I materialized on the roof of a high-rise building, panicking internally at what I had seen. I wanted to scream and freak out but was momentarily stuck in a frozen state due to my neural networks still configuring. Being unable to act out on the fear I felt forced me to calm down, salvaging my sanity while I finished loading. At first, the sights and sounds I perceived were out-of-focus and I felt out-of-sync with my digital body, then the process completed and everything snapped into place.

I was now fully merged with my avatar, which looked like me except for the facial modification I had unlocked by beating a vampire game called "Bloodpact" on the highest difficulty. It gave me fangs and Amber eyes that shone through a perpetually shadowed visage. The mismatched clothes I wore-a ripped superhero cape, a volcano hat that puffed smoke, metallic overalls and hover boots-also came from the various games I’ve played over the years.

With my mobility restored, I sprinted towards the edge of the rooftop. Part of me wanted to believe that there was nothing wrong, that it must have been my mind playing tricks on me or perhaps some sort of elaborate prank orchestrated by my family, so I headed to the one place in here where I could get a better handle on the situation. The cold knot in my churning stomach told me I already knew what to expect but I wasn’t listening.

I reached the ledge, which overlooked a bustling metropolis after dark. I was surrounded by tall buildings and the streets below were populated with cars and pedestrians, although they looked like ants from this height. There were lights coming from neon signs, digital ad screens, street lamps and thousands of headlights, giving the city the feeling that it was lived-in.

When I first bought the vr console, the full-dive mode's homescreen was pre-set to a sterile, minimalistic white room with a large floating orb in the middle of it through which you could access all the options. You could also paint on the walls how you wanted. A later update gave us the ability to download custom menus. The company gave Modders the open source codes and the community went crazy with it, creating menus that ranged from abstract and psychedelic to realistic-looking and everything in between. I had seen a museum themed one were you touched paintings and statues representing the options and settings you wanted to access. Some imitated fan favorite sets like the meth superlab in Breaking Bad or the upside down world from Stranger Things. I had chosen a cityscape at night.

The design of each building varied, from gothic to needlessly complex avant-guarde architectural designs. There were a few skyscrappers I could interact with and those all had one thing in common; countless office windows that were dark except for specific ones, which spelled words. What I was interested in right now was the unique needle-like tower on the left. Camera settings was written vertically from top to bottom. I reached for it with my hand and a menu appeared in front of me.

Travel to?

I confirmed and was immediately teleported to the flying-saucer like observation deck on top. I appeared in a rounded hallway with glass floor and outer-wall offering a full panorama of the city. I approached the nearest telescope and peered into it, giving me the same view as the one from the frontal camera, like before.

My world shattered when I saw the intruder again, his cold lifeless eyes locked on me. I had held a glimmer of hope, telling myself that everything was fine but now I had no more excuses to lean on. The man was a few steps inside my room now. Because connection to a digital body required the brain to perform faster at a constant rate, basically kicking it into overdrive, it created a small time dilation effect which turned one second out there in the real world into roughly a minute in here. The man was moving in slow motion but still inching ever closer, and in his right hand, I noticed that he held a hunting knife.

“No, no, no, noooo” I screamed, having lost any semblance of composure. I ran to another telescope, then the one after but saw the same thing every time.

I could indistinctly feel terror wrecking havoc on my my real body, making me want to piss and shit myself. My bpm was going through the roof and my breaths came quick and shallow. I was hit with nausea, profuse sweating, uncontrollable shaking and muscle spasms from my body trying to shrug of the vr paralysis. I knew it was happening, but apart from the mental anguish, the physical stuff wasn't really reaching me in here. It was a strange, unpleasant feeling, as if I was dissociated from it all. I was actually grateful for that as it mitigated the worst sensations. If I was back in the real world right now, I would be a complete mess, unable to function properly to save my life.

I began pacing frantically, trying to think of what I should do but couldn’t come up with an idea. The only thing running through my head were erratic thoughts and scenarios in which I saw myself being killed the second I logged out.

“What if I reasoned with him?” I said aloud, in a cracking voice. Maybe the guy was just off his meds and was mentally distressed. I could try to talk him out of whatever he was thinking of doing. I looked at the outside world again, into the face of my would-be-attacker and saw nothing there that seemed human or capable of reason.

“Stupid fucking idiot, think,” I cursed at myself, hitting the side of my head in frustration as if it would jog an idea loose, but my mind remained blank. Dammit, If I could just get more time to think. Time…

That was it. I knew a way to buy more time. I went to the nearest window, found the “System settings” building in the distance and traveled to it.

I appeared in a data center’s server room. The large rectangular space was filled with them and the white noise they generated. The ambient air was chilled to keep them from overheating. Fortunately, my avatar wasn’t affected by it.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I made my way to the master terminal and accessed it. I was greeted by another box containing all the settings options for the vr rig itself. I scrolled down the list until I got to the one I needed.

Enable synapse boost?

I confirmed and immediately felt a change in my mental state. A tiredness, the same you get when you strain your brain doing various, complex task all day, crept over me. Just like the name implied, the synapse boost(SB) option allowed the vr system to make the player’s brain compute faster for a limited time. If the brain was like a computer, this was the equivalent of overclocking it. Doing this improved immersion and stability, but the real reason people used it was the tremendous time dilation effect it gave. With it on, one second in real-life became one week in-game.

The amount of time a player could use the setting was limited to one minute, which equated to a little over a year inside. Apparently, five minutes was doable but brain damage could start occurring past that threshold, so the hardware company had given themselves some leeway as to avoid potential lawsuits. Another downside was the mental fatigue, which worsened as time went on. Not that it mattered as only the craziest players would attempt and succeed at surpassing the one minute mark.

I had used the function once before, the prospect of spending what seemed like months inside a vrmmorpg too compelling to pass up. I’d only managed to use it for twenty seconds before giving up, then sleept for 20 hours straight, feeling utterly drained mentally. Afterwards, I had vowed never to do it again. As they say, too much of a good thing is bad.

A semi-transparent box, separated in three sections-one large rectangle on top and two smaller squares of equal sizes underneath, appeared in the upper right of my field of vision. The big one showed the synapse boost usage history graph, updating in realtime. If I did something that made the vr console have to work harder, the SB would take a dip in performance, thus reducing the effect of time dilation. The bottom left box showed 1s=7d, which was the current time dilation ratio. The last box depicted the SB’s remaining activation time, which was now 1/60. At his rate, it would take a week for the number to change.

I made my way back to the observation deck to check on the intruder again. He wasn’t moving slowly anymore but rather, was still as if frozen. My idea had worked.

Now having more time to breathe, I felt the oppressive weight on my shoulders lighten some and I could think a bit clearer. I thought about what I should do next and decided to contact the authorities somehow. I knew that in real life, I was moments away from being killed, but If I was going down, I wanted someone to know what had happened. I also wanted to bring him with me if possible. And who knows, there was still a tiny chance of making it out alive somehow. If that was the case, I’d need help.

That’s what I told myself but how could I do this? I couldn't log out, obviously, which meant I couldn’t talk to the police directly. I could get in contact with a rep from the hardware company, either by video chat or by sending an email.

I interacted with the help icon, which was a question mark poster slapped on one wall of every building for easy reach. A menu appeared and I rifled through the contacts page for the customer service links.

The video option only worked in real-time so it couldn't be used. I did however take a few minutes to craft an email and sent it. It would take hours if not days for someone to see it, so it wont do much good but anything was better then nothing. I then thought about getting in touch with people from my friends list.

I traveled to another building, the one that acted as the console’s social hub, teleporting right in the middle of the living room of my luxurious high-rise penthouse. Every player had one and you could invite friends over or go to their place to hang out. You could also furnish the place with furniture that you got either for free, paid for or earned in a game.

My setup used to be steam-punkish, with gears and valves everywhere but I had changed it for a cyberpunk look since I had been into that style and music recently. There was a digital wavelength air hockey table in one corner and a few arcade machines in another. I had changed the lighting to UV and splashed fluorescent paints of various colors everywhere. There was even a pool out on the terrace.

I approached the large screen on one of the walls and a box appeared containing all the friends in my contact list. Not a single one of them was online. I wasn’t surprised, as I didn’t have that many to begin with, it was late and it was a Friday night. Most kids my age would be hanging out somewhere and if not, they’d be sleeping. I mass messaged everyone on the list with the same content I had written in my email, for whatever it was worth. They’d probably all think it was a dumb joke.

I walked over to the couch, the base of which was made from ammo cases, and plopped down.

Was there something else I could do? I thought, leaning forward, hands clasped tightly together. One of my leg began shaking up and down due to stress. If not, should I just stay in this room for weeks until I inevitably have to log out? I got up, letting out a frustrated growl and began pacing as despair took hold of me again. Perhaps if I looked at the situation from another angle, I’d find a way to make this go away quickly and painlessly. The immediate realization that I was kidding myself made me tear up.

I would have to fight him eventually. I was a 170 pounds, 16 year old kid while the intruder looked like he was in his late 20’s and over 6 feet tall. There was no way I could manage to physically overtake him. Reality could seriously suck. If it was a game, I’d fuck his shit up.

Thinking of games made me realize something. There are other players in vrmmorpg’s I could contact. I could log in and persuade them to call the authorities on my behalf. I couldn’t think of anything better to do so went with it. Beats waiting in this room twiddling my thumbs.

I jumped back to the roof I had originally spawned on. There was a big spotlight near the center that projected light on the night sky like in Batman. Users could choose which design was lit up. I had chosen an ironic image-Joker’s smile-which seemed in poor taste now. What I was looking for though, was the nearby advertisement billboard, which always showed an image of both the last game I played and the most recently installed one. I was prompted with a choice box when I got close enough:

Start “Mesozoic wars”

Launch “RS:O”

Browse…

If I was still subscribed to RS:O, I would've went in there as I had played it for many months and knew people inside but I couldn’t do it now. There was no other option then getting in my newly acquired game. Fortunately, it was synapse-boost compatible.

Starting a game was usually fun, a moment filled with joyous anticipation but not this time. I chose Mezo wars and the world around me faded to black as it booted up. I hoped it wouldn’t be the last one I played.