AndyB_writes

Have you ever felt nostalgia so powerful it hurt? The kind that hits whenever you think about that one game you played with that one friend?

For Ren Yamada, it’s worse.

Because his best friend, Kenji, isn’t just gone—he’s trapped in the past they shared inside The Game, a hyper-realistic VR world they once ruled together. A year after losing him, Ren logs back in... and what he finds is more than just memory. It’s the beginning of something darker, deeper—and far more dangerous than he ever imagined.

Some games aren’t meant to be played alone.

The Game: Project Rebirth

By the time they hit level 35, Dual Reboot had become a known name in Kōto City.

Not just among random players, but among guilds—organized factions of real gamers who ran massive events, hunted Konran data cores, and challenged each other for control of sectors. Some even tried recruiting them, offering rare loot, credits, or squad positions.

Most nights, they'd gear up around 10 p.m., just after Kenji finished his shift at the convenience store. They'd load into Kōto and meet at the same rooftop—their unofficial base in Sector 4, overlooking the main resistance HQ.

Aiko and Botan waited near a parked hovercraft. The city glowed beneath them, streaks of red and silver from the transport rails zipping across the skyline.

Kenji pulled up the map. "We got a new raid drop. Konran Vault 7—deep in the industrial zone. Supposedly holds experimental tech."

Ren leaned on his rifle. "What's the catch?"

"Raid party limit: two," Kenji said with a grin.

Ren smirked. "That's our kind of mess."

The industrial zone of Kōto was nothing like the downtown plaza or neon-lit shopping districts. It was cold. Steel and smoke. Pipes hissed. Toxic clouds drifted between broken walkways. Konran guards here were elite—armor-plated, programmed to predict movement, harder to kill.

They moved fast through the underbelly—dodging laser turrets, disabling surveillance, hacking locked doors. The deeper they went, the darker it got. At one point, even Aiko took a hit and had to fall back, her voice flickering through static.

"Damage level: critical. Adjusting support strategy."

"Botan, on me!" Ren shouted as a group of Konran troopers charged from the vents.

Grenades lit up the corridor. Smoke. Gunfire.

When they finally reached the vault, Kenji approached the console. "Here goes."

Ren covered him, breathing hard. "What's inside?"

The doors hissed open—and inside was something strange.

A floating cube. Black. Humming faintly. Covered in symbols they hadn't seen before.

Kenji scanned it. "It's encrypted."

"No idea," Kenji said. "But we're the first to find it."

As soon as he picked it up, alarms blared. A timer appeared on their HUD: REINFORCEMENTS INCOMING – 60 SECONDS.

They grabbed what they could and ran.

Explosions rocked the tunnels behind them as Konran's elite AI stormed the facility. The mission became a desperate escape. They zig-zagged through collapsing corridors, fought their way to the surface, and finally, after one last firefight beneath a flickering billboard, they extracted.

Breathing hard, bloodied (digitally), but alive.

Back at their rooftop hideout, Kenji placed the cube on a platform. It glowed faintly. "This... doesn't feel like normal loot."

Ren watched it closely. "Think it's part of something bigger?"

That night, after logging off, they stayed on voice chat for a while. Ren lay on his bed, headset off, but still listening to Kenji ramble about theories—about the cube, Konran's secrets, possible hidden areas no one had discovered.

"Maybe there's more," Kenji said. "Like another layer to the game. Stuff they haven't told us."

"I will," Kenji said. "But... promise me something?"

"No matter what—if something happens, if I stop playing or... disappear—don't stop."

Ren was silent for a second. "You're not going anywhere."

Neither of them knew what that promise would come to mean.

But it would echo for a long time.

Raids and Rivalries