One would think that, if you were to enter college and actually study your hobby, you’d be interested in the lectures. James, however, found himself browsing through many websites and playing games throughout his studies.

He really liked programming, being able to create software that would do exactly what he wanted it to do. However, the classes were not so much fun. Usually, the tasks given were to write some stupid program that listed all the students in the class.

When he was home, however, he’d spent most of his time reading fantasy books, playing MMORPG’s or writing his own programs, even trying his hand at making his very own roleplaying game.

Today was one of those days. Currently he was sitting in class, listening to another lecture of a teacher. It was his last year in college, and they were studying a new programming language. For the last few hours, all he had been doing was writing the same very basic hello world programs to test out the functionality of the language.

Salvation came when the teacher said “Alright, that’s all for today. Make sure you finish those applications by tomorrow”, and dismissed class. James practically leapt out of his chair and started shoving his items in his backpack before rushing out of the classroom.

As he bounded down the stairs, he glanced at his phone. ‘Three more minutes before the bus is here’, he thought to himself, and promptly increased his walking speed.

Walking out of the college building, he went straight for the bus stop. Not a moment later, the bus arrived and he hopped on, showing his pass to the driver.

A bus ride, train ride and bike ride later, he was finally home and went up to his room. It wasn’t much later that he fired up his laptop again and started playing one of his favourite MMORPG’s.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

James is an avid gamer. Within his games, he is able to shove this boring world away and immerse himself into the fantasy realm of the games he plays.

It wasn’t long before he had gathered a party and went on a raid. Boss fight after boss fight, his party progressed and tried to do their best to defeat them as efficiently as possible.

But as the alarm beeped, indicating it was time to shut down the game and go to bed, James let out a deep sigh, having to come back to the real world. He said his goodbyes to his party members and logged out.

After shutting down his laptop, he got up and out of his room, going to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Not long after, he found himself in his bed, under his covers and staring up at the ceiling, his eyes having accustomed to the dark.

‘Tomorrow another long, slow day of classes’, he thought to himself, before drifting off to sleep.

He woke up startled, scared, panicking. He felt like he was falling, endlessly. As he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. Everywhere around him was black, pure darkness, not a shred of light. His limbs felt heavy, he couldn’t move arm nor leg. ‘What’s happening’, he thought, ‘Is this a bad dream? Am I dead?’. James didn’t know what was happening. His head started to ache, more and more, pain starting to course through his body, every nerve feeling like it was on fire, a burning sensation throughout his entire body.

He wanted to scream out in pain, and opened his mouth to do so, yet no sound came out of his voice, making him panic even more, wondering whether or not he was dying.

As the sense of falling continued, and the pain started to get worse, a blue light starting to shine in the darkness, yet it originated from his own body. Every vein started to throb as it shone a light blue colour, clearly visible through his skin. The blue light grew more and more intense, and the pain skyrocketed as well, as if they were connected.

Eventually, it felt like his body was about to explode, and as his vision started to fade, a seemingly transparent box appeared in front of his eyes, clearly readable.

 [ You have died. You have been summoned to a different world as a …]

 Before he could read the rest of the text on the box, his vision vanished completely and he fell unconscious, the pain proving too much for his mind to take.