Chapter 1

The First Step.

The middle school auditorium was emptying at a slow rate.

Do Hyup sat in a chair very different from those around him and patiently waited for the people to leave.

He thought a graduation ceremony for junior high students was pointless but he knew people often did silly things for funny reasons.

While waiting for the crowd's complete departure, he overheard a group of fellow students talking excitedly about something. "I can't believe the entire stock sold out! It just came out today, and there isn't a single one left to buy in the country, now I'll have to wait till next month to get my hands on that game."

Do Hyup was mildly impressed, a game that sells out the day it is released must be pretty decent. But his interest only lasted a moment.

There was a reason games barely registered for him. "The feelings aren't real," he whispered to himself. He had a mild case of what his friends called, 'prejudice,' against games. But it made perfect sense to Hyup.

While fighting in a game you're not fighting, you're holding a joystick, you're not in danger, you're sitting in your living room or at a computer.

Not that he couldn't experience things he hadn't done before, Do Hyup was an avid reader. He had the ability to fully engross himself inside a book. His favorite genre was High fantasy because he loved stories about impossible things that would never happen in real life. In books he placed himself in the story and felt what they felt, and experienced things as if they had happened to him.

Hyup felt this was something no game could emulate.

As the auditorium was just about empty, Hyup placed his hands to the sides of his wheelchair and felt the familiar rubber. He grasped the wheels and rolled himself forward, propelled by arm strength alone.

Three years earlier Do Hyup was walking home and a man fell asleep at the wheel and ran onto the sidewalk and right into Hyup. With the help of the best doctors money could buy, Hyup regained the use of his legs, but it would be another few years before they recovered enough to lift him again. After the accident his parents sold their 2 story home and bought a three bedroom, one bath, house near Do Hyup's school. They could afford better but that house was the closest one to school for sale and they wanted to make their son's life as easy as possible.

He had first been put in an electric wheelchair with a battery that could go for miles. But Hyup had considered the thing an eyesore, and now rolled in a simple, comfortable, arm powered classic. He choose to remain ignorant of why people often looked at him with pity, and stated whenever they mention how sorry they were for him, "What's wrong with it, I come with my own cup holder."

In that way he always tried to make the best of his situation. He developed a habit of often laughing or smiling at things he thought were amusing even if his friends thought otherwise. His parents had offered to have someone drop off and pick him up from school but he refused on the grounds he wanted as much independence as he could get.

Waiting at the door of the auditorium was Yoochun, Hyup's friend since before he could remember. Yoochun looked much taller than a fifteen year old kid should look, but he was no older than Do Hyup himself.

Yoochun smiled, "I was wondering how long I was going to have to wait. You know you could move around with your eyes closed and people would get out of the way."

Hyup calmly replied, "It doesn't matter, it's not like I have a deadline to be home. Besides, making you stand there, waiting for me is one of last small joys of my life. You wouldn't take that away from me would you?"

Showing a sour face, Yoochun said, "Next time you make me wait I'll throw you off that chair, sit in it myself, and wait for you to get off the floor."

"Better men have tried and failed, but if you think you got what it takes, I'll take you on any day of the week."

At this point Yoochun could only start laughing.

"Hate to say it but I'm going to miss you over the summer."

To this he replied, "You not gonna have time to hang out?"

After a sigh and a glint of pity in his eyes he said, "My family is spending the summer at my Aunt's beach house."

Do Hyup understood the real implication of what he said. Last summer Do Hyup's family flew to England and spent their time seeing the sights. Yoochun was not only Do Hyup's best friend, but their families knew each other very well, and Yoochun was invited to tag along with them for the whole summer. The summer before that Yoochun's family spent in a condo near a large forest. Do Hyup was invited and had spent a lot of time on the well paved trail through the woods with a pair of binoculars in his lap.

Do Hyup knew that Yoochun wanted to invite him to the beach, but couldn't for obvious reasons. Even if the fact that he couldn't swim didn't bother him, Do Hyup recognized that his presence and condition would bring down the mood of the whole family, Yoochun excluded. Do Hyup couldn't do that to his friend's family.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

After promising to call later, they separated and Hyup rolled out the school's gate toward his home.

As he wheeled closer to his house, he noticed a van he didn't recognize parked in his driveway with its back doors open. The van said Unicorn Inc in bold letters on its side.

At the door of his house, two men in matching blue jumpsuits that each said Unicorn Inc on the back were talking to Do Hyup's father.

As Hyup approached the ramp leading up to the door, his father thanked the two men. One of them shook his father's hand and parted with him, walking to the driver's side door while the other jumped into the back of the van and closed the door behind him.

As they begun to drive off, Hyup asked his father, "What was that all about?"

From behind a somewhat mischievous grin, his father replied, "I pre-ordered a game a few months back and they just came by to install it."

Do Hyup recalled the conversation he overheard earlier and thought his father probably got that popular game for himself.

There was a question in the back of his mind as to what kind of game requires two men to install, but he let the thought go. A single wandering thought is more than most games received from Do Hyup.

His house was arranged so that it was almost a straight line from the front door to his room's door, which he then noticed was open.

His room used to have three features, a bed that was level with his wheel chair, posters of birds and jet planes on the walls, with his favorite poster above his bed, and a respectable desk with a few rows of books on its shelves. In the corner to the left of door where there should've been nothing now contained a very large silver pod, two and a half feet high off ground.

It was longer than he was and looked looked like an elongated oval that had been cut into sections and assembled on site. The pod seemed to be hollow with a darkened glass case over the top with a handle in the middle of its side similar to the outside of a car door. In various places there were handle grips and bars which were likely added to make the pod accessible for handicapped people.

While looking at it a long series of sarcastic remarks flowed through his head and he had some difficulty choosing which to use. He finally relented to just asking the question.

"Who crashed an alien escape pod into my room?"

His father answered, "I told you we just installed a game," as if that was the obvious answer.

Do Hyup knew his father was aware of his dislike of video games, so this one must be different. Taking another look at it he asked, "Is it a flight simulator?"

This was the only type of game Do Hyup might consider worthwhile, even though it was a fake experience. Learning the skill to fly a jet had always been an ambition of his.

His father had been caught off guard and momentarily showed a dumbfounded expression. "No. It is a Fantasy based adventure game."

The possibility of something decent was now shattered to him He now looked at the capsule with the same expression one would look at a large pile of garbage someone else had placed into your room and bolted to the ground.

Taking a deep breathe, he silenced the urge to scream at the top of his lungs and said in an even tone of voice, "You know how I feel about those kinds of games.

His father walked over to the capsule and pulled the latch, opening the darkened glass cover and revealing the inner workings.

"Take a good look at it and tell me what you see, or rather, don't see."

Deciding to play along for now, he observed every inch of the pod intruding on his space. The bottom was padded in sections that look like they maximize the comfort of the person who would lay inside. The head rest was slightly elevated, with a strangely colored metal semi-circle facing up in the place where a neck would rest. The pod's interior widened after the neck to comfortably fit the shoulders and arms. It was then that Do Hyup noticed what wasn't there. The pod's interior completely padded, without any control interface in any section of it.

Do Hyup looked at his father and said, "Explain."

"This capsule puts your mind inside the game. You become your character, no controller. You see with your eyes, you move with your feet."

His voice lowered noticeably on the last two words and remained silent.

Do Hyup felt his father's eyes on him as he stared at the capsule. He raised his shoulders in surrender, "Ok, I'll give it a try."

His father smiled and left his room, leaving behind a small booklet on Hyup's bed. 'Intro to Royal Road’

Chapter 2 A Crane in the city viewtopic.php?f=91&t=547