Ray

"Ungh, what time is it?"

"Shit! It's already two in the afternoon?"

Ray woke up late, again. Even though it's not uncommon for him, he had things he wanted to do today and getting a late start wasn't helping. It was his day off and after paying his bill's he had enough cash left over to go buy the new game he wanted, Ever Eternity. A new full dive virtual reality game. The games slogan was "Be a new you". It was a fantasy based massive multiplayer role-playing game and Ray was eager to start playing.

His best friend Mark had been playing the game since it prereleased and had been telling him all about it. He was supposed to meet up with Mark six hours ago, but apparently his phone had been on silent when he had fallen asleep last night.

"Shit, five missed calls. All from Mark, he's probably pissed with me."

As he called Mark back he hoped there was still a copy of the game at the store. It was a popular game and was practically flying off the shelves as soon as they got a shipment in. The store near Ray had just got a shipment in this morning.

"Hey numb nuts, finally awake huh?"

"Look I'm sorry, my phone was apparently on silent. I didn't hear a thing this morning."

"It's fine just get your ass down here, the game is selling like crazy. I'm holding a copy for you but it won't be long till it's the last one and the clerk tells me to cough it up."

"I'm on my way, I'll be there in like ten."

"Just hurry." -click-

"Thank god he was still there."

Ray quickly got dressed and ready to head out. It didn't take long to slip into his typical jeans and tshirt combo and run out the door. The store was about 3 blocks away so he lit up a cigarette and set out at a brisk pace. About eight minutes later he was coming up on the store and tossed his butt in the receptical nearby before entering.

"Bout time."

"Hey I rushed, and this is a record for me."

"Here, don't say I never did anything for you."

"Thanks man, I owe you for this."

Ray received the copy of the game from Mark and proceeded to the checkout. While in line the lady in front of him looked back and stared quizzically at Ray's copy of the game.

"What's with the weird box? Why does that copy have a different art on the front?"

At that point Ray noticed that she was correct about the copy he held. The art on the front was indeed different. On the front of her copy had three prominent people that highlighted different races you could play in the game. In the middle was a human female wearing leather armor with a bow slung on her back. To the right was a humanoid dragon creature that Ray recognized as a dragonborn, the race Mark will be playing in the game. The dragonborn was a male wearing heavy plate armor and holding a scary looking axe. To the left was an elf male wearing a robe and holding a book in one hand while casting some kind of fire spell from the other hand. But the front of Ray's copy just had a giant dragon breathing fire that was coming out of some strange portal.

"Huh, I wonder if it's an collector's edition?"

"Collector's edition? I'll pay you for that, $20 right now to trade copies."

"Nah, my friend Mark held this for me so I think I'll keep it."

She looked over at Mark irritated.

"Did you see any others like it? Maybe I can try to buy one off of someone else."

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"Nope, and I didn't see anything on it that says collector's edition either."

She pursed her lips and turned around as it was her turn to check out. She looked back at Ray twice more and asked him if he was sure he wouldn't sell it. After receiving the same answer both times she gave up, finished buying her copy and left. As Ray reached the counter the cashier even noticed the strange front.

"What the? Did you get this here? I've never seen a front like this."

"Do you think it's a collector's edition?"

"They didn't make a collector's edition for Ever Eternity. It's in the system though, for the same price too. That will be $149.98. Cash or credit?"

Ray paid for the game and asked if there is a website he could check about the strange cover. The cashier told him he hadn't heard anything about alternate cover art but he gave Ray any information about Ever Eternity he could. After purchasing his copy Mark drove him home while telling him where he should spawn.

"Once you get the game booted up it will scan your biometrics with the user interface, then you will go into avatar creation. It will use your real body as a base avatar but you can change anything you want. Even your gender and race can be changed. Afterwards it will send you to the spawn point at Ironrock City, I'll wait for you there."

"Got it, and from there you'll show me where to go EXP farming."

"Yes, I should get home and be logged in by the time you finish avatar creation. But if you don't see me just wait for me to spawn ok."

"Yep, well I'll see you in like twenty minutes."

"See you brother."

Ray went inside and set up the system. Ever eternity was played on a new VR system, and the games for it were not disks. They were a complete processing core and hard drive that mounted onto the top of the connection console. Ray removed the previous game (Minecraft Unlimited) and hooked up Ever Eternity to the console.

Strangely as soon as he got the game installed into the console it turned on. He could hear a few whirring sounds coming from inside the console, then he heard a soft hiss followed by a double beep. He saw a tiny amount of smoke come from the seams between the game and the console, and noticed that they now appeared to be fused together. Although he never heard of a game doing that before, he wasn't too worried because he didnt plan on playing any other games for awhile anyway.

He went over to the user interface, a wireless mount that rested on the players forehead. He picked it up and laid down on the bed he had for gaming like this. As he set the interface on his forehead it chirped "USER IDENTIFIED... RAYMOND LOCKE... SCANNING... BIOMETRIC SCAN COMPLETE... CONNECTION ESTABLISHED..." as it finished its start up Ray felt everything get fuzzy and his vision blurred. Soon he could no longer sense the world around him as the interface took over all senses.

Suddenly his vision started to return, he could see clouds all around and water beneath his feet.

The clouds were floating just above the horizon with clear blue skies directly above, and the water below him rippled away from his feet gently. He could feel a gentle breeze but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Soon the water started moving just in front of him, it rose up and started forming a humanoid shape.

It took the shape of a man with a slim athletic build, it stood at about 5'8" and had a boney shape to it. You could clearly see the ribs on its torso and its joints were fairly prominent. As its shape became more refined the water took on a flesh color. It soon looked like a hairless version of Ray himself. Then hair started growing off the top of the head and around the face. Forming an exact copy of Ray's short unkempt hair and goatee. After that a basic tunic and pants stitched around the body completing the initial rendering of Ray's avatar.

"Huh, it looks exactly like me. Even has the birthmark dot on my right shoulder and the X scars on either arm. And it has my dragon tattoo on the left side of my chest. I wonder if I can change the eye color?"

As he said this the eyes changed from his hazel grey to a deep vibrant purple.

"That looks better, and let's clear up some of those markings too."

At that the X scars and tattoo faded away. Afterwards Ray walked around his avatar inspecting it.

"Now how do I adjust stats and such?"

As he asked this a screen appeared next to his avatar showing the different attributes that Ray naturally had.

AGE - 29

Strength - 11

Constitution - 16

Dexterity - 13

Intelegence - 16

Wisdom - 14

Charisma - 11

Extra points - 2

Ray liked these stats, so he decided to hold onto his two extra points for now. Then he wondered about any skills he could choose and a new panel appeared showing proficiencies with a few different skills, but they all said he had no proficiency. It also said he could gain training with two of the skills, so he chose literacy and arcana. When he selected them their proficiency rating changed from no proficiency to novice.

"I wanna be a mage so I'm gunna need to be able to read magic text. Now how do I finish?"

When he spoke this the other panels disappeared and a new panel appeared. This panel asked if he was sure and he nodded his head, then it asked for a gamertag to be used and a keyboard appeared with it.

"Well that's easy, Rayzee141. The same one I've used since Xbox 360"

He hit enter and almost immediately he was pulled towards his avatar, then it was like his body was absorbed into the head of the avatar. In the next moment Ray was looking out of his avatars eyes in amazement.

"Well that was different."

Then he heard a voice speak from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

"Character creation complete. Accessing Ever Eternity servers. Servers accessed. Calculating spawn location. Spawn location set. Spawning at Irgckzzzt."

Suddenly the voice cracked and cut off, and almost at the same time the entire world around ray appeared to fracture. The clouds where broken and malformed. The ripples in the water seemed to be stuck in broken loop, snapping back to a previous point as they tried to continue outwards. Then it was as if pieces of world just blacked out of existence.

"Fuck! Is my game broken? Can I even log out right now?

Ray had heard of this happening in other games. When the game glitched and froze it would trap the mind of the player in it forever. Not even turning the system off would work and as the moments past Ray got more worried. But suddenly the water he was standing on lost its solid quality. It became like real water and swallowed Ray with a splash. And as he fell deeper it got darker, soon he couldn't see or feel anything.