Darkness as far as he could see, this is what Mac Cameron registered when he opened his eyes. He blinked. Still nothing but darkness.

He held up his hand in front of his face and he could see it just fine. He audibly released the breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding.

‘I’m not blind.’

So, what the hell was going on? He looked around and found that he couldn’t see the end of the space around him. It was like he was standing in a vast void.

‘How can I see without light? If I can see, then why is everything dark?’

Just as his mind was starting to hurtle towards an existential crisis, a bundle of light suddenly appeared in front of him. One minute there was nothing, the next minute, light. It was very biblical.

Mac wasn't phased by the phenomenon of something coming from nothing, but the fact that it appeared in his face startled him, sending him tripping over his feet; barely catching himself before he fell on his face. The miraculous light dimmed to reveal the hologram of a handsome man of questionable age and origins, “Whoa, whoa. Sorry, Mac. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just saw that you were about to have a stroke and thought seeing a familiar face would help.”

Mac’s surprise had already dissipated, replaced with uncertainty as he looked at the face that was indeed familiar. He took a step forward and looked the man up and down with an incredulous look on his face, “Ollie? What the hell is going on? Where am I?”

He paused for a moment, his brain finally starting to operate on all cylinders. He looked around at his surroundings, “Wait. Where’s Taylor?”

The hologram, Ollie, didn’t move. It let Mac process his current situation in peace.

Mac looked down at himself and noticed that he was wearing normal street clothes. He felt his face and noticed that his face felt clean shaven. He looked back at Ollie, this time, dark suspicion clouded his eyes. Questions began flooding his mind as it worked overtime to figure out what was going on, questions that he had no intention of keeping to himself.

“Why am I wearing normal clothes? Why do I look like I just had my first real shower in weeks? What’s going on, Ollie? You’d better start giving me some answers, now damnit!”

Judging Mac to be of sound mind, Ollie finally started moving. It sat down and a chair materialized under it, followed by a couch behind Mac, and, beneath them, a wave of light spread out; pushing back the darkness as a comfortable room gradually took shape around them.

A table appeared between them, laden with hot cups of tea, coffee, and a couple of shots of various whiskeys. Ollie took a cup of coffee and motioned at the shots on the table, “Take a seat, Mac. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Mac watched as the room materialized from the space around him, recognizing the familiar effect of light turning into matter. He looked down at Ollie, who had already taken a seat in the chair and was cradling the cup of coffee as it waited for it to cool. Mac reached down, grabbed one of the shots of whiskey and tossed it back in one motion, feeling the warm sensation of the alcohol as it flowed down through his chest. ‘That’s some good stuff,’ he thought appreciatively.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With the alcohol helping to calm his nerves, Mac stopped reacting and started to think more clearly. He gave himself some time to think things through before coming to the most logical conclusion, “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Ollie watched Mac and nodded supportively, “Indeed. Welcome back to the land of the living, Mac.”

Still standing, Mac's suspicion became full blown paranoia, "Why am I not having this conversation with Julianna? Why have I not woken up yet?"

Ollie took a sip from its cup and placed it back in the table, "How much do you remember about what happened before you woke up here?"

Mac furrowed his brows, irritated about having his questions answered with more questions, but answered anyway, "Everything, I guess. That's why me being dead makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that I'm waking up here, talking to you, and not in the lab being debriefed by Jules."

Seeing that Mac wasn't going to sit, Ollie stood up and dismissed the furniture, leaving the middle of the room bare. It looked at Mac with a complicated expression, "There was an incident, Mac. The moment you and the rest of the alpha testers synced up with the system, there was a massive, unexplained surge of power that hit the entire city. You've been with the team longer than most, so you should know what that means."

Mac's eyes widened in realization, but then narrowed once again, "That doesn't track. We built multiple safeguards and redundancies into both the hardware and software. In the event of that kind of complication, the gear should've triggered a forced shutdown and ended the session."

Ollie sighed and nodded in agreement, "The system behaved like it was designed to, but neither the hardware nor software was able to respond to the fault. The team has already spent days going over the data in conjunction with federal law enforcement. They came to the conclusion that someone acted independently and tampered with the code prior to the testing. They're still searching for a suspect."

Mac froze. His brain failed to register what he'd just heard. "Did you just say, 'days'? Ollie, how long have I been here?"

Ollie took a step forward and placed its hands on Mac's shoulders, "Mac, listen to me carefully. The massive surge of unchecked power hit everyone that was still synced up to the system. *Everyone* involved faced severe neurological trauma. The survivors are all in vegetative states. They're never going to wake up, Mac."

Facing such a severe emotional hit, Mac’s knees gave out and he collapsed backwards. Ollie brought the couch back and Mac landed safely, albeit in a very poor mental state. Taking a knee, Ollie lowered itself to Mac’s level and snapped its fingers in his face, “Hey! Mac! Pull it together! Listen to me. You’re going to be alright. Both you and Taylor. There's still a chance for both of you to come out of this, but I need you to be here with me!”

Mac blinked. He just sat on the couch with an uncomprehending look on his face. Thoughts rose from his remaining rationality, fighting back against the despair. 'How could this be happening? Why?. . .Who? Who did this?!' His brain locked onto these thoughts like a lifeline.

Mac shot to his feet, his eyes sharpened with a sudden, savage resolve. Ollie flinched and flickered, appearing a few steps way, back on its feet.

"What do you mean we can still come out of this? You just said we're in a vegetative state. What chance can there be?"

Ollie coughed, regaining its composure, "Its pretty remarkable, actually. The odds of the specific circumstance aligning to result in this opportunity is almost negligible. Yo-"

Mac cut Ollie off, impatience flooding his voice, "Just give me the Cliffs Notes, Ollie."

It's face showed resentment, but Ollie bit back a rude response; knowing that Mac was going through some very serious things.