Chapter 1
Kara typed away on her virtual computer, she didn’t have to, it could be controlled with her brain, but she liked to be old school.
That was way too easy she thought as she laughed at the screen, in just a few days she managed to bypass most of apples major firewalls. Kara was one of the few people who still took an interest in hacking, with VR not many people bothered with it anymore, it was seen as a boring and dated pastime.
Who the fuck would give up 10 years of their life to get rid of these shitty ads when you can do it yourself. The last firewall had been beaten and she opened the root directory of apples main server. Skimming through the files and folders while looking for the user database she came across a folder called ‘Samuel Marek’ which made her raise her eyebrows; not many people knew about the real inventor behind the “iPod” as Apple had almost entirely erased his existence. “Interesting” she muttered as she opened the folder. Inside was a single file called “Emergency Cull” What the fuck is this? She thought as she opened the file.
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“The Dyson Sphere is a revolution-“. Solomon was mad. He’d been duelling his brother for over an hour and he still hadn’t won. Knife fights, gun fights, sword fights; he didn’t win once. They’d loaded into a virtual battleground and fought whilst betting ad-skip credits. Now I have to sit through more bloody ads, I’m 21 so I’ve probably spent at least half of that watching ads. Maybe I should just take the 10 years and go ad-free. “-millions of giant solar panels cove-” The ad abruptly cut out. Thank the lord Solomon thought, until an ancient-looking loading bar appeared. What the hell is this? Why is it going so slow? The loading bar had been there for 5 minutes and was still on 6%. What is this; the 2200s? It won’t even let me cancel. I’m beginning to miss the ads.
Two slow moving hours later the loading bar had finally finished, and Solomon found himself standing in forest with his brother Ariel; they were both wearing ragged clothes and holding what appeared to be a broadsword. “What the fuck was that about?” Ariel exclaimed.
“You tell me, what game did you load?”
“The normal one Slowamon, I have no idea why it took so long. We have swords though, so close enough. Where even are we?”
“Hell if I Know – Status”. Rather than the normal status window for the duelling program, an RPG-like status window appeared.
Name
Solomon
Job
N/A
Level
1
“Looks like you accidentally loaded us into an RPG or something. Looks pretty old school too, good job moron”
“I clicked on the right one, must of bugged out”
“Yeah, right. When has it EVER bugged out?”
“Just now actually, stop being such a dick, I can kill you again if you want”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Whatever. We may as well look around before we quit, it might be an alright game” Solomon sighed. When he’s not looking I’ll stab him in the back and get my revenge for all those credits.
“Yeah may as well, let’s go this way, forest seems to be thinning out”. Ariel started walking in what appeared to be a random direction with Solomon lagging behind.
After walking for a few minutes Solomon shouted “Check out this weird mushroom bro, looks a bit like a dick” while laughing as he thought when he bends down I’ll stab him in the back – literally.
Ariel turned around and started walking towards Solomon and looked at the weird mushroom “Where? Oh yeah it do-”. As Ariel crouched to pick the mushroom Solomon drove the sword just under his brother’s left shoulder blade. “That’s for the credits Ar”. Solomon pulled the sword out and his brother collapsed onto the forest floor. “Get fucked, Sol” Ariel spewed with his dying breath, as notification popped up:
– First Blood [Global] --
Oh sweet – his sword didn’t disappear, free loot. Solomon knelt down and picked up the sword whilst opening his contact list so he could tell if his brother was going to re-spawn or quit. Weird – it says “Deceased”, haven’t seen that before. Oh well, must be because it’s an old game. May as well quit then.
“Quit”
“Exit”
“Leave”
What the hell – how do I get out of this stupid game?
After trying for a half an hour without success, Solomon just started wondering around the forest, looking for anything interesting to do, until he came across a woman. She had long blonde hair and a pretty face, she appeared to be early 20s.
“Hey – I didn’t know this was a public game, not an NPC are you?” Solomon yelled in her direction
“Hey, no I’m not, I was watching a movie on SpaceFlix then this loading bar appeared. Been wondering around this forest for ages now”
“Weird – pretty much the same thing happened to me. Head honchos at apple must have fucked up. I’m Sol by the way”
“Tash, I’d say nice to meet you, but I’m pretty annoyed – I hate RPGs”
Solomon and Tara were talking about the various ways they’ve tried to quit when a window popped up in front of them.
Rules of the game
1. To survive, do not treat this like a game
2. If you die in the game, you die forever
3. No one is excluded from the game
4. The game ends when enough have died
5. To win, survive