In a world both real and not, a place of imagination, magic, and stories. A man and a woman walk around, standing out in their modern clothes. Some people walk by asking where they got their outfits, others ask if their clothes have some kind of bonus. The man smiles and waves the people away all while the woman tries to figure out what this place is. She asks, “Why do I feel...less?”

“We are in a place that is about to become.” The man says cryptically waving to random passersby, ignoring their inquests.

‘That made no sense, the woman thought, “What does that mean? To become?”

“This place isn't real, yet.” The man said seriously.

The woman was confused she looked around seeing people, moving, walking around, talking, eating, laughing, and when she looked farther she sees people fighting monsters, casting spells, and changing forms. For all purposes, to her, this place was real. She didn’t understand what the man was saying, then thought of one possibility, “Is this another reality bender world. You know I hate those.

“No.” The man laughed gesturing to the world around them, “This is a virtual world.”

The woman's jaw dropped, “...how are we even here?”

“The world is waking up.” The man picks a flower from the ground, and it glitches out of his hand back to where the man had picked it, “Soon this place will become real.”

“What?”

“So many people. So many souls come here.” The man said wistfully, smiling at the woman, “It's was only a matter of time.”

The woman was too confused and shocked, grasping onto what the man was saying thinking back to some books she’s read, starting to understand this was a game world, most likely in a high tech world. “Souls, they just send their minds? Don't they?”

“Sometimes, but part of the soul goes with them.”

“Soon, the world will become real. Their server will still connect but something interesting will happen.” The man smiled slyly.

“What will happen?”

“If you die in the real world while plugged in, you'll live here until you die by the rules of this world.” The man said plainly.

The woman tried to understand how someone would die in a game world, and found no permanent death, “Wouldn't you be immortal in a game world?”

“Pretty close, but certain things are infallible. They will start to age.”

“But they still respawn?”

“Yeah.” The man agreed, “Except, from old age!”

“But they can't die in any other way?”

“Nope, worlds like this are...different. Cultures completely shift, and punishments change when people can't be killed.”

“That.” The woman tried to understand how a world like that could even work, “That sounds like a cluster fuck.”

“It is until they figure it out.”

“Why are we even here? There is no hero to deliver and no one to take...at least not yet?”

The man smiled and held out a little wisp, “We are here to wake it up.”

——

On a green-blue world, filled with all kinds of entertainment, where the latest VRMMO has taken off beyond anyone's expectations. In a building filled with programmers, artists, and writers, the team's head programmer takes a deep breath and enters into his boss’s office.

Without waiting the woman spoke, “We have a problem.”

The boss realized something was completely wrong if she jumped into it like this, “What is it?

“The servers…” The programmer seemed to be having trouble figuring out what to say.

“Are they down?” Knowing it had to be something else for the programmer to act like this.

“No. We can no longer send commands down.”

“Someone has locked out the connections?” This was serious, “Is it an exploit in the code, or a bug?”

“Sir,” The woman was starting to fidget, “It's not a bug. We were going to roll back to a stable version, but we couldn't.”

“What? Why?” There should be no possible reason they couldn’t roll back, the company backs up constantly, and are only accessible directly on location.

“We can't access the code at all.”

With every word the boss felt more and more concerned, “Did you disconnect the servers?”

“We tried.” The woman said tiredly.

“Tried?”

“Yes, we tried we even unplugged them, completely removing any physical component, connecting to the servers.” The woman emphasized the lengths they went to disconnect the servers.

“Without telling me?”

The woman shrugged, chagrined, “We panicked.”

‘This is going to be a pr nightmare.’ The boss thought, “How many people complained about the servers being down?”

“Zero.”

“What.” The man stared confused.

“The servers never went down. In fact, we still have it unplugged. And people are still playing!!” The programmer threw her hands up.

“What?”

“And. Here is the weirdest part. The game sent us a message.”

The boss didn’t have any other words, and just asked again, “What?”

“Yeah, it sent us a message.”

“...what was it?” The man asked hesitantly.

“It said Thank you, I will give my people the give you gave me in my creation.”

The two were silent for a long time before the boss asked hesitantly, “...did we create another world?”

The programmer nodded, “Yes.”

“Are the NPCs now real people?” The man asked horrified.

“...maybe?”

“Can we do anything to stop it?” The boss was lost, ‘How could they have created a world?’

“No”

Then another thought occurred to him, “Will anyone believe us?”

“Probably not, I was there and barely believe it.”

“Write a press release.” The boss jumped up now in full control, planning, things moving into place, in his mind. The entire reason he was hired for this position.

“Sir?”

“We are in damage control mode now.” The man said running to his desk typing up instructions, “Write a press release about how we updated the world to be more real. NPCs have been given the most advanced AI that might as well be real people. Ask the players to treat them as such, maybe they’ll treat it like an event thinking they might get something.” The boss stopped to think what else to add, “Also in the release mention the planet is real.” The man smiled wryly at his plan, “Try to imply heavily that they need to treat the world as real. They won't believe us when we say it's real, but we might save some horrors if we treat it as part of the game.”

The programmer was shocked at how quickly the man was moving, “Sir your taking this surprisingly well.”

The man kept typing, “I have to be.” The man leaned and narrowed his eyes at her, “Though if this turns out as a prank of some sort it's your ass.”

The woman shook her head indicating it wasn’t, “It’s real.”

Everything moved incredibly fast after the world became real. The studio responsible let out a press release with all the new information and a little excerpt saying the world was real. At first, everyone wondered if it was a joke or if it was left in by accident. It was in an interview about the release that they clarified that the world was real and should treat it as such.

Of course, no one believed them for a long time, until the players started to notice strange behaviors in the game. NPC’s were now going out, interacting with players. The monsters were leaving their territories, and fleeing instead of fighting to the death. Some dungeons no longer had bosses, and some bosses were found roaming around the world.

The people began to question as the AI appeared to be the most advanced in the world, and that people were starting to wonder if these were people after all. The idea was seeded and people began to believe the world was real.

It was when the first pregnant player in the game had their child when everything escalated, as they insisted their child was real. Then the first person connected to the game died, and the people were able to find his avatar running around the game confused why he couldn’t log out. A friend in-game sent the police over to check him out only to find him dead.

This led to speculation and pandemonium as people believe the game world is better than the real world as more and more start to kill of there bodies to live in the game world permanently. The debate rages as the world tries to figure out what to do. The idea of banning the game is floated for a while but the idea of a new young life is too much of a draw for the old and dying.

Eventually, it is ruled that the servers can stay up, but no unauthorized connections. It was here that the world finally learned the truth when the CEO came forward saying the server couldn't be shut down or blocked. Saying an account was no longer necessary, and anyone with a headset can connect to the game. The world shakes when they finally accept that the world has become real and it was just a jump away.

The government expected chaos in the game world but quickly learned that some protocol was keeping the world together, laying out rules for the undying, and taking care of trouble makers.

The entity was deemed as the game master. Some believe it was a god, but it claimed it was not. It was just a hero.

——

In a place of magic and stories, a man and a woman look around at the world just waking up.

“An AI?” The woman asks.

“Yup. Perfect to help the transition, and keep an eye on the more crazy people.” The man adds.

“So it was a hero?” The woman asked knowing the answer.

“Yup.”

“You know every time I think I know how this job works. I find out I don't know shit.” The woman said with a laugh.

“That's how you know your growing.”

The woman raised an eyebrow, “Not knowing?”

“Knowing, and admitting you don't know.” The man clarified.

“That sounds backward.”

“Meh.” The man shrugged, “Besides, it's a big multiverse. I bet there are worlds even I haven't seen.”