Chapter 1: Whispers In The Void

At first there was only the void, the beginning of all. Neither time nor space existed in the void, a big nothingness devoid of law and reason. So how did everything come to be the way it is, even though there was nothing? The answer to this question is simple. For the void was not the end.

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"–He–"

"–wa–up!"

I could hear someone. Someone was calling me. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was darkness. I raised my head and looked around. Everything around me was still clad in darkness and I noticed that it was silent. Too silent. I stopped moving and tried to stay still so I could listen. Everything was dark and I could not even hear my own heartbeat but suddenly I heard a faint sound. I looked in to the direction where the sound was supposed to come from. The sound grew louder and louder. It seemed to get closer and I soon could hear the sound more clearly. Someone was probably walking. Walking towards me.

A door suddenly tore open, light came through and illuminated my surroundings. But I got blinded by the sudden brightness. It seemed difficult to keep my eyes open so I looked down to avoid looking directly at the source. I could see a pair of legs in front of me. The voice from earlier called out to me again but this time I could hear it clearly.

"When will you wake up? You are already late enough! Stop staring down and hurry up! Your finals start in 15 minutes!"

I looked up and saw the person pointing to the wall and I wondered why I knew that the person looked angry even though it had no face. I followed the finger and noticed a digital clock displaying "9:15 am". At that sight I jumped out of my bed and ran out of the door while grabbing some pens along the way.

I was now outside, running towards the school. It felt like I was running an eternity because the school in the distance did not get bigger no matter how long I ran. Along the way I saw more and more people crowding the street I was running at. I did not stop running while looking at the people around me, then I noticed that they all have something in common. They were all faceless like the person earlier in my room and all of them were staring at me but I did not mind them any longer. I never stopped running.

Finally I saw a big double door in front of me and I went through it. Faceless people were sitting at their desks with pens in their hands. As I entered the room they all looked up and stared at me. I noticed a vacant chair at the other side of the room. I walked towards it. I walked. And walked. The way seemed endlessly long and I felt everyone's gazes on me. This time my curiosity won over me and I looked at myself. I could see my toes, my naked feet and then I noticed that I did not wear anything besides my boxers. As I did not care I just shrugged it off and finally reached my desk. I sat down and started skimming through my exam but I could not make anything out of it because only gibberish was written on the papers. Without thinking much I tried to write something.

'Anything will do.'

I looked up. My gaze wandered through the room. I saw that everyone stopped staring at me at some point and started intensely doing their exam. I continued looking around and noticed the clock at the wall. It still was 9:15. Thinking this was weird I stood up and walked to the clock. I tapped at the clock in hope it would start moving again but I suddenly realized that this was not reality. I turned around and noticed that everyone disappeared. I smirked and ran towards the windows. I jumped through them. I didn't feel anything when I hit the windows. I fell down and continued falling, never reaching the ground. But when I tried to imagine that I could fly, I indeed began flying through the sky.

I got excited as I sped up and avoided huge skyscrapers popping out of the ground along my way. The more excited I got the more I wanted to try out, so I tried to imagine myself hitting mountains with my fists and breaking them apart. Feeling my power level rising above 9000 I got overly excited. But as if someone wanted me to stop I suddenly lost control of my consciousness and found myself in a dimly lit room lying with my legs on a bed and my face on the ground.

I stood up and tried to remember my dream. While I felt for achieving lucid dreaming for the very first time. I walked over to the kitchen to prepare myself some breakfast. As I was making me a sandwich, something warm and fluffy was rubbing itself on my left leg. I looked down and saw a gray cat with a light blue striped fur looking expectantly in my eyes.

"Good morning, Cheshire."

"Meow."

"Are you perhaps hungry?"

"Meow!"

It was obvious what Cheshire wanted but I asked nonetheless, because I liked that she responded to me as if she could understand me. So to tease her I said with a joyful expression.

"Then go catch your own food! Muahaha!"

"Hissss!"

"Woah, calm down little spoiled princess. I was kidding. Here."

As my little teasing backfired at me I showed her that I was preparing her food too. After the preparations ended I took my sandwich and her food to the living room. I put the sandwich on the ground and the cat food on the table next to the couch. I turned the TV on and made myself comfortable on the couch.

"You know, Cheshire? Today I had the best dream ever!" I said to my cat and took a bite off of my breakfast. I continued speaking.

"I was in full control of everything in my dream for the first time, I could fly and annihilate whole mountains. It was marvelous!" I took another bite and wondered why Cheshire was hissing at me instead of eating or rejoicing. So I asked her, bewildered.

"Why are you not eating? And stop hissing at me! Could it be you are jealous?"

"Hiss!"

Cheshire hissed again at me teasing her and I continued talking regardless of her weird behavior.

"Anyway. So I was feeling superior in my dream but at the beginning I didn't even know what I had to do. I even ran in fear I would miss my finals! Can you believe it? My finals! I did them already a few years ago and they still haunt me in my dreams! Anyway, so I was running to school and everyone was staring at me as if I had no clothes on! No... Clothes."

Then I realized why they were all staring at me in my dream. And embarrassment hit me.

"Noooooo! Nononono!"

At my sudden outburst Cheshire jumped up and I fell off the couch face first on the floor. As embarrassed as I was I didn't want to stand up yet and just looked mindlessly around. I felt even more down as I saw my sandwiches on the ground, still untouched. I felt the urge to cry and let my gaze wander to my cat who now looked really happy and she even jumped up my head and walked to the table to eat while she meowed a few times as if to mock me.

I was now again sitting on the couch but this time eating my own sandwich. I stopped talking about my dream and instead focused on the TV which I ignored till now. The local news were showing how a few teenagers tried to escape from the police because they stole someone's car. I could not believe something like this was happening in the otherwise quiet town I lived in and that I could not care less because someone I expected to come rang the bell.

A technician of Cable Corp. appeared behind the door. Cable Corporations was the rising star of the era because they introduced us to a second world thanks to their breakthrough in Virtual Tech. They released a couple of weeks ago the virtual diving pod which allows the user to connect to the first VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) "Another Life". The technician was now calibrating the pod which has been delivered yesterday. His work didn't take long and he left after ten minutes he rang the bell.

I was already eager to try it out and look for myself if rumors like that your every action can have an impact on you or your surroundings were true. As excited as I was I jumped right away into the pod and lay down in the gel which surprisingly felt really good on the skin. I closed the pod and tried starting the game.

"Erm... Sic semper tyrannis?" At first I felt a little uncomfortable talking to myself in a cramped space so I wanted to confirm if it was true that you could dive into the virtual world as long as the AI got your intentions that you wanted to play.

And it was true because the next moment I found myself on a chair. When I looked down I saw a semitransparent floor and beyond that an earth like planet and I felt a little bit overwhelmed by what I saw. Everyone would feel overwhelmed and tiny, really tiny when you find yourself for the first time in space. Around me in the distance were stars and more stars. It truly was as beautiful as that handsome man in front of me, who was standing still and looking straight ahead. After looking at the man with a not too short jet black hair, a height of 186 cm and a trained body who clearly was my spitting image, I heard a voice talking to me.

"Welcome Dante Eloy! Thank you for purchasing Another Life. I will guide you through your character creation process but first you need to read and agree to our general terms and conditions"

"Alright. I agree."

"You need to read it first."

"Seriously?!"

"Yes."

"Can't I just skip it?"

"You can't do that."

"Aww. Come on!"

Then the GTC appeared in front of me and I agreed to them after reading them reluctantly.

"Now let's proceed to your character creation. First choose your ra..."

"May I choose my name first?" I interrupted the robotic female voice because I feared the name I wanted would no longer be available if I idled any longer. So I let my copy in front of me wait in his very basic form.

"You may choose your name first."

"Shepard."

"That name is already in use."

"Murloc."

"That name is already in use."

"Then Dante."

"That name is already in use."

"Damn it... How about: DanteIsDaKing?"

"That name is already in use."

"Seriously? Who the hell would name himself like that?"

"You. And some other guy. Now proceed in choo..."

Everything suddenly went dark and I was forced out of the game. I could not dive back in. I had to get out but the pod would not open itself so I had to use a little force to open it. I felt anger and confusion rising inside me while pushing the lid open. Anger because of the annoying AI and that I could not enjoy the game yet and confusion because I simply did not know what happened because something like a sudden shutdown should not happen unless something potentially dangerous happened to me, the pod or to my close surroundings. Afterwards I thought to myself, trying to figure out what happened and eventually decided that I should go for a walk in the park to clear my mind a little but as soon as I stepped out of the pod I noticed Cheshire sitting on the window seat staring out of the window. Feeling that she behaved unlike her usual self I set a few steps in her direction, but she didn't seem to notice me.

"Cheshire. Cheshire?" after calling her a few times she finally looked back, meowed and signaled me with her paw where she was looking at by putting her paw on the glass. At first she had my curiosity but now she had my full attention so I approached her until I stood next to her at the window and looked where she pointed at with her paw.

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Rose

"Aunt Rose! Look! The police car over there is racing with someone. Look, look!"

Carlos, the son of my big sister says very excitedly while pointing with his finger at the bridge down the street. We are on our way back home from groceries shopping when Carlos notices those cars. I get a bad premonition and a little restless as I watch them taking a turn and driving upwards the hill in to our direction.

To be cautious I quickly grab Carlos left hand, pull him over to me and away from the street as I see the cars quickly closing in, but my sudden actions surprise him and he lets go of the ball he held in his right arm.

The ball falls to the ground, bounces a few times and rolls over to the other side of the street, all the while the cars are closing in. I see that the cars are already halfway here. I feel my heart skip a beat. When the cars only have seconds to arrive I look over to the other side of the street where the ball is supposed be. Then I realize, Carlos had let go of my grab to run after his ball while I was focused on the cars closing in.

I shout out from the depths of my lungs.

"Carlos!"

The world around me goes blurry as I rush over to Carlos. I shout out at Carlos but even I can not hear my own voice. I shout out again. Again and again.

My surroundings become blurry but I still could see Carlos face clearly before my very eyes. He looks terrified but doesn't move a bit. He just looks stunned at the cars closing in. I yell that he should move. He doesn't respond. I have almost reached him. I run faster.

I get to him in time and am currently holding him in my arms. Covering him for the incoming impact. His eyes are closed. He is trembling. I close my eyes and wait. Everything goes dark.

As I wait and wait, someone pokes my shoulder. I look up wondering why nothing else happened and see a white bearded old man with a face full of wrinkles, looking relieved at me and then at Carlos who unconsciously lies in my arms. The old man opens his mouth and seems to say something but I still can't hear a thing. I look around ignoring the man and see my surroundings becoming clearer.

A short distance away two policemen are each carrying a wounded teenager, away from the burning car wreck which looks like it is going to explode any moment.

Slowly but surely my hearing returns and I can make out a few sounds resembling a siren. Likewise I can finally hear the old man next to me talking, asking me how I am feeling or if the kid is okay. But I just look him deep in his eyes without responding him. Then I see in the corner of my view ambulances and fire trucks rushing to the place of the accident, but while they are coming, the car wreck suddenly explodes and bursts even more flames out.

Shortly after I feel everything going dark again and I lose my consciousness.

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Cheshire

Looking out of the window I see a car burning, two men carrying children, a woman and a little kid crouching in the middle of the street, an old man consoling them and many onlookers on the sides of the street admiring the scene happening right now.

Suddenly more flames burst out of the car engulfing it whole and spreading the flames on the house the car crashed into, opposite to my home. Marveling at the stunningly beautiful fireworks displayed in my view I rigidify.

"-shire?"

I then hear someone calling my name from behind, so I look back and see my loyal servant looking confused at me, who until now was sleeping in his weird looking new bed. As oblivious as he was about the happenings outside, I tried to clear him up a little as I ordered him to approach me and see for himself.

"Come here!"

Without wasting my time he obeys my command and looks in the direction I'm pointing  at. I played with the notion of rewarding him, because he understood my command immediately this time, unlike most of the previous times as he was too dimwitted to understand even my simplest commands. So I made my future plans to catch personally a mouse as a gift for my servant and left the window seat to take a nap on the keyboard of his computer, while I chuckled at the sight of my dumbfounded servant who still is looking outside.

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Dante

I stared out the window not believing my eyes that I probably saw the reason to being forced out of the game and then I looked over to the window seat, seeing that Cheshire already left. My eyes wandered back to the now almost empty accident scene. The ambulance and the fire trucks already left right after doing their jobs. The police still remained to cordon off the scene of the accident.

The car thankfully only crashed into the vacant and already rundown house across the street which now looks no more than a burned down ruin. I then somehow felt happy that the ugly old house won't sully the view every time I try to enjoy the view.

On the other hand I felt irritated that this car crash shocked me more than I thought it would because I felt overwhelmed with emotions I couldn't comprehend. Emotions like grief, sorrow and misery which I only felt once but I just could not remember when or why.

I changed my previous plan of taking a little stroll outside into taking a nap in hope of dismissing these unpleasant emotions but I simply couldn't fall asleep, probably because I woke up not too long ago and that it is still midmorning. Thinking it is futile to continue trying, so I got out of bed walked back and forth until I decided to do something. I decided to do one of the task I procrastinate, because they are tedious to do, and took out the vacuum cleaner.

Cleaning the apartment in general is a task I don't like to do, especially if you have a pet in the house but regardless of that I have to do it, so I vacuumed every room except for one room, to which I have no permission to enter because my roommate is currently away at his part time job as I am considering his privacy and simply don't want to vacuum any longer.

While cleaning I got the urge to try diving back in to the game and go back to my room but before rushing back in to the pod I decided to write a quick report to the support of Cable Corp. regarding the forced shutdown of the system. I lift Cheshire, who is still in a deep slumber up from the keyboard, put her down in her own bed next to mine.

"Damn it, Cheshire! Your fur is everywhere!"

I said in a relatively quiet voice to not wake Cheshire up as I noticed that her fur managed to get inside the keyboard, again. After sending the e-mail I jump back into the pod and make myself comfortable in the bluish-green gel.

"Start."

I say without playing around and experience the feeling of being sucked in into the system.

Different to the last time, I didn't appear in the character creation process room but instead I was floating in a completely dark space devoid of light and sound. At least it should be devoid of light if  there were not these little colored balls of light in the distance.

But the weird thing was that I shouldn't be able to see myself even if there were those little light balls whose lightings are negligible as weak as they were. Fact is I could see my arms and legs when I looked down.

My pitch black body somehow still stood up from the black background and I could see stars and galaxies on my own body which are illuminating faintly their own different colored lights and you could also see them moving and spinning however slow they were as long as you focused on a small spot you could see the differences. It felt like I am watching the whole universe when I am looking at myself. I was speechless. No, I was literally speechless when I tried to speak and

I could not open my mouth even though I could move my jaw.

I tried to feel up my face but it felt like it took an eternity until my hands reached in slow motion my face. When my hands finally reached my face I felt relieved that I could at least feel anything at all but then the shock came that where my mouth, my lips, my nose and ears were supposed to be, was nothing but skin, if you could call it skin anyway. The only features of my former self that remained, were my eyes.

Panic struck me when I realized that I would not be able to open the menu without saying out loud the command. I could not even be sure that I was inside the game! Add to that, that I felt really stressed because I was currently the only soul in this damned big nothing! It won't do me any good to remain any longer here as I felt my sanity crumbling.

This soundless space was driving me crazy as I was used to having something or anything at all happening around. To make it a little easier for my mind I event tried to clap my hands to create some sound but I still could not hear anything and I didn't know if it was because of my non-existent ears or if this space I am in is really void of everything.

'I hate vacuums or anything with the word vacuum in its name. Yeah, I am thinking especially of you, damned vacuum cleaner!'

As I went crazier by the second my thoughts became more and more unstable and random until my thoughts reached the level of complete bullshit.

'If cars were made out of toilet paper and a rainbow colored cockroach were to meet each other would Krillin survive a season?'

'Ha! You don't even believe that yourself.'

'Nonono, yellow is the color blue.'

'Don't even start arguing, you three. The answer is obviously 42.'

'Damn it. He is right.'

My mind was in turmoil but thankfully a reasonable voice resounded in my head as it tried to take back full control and calm me down. It took quite a time until I could reason again with most of the voices now gone, but I knew it would not hold long, so I tried my best to get out of here.

Thinking that I should try to say the commands in my mind which should work as long as the system would get my intentions and that I am truly inside the game, not trapped somewhere between the reality and the game.

'Menu'

Nothing happened, but I did not want to give up yet! So I tried it again and again, but it was futile.

'Maybe we should approach it in a different way?'

'Maybe we should. Wait. Get out of my head!'

'I am trying to help and besides it is my head too.'

'Alright, what do you have in mind?'

'Let's try imagining the menu appearing right before us.'

'Great idea! Why didn't we think of that?'

'We did, but we had to go mad, right? Anyway, let's try it.'

'Mad? Who is mad?'

This time I quickly imagined the menu window appearing in front of me before even more voices appeared and viola! It happened and I finally regained a little bit more of my sanity as I saw something happening. It gave me hope and I tried opening several other windows like the help section or my character status window.

Status WindowName:-----Alignment:NeutralLevel:0Class:-----Race:Unknown EntityTitles-----Achievements-----Fame:0Infamy:0-Health:1 / 1Health Regen:0.0 / SecMana:1 / 1Mana Regen:0.0 / SecStamina:1 / 1Stamina Regen:0.0 / Sec-Strength:0Agility:0Vitality:0Intelligence:0Wisdom:0Leadership:0Luck:0-Attack:0-0Defense:0Physical ResistancesSlashing:0%Piercing:0%Crushing:0%Elemental ResistancesFire:0%Water:0%Wind:0%Earth:0%Light:0%Darkness:0%

I looked over and over again at my stats but I did not care that much right now because I got bored thinking about it and stopped looking at it, instead I closed every window and opened them again. I repeated this until I got bored of that too.

'Now what do I do? I am bored! Boored!'

'How about we try to figure out what those colorful balls of light are?'

'Or we continue opening and closing the windows?'

'Great! Let's do that! Sounds fun!'

Again felt I my reason slip away but thankfully my last bit of awareness bewared me of reentering that vicious cycle as it instantly convinced me to follow its word of advice.

'Let's log out, I am getting tired of your shit.'

The very next moment I imagined a Log Out window appearing before me, asking me for my confirmation and I pressed in slow motion the button.

I hurriedly stepped out of the pod, looked up the wall to the clock, felt relieved that I finally made it out and saw that it already is late evening and that I have already spent around half a day in that damned pod.

Then I heard a knocking on my door and saw shortly after a young man entering my room who immediately started talking.

"Hey, Dante! I am back and I brought pizza. Hello? Dante? Earth to Dante!"

Ignoring him, I rushed straight to my bed and heard him asking me a few more things but my consciousness began already to fade away as soon as I lied in bed.

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Nick

"Dude, don't just ignore me! Hey! Damn, he is already fast asleep."

I mutter while still standing dumbfounded in front of the door. But afterwards my mood changes for the better as a thought comes up.

"Yay! More pizza for me! Hehehe. Did you hear me, Dante? I am so gonna eat your pizza, too!"

But Dante does not even twitch as I hold a slice of the pizza in front of his nose. Instead his cat comes towards me while holding a little ball of fur with her mouth. At a closer inspection I identify it as a dead mouse and let out a short 'manly' shriek.

"Aah! Holy shit! Don't take dead stuff inside!"

On my way out the room I feel something missing, so I turn around and eye the room. But I could not see anything unusual besides his new diving pod. His room is as messy as ever, where ever you look you could see books, a lot of books, a few games, high piles of clothes and a pair of dumbbells next to his computer.

"Oh! There is almost nor fur on the ground! Yeah, that must be it."

Followed by the cat, I finally leave the room and enter shortly afterwards the living room to eat my pizzas while watching TV.

"Meow." makes the cat and looks me in the eyes so I pet her and resume eating. But the cat does not stop meowing and I slowly begin to ignore her.

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Dante

I woke up late today and swore that I would never enter voluntarily an anechoic chamber after experiencing firsthand how it would be being inside one. So I was reluctant in reentering the game so soon and instead searched the web for information of other people who might have experienced the same as I did.

Unfortunately, mostly posts about people who found a really dark dungeon appeared, which could only be illuminated by certain items or spells. On the other hand there were some people who got cursed temporarily and lost the ability to see or hear which was the closest information I got resembling my case.

Anyway, I already had plans for today so it did not bug me that much that I could not continue playing right away, as there was the reason too that I tried to avoid going back into the void so soon.

After interrogating my roommate Nick, why the hell I found a slice of a pizza on my face and a dead mouse on my chest, to which he only mumbled "So that was that lingering feeling of having missed something!", I prepared something to eat and also apologized to my cat for having forgotten to feed her yesterday evening. Nick and I also talked about the accident yesterday as he was at that time not at home but he anyway knew more than me because he watched the news.

He told me that only the two thrill-seeking teenagers, who stole the car, got injured. But the teenage driver apparently did not make it to the hospital alive.

Stolen novel; please report.

After my conversation with Nick I went back to my room to study a little bit on physics, more specific on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, I also prepared afterwards to leave for my tutoring part time job.

I am tutoring my little cousin Amy in math, who recently reached the age of 17 and is 5 years younger than me. She usually is a diligent and hardworking girl, but today she seemed inattentive as if her mind was elsewhere.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. But she hesitated before answering.

"No. Nothing is wrong."

"Then why did you start writing this inequation but solved another one? By the way, you forgot to do the conversion."

"I didn't... Oh, sorry, I guess today is not my day."

"So, what's bothering you?"

"You know the game Another Life? The one where you can immerse yourself into the game itself and move however you want?"

"Yeah? I even played it yesterday."

"Which was released not too... Whaaa?! You played it already? Where? And how was it? What did you do? Come on, tell me! Tell me! Was it fun? I bet it was!"

Her mood quickly changed from depressed to happy when she realized that I already played Another Life, unlike me who shivers when recalling the vague memories I have of my gameplay. Before answering her countless questions, I tried to calm her down.

"Breathe in, breath out and repeat it. Are you calm now?"

"Yes." It took a while for her to calm but eventually she was in a state she could have a talk with me again.

"Before you bombard me with questions. Yes, I played the game already as the pod arrived recently. And yes, it feels like you are being transported into a different world. But enough of that, tell me why you were so down earlier."

I omitted the part about me being isolated in a void and going insane as I wanted to not ruin her idea of the game, knowing that my case was somewhat unique. There was also the reason that I simply didn't want her to think badly of me.

"Eh, ah yeah. You probably know by now that I am really crazy about this game."

"Yes of course, continue."

"So I asked my parents to buy one pod for me."

"Aha."

"But they didn't want to!"

"No way! How could they not!" We both laughed a little at my exaggeration and she continued talking.

"Even when I begged they wouldn't budge, telling me God knows what could happen as this technology is not that long in the open-market yet, or pointed out that disturbing things could damage my psyche in the game!"

Listening to her rant and secretly agreeing with her parents particularly on the last part about the insecurities, made me avoid keeping eye contact with Amy, which she fortunately did not notice and instead kept going with her little rant.

"I even told them what the advantages were, like spending four full hours in the game equals one hour outside of it!"

'Yeah it felt like I spent an eternity in there.' I thought.

"But, no! They did not want to listen to reason!"

She then made a puppy face while looking at me.

'Oh boy. I know where this is going.' Thinking that, I tried acting ignorantly.

"Now, let's get back to work."

But she didn't listen and still looked me in the eyes.

'No! Don't make that face! No, stop it. Aaargh. Whatever! Let's get over with it.'

"*sigh* What do you want?" Her face quickly brightened up as I asked.

"Erm, could you, well, persuade my parents?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

'Aww, not that puppy face again!'

"Fine! But only under one condition and I can't promise you that I will be successful in persuading your parents."

"Yay!" She jumped up and hugged me. "Don't worry, after all they trust you. Now, what is this one condition?"

"Ah, yes." Startled by the sudden hug, I hesitated briefly before answering. "You have to pass the exam on next Sunday in exactly one week from now."

"Which exam?"

"Of course the one I will have prepared until then. Now let's get back to work, we don't want you to fail, don't we?"

I was then released from the hug and continued tutoring her.

'Look who is now working harder than ever.'

After tutoring Amy and drinking tea with my uncle I went home by bus, as my home was quite a distance away.

I entered the apartment, while being followed by Cheshire, whom I met outside in front of the doorway.

"Meow."

"Hey, Chesh."

And prepared in not time food for Cheshire earlier than usual, because of my conversation with Amy I got the desire to challenge the void once more and I did not want to let Cheshire starve like yesterday. I went to my room to enter the pod but when I got close, I saw that something was off.

'That Nick... Using my pod without asking.'

I realized immediately that the pod was being used and besides the landlord and Nick, nobody else had access to the apartment. I went close to the capsule and put my hand on a random place on the capsule the same way I do every time I want to enter it but this time I watched how a holographic keyboard appeared next to my hand. It obviously wouldn't open as the capsule is already in use, but instead it allowed to me to chat with the person in there.

So I texted Nick that he should get out and shortly afterwards he did.

"Seriously Nick, you can't even wait for your own pod."

"Don't you find it unfair that yours was delivered earlier even though we ordered it the same day?"

"What can I say? Life is a bitch. Now would you kindly let me enjoy my game?"

"Alright, but let's talk about the game when you get out. You know, exchanging information and stuff like that."

"Sure, why not? But I'll warn you 'cause the information I got while playing, is well, kind of unique and extraordinary."

"Haha, sure it is. Whose isn't?"

"Well then, if you would excuse me."

"Yeah, see ya later."

As soon as he left, I entered the capsule but decided to make some precautions first and set the timer to three hours real time, which forces me out of the capsule as long as I am not in a battlestate when the countdown hits zero. Feeling prepared enough I enter the game.

I am back floating in the silent, dark and cold space and shudder as I recall my previous experience in here.

'Let's open the stat window. Last time I was unable to pay close attention to it but it should hopefully provide me with some insight on my current situation.'

Status WindowName:-----Alignment:NeutralLevel:0Class:-----Race:Unknown EntityTitles-----Achievements-----Fame:0Infamy:0-Health:1 / 1Health Regen:0.0 / SecMana:1 / 1Mana Regen:0.0 / SecStamina:1 / 1Stamina Regen:0.0 / Sec-Strength:0Agility:0Vitality:0Intelligence:0Wisdom:0Leadership:0Luck:0-Attack:0-0Defense:0Physical ResistancesSlashing:0%Piercing:0%Crushing:0%Elemental ResistancesFire:0%Water:0%Wind:0%Earth:0%Light:0%Darkness:0%

(A/N: From now on the part about his resistances will be omitted to shorten the table)

'Hmm... No name or level, wait is "Unknown Entity" even a race? Anyway, that should be proof enough.'

Looking over the oddities of my status I come to the conclusion that me being forced out of the character creation was the main reason for not joining the game normally.

'Nevertheless should I not begin on level one like everyone else? But then again, nothing happens the usual way. And I shouldn't jinx it.'

'Now the big question is, what is my race? Shouldn't the box be empty like my name as I neither chose a name nor race?'

My head was now filled with theories over what the reasons could be, but I discarded those right away as I had no real basis to explain them and I wanted to focus on the here and now. So I now had nothing else to do besides investigating on the light orbs. But I soon would have to face a much bigger problem.

'How the hell do I move?' I thought while floating and fidgeted around. I also tried very slowly a few swimming movements, for naught. I face another problem as I don't know whether the light orbs are small and in close range or big and quite far away. In case it is the former one, then my struggling did not make me move an inch. On the other hand should the latter be the case and I am somehow moving then I would not even notice that I moved as the scenery around me would barely change if it would change at all. And then again, I do not know if the light orbs are moving or not.

Considering all of this, made me feel quite depressed and the desire of starting anew came up which I discarded after thinking about it, as I decided that I wanted to continue experiencing something probably no one else besides me could experience. Being this unique made me also feel superior to other people who play the game conventionally, of course if you ignore my current level and stats.

'I have to figure out how to get out of this space and the only leads I currently have are those light orbs, but how do I approach them?'

Thinking the only possible thing I could currently do is to brainstorm some ideas on making me move, I then thought of how astronauts move in space. They obviously have some sorts of jetpacks.

'Oh, yeah of course! The jetpack on my back! How could I not think of that!' I thought sarcastically and giggled in my mind.

'But I could use the same principle they are based on, like throwing something in space would be like pushing myself off of it and thanks to Newton we also know that I would not stop moving. But now I need something to throw.' I then check if I have anything detachable on me, but can't find anything and I wouldn't dare to do something as drastic as ripping a finger or whatever off only to move somewhere, besides I was sure I would not survive as I only have one single health point.

'And I am back at the beginning again. Hmm. Let's change my point of view. I am not really in space, but in a game and in this game everything is apparently possible, like using magic! So, how do I use magic? Do I even have magic and can use it? As I only have one mana point it's going to be hard, especially hard if you consider that I can only use it once as I can't regenerate it.'

After thinking for a while I tried opening my skill list, which did not help me one bit as it was empty.

'Go figure.'

Before wasting that one mana point I thought I should first research on this matter and come back later. I went out of the pod and walked towards my computer but then I got the idea that I also could talk with Nick as he also should have some experience in the game, probably more than me because he is not stuck in this damned space.

I got out of my room and found Nick watching TV in the living room, so I went there and sat on the couch.

"Yo! You got out already? Anyway look, some high level players are trying to conquer the very first dungeon of Another Life." Nick said and pointed towards the TV.

"Huh? What dungeon?"

"What? Don't tell me you don't know about!"

"Nope."

"Then listen closely. This dungeon is was the first one to be discovered, it is located near one of the starting cities, Contessa, by the way I also started there because of this dungeon."

"Ah ok, so what's so special about it?"

"Well this dungeon should actually be one of the easiest but when the game launched and this dungeon was found, many noobs rushed there. But those noobs did not know how to fight properly yet and they all died only to be fed to those cute looking penguins. You know? They were around 44 cm small then and looked really, really cute. And then those cute fuckers ate the noobs as they steadily rushed in to the dungeon and slowly but steadily evolved to, well, that."

As he said that a monster with 3 legs appeared on the screen, it was black and blood was dripping from all over its body, it had razor sharp teeth and evil looking eyes and its head was deformed weirdly.

"How did a cute little penguin turn into that?"

"Nonono not that, that's the pet dog of one of the players there, it went out scouting earlier. One penguin should appear any moment now. Look."

The dog was still running on screen towards the group of players and the next moment something appeared behind the dog and chased it.

"Oh my gawd! What the hell is that?!"

"That is a penguin."

"No, definitely not."

"Yeah, not anymore."

The dog arrived together with the "penguin" at the group and the players started fighting the monster who looked like an orca on two legs, wings and had razor sharp teeth, it did not even have a beak like a penguin anymore, instead it's mouth was that of an orca and a leg of a dog was sticking out.

"It is huge!" I shouted.

"Yep."

"What level are the players?"

"Hmm, they are one of the higher leveled players, so they must be around 44, I guess?"

"And they are being massacred!"

"Yep."

"2 out of 16 are already dead!"

"Yep."

"Poor doggy."

"Yep. Oh they finally killed the penguin."

"Anyway, I have this one little problem in the game."

"Aha."

"And I want to know how to use magic, so could you please explain it to me?"

"Hmm, yeah."

"Hey! I am talking to you, stop looking at the scre... Haha, look another penguin appeared and swallowed one of the players whole!"

"Ha ha Ha! Hmm, regarding magic, you only need to imagine it and poof it happens. But you need to know the chants for that magic, ya know?"

"That's it?"

"I am no expert, as I only heard some NPC explaining it to a player, who wanted to be a mage. But that's the gist of what she said."

"Ah, ok. Thanks, this helps me a lot. By the way, what level are you?"

"Me? I am level eight, would be level nine if you had not interrupted me. And what level are you?"

"I am level *mumble*" I looked away as I said, it was embarrassing telling him that I did not level even once yet.

"Hmm? I could not hear you."

"I am level *mumble*"

"What?"

"I said I am level zero!" I retorted.

"Ha Ha Ha... Wait, zero? How?! Are you serious?" He first laughed but then his expression turned stiff when he realized that I was level 0. It was quite the amusing face he made.

"Yep. But now I got to go, see you later!" I dashed out of the living room to my room and could hear him shouting.

"W... Wait! Explain it! Danteeee!"

But I no longer cared and wanted to try out if I could use magic and logged back in to the game.

Back in the game I first pondered over what magic to use and decided I would create a rock using earth magic, as it would be the best because of its mass and Newton's second law. So for the next ten minutes I imagined a little rock appearing in my palm. But nothing happened and I checked my status. I was relieved that I still had mana, because that meant I did it not right and it would be awful if I somehow wasted it.

'Hmm, I am missing something. Nick said something about chanting but that is most likely something to help people and especially players remember the pattern of the mana flow.

I don't know how some words could have an influence in this. Right, this is a game. Nevertheless, it should still be possible, hopefully.

Hmm, manaflow. Manaflow, that's probably what I miss. Let's try feeling it!'

I repeated what I thought earlier and began imagining that mana would flow out me like I would bleed blood which would form a rock on my palm. A while later I even felt something faintly happening but it disappeared as soon as it had appeared.

The next hour I tried to achieve the same but nothing happened and I began wondering about something else.

'Why did I not lose a shred of my sanity yet? Ah! It could be because I was so focused on something. It better stay so! Anyway, I digress, let's check my stats.'

I noticed immediately what changed and deduced from it what the feeling from back then was. It was the usage of mana!

And now I am floating in space and am still not in motion. I fell in despair and stood still for a few minutes and felt my sanity crumble again when I noticed that I was alone in this silent, dark and cold void.

'No, focus! Focus! Focus! There still must be something to do! I should not forget that this is not reality.

A game is never made with the intention that it is impossible for players to advance. This is the same! The AI created this space for the game, so there should be something I still have not tried yet.

I need to change my thinking. What would the AI want me to do? It probably would want me to move. How? Like how everything else in this game works, through imagination! Let's hope this is true.'

I turned my body towards one of the orbs and imagined myself moving towards it. But I could not feel a difference, so I changed my approach at it again after half an hour.

This time I thought of something coming out of my back and repulsing me into the direction of the light blue orb. But I also stopped doing this after 10 minutes as it did not show any results either.

'If the distances are like in our space, then it's impossible anyway as moving even with light speed could take years to reach that orb. So it is impossible. Moving is impossible for me.'

I lost all hope even though I did not want to give up yet. It is impossible after all, even if this is a game. A game like chess for example offers you at least three possibilities when your king is in danger. One is to move your king, the second is to remove the threat and the third is to use a third figure to protect your king. You could at least do one of these, if not your king would die.

'Huh? If I look at it like that, doesn't this resemble my situation? I am not dead yet, this means I still can do something. Moving myself is no option, neither is using a third party like a helpful rock here. That leaves only option number two, taking direct action on the threat or in this case the orb.'

As I had an epiphanic realization I felt overly excited and regained my hope. To sort my thoughts I tried summarizing my discoveries to make it easier to solve all this.

'Because it is a game I can complete it.

I am unable to move myself in anyway.

Everything worked till now through imagination.

And the only choice remaining is to make the orbs come to me.'

After summarizing everything it seemed like an absurdly simple thing to do, so I tried right away to imagine the orb closing in.

'Come to papa.' I even spread my arms as if to welcome it but nothing happened and I was really disappointed when nothing happened and began feeling sad.

'You are so close and yet so far away.'

I was close to crying and held my left hand towards the orb and made a movement as if I would hold the orb between index finger and thumb, in the same way people would do when imagining holding the moon in their hands. I then imagined holding the orb in my fist and pulled my hand back.

Despair was the only thing I felt at the moment and I looked up to suppress my tears and closed my eyes.

I stood there, or more like floated there, motionless.

'Is this really impossible?'

'Should I start anew?'

'Am I so hopeless that I can't solve this on my own? If it is even possible.'

'Or am I just a good-for-nothing?'

'Can't I ever a achieve something? At least once?'

'Is it my fault that I am stuck in here? No. It isn't. I did nothing wrong!'

'Why am I even here if I can't do shit!'

'Damned malfunction. Damn you stupid AI!'

'I am going to delete this character! Now!'

Despair changed into self-pity which in turn changed into rage, but that too would soon change.

----------------------------------------

Nick

"Oooh, those penguins are cruel! Don't you agree kitty cat?" I am watching together with Cheshire the group of players still trying to conquer the dungeon Penguin's Palace formerly known as Penguin's Dugout. They already lost two thirds of the initial raid, but the remaining ones were the strongest of the group and were great at team-play. The last man they lost was when they cleared almost half of the dungeon and they were now nearing its end.

"Nice, Poptartl! Haha you are the best of the group!" I am cheering on the human boy, Poptartl because it would be boring to watch if it was not for him.

"Come on! Do your special move again!" It is not really a special move as he only farts fire thanks to some magic items, but it's funny nevertheless, especially if the penguins don't expect it. On the screen you could see Poptartl preparing this very move as if he heard me asking for it. Poptartl sticks his butt out to the approaching penguin. As the penguin is bending over and trying to bite his ass off, flames struck it and burn its face and throat. The penguin shrieks back in surprise and Poptartl laughs his ass off instead of using this golden opportunity to attack. Some other group member attacks in Poptartls stead. Many would by now speculate what Poptartls class is, as he only joked around until now and played with the penguins with many of his "special" moves. I personally think Poptartl is some kind of a joker or clown as he is funny and brightening up everything, but others, for example Cheshire would not think so, as she facepawns herself every time he does something.

"Woah, they managed to get to the boss room! This is going to be interesting. Can't wait to see how they will do!"

They rest for a bit before entering and prepare a few strategies. The boss room is a big throne room made entirely out of ice like the rest of the dungeon, but this room had a magical feeling to it as it was the most decorated room. On the throne is sitting the penguin boss, it did not look that much different to the other penguins, it was slightly bigger, had golden feathers on his head formed like a crown and the tips of his wings were divided into some pseudo fingers. He was surrounded by 10 penguins with silver feathers on their heads and countless much smaller and cute penguins, whose height barely reached half a meter.

The penguins suddenly start rushing, attacking the intruders, while the boss comfortably shoots from his throne ice and water magic off. The silver penguins attack physically and sometimes kick the little ones as distractions and the other little penguins who were not kicked, changed through ice magic the terrain in their favor making the intruders slip or worse and also attacked with small, weak but numerous ice balls.

The fight takes now already a while, but the players stand their ground and are now even at an advantage until something unusual happens.

"Ouch! Not there! That's unfair!" I retort as I saw the leader of the players, the lizardman, Boller being kicked in the crotch by the boss.

Boller takes a critical hit and dies! But the remaining 6 players don't mind it and even giggle, besides Poptartl who almost dies from laughter. Despite the now dead leader they manage to reduce the number of the penguins drastically and now even rush for the decisive hit to kill the boss who is in his critical state and is almost dying.

"Holy moley!"

But then out of nowhere a bright blue light appears and disintegrates half the fighting force of each side. Everyone is dazzled by the light and stops fighting briefly. The king penguin is the first one to regain his composure and attacks the remaining players while the light fades away. He kills them one by one and last but not least the priestess who was the furthest away and is broadcasting this live. Then the connection finally is cut as she lets out her last breath.

"Well, shit happens. And now the penguins get even stronger! If they evolve even more then they could be a new playable race! Nah, probably not, this is only wishful thinking, but it would be very cool. Being a penguin and, erm, doing stuff, I guess? Nope, not cool at all."

Not caring what happened I change the channel and watch something else.

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Dante

'Huh, how?'

I was now confused, because I noticed that the scenery around me changed when I opened my eyes. The arrangement of the colored orbs differed to before. I could not understand how this had happened. And I noticed something was different to before, because I could feel something in my left hand. When I opened it, a little orb came into view, the one I tried to grab earlier. All the emotions I felt before were now totally gone and instead I felt happy. I felt really happy.

'Of course! I got it wrong, I should not have imagined them moving them towards me! Taking directly action as in eliminating the threat was the answer in chess if nothing else was possible, so how did I turn that into imagining it coming towards me?

That would not be me taking action! Anyway, I did it! I really di-' But in my excitement I crushed the orb in my hand and a bright light enveloped me.

Unbearable pain was the only thing I felt as the light blinded me. The pain seemed to last an eternity before it disappeared together with the light.

In the next moment I was lying on my belly and could not move. The ground was made out of blue and purple crystals and I could see me own reflection in it. I again thought that I was seeing the universe as I saw my own featureless face, but it was not only that, as I could this time also see my eyes. My pure white eyes, radiating a likewise white colored light, one wouldn't even know where I was looking at as my eyes had no pupils. Nevertheless I looked really marvelous.

After admiring my mirror image I felt warm sunrays shining on my black body and I could hear the chirping of birds, the howling of the wind and animals splashing water in a lake nearby. The pleasant smell of spring was lingering in the air. Little shadows were sweeping over the ground as little fluffy clouds were riding the gentle and warm breeze in the blue sky with two sun. I was engrossed by the atmosphere.

I again tried to move, after breaking free from admiring the fascinating nature surrounding me, but I felt powerless. And it was already hard enough to lift a few fingers or my head to look around. I struggled a few seconds but was quite soon out of breath. Assuming whether my stamina depleted or not, I ended up trying to open my status window. I tried and tried again but it would not appear before my eyes but unexpectedly I did not panic, rather I was very calm.

So I was lying on the crystalline ground, enjoying the enticing atmosphere and thinking about what to do next when I saw a text in almost the same color as the crystal it is on, right below my head which I earlier did not notice when I admired my reflection. I tried making out what was written and read.

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