POV – 1st Person (MC)
>>> >>> 6:45AM – Miyuki’s Room
Waking up in the morning is almost always a hassle. Especially when you need to wake up early in the morning to get ready for a day of either work, fun, or study. It really depends on your anticipation and how much you like the activity you will be doing.
Clans and families have returned to prominence since 2030 and the Noble Family Act. Despite the name of the Act, this is something that ensures a good relationship between and within a family. There had been quite a lot of broken homes and families in the 2025 due to an unknown factor, resulting in many of lives lost. The Noble Family Act completely suppressed the problems at its root and now prominent clans and families with influence and wealth have returned.
My name is Kōhana Miyuki (凍花美雪), where “Kō” is Freezing and “hana” is Flower, where “Mi” translates to Beautiful and “Yuki” is Snow. Like the proper Japanese name, my fully translated name is “Freezing Flower Beautiful Snow”. I have no idea when or where my family name came into existence but you can be certain that our familial personality matches our name almost word for word. We are cold, traditional, and formal in our approach to treating others. At the same, they view us as beautiful flowers due to the natural beauty both males and females of our family seem to be born with.
As flowers, we seem to be delicate, refined, and beautiful. Yet we are cold, formal, and traditional like an ice sculpture. I can imagine that people view us as an ice sculpture of flowers.
Of course, within the family, we are quite warm and welcome to others in the family as well as close friends. It is our outer appearance in public that makes us seem unapproachable, refined, and in a completely different class.
Some of my cousins in the same family are avid gamers…. My uncle himself loves roasted squid that has been lathered with honey. My mother has a certain fetish with her more… intimate activities. Other than our entire family’s quirks, we are quite content with our way of life.
I am just another normal, average Kōhana daughter that….
“Miyuki-chan! The Dreamscape-WX you won from the draw is here!”
“…”
That was my mother calling me.
Dreamscape-WX, a prototype full-immersion virtual reality sleeping capsule that is fully functional and state-of-the-art. The “prototype” label is because it has several powerful upgrades to it that have not been completely tested. I am one of the lucky winners that won the chance to test the machine and give it a review. The sleeping capsule can be doubled as a bed for sleeping so I am having it moved to my bedroom, replacing my regular bed with the capsule itself.
The outside of the pod is a jet-black, futuristic-looking sleeping pod with several neon blue lines that light up whenever the pod is active. It can also be placed in standby mode, which changes the neon blue lines to a soft lilac color. There is a thin strip of transparent glass on each side of the capsule that polarizes when the user wants privacy inside of the capsule.
Inside of the pod is a sleek, white mattress that completes the futuristic look. The mattress could slide back and give the person enough room to sit on a chair that forms in the empty area. Sitting there, a futuristic computer with a built-in monitor is available to use whenever you do not wish to use the full-immersion into virtual reality.
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>>> >>> Four Hours Later (10:45AM) – Miyuki’s Room
After doing everything a female of the Kōhana family is required to do in the morning, the Dreamscape-WX has been fully set up by two female installation workers. No male can enter my living space, not even my male relatives are not allowed into my bedroom. Of course, both males and females can enter with my permission like most regular families. It is simply a formality that makes our traditions appear far more rigid than how it really is.
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The sleeping capsule is fully set up and ready to be used. All I need to do is to lie down inside and have the machine scan and optimize its performance to match by biorhythm and brain signals. I was going to head out to shop for some cosmetics since there is no school this week due to maintenance work. It looks like I am a little eager to test out this technological marvel that I have just received.
I then got permission from my mother to test the Dreamscape-WX and click on the power button after I received the affirmative.
The design lines light up with the signature neon blue light of the machine. The pod’s top cover slides down slightly before disappearing into the casing, revealing the large bed-like mattress inside. I lie down in the pod and poke at the touch screen to my right. The pod’s cover slowly slides to a close, locking me in with a hiss of the compartment sealing itself. It is not an air tight seal but it produces cool, purified air that reduces the already low chances of having a panic attack in the compartment.
“Scanning the user’s body in five seconds. Please close your eyes and avoid making overt movements while the Dreamscape-WX is synchronizing and optimizing.”
The voice is a soft, feminine announcer’s tone that is comforting to the ears.
I comply and close my eyes, lying as still as I can inside of the pod. Soon, the inside of the pod lights up into a web of neon blue scanning lights that wash over my body. After a few seconds of scanning, the lights disappear, leaving my closed eyes back in darkness without the wash of neon blue lights.
“Scanning complete. Welcome to the Dreamscape-WX, would you like to complete the customization and configuration settings on the physical computer or in virtual reality?”
“Virtual Reality.”
I reply with certainty.
“All right, please wait a moment as the Dreamscape-WX starts up for the first time.”
A few seconds of whirling sounds later and the system is ready to go.
“Dreamscape-WX is now ready. Confirm entering virtual reality?”
“Confirm.”
“Please enjoy your time.”
With certain electrical signals, my unconsciousness slowly slips away from reality….
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>>> >>> 10:55AM – Virtual Reality Home Room
I wake up, at least, I wake up in virtual reality. Actually, this is a virtual representation of my room. The machine is using my room after a scan to create a projection of the room in this virtual space. This is the standard projected room for first-time users of the virtual reality space made by the machine and you can change it to however you like in customization settings. For now, I can see holographic window on several of the items in the room.
Looking at my body, I seem to be the same as I look in real life… my avatar in virtual reality has been set to be identical to myself as the base.
My long, silky black hair flows down to the middle of my back, a modified hime-cut that makes me look quite refined. My mother's hair is also in a hime-cut, though hers is in a standard hime style with shorter side bangs.
A window hovers over the vanity table with the words “Personal Customization” on it. This should be the customization settings for my virtual avatar.
There is a window hovering above the work desk is labeled: “System Settings.” The door to my dressing room has a window labelled: “Outfit Customization”. My large, standing mirror has a game-like window floating in front of it with the words: “Virtual World Configurations”. The sliding door leading out of my room has a window that says: “Exit Virtual Reality”.
'This is quite amazing… it is like my room has become interactive....’
I walk to the virtual work desk and touch the System Settings window. A small jingle resounds as the window loses the words and expands into a large frame.
On the newly resized window, there are settings not unlike those of a computer’s control panel and master settings screen. I start fiddling around with the settings to personalize this virtual space.
'Hm… I think I’ll turn my virtual home into an underwater, oceanic paradise later on.’
‘Turn this knob, increase the sound…. There we go, some background music should make a great finishing touch….’
'Let me see… how about we change the sensitivity to 85%... ah. Here it is.’
The maximum time dilation for the virtual reality space for consumer use is up to two times. This means that for every hour in reality, one can spend two hours in virtual reality. In games and other types of virtual space, there can be different multipliers applied. A few more adjusted settings and I close the configurations window. It returns to its original state, a small window floating above the work desk with the words “System Settings” on it.
‘I guess I will stop for now. I still have many things to do.’
Heading towards the door that has the “Exit” window. I press on the window and the window changes into a smaller box.
Are you sure you wish to exit?
Yes / No
The new virtual reality game’s server will open tomorrow at 10:00AM. I think I will do some research on how the game works since they have a website with the basic gameplay tonight. Right now, I need to go out to purchase a couple of things for my mother and for myself.
“Confirm.”
Have a nice day!
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