Far across the globe a pale greenish light bathed a foreign city turning 90 percent of its citizens into the zombie menace, while the survivors fought and gained skills in their battles.
But that was far from him.
He was standng alone outside the department store. In his bag was a challah bread that he had bought for his grandmother. She was sick. The doctor said that she didn’t have long now. The sweetbread reminded her of the Jewish bakery that had been next door to her family home when she was growing up. She had begged him to get her a loaf and even though he hadn’t worked in weeks, and money was so tight that this bread was an extravagance beyond extravagences he could deny his Nana nothing.
in the department store window a manakin stood wearing the latest virtual reality gear. A sleek headpiece of chrome and graphene. It was the kind of equipment that he only could dream of owning.
He sighed. Maybe once long ago he could have afforded an extravagance like that one, but when first his parents had dissapeared, then his grandmother got sick, he’d had to drop out of his systems engeneering program in college because of family matters. He’d lost his scholorships, didn’t have time to work, and moved around in a constant state of depression.
moving away from the window and the distant chasm of his dreams, he began to once again head hime, carrying the loaf of bread firmly in its paper bag. The streets were empty except for th obvious billionaire heiress playing in the streets with her puppy.
he passed the heiress by, his eyes downcast, kicking a soda can ahead of him as he walked and completely missing the truck hurtling down the road, the heiress’s scream, and her bloody impact with the pavement as Truck-kun just kept on rolling by, blood, ripped dress and puppy fur embedded into the radiator grill.
It just wasn’t fair he thought. He longed to join a VRMMORPG, but they were so darned expensive. The pods that gave you compete sensory and tactile interfaces were so far out of his range they might as well exist in another universe.
finally after nearly a half hour of walking he arroved back at home. “Grandma, I brought you your bread.” He called into her room.
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Weakly she called out, “You are such a good boy. You are too nice to me. It is such a shame that that smoke had to come out of nowhere sucking your parents into who knows what alternate dimension. They would have been so proud of you.”
His parents had saved his life on that day. His father had knocked him out of the way as the smoke billowed around him, and his mother had fallen in after him. Across the endless abyss he’d thought he’d heard a powerful voice saying “Welcome Heroes” but that could have just been a mirage.
In the kitchen he cut the challah into slices, and spread some butter and current jam on the still warm bread. Then he transferred the bread to onto one of his grandmother’s favorite royal doulton plates, and put that onto a tray. Then he put a flower he had picked fom a neighbor’s garden into a thin glass vase with some water and put that on the tray too. Finally he carried everything into his grandmother’s room.
He put the tray down on the end table beside his grandmother’s bed. “It is so beautiful” his grandmother said.
”Just like you wanted remember it,” he said.
Then his grandmother said something unexpected. “I know you think I am old and out of touch. That I don’t understand the new texhnology. But I’ve seen you look at those adverts for the adventure dohickies. And in my own special way I wanted to say than you for all the loving attention you’ve shown me. I want you to look in my closet underneath my braseries. There is something special for you there.”
The man got up and looked where his grandmother had directed him to look. There i. The closet under the granny panties was a box. And inside the box was a brand new virtual reality head set. It wasn’t one of the high end gamer gear sets. Instead this model had only one game hardcoded into the headpiece.
”I had them make it special for you. I wrote them and told them I wanted you to be put into a one of those gamer commas and then put into A Great Adventure. Wear it with my love after my passing and have a great experience.” She said.
That night his grandmother passed away, and after a lonely funeral unattended by anyone except him, and two elderly ex suitors, he went home lay down in his bed and slipped on the headset.
The world lurched. He found himself in a universe made entirely out of darkness. Then as if forming from the nothingness of the big bang words appeared in front of him.
A GREAT ADVENTURE
was written across the firmament of the black sky. Then he felt his body elongate. He form changed. He began to glow. Soon he was shaped like a giant celestial ‘,’
Then he floated though space until the words in the heavens read:
A GREAT, ADVENTURE
”Damn it, Nana,” he thought “you spetled it comma not coma, and now I’m stuck here while not even being syntactically correct.