Here I was, rushing home, the game of my dreams, or at least i hoped so, in a small bag swaying by my side as I walked. It wasn’t the first VRMMO, but from what little had been released about it, it was the first to offer any degree of real freedom. I was holding myself back from either sprinting home or skipping along like a little child, trying to maintain an image of your average calm college student, though by the other people rushing around me, I didn’t really have to hold myself to any sort of image.

The line had been ridiculous, as the download speed required for the few hundred terabytes on the small chip containing it completely prevented any chance of downloading it in time for the launch time tonight. In this day and age, storage and processing power had vastly oustripped download speeds, what with the oligopoly of telecoms having only ended within the last decade, finally pushed into the realm of utilities by the government. Even with that, speeds over a Gigabit per second were practically nonexistent. I ended my musings on the odd state of technology as I turned off into my small apartment complex, a short walk from the megastore I’d just left, and prayed to the gods that I wouldn’t have to deal with such a rabid crowd within the visible future.

I skipped up the stairs to my place, no longer restraining myself now that I’d largely escaped the public eye, and my neighbors already used to my antics. I quickly went into my room, plugging in the life changing, or more likely just game changing chip into my small DreamTek headset. The latest models of VR used hypnotic induction to induce a REM state, which somehow or another manages to match your dream to the game, making everything feel just a bit ethereal, but very realistic aside from that odd feeling. After making sure the headset was syncing up to the marvelous chip, I went out to take a shower, grab a bite to eat, then brush my teeth after, as I wasn’t likely to remember later. One egg and tomato sandwich and freshened breath later, I popped on my headset to go trawl the forums for any interesting news.

Sanity Online, a game by the mysterious company Lost Dreams. Lost Dreams had come out of nowhere, releasing a simple demo, and nothing before that, but it had thrown the internet into madness. It wasn’t the detail, or the sensations, games had nailed those to perfection years ago, it was the people. For once, they actually seemed…. Alive. Games before had come up with pretty decent AI, but it wasn’t anything more than an advanced form of cleverbot with a quests built into them. The people in this village demo however had acted true to life. Nobody knew how they’d done it, the most popular opinion being that they had been the first to create true AI, self aware, conscious and sapient. Unfortunately, the forums had no additional info for me, just large amounts of baseless speculation, until I stumbled upon a video that was rapidly gaining traction. It was an announcement from the head of Lost Dreams, giving a simple rundown, and had released just a few minutes earlier, yet already in the millions of views.

“Hello dreamers, soon we will welcome you to the world of Sanity Online. We know you’re all excited for the midnight launch, as are we. First, I will announce some things, there will be no classes, no skills, nothing but your own power and ingenuity. There will be stats, you will get faster and stronger, but any skills you gain will be your own, true skills, not ones built into a system you follow. We know that many of you may react negatively, but we do believe you will come to love our world, as it is not just a game you will be entering. Welcome to our world, may your stay be exciting.”

I was lost for a moment. No skills? No classes? What the hell am I supposed to do then? My combat ability in most games had been built around using the skills, timing them, and outsmarting my opponents about when to use what. My close combat wasn’t great, and while I know the best players had always relied on actual combat skills rather than just using the ones built into the system, I was a long way away from that level of ability.

I shrugged. I was still excited for this game, and news like that wasn’t going to stop me from playing it, it would just slow my growth. I was still confident I’d be a lot better off than most of the people I knew. Quite a few of my old guildmates had relied purely on abilities or pure stats, not bothering to even dodge when it was possible. Welp, looks like I’m going to have to get up to par quickly. I dug around the forums until it hit 7:50. I was quite a way behind the timezone of Lost Dreams, so I was hopping on for character creation in the 10 minutes before launch time. I loaded it up, and everything went black.

Slowly, light started to appear from no visible source, and I could see myself in the mirror. Well, it would be myself, if it looked anything like me. I chuckled, amused as always at how they’d set a default avatar for everyone. It was androgynous, utterly plain, and a few inches taller than my 5’11” frame. I quickly messed with all the options appearing on the edge of the mirror, transforming the selfless avatar into something that sort of, but not quite, resembled me. Black hair, Light brown eyes, pale skin, and probably a bit skinnier than healthy. I’d tried to put on weight before, but it never seemed to happen, no matter how much I put in, I got nothing out of it except an unhappy stomach. Height as always I kept the same, it’s horribly awkward trying to move in a body too tall or too short, you tend to misjudge everything by a few inches, which causes a lot of trouble when fighting, or even just walking around. After a moment's thought, I turned my hair white, and my eyes purple, in honor of a favorite fictional character of mine from some old novels I’d binge read some time ago. Finally, I glared at the rectangle where I was to input my name. I’d always had trouble picking one, and i wasn’t sure what to choose this time around either. After a few minutes deliberation, I finally decided on rayth, clicked accept, and then waited for it all to start.