The next thing he knew he was standing as a counter with the game "Artemis" in his hand and a cute salesgirl standing next to him explaining how the game worked.

"I'm sorry I spaced out for a second there, can you say that again?"

"No problem sir, I said that the game "Artemis" is a VRMMORPG that allows you to control your character with the NEST."

"The NEST stands for Neural, Expansion, Simulation, Transmitter. Which uses your brainwaves to control the actions of your character in-game."

Suddenly Tang realized there was something off about this conversation, he felt like he had already had it before. He looked down at the game in his hand as the salesgirl continued to explain how the game worked.

'I thought I was shot, how am I ok and buying a game? I hadn't had time to play games since I was in college.' Tang thought as he tried shaking away the haze that was clouding his thoughts. 'In fact, the last game I ever even thought of playing was that one changed the industry, what was it again.'