I remember the first time I heard of the concept, Virtual Reality, but this was the first one of its kind. It wasn’t just some goggles you put on, it was more than we would have ever though. Doctors visits, therapy appointment specialty doctors, labs, you name it. Those who sought these games belonged to one of two categories; your first group wanted thrill, adrenaline.. he second group wanted a better chance at living, one they could actually control through a selection that would guarantee happiness, success, sex, family and a way to die of your choosing without having to stop breathing. There were also two other things these groups had in common, we wanted something more than our normal lives could offer and these games would end up being much more than we bargained for. My game was supposed to be like an advanced therapy session, a medication guaranteed to work. Just like any game ours had bugs too, but these were much more than a glitch in a code, these glitches altered the brain through wiring in the gear you were attached to. They tried to say they fixed it and gave warnings of what to look out for so you could immediately return but some of us never did, no matter what ‘Game’ you were in it would all start the same and not how they warned. The screen would go black and then a blinding light that gave the sensation of looking into the sun while simultaneously being blasted by a winter blizzard in the tundra. Once things began to darken, I can almost certainly say that anyone in the game was filled with dread. I know it’s cliche but being dropped into a zombie Apollo series game is much more terrifying that it seems, especially when you add in the very real consequence of dying in real life if you are killed in the game and it doesn’t end there. If you DIE there, you will live in the game as undead that can still hear and remember who you used to be.. but the game controls you. They are still trying to figure out how to disable the console without killing the human brain whether the player is a human or a diseased, we are able to hear the outside world and the conversations like a telepathic second voice, we all hear it at the same time which also increases risk of becoming one of the diseased because you absolutely CANNOT take your attention off of the new world around you. I should have been my 87th birthday today but I’m still 26 in here. Maybe we will reach the end of the hoard someday and begin our own lives, because the ones we once lived before VR are approaching their ends, maybe we will live forever if we don’t die in here. Every so often I recall the slogan and I chuckle at its irony. “Let our Console, console you!”

Screams filled the air as the ground shook. I looked around frantically as building began to crumble, running to avoid instant death as debris fell and crashed into itself. The sirens had begun to sound about 10 minutes prior to the shaking but we all just thought it was an earth quake which would have been bad enough given the intensity. It wasn’t until everything around us began to fall apart and be crushed by not only the sheer force of the vibrating earth, and the rocks the had spewed from the hot earth, flying into houses, cars, and even people that we realized it was much more. We were very far away from it as it began to rise from the hell like chaos, but anyone within a 200 mile radius would see this monstrosity clearly. I don’t believe in heaven or hell but how or where this thing came from was a mystery, a mystery that would change the world forever but I refused to die before passing on information of how it came to be and hopefully how to destroy it if more come, assuming it can be destroyed.

He knew who you were but you held onto hope you were worth loving. Is he really missing or is he hiding? How many times will you stand to be abandoned? He isn’t missing and you know that but to run would be cowardly so he chose to disappear to you, everyone else playing the charade, your world isn’t real but maybe you will wake up someday from this dream; from this second life. People call you crazy but they don’t realize that when you dream, you’re waking up to a different life. Is this actually the dream? How to you decipher these two worlds?