Chapter 1 – To Dream

“I have it! I fucking have it!”

Ezreal sprinted out of the transport station, his boulder of a backpack slamming into his ribs every time he took a step. Despite this, all he did was clutch the device closer and closer to his body, almost to the point where it threatened to crumble the device into fine dust – but he couldn’t help it with the pure amount of adrenaline running through his veins.

Leaping past the spinning gates and galloping down the stairs, he crashed through the waves and waves of workers heading to work. It had been 30 years since the ban on private vehicle ownership for the commoners and exclusively reserved for the wealthy or politicians, as the environment had been on the brink of complete collapse and lithium stores were beginning to run out - not to mention that the roads had been destroyed, only to be replaced by rows and rows of buildings which housed the “bondsmen”.

Apparently there had been a time when people weren’t called up to serve the government as a working man, a time when people were free to do whatever they chose. His grandmother had hours upon hours of stories like these to share, so long as Ezreal could stomach the hours spent with her. But that’s all they were to him – stories, myths of the society long passed.

Barely managing to get out of the crowd lining up to enter the transport rails, he jumped on his bike and pedaled furiously back home. It was a miracle he could still find his house at all given his inability to memorize locations, as the homes bondsmen were given were all the same down to the smallest details – not to mention the streets were all in the same, orderly format, with no twists, turns, or curves to speak of. It was made to be a utopia for orderliness, which the government’s representatives stressed repeatedly in their daily morning newscast. Ezreal had 4 more years to live in this hellhole, as he’d already been here for 1. One too many.

Reaching at the front of his door, he quickly threw his bike to the side, not bothering to lock it in place. There were far too many eyes and far too many cameras for someone to even remotely think about stealing it in the first place. The average punishment for thievery was 10 years in jail, no matter the circumstances or severity of the crime – the concept of such things was to be “eliminated” from society.

Shutting the door quickly behind him, not forgetting to pull the wires to the door’s power to prevent anyone inside or outside from opening it, he sprinted into his room and pulled out the headset. If he were to be found doing this, the punishment of property destruction would see him locked up for tens of years for such a heinous crime. Personally, he really didn’t care whether they did or not. He wouldn’t live to see the end of the week most likely.

There it was. The Alternis.

Not much was even known about it to the public, government funded channels of course – but to those who bunkered down in layers upon layers underneath the surface, the Alternis was a household name. It had first begun as no more than a whisper of a device, something that would change the lives of every single individual who got their hands on it. Nobody believed it at first, of course.

After footage surfaced of the actual, credible gameplay by the game developer, however, everybody’s tune changed. The lifelike audio and graphics, in tandem with the experimental AI interactions the developer had shown in the trailer video were so realistic that some forum users suspected it had been footage of the old world - the times Ezreal’s grandmother had lived in. But he believed with all his heart that it was truly something real, something on the cusp of technological marvel.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

And Ezreal knew he had to get his hands on it.

Finding the device hadn’t been easy – the developer had agreed to only send out a total of 5 headsets, all of them shrouded in secrecy. Given the publicity and excitement surrounding the project, however, Ezreal knew that at least one of the recipients wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from bragging about being selected for the project.

And brag did one of them, being so foolish as to not spoof their location while posting about it. Locating the poster had been a cakewalk, and surprise – it had been another bondsman like Ezreal who lived in the city next over, a short metro ride away. Glancing over to the device, he felt a shiver of dread as to what he had done for it. Not that any of it mattered – he didn’t plan to stick around long enough to wait for the repercussions to catch up to him.

After taking his full 5-minute shower, the maximum time that was allotted for starting bondsmen like him, he threw on his favorite pair of pajamas. The soothing effect of the silk clothing – a luxury piece that had been passed down to him from his grandfather, and something that he could’ve sold for millions upon millions but chose not too – helped calm his rushing heart.

This was it. This was everything his life had led to.

Setting the note he had written weeks ago aside on his nightstand, he slowly opened the lockbox that he had kept hidden in a loose side panel in his home for the past year, revealing a single small pill in a cushion. With some hesitation, he quickly drew it to his mouth and swallowed as fast as he could.

There would be no coming back from this any longer. Not that anybody would care whether or not he did.

Sighing after throwing the box across the room with the pill feeling lodged in his throat, he slowly slid himself into the immersion chamber with the device in hand. He’d never seen anything like it before – it was a helmet style device that encompassed his whole head and neck, but had the weirdest drawings all over the surface. It was organized in such a way that seemed to suggest it was a language of sorts, but without further research, he had no way of even remotely guessing what it was meant to be. Ignoring his piquing curiosity however, he stopped delaying and…

Wait, how was he supposed to turn it on?

There were no buttons of any sorts, no manual, nothing to even suggest the next step of using the device. How the hell was he supposed to turn it on? Was this all a big scam? Had he done all of this for nothing? Feeling vomit slowly starting to rise up his throat, and his anxiety spiking by the second, he threw on the headset in desperation. This couldn’t be the end – it had to be real! He had seen the videos that the developer had uploaded – it was unlike anything he had ever seen, more real than any experience he had in his miserable life! He just needed to figure out how to -

Hello, VHJhdmVsZXI=_1. Please place your index finger on the sensor to begin.

Sensor? Which sensor? The device answered, seemingly responsive to Ezreal’s thoughts.

The sensor is found in the hole next to your neck. Please insert a digit in there to test your digital fingerprint.

Feeling a rush of relief, Ezreal fiddled around the helmet to try to locate the sensor. After probing around for a bit, the cool metal eventually revealed a slight panel, showing a finger-wide gap between the two plates that made up the device. It had been a while since Ezreal had last ever encountered a fingerprint sensor, given that they’d been phased out of use for a long period of time due to its susceptibility to fake fingerprint molds.

Pressing in his finger, he let out a sharp yelp at the sudden pain radiating from the tip of his index. Pulling away with as much force as he could muster, he stared in surprise at the blood dripping from the tip – it was clear that the fingerprint sensor was malfunctioning, but what type of sensor would even have the off chance to have sharp parts that could cut into his finger like that, with the precision of a needle?

Digital fingerprint registered. This user’s biometrics cannot be confirmed. Please remove the headset immediately to avoid any further issuesSs..!1!... b3ZlcnJpZGluZy4uLiBvdmVycmlkaW5nLi4uIA==

Please remove the headset immediately to avoid Soul Separation between…!b3ZlcnJpZGUgY29uZmlybWVkLg==

Confirmed. Bootup countdown initiated. During this timeframe, do not move. Do not blink. Please relax.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

A bright flash of light. Then nothing.