The electric chair is a hell of a way to log into an all-immersive video game.

At least, I hope it logs me in. Something like one in three inmates die when making the execution jump. It's a fancy way for society to say, "Let's fry your brains out – if you die, justice is served. If you survive, we'll shackle your conscious for eternity for our own sick entertainment."

Vindication Online: keeping the death in Death Row.

But that's okay. As long as there's a part of me left, I've still got a chance.

That’s the last thing that crossed my mind before the computerized voice called out the warden’s last command.

“Initializing on-boarding sequence and inmate termination process. Roll. On. Two.”

Incredible pain blasts through my head like ten thousand needles stabbing me all at once. I open my mouth to scream. I can’t open my mouth. My teeth squeeze together so hard they feel like they might shatter and my entire body flexes against the electrical Every single muscle in my body wants to tear away from my bones.

And then… nothing.

No pain, no chair, no lights.

Nothing.

***

Everything is dark. It’s suddenly hot and I don’t know why it’s hot. At least they’d had an air vent in the execution chamber — probably to keep the smell of me cooking from stinking up the place.

Something presses against my face. It feels coarse and gritty like I’ve passed out on a beach somewhere in the sand. But that’s impossible. I’m in the chair.

Panic floods my mind. When are they going to shock me again? I never want to feel pain like that again as long as I live — which is ironic, because it was supposed to kill me.

Why am I not dead?

The backs of my eyelids go from black to orange-red, like I’ve closed my eyes while staring straight into the sun. My mind tries to sort this out as sounds flood my ears, too. It’s a dull clinking sound, rhythmic, like someone smacking the sidewalk with a hammer. Every once in a while, I heard a grunt and a different, lighter clinking sound. Are those chains hear?

I gasp, drawing in a deep, ragged breath and opening my eyes at the same time. I’m lying in the sand and the sun is baking me like a pan of Thanksgiving yams. A glance down reveals I’m wearing loose, shredded pants made out of canvas or another unpleasant fabric. I’m shirtless immediately realize all of my tattoos are gone. Only then do I realize that I’m dead.

At least my body is, anyway. I force the lingering mists of confusion from my mind. I’ve made it, I’ve crossed over into Vindication Online.

“Hey!”

A female voice shouts from behind me somewhere. I roll over just as a silhouette comes between me and the sun. Squinting and holding up my hand, I make out a woman with a deep tan and auburn dreadlocks. She’s wearing rags that don’t leave much to the imagination and holding a pickax. Her expression doesn't leave much to the imagination as to her first impression of me.

“Get your ass up! The quarry guard will be by again soon and if he catches you lying down we’re all going to get the whip. And I’ll be damned if I get flayed open by some stupid inmate who just rode the lightning.”

I push myself to my feet and hold up a hand to take in my surroundings while adjusting to the bright sun. I’m in a pit of some kind, about a hundred yards across, maybe twice that in length and surrounded on all sides by cliffs. To the north, I can just make out the corner of a domed building reflecting in the sunlight somewhere behind the rise of the cliff face. There are two more slaves or prisoners or whatever swinging at the ore a few yards away but if there’s anything else to see, it’s blocked by the outcrop of rocks to the northwest of us. I can’t figure out what anyone would be mining for out here — it just looks like rock to me.

“Grab your pick,” the woman frowns at my deeper with her bright green eyes and jerk her head to the ground. I’ve played enough games to wonder if this is some kind of unfriendly tutorial, so I do what she says and grab the tool.

“Now,” the woman says, lowering her voice. “Just keep swinging away at that ore and mind your own damned business. You chose a pretty good time to get zapped into Vindication Online, noob. We’re about to get the hell out of this shit hole.”

It’s my turn to be pissed.

“I don’t know who you are but don’t call me a noob, lady. I —”

She’s not listening and in the middle of my rant, I figure out why. Two men ride up on powerful horses, jerking them to a halt a few feet away from the other two prisoners, the biggest African American man I’ve ever seen in my life and a Latino woman who swings her pickax at a clump of rock like it’s the face of some ex-lover who cheated on her birthday.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

One of the riders unfurls a long, barbed whip with a flick. I blink as a name appears in neon text above his head:

The text fades away as he starts to speak.

“Back to work, scum! Lord Sakariss himself commanded me to flay you within an inch of death if the next shipment isn’t a full load!”

My mind races. I’m still disoriented from — well, from dying. I have no idea how Vindication Online works. The only people that play it are dead just like me and have no way to create offline forums or wikis. I don’t even understand how the UI works. Aside from the floating name above the Slave Master, I would have never known I was in a video game.

“How about a little break, soldier?” The woman with the dreadlocks does a hell of a job sauntering up to the man. Even in rags, she possesses a fluid grace that can only be described as alluring.

Maybe not on the Slave Master, though. If there’s such a thing as Charisma in this world, dreadlocks doesn’t have enough to distract him. He scowls down at her.

“I ought to have your tongue for your impudence, woman,” he growls. “Keep your dirty slave hands away —”

A chunk of rock the size of a bowling ball collides with the Slave Master’s head. He falls sideways off of his horse and dreadlocks grabs the reins before the horse can panic and bolt. A glance to the right tells me the big dude that looks like he could play defensive end for an NFL team was the thrower of the rock.

Now my heart is racing along with my mind. Was that an NPC? Is he dead? Are there more? Certainly one can’t have been the only thing guarding this entire quarry.

The three others racing away from the body are all I need to know at the moment, though. Still having no clue what the plan is, I run to catch up. As I pass the I can see he’s already deteriorating into the ground. One moment he was a dead but intact body and the next he’s a pile of rags, bones and bodily sludge melting into the earth. Dead then. What the hell is this place?

The horse just stands there and looks at me, as if it’s my fault his rider got his head caved in and now he’s stuck alone in this god-forsaken hole in the ground.

“Hurry up!” Dreadlocks shouts of her shoulder.

“Good luck,” I mutter to the horse. Instinct tells me I’d be better off to stick with the other three slaves rather than trying to ride out of Dodge on the horse. Plus, I have no idea if I even have a Riding skill in the first place.

Dreadlocks shouts again, from a decent distance away. “If you don’t keep up, we’ll leave your ass here to quarry bitcoin for the next thousand years!”

It sounds like my last warning. I might not know anything else, but that sounds good enough to help me choose a side. I redouble my efforts, realizing in the back of my mind that I’m getting tired. Again, there’s no way to look at any sort of UI, but beyond that, this feels more like reality than a game. Enough that I don’t what to find out what dying might feel like.

We wind our way through the shallow canyons and slots cut into the rock. As I run, I glance around, expecting to see more foes descending on us at any moment. But no one is there.

Continuing for — oh, I don’t know, maybe a couple hundred yards — we suddenly burst out into the open. A good fifty yards away, a pair of swivel their horses around and cry out. Then they charge straight for us.

“You two, take the one on the left,” the big man shouts in a deep, husky voice. “We’ll take the right! Careful — three good strikes and you’re dead.”

I don’t know how Mr. Defensive Lineman knows this, but I’ve got no time to question. And then I realize I left my pickax back where I’d spawn. Maybe Dreadlocks is right — that was certainly a noob move. I’m rustier than I think.

The bears dow at a full gallop, riding straight for us, his barbed whip held high. I start to yell at Dreadlocks to get out of the way, but she’s already in action, snatching fist-sized rocks off the ground and chucking them at the foe riding down on us. As the Slave Master closes in, an idea flashes across my mind, my old battle instincts kicking in.

Screaming, I run to meet the rider. He leans over in the saddle and his whip flashes out — I throw up my hand and the leather curls around me, the barbs of metal braided into the strands cutting into my arms. Instead of trying to pull away, however, I grasp the whip with both hands. I yank with all my might, as the momentum of the horse jerks me toward the rider and the horse’s thundering hooves. I have no hope of stopping the charging horse, but that’s not my plan. The Slave Master shouts and topples out of the saddle, landing hard on the ground as I go sprawling, face first.

Dazed, I roll over. Everything aches and burns. No — everything hurts like hell. Through my rattled vision, I see the the Slave Master rise. A shadow appears above the man.

A moment later, Dreadlocks lets out a vicious shriek and impales the Slave Master’s head on her pickax. His head jerks back at an unnatural angle and the metal spike wrecks the same as if it had been a ripe watermelon. His body twitches for a few seconds then goes still.

Groaning, I pull myself to my feet. The whip is still wrapped around and jabbed into my arm. I grit my teeth and unwind it, wincing every time one of the barbs comes free. I still have no idea what my health points might be, but I feel like I’ve just been thrown into a wood chipper then run over by a semi. Blood drips down my arm and I struggle to open and close my hand. My shoulder burns but luckily, I don't think it's dislocated.

I haven’t taken a virtual beating like this for years. It’s been even longer since I faced one in the real world. That’s more what this feels like. Points for realism, Vindication Online. If this is what I’m in for, it’s going to be a long eternity. This might be a game, but it’s a little too realistic for my taste. Then again, I’m pretty sure the developers weren’t worried about turning down pain settings for a bunch of criminals.

Dreadlocks spits at the disintegrating body of the Slave Master. Looking around, I see the other two, the other woman and big dude, alive and mostly well. Their opponent is dead as well. Now what? We’re still trapped in the quarry.

My face must look puzzled. Dreadlocks waves at me impatiently.

“Come on! We can’t stay here — they’ll respawn in a few minutes.”

Willing my aching body to move, I follow as the other three set off to the north. We round a bend in the cliffs and the giant domed building comes back into view. The massive structure fills the entire mouth of the canyon before us, at least a hundred yards across and so tall it rises almost twice as high as the surrounding cliffs.

The entire roof glitters with beaten copper. Colored tiles and polished marble make up the main portion of the structure — deep blue, turquoise and yellow. The entire palace — I don’t know what else you’d call something this big and fancy — is one of the most spectacular structures I’ve ever seen. Why anyone would build it in in the middle of this wasteland is a mystery to me.

“Where are we going?” I ask between breaths as we continue at a steady run toward the palace.

Dreadlocks ignores me but the big dude pauses long enough to point at a pair of doors nestled between two of the palace’s columns. “There — time to unlock your class.”