Post by Yorick on May 22, 2016 22:53:27 GMT
The blood red sky cleared of the computerized hexagons and returned to its lying blue light, punctuated with wisps of cloud. It was slightly incongruous given the panic that had almost immediately gripped the square, but Yorick was struck again by the sheer beauty and realism of this new world he's found himself trapped in.
It was even odder, he mused, to actually feel things like this. The closest he'd ever come to this feeling was in the 'aura' of his seizures. That portion of time where he's still conscious, but the concepts of what he's seeing, feeling, and hearing just... don't match up.
Ah, crap - I think I might actually be having one, he surmised, even as he was staggering away from the square in a futile bid to find a place where he could just sit down and get his feet under him.
"Of course, it could just be shock," he murmured to himself. One of the downfalls of having a neurologist as a parent was that whenever you were ill, it could never be 'just a cold,' or be treated with chicken soup.
As he slammed his back into the lee of a market stall and slid to the ground out of traffic, he found himself reflecting on exactly how he'd come to be here...
***
Ironically enough, that could have been his mother's fault too. She'd gotten into gaming when she wasn't working at the hospital so that she could have an opportunity to bond with him as he grew older. She was the one that'd actually bought the NerveGear. It was her game and system, and that was why he had been so angry at his sister for leaving him at school.
He'd planned to hop on and enjoy the system for an hour or two before Mom got home, as she'd likely monopolize it the rest of the night. What he hadn't planned was to have to take the bus home, knock off an hour of his time, and find out that the character creation wasn't even the most exhaustive part of playing this RPG. The body calibration was incredibly time consuming, and he barely had time to look at his game choices, tossing data up at random so he could just be the first in the family to play the game, reasoning he could just create a new character with some more optimized stats after he'd tried things out.
It had been phenomenal! He'd been able to maneuver the different body shape and mass as if it were his own, and he could even feel the confidence of the system assist shifting his body as he smashed through the tutorial spar.
***
...and he'd been whisked away from that to be told he'd lost his last chance to visit his old Grandpa Ralph. Or that he'd likely never see his family again. Or that he'd die in the next few weeks. Or that...
His resolve and composure crumbled, and he pressed his palms into his eyes, shuddering breaths escaping through lips twisted into a bitter facsimile of a grin, even as he curled around the haft of the spear lying across his lap, partially into the street. The symbol of what would either be his salvation or his damnation.
It was even odder, he mused, to actually feel things like this. The closest he'd ever come to this feeling was in the 'aura' of his seizures. That portion of time where he's still conscious, but the concepts of what he's seeing, feeling, and hearing just... don't match up.
Ah, crap - I think I might actually be having one, he surmised, even as he was staggering away from the square in a futile bid to find a place where he could just sit down and get his feet under him.
"Of course, it could just be shock," he murmured to himself. One of the downfalls of having a neurologist as a parent was that whenever you were ill, it could never be 'just a cold,' or be treated with chicken soup.
As he slammed his back into the lee of a market stall and slid to the ground out of traffic, he found himself reflecting on exactly how he'd come to be here...
***
Ironically enough, that could have been his mother's fault too. She'd gotten into gaming when she wasn't working at the hospital so that she could have an opportunity to bond with him as he grew older. She was the one that'd actually bought the NerveGear. It was her game and system, and that was why he had been so angry at his sister for leaving him at school.
He'd planned to hop on and enjoy the system for an hour or two before Mom got home, as she'd likely monopolize it the rest of the night. What he hadn't planned was to have to take the bus home, knock off an hour of his time, and find out that the character creation wasn't even the most exhaustive part of playing this RPG. The body calibration was incredibly time consuming, and he barely had time to look at his game choices, tossing data up at random so he could just be the first in the family to play the game, reasoning he could just create a new character with some more optimized stats after he'd tried things out.
It had been phenomenal! He'd been able to maneuver the different body shape and mass as if it were his own, and he could even feel the confidence of the system assist shifting his body as he smashed through the tutorial spar.
***
...and he'd been whisked away from that to be told he'd lost his last chance to visit his old Grandpa Ralph. Or that he'd likely never see his family again. Or that he'd die in the next few weeks. Or that...
His resolve and composure crumbled, and he pressed his palms into his eyes, shuddering breaths escaping through lips twisted into a bitter facsimile of a grin, even as he curled around the haft of the spear lying across his lap, partially into the street. The symbol of what would either be his salvation or his damnation.