Suddenly, I get the shock of my life. In text in my vision, I get a message.

  You will be released from the game in ten seconds. Please prepare for reintegration. Thank you for playing The Game.

  As I stand there, stunned, the darkness fades, and somehow, my body feels different. I realize with shock that it’s not the body I’ve gotten used to. It’s not the one I had on Boromour. It’s the body I had before I died.

  I blink at the bright lights and shake my head, rubbing my eyes. I feel weaker somehow. I feel, well, normal. I don’t feel Magic inside me. That constant pull and release that I never even gave a second thought to.

  I go to get up, but I hit my head on something. Craning to look, I realize that something has been strapped to my forehead. No, that’s not quite right. I pull myself up and look down at my bed, where I had been lying down, and I see that some kind of device had been attached to my bed. It went over my head while I was lying down, and I hit it when I got up.

  What the fuck is it?

  “Alex!” I hear a shout from outside my bedroom door. I look around, confused.

  How the hell did I get back on Earth?

  Afraid to have it be real, I yell out, “Mom?”

  My door opens, and my mother is there, in her nurse’s uniform.

  “Hey, sleepyhead. Listen,” she says, picking up some of the dirty clothes from the floor and throwing them into the hamper. “I need you to get up. I’m working a double tonight,” she says with a sigh. “Again. So I need you to pick some stuff up. Now that you have that thing,” she says, waving to whatever was attached to my bed, “you are making enough money to pay for the groceries.”

  “Wait, what?” I ask her, puzzled. “I work with this thing?”

  “Ha ha, Alex,” my mother says with a chuckle. “Don’t play dumb. I know the only reason you signed up for that Gamma test access to that online VR game was because they paid, and it’s new technology that everyone is talking about.”

  “Beta test,” I say absently. “Wait. What? This is a VR thing?”

  She stops picking up my clothes and raises an eyebrow my way. “You want me to explain something that you know better than me?”

  “Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll play along. That thing is a GR system game or whatever, that lets people visit other worlds, make-believe worlds, where you can explore and be whatever you want. You got into the gamma, sorry, beta program for it as one of their first users. I’m just glad it pays. Ever since you quit your job at that store, I wasn’t sure how you would make money. Why you quit on Joshua is beyond me. He was so nice to you.”

  I don’t even answer my mother. I simply stare at her, bewildered.

  Then in a panic, I say in my head, “Bridget!!!??”

  But even after yelling a couple of times in my head, I get no response.

  “Alex?” my mom calls my name, catching my attention. “Will you be able to buy those groceries or not? You’ve been playing that thing for over half a year now. They must have paid you.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” I tell her absently, shocked to my core.

  What the fucking hell is going on here? I look around, and it’s my room, for sure. The only thing that’s different is that thing attached to the head of my bed, which I see now is part of a headboard that I didn’t have before. The entire thing looks sleek and high-tech. It’s black, with LED lights on the front that turn green or red now and then.

  I look around, dazed, as my mom finishes picking up my dirty clothes. She comes over, kisses me on the forehead, and wrinkles her nose.

  “God, you need a shower. Do that before you go out,” she says, patting my cheek affectionately before heading out of my room, leaving the door open behind her.

  “Oh!” she shouts just before going down the stairs. “Don’t forget the bread. Otherwise, I can’t make the sandwiches you eat during your breaks. And you need to get a bottle of wine from the liquor store next door. Glenda is coming over this weekend for drinks since we are both off, and it’s my turn to host. Actually, better make it two bottles of what I like.”

  “Sure,” I say, still stunned.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After I hear my mother closing the door to our house and lock it behind her, I look around my room. My room on Earth. What in the fucking hell is going on?

  I get up and head towards the bathroom, my bladder screaming. Once I’m done, I walk over to the sink and wash up, and as I look in the mirror, what stares back at me shocks me to my core. It’s me. No, let me correct that. It’s the old me. The me before I went to Boromour and got a new body from God.

  This body is shorter, with a beer gut, receding hairline, and my attempt at growing a goatee. Gone is the tall me that I had been living with for the last year and a half. Gone is my long blond hair. Gone is my beard. Gone are my muscles!

  Almost afraid to attempt it, I reach out with my thoughts and say, “Bridget?”

  Again, there is just emptiness, it’s just me talking in my head. It feels different. When I talked to Bridget, I could feel the connection between us. That was gone.

  “Blacky?” I ask in the same way. No response.

  Frowning, I dry my hands, go back to my room, and frown even harder as I stare at this VR thing attached to the head of my bed. What is going on here? I honestly don’t remember signing up for this. Hell, I definitely don’t remember anyone installing this. Did I install it?

  I sit on my bed and think. The last thing I remember, I was inside the Temple of Mar, and we were battling Sinister Were. We had killed four of them. Then, there were lights flashing and changing colors, and suddenly I woke up here. Wait, I remember getting a notification saying that I was being released from the game. What game?

  There is no fucking way that was all a game. The time I spent with Leeha, Bridget, Sara, Tia, Bryan, and Bo, just to name a few. It was too real. It felt too real.

  Scowling, I grab my towel from the chair next to my bed and I go jump in the shower. With the hot water cascading down my body, I frown at the drain, trying to make sense of this. Just what in the blazes is going on?

  How can I have been playing a game and not know it? My mom had said that I had been working for this company for six months. I can’t even come up with the name of the company. The thing on my bed had a logo on it, but it’s not one I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t from any brand I recognized. Game or hardware.

  Eventually I’m in the shower long enough that I run out of hot water, so I towel off, brush my teeth, get dressed, and head downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I see my mother had left a grocery list on the table there. Jesus, mom. What’s the point of telling me what you want for groceries if you are just going to write it down, I think, rolling my eyes.

  I grab my keys, lock the door, and head out, but remembering at the last minute that I need bags, I go back in, grab some of those reusable bags, and head back out again.

  The store, thankfully, isn’t far, just about four blocks from my mom’s place. As I approach it, I remember that it’s also close to where I used to work. I stop in front of the store and look at the sign, wondering if Joshua still owns it.

  Almost afraid to see him alive, I walk into the store and see someone new behind the counter. It’s a young girl, probably about 18 or 19 years old, dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt and goth makeup, with long black hair. I’ve never seen her before. She must be a new hire. I grab a drink from the fridge and go to pay for it.

  “Hey, is Joshua around?”

  “Nah,” she answers, ringing up the cola I got. “He’s off for the next month. He apparently took a vacation finally,” she says, rolling her eyes, but she’s smiling. “That’ll be $3.06.”

  I nod, bring out my card and pay with my tap.

  “Thanks,” I say with a smile. “Can you let him know that Alexandre came to say hi? When is he back?”

  She looks behind her at a calendar with red circles on some of the dates. “He should be back in, hmm, nine days.” She turns back to me. “But yes, I can tell him. He calls in now and then. Wait!” she cries suddenly. “Are you the Alex who used to work here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn! It’s thanks to you that I got this job. Well, not thanks to you exactly,” she says blushing. “But Joshua said that you left for some big gig and he needed a cashier. I was the one he hired.”

  “Nice. Well, I’m glad you got the chance to work for him,” I tell her with a grin.

  “He’s fine, but his brother is an ass,” she says with a sour expression.

  “Yeah, but you get used to him. Just do your job and ignore him,” I explain to her, waving my hand. “But the trick I had was, I did things before he had a chance to ask me to.”

  “Yeah,” she says with a laugh. “That’s what I’ve started doing. Need a bag?”

  “No, all good. Thanks.”

  She looks behind me, and I turn and see there’s another patron there waiting to pay.

  “Later,” I tell her, letting her get back to work.

  Once outside, I open my drink and take a sip. So, Joshua is still alive. Does that mean that his death was just something in my head? Jesus, am I going crazy? Was all that time I spent in the world of Boromour really some kind of delusional thing? Did playing this game somehow scramble my brain and memories? Is there someone I should contact for that?

  Sighing, I head towards the grocery store, trying to figure things out.

  Once I get home, I put away the groceries and mom’s wine. I had almost forgotten to stop for it, but I remembered just in time, as the liquor store was past the grocery store. I had wanted to go there first and then for groceries, but I totally forgot in my addled brain, so I ended up going into the liquor store with three full bags of foodstuff. Fun times. Almost knocked over several bottles.

  It didn’t help that I had a headache starting that was radiating from the back of my eyes. I can almost feel the pressure of it. Something tells me it will be a doozy, so I open the kitchen cupboard and find mom’s pain meds sitting beside the glasses. I take two, finishing the cola I had bought earlier, which is now piss warm.

  I know I shouldn’t, but I grab a beer out of the fridge, sit on the sofa, turn on the tv, and switch it to the news.

  After watching it for a bit, and seeing news of the war in Korea, the death of a Royal because of infighting in the family, and multiple terrorist attacks, I turn it off with a scowl. Right. I always hated watching the news.

  I take a sip of my beer, still trying to work out just what the hell has happened to me in the last year and a half. Or, I guess, the last six months. I try to bring up the memory of getting this job, or even installing this VR shit, but I get nothing. It’s all blank.

  The only thing that I can think of that is so vivid is my life with Leeha, Bridget, and the rest of the people I met in Boromour. There is no way that was all made up, was it?

  I try again, through the connection I had with Bridget, “Bridget? Hello?”

  Again, it’s like talking to myself, with no feeling of connectivity to her.

  There is no connection at all. I hold up my hand and say out loud, “Earth.”

  But no little Ezza pops up in my hand or floats in front of me with her happy smile and cheery voice.

  Just what in the fuck is going on here? How can I have lived a life for the last year and a half and suddenly wake up one day and I can’t remember shit about my real life? Did this VR thing break something inside my head?

  I reach into my back pocket and bring out my wallet and open it, trying to find some card or something about my job.

  Shockingly, I do find something. It’s a black card with a blue 5-pointed star and the name SensoVR written on it. There’s also a name, Kal, and a phone number.

  I grab the phone on the side table, and I call the number, almost nervous to see if there is really a Kal at the other end.

  It rings twice before it’s answered by a British-accented male voice. “Kal here. What’s up?”

  “Hmm. Hey. It’s Alex,” I say into the mouthpiece hesitantly.

  “Oh, hey Alex! Calling to get extra hours again? Pretty sure the bug hunting is lower this week. We are fixing them faster than you can find them now, since we are on crunch time.”

  “No,” I say awkwardly. “I wanted to find out. Have you had any issues of people calling in with memory loss or even claiming to have memories that aren’t theirs?”

  “Jesus! I fucking hope not! That would ruin us. Why?” he asks me suspiciously. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I tell him quickly. “Mostly, I just wondered if that was a thing with the VR system.”

  “Alex,” Kal tells me quickly. “Don’t joke with this. The VR system is about to go live in three weeks. Are you saying you are having memory issues?”

  “No! No!” I tell him quickly. “I was just curious if that was a side effect of the system.”

  “God, no. If we had that issue, it would shut us down. Do you need to come in for a psych eval?”

  Should I go in, just in case I’m going crazy and this system is causing it? I decide that something isn’t totally right, so I shake my head, but remember that he can’t see me.

  “No. I’m good. But, do you have OT?”

  Sighing, Kal tells me, “Not this week. We are trying to work on the bugs you gave us before we go live. Even the Alpha team has found a ton that we are working on. But, listen. Are you sure everything is all right?”

  “Yeah. Everything is good. I’ll log in tomorrow?”

  “Why? Tomorrow is Saturday. Enjoy your weekend and log in on Monday morning at 8am like usual.”

  “Right,” I tell him. “Ok, thanks, Kal.”

  “No worries. Again, if you need help, let me know, all right?”

  “Will do. I promise.”

  When the phone line goes dead, I look at the receiver and think to myself. Shit. What the hell? Am I going crazy? Kal talked to me like he knew me. But I swear I had never talked to him before and had never heard his voice before. Hell, I have no clue what he even looked like. I should know what my boss looks like, right? Hell, is Kal even my boss?

  Placing the phone back, I lean my head back on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.

  Just what in the fuck is going on here?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The weekend was uneventful. Saturday night, I hid in my room, mostly reading some of the books I had bought but had not touched yet. Mom had had her friend over, and I’d been able to hear them laughing their asses off from downstairs. I’m sure they were both drunk, watching movies.

  I can’t remember what book I even read. I was just so confused, that I couldn’t think straight.

  My headache hadn’t gotten any better, either. I had even taken some of my mom’s more powerful pain meds, but the headache persisted, almost like a pressure trying to push through my eyeballs. It’s now 7:45 am, and I’m due to log into this VR system soon. Looking at the gadget that was pushed up away so that I could actually sleep, I’m feeling nervous about putting it on.

  What if this thing was frying my brain? Did I really want to get my memories even more fucked up?

  Sighing, I finish my cup of coffee, wolf down my piece of buttered toast, and put the empty mug on my dresser, to bring down later on. Once I’m lying on my back, I get comfortable and swing the VR thing until it’s over my forehead. I was able to find the manual this weekend on how to start the unit up. I still don’t remember getting it or even reading the instructions the first time I got it, which doesn’t make sense.

  With trepidation, I close my eyes, reach up, and press the small button on top of the forehead unit, putting my hand down next to me as a beeping starts. It has a five-second warning before, as the instructions say, I would be taken on my adventure.

  After mentally counting down to five, everything in my sight goes black and even my hearing fades away as I am slowly put into what is called MIS. Or Mental Integration State. Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out to be a MIStake.

  In my mental vision, I get a blurry wall of text that clears up after ten seconds, almost as if my mental eyes are adjusting. I look over the text, and it’s your standard TOS. As I look at the bottom of the page, the text scrolls until I get to the bottom and look at the button that says, accept.

  Ok, how do I do that? I think accept, and the screen slowly fades to black until finally, I reappear, or at least things appear around me. I look around and think, holy shit, this is junk!

  Compared to what I thought it would be like, this is kind of a disappointment. I can tell it’s a fake environment. Isn’t this supposed to be VR, like full emersion VR? It’s all cartoony!

  I’m in some kind of field. I mean, it looks like grass. I bring up my arm, hoping I at least look like myself, but instead, I’m shown a cartoony animish hand. I turn it over and I don’t even see hairs on my hand, even though I usually have some. Not orangutan amounts, but still some.

  Welcome, Adventurer, to the world that awaits you. Do you wish to bring up your journal?

  I frown at the blocky text that appears in front of me and utter hesitantly, “Sure. Why not.”

  But the voice that comes out isn’t mine. It’s higher pitched than mine. Of course it is. If this is what I have been doing or working inside of for the last six months, how do I not know or remember just how crappy it was?

  I hear a noise to my left and turning there, I see that it’s a bunny. Or I think it’s a bunny. It has the ears and the tail, but it has red eyes. As soon as I focus on it, a popup appears over its head with a green health bar and a smaller bar underneath it that is yellow. So, health and what? Stamina? It’s called a [Diseased Rabbit].

  Actually, what level am I? I think of wanting to see my character sheet, but nothing happens.

  I frown and say out loud, “Status screen?”

  There is a pressure behind my eyes, and then I get a prompt.