Prologue

“I hate following you. You are such a freak. It feels unnatural what you can do” she told him in a whisper.

“You should have left nature behind when you entered a world with dragons and magic” he answered back.

“Even with magic all around us you are still a freak, especially because you are NOT using magic right now!” she retorted increasing her tone.

“You always complain, but in the end you follow me every time. Anyway I’m sure that today we will succeed and we will leave this horrible place. Trust me” he answered her. “Shush now. We are about to enter most dangerous zone.”

“You said ‘trust me’ the last four times and here we are, stuck in this cave where I can’t see anything. I MISS THE SUN! Promise me that if we fail again we will give up the mission and go back to the Guild. We will come back with more people in a couple of months. Ok?” she asked.

“Shhh, we are sur….” he whispered.

“Don’t shut me up! Promise me!” she said.

The young man put a finger on her lips to make her silent.

‘Roaaaarrrrrr’ ‘Rooaaarr’ ‘Roooooaaaaarrr’. Monsters all around them noticed the two intruders and crossed their path.

“Oh well....you are screwed now. Let’s try again when you will respawn. See you!” the guy said with a smile and started to run away.

“Fuuuuuckkk youuuuu!” the girl cursed at him, activating a light spell and watching her surroundings, noticing the back of his mate disappearing in the distance. Soon after, only monsters were visible to her and she just looked depressed, knowing that there was no way to survive.

26th of August 2097

Light started pouring in the room and Zortex’s eyes opened. Usually he would roll in the bed and catch sleep again. Even if he had to wake up right away to go to school, he would still spend a couple of minutes trying to dispel the fog of sleep from his brain before standing. Not that day. On that date his mind was as sharp as a knife right from the beginning. He stood up from the bed and said to himself in a low voice: “I’ve waited for this moment for the last five years. I am ready. Tomorrow I will be reborn.” At least figuratively speaking.

It was his 20th birthday but he didn’t feel like an adult yet. He knew that he would need to change soon and the time to be a kid was over. From that moment he would have to go on by himself. No more relying on his parents. Speaking of them, while going downstairs to the kitchen he met the two sitting at the table and waiting for him. Probably they hadn’t slept much last night. He also had trouble falling asleep. Sleep will not matter to me from now on, he thought.

“Good morning”, he told them. Strange, but it felt awkward to say it today.

“Good morning” his father replied in a deep tone. His mother just stared at him barely containing her tears.

Luckily his twins younger brothers entered the room dispelling the mood. For breakfast that day there was homemade cake. It was his birthday after all and some rituals should not be changed, no matter what. He was also very hungry and he took the largest portion ignoring his brothers complaints. It was his birthday and it was his right to enjoy it to the fullest in any way he preferred.

After some small talk Zortex left the house to take a stroll around the town. It was a nice place, surrounded by mountains with a lake just five minutes of distance by car. Around thirty thousand people lived there and the closest bigger city was forty five minutes away by car. Someone looking at him would think he was a tourist, but he had spent all his life in that place. A few hours later he had lunch at his favorite restaurant and he came to the conclusion that he hated the town but he would still miss it. He grew up there. No matter how unpleasant these last few years had been, he could not forget an happy childhood. Probably the more time he spent away the better he would remember it. Usually it worked like that with memories.

He felt that he should go say goodbye to someone, but the only other two people he used to talk with, apart from his family, had already left at their own birthdays. Matthew, his only real friend, had left just two days before. They would meet again soon in Endless and he could not wait to hear from him. Khira was the girl who was part of their trio, although he wasn’t sure if he could really consider her as a friend. After an initial crush on her, Zortex realized that the only reason she was sometimes hanging out with him and Matthew was because otherwise she would be left alone at school during lunch. She was too shy to socialize with other people and she had decided to hang out with the other unlucky students rejected by their peers. He could sympathize with that, he knew the feeling, but it didn’t change the fact that if she could be with anyone else she would have left right away to hang out with the others. They shared little interests, but in time he got used to her presence and somehow he missed her presence.

The other people he could talk to were barely acquaintances and he could finally stop pretending to be interested in them. Not that they were interested in him. There was a mutual feeling of not caring.

Zortex felt free, as much as when he was a kid. All would change now that he would enter Endless. He couldn’t stop a smile from appearing on his face. Happiness was just a day away from him. With nothing else to do he decided to go back home and relax there. He would see a lot of places in the rest of his life, but that day would be the last one he would spend in the house where he grew up.

“I’m home” he said opening the door, but apparently nobody else was in the house at the time. He took off his shoes at the entrance and went right away to his room to check his computer. Exactly as he did most days for the last two years he called the webpage of ENDLESS. He listened again for the hundredth time all the posts explaining ENDLESS.

ENDLESS was founded in 2057 by the cooperation of all the nations in the world. It is an AI created to comply with an arising thought of humankind: the desire to live forever. Although the research in genetic engineering was making much progress into lenghtening lifetime, it became clear that the World could not sustain the overpopulation caused by an humanity that would not age. All studies were banned. In 2030 scientist Igor Azarkh came up with an idea. 'If this world cannot sustain immortals, then we will create a new world'. From that idea started the creation of ENDLESS, a Virtual Reality containing thousands of different worlds. Combining ENDLESS with the latest development in cryogenic science and mind accelerating processes, it became possible to induce an hibernation status which would almost stop the aging of the body, and connect the mind to the AI.

Zortex did not care about most of the worlds created, but there was one section in particular that he could not stop thinking about. That was Age of Legends. The world modeled after MMORPG games. His future world he decided. He and Matthew had grown up reading fantasy novels and playing old RPG games. They had even started to write a LitRPG novel of their own, that they had dropped right away realizing how boring it was.

He couldn’t believe that by this time tomorrow he would be there fighting monsters, drinking potions, exploring dungeons and all other exciting things. Finally he would be surrounded by other people like him, sharing his interests and passions. Not like all those idiots he met in his classes at school for the last few years.

Zortex heard some noise from downstairs and understood that his parents and brothers had arrived home from wherever they were gone. Maybe they went to buy something for my evening. Better to go down and spend the rest of the day with them he thought. His eyes went to the two iron rules about Endless.

Nobody is allowed to enter Endless before they have reached 20 years of age.

Nobody is allowed to enter again Endless after leaving it.

The first rule was easy to understand. A person should grow up in the real world, feel the real body and meet real humans before deciding if he wanted to abandon Earth.

The second rule was made to make people understand that immortality had a price. Exiting the hibernation and mind accelerating processes might cause damage to the brain, but even in the worst cases it could be cured within a few years of treatments and almost always there was a full recovery. Entering again Endless could cause death in worst cases and strong permanent damage in most people. The process was not an easy one, or so it was explained to him in school and in the webpage.

Zortex initiation to Endless meant basically that he would not be able to meet his parents ever again unless he decided to abandon immortality in a relatively short time. They had already been inside it, they met each other there and they had decided to come out together to start a real family.

He went to meet them. His excitement from earlier was smothered by the realization that these were the last few hours together with the two people he loved the most and who had loved him the most. They deserve better than I've given them he thought, but now it is too late to become the perfect son. Time flied fast that evening but nobody went to sleep that night. So many things to say, so many regrets. A few times Zortex almost decided that he could wait another year before entering Endless, but he had waited too long to be dissuaded. At the end they said their goodbyes with tears in the eyes, hugging without stop. Morning had arrived and with it the shuttle that would bring him to the closest Endless Institute.

Two hours afterwards Zortex entered a big building controlled by armed guards. He was relieved to find out that his security was taken seriously. Not that he was really scared. Crime had been basically extinguished after the opening of Endless, since immortality came free for anyone who wished for it and nobody wanted to ruin it by being sent to prison. Five more people were in the shuttle with him, ready to enter immortality. He chatted a bit with them when they asked him questions, but apparently none of them was interested in Age of Legends or similar worlds. They were just the usual dull people he wanted to escape from. After that he didn’t care at all of what they were saying to each other. Finally he was leaving for the place of his dreams. No need to make connections with useless individuals.

An attendant brought them inside and they took an elevator to go underground. Apparently the upper levels where not where people were kept, but only had the offices of the staff members. He tried to see how many floor they were going down but he could not from his position. These idiots are in between me and the side of the elevator with the floor’s buttons. Anyway the descent went on for a long while so there must have been a lot. By now most people of Earth had entered the path to immortality, so of course a lot of space was needed to accommodate everyone. For the next five hours Zortex and mates had to undergo a class explaining all of the details of the process and the consequences of what they were about to do. I have already read these things a thousand times, just let me go. Zortex thought continuously yawning and trying to not fall asleep. The lack of rest was weighting on him after a sleepless night.

The time of words was finally over. Nobody chickened out from the trip they were about to embark. The staff members brought the young people in a circular room full of medical apparatus, and each of them was positioned on a chair where they got strapped to avoid movement. Feels like being at the dentist Zortex thought. The atmosphere was full of trepidation, at least from the people being treated. The staff had passed through these procedures thousands of times, so they just looked bored. The whole procedure could be completely automatized, but researcher had found out that the presence of real people helped to lessen the stress and it helped to avoid accidents.

The first thing Zortex saw was a needle pumping some drug into his arm. Afterwards the world didn’t make much sense to him. Sometimes things seemed to move too slow, or too fast. For a moment he thought he felt cold, but afterwards he lost sense of touch or smell. At the end he also lost his sight and he felt completely detached from reality. He didn’t know for how long he spent in that state. It could have been years or mere seconds. Something in his mind told him that it couldn’t be too long. He didn’t care at that moment. He felt completely at peace. When he next opened his eyes he was standing in a room.

Everything was completely white. It took him a couple of minutes to understand that his senses had come back. In that moment a voice sounded behind him and he turned around to find a little kid. Zortex thought he looked like a 10 years old boy….or girl. It was difficult to distinguish the gender. The kid was dressed in white, had white hair and light blue eyes. The weird kid spoke again. “I said: Welcome Zortex” the kid spoke. Zortex looked at him squinting his eyes, still a bit confused from coming back to his senses, and he asked back “Who are you?”. The kid smiled and replied “I am Endless”.