“Brian, your package just arrived. Pick it up from the porch when you’re ready!”

I rose from my studies, slowly and without the sense of hurry I had heard from my classmates when they faced the same situation. Why would I? After all, it may have been my own decision, but in a sense this not-so-inexpensive venture was just an experiment.

Just that.

“Coming, mother.” Carefully stacking back to order my cared-for notes, I first took a few minutes to shower and change my clothes before coming down from my room. “Did you pay for it? I didn’t hear the delivery man call for his payment…”

My mother, Alyssa, only gave me a fond smile. “Brian, my boy. Surely you wouldn’t let your mom do something for you, would you? It’s only a few dollars – a pittance, no more, no less.”

I bent my head. “Thank you for the help, mother.”

A moment of silence went between us and a silent sigh left me. My hand was held in a grip – what was it about talking to my parents that was so difficult? More so, why was I such a difficult person? Vexation filled me as I thought of myself as a person.

With a hesitant look on her face, my mother softly placed a hand over my chin. “Don’t worry about spending too much time in this, Brian. I hardly think that a few hours a day would matter, really.”

I turned away. “The 5x acceleration inside the game would help in that matter, so worries aren’t necessary in the first place. But thank you for your faith in me, mother.”

Silently, I picked up the package with my hands before looking away from my mother as I left the room.

I pretended that I didn’t hear her sigh as well.

This was the year of 20XX.

Contrary to what was popular culture a few decades ago, the planet Earth didn’t become a technological metropolis or meeting place for aliens of any sort. Time travel was still out of reach, cancer was still technically incurable, and there were still problems in humanity as a whole.

No, in fact, contrary to the massive developments in technology in the beginning of the 20th century, technology in our time had started to stagnate. Fields of science from all directions one by one started to cease from creating and making new discoveries, and slowly more and more jobs lost popularity as the world as a whole failed to grow.

But there was a silver lining to be seen in all this negativity.

Computer Science.

The field was a newborn babe when the century began, but it only continued to grow and grow and grow. All over the world, new technology under the domain of electronics started to develop, new AI, new computers, new data storage, and to the joy of most in all ages – new games.

Virtual Reality was no longer a dream.

Suddenly, in the darkening world of humans, a new light was lit. If the planet Earth started to run out of interesting things, then there were new worlds out there – just on the opposite side of a machine. Fantasy and magic was no longer out of reach; they were just a few thousand dollars away.

And when the Mental Acceleration technology appeared in just another year, Mankind celebrated with glee.

Finally! Time itself was no longer a burden to us all, or at least within those worlds of ours. Thanks to Acceleration, not only could we enjoy our VR longer, but also do our RL jobs faster!

In the span of two years that followed, the VR and MA technology proliferated.

As for myself?

Well, in the longer part of those years, I was just a young boy who spent most of his time in his room, studying. My father was one of the lead developers of the VR system after all – there was no way I was about to waste my time in games when I could slowly work on my way to make my father proud.

Or at least, that was what I thought.

It turned out to be that closing yourself off from the world wasn’t really beneficial to your lifestyle and socialization as a whole. Ever since I was a child, I grew out to be that ‘geek’ or that ‘nerd’ within those around my age. I grew lonely, on my shameful pedestal of scholastic medals and grades.

I could’ve used my father’s name on those my age, but that wasn’t what I wanted.

What I wanted were real friends. True friendship.

But who ever said that 'making friends was easy' was a liar that deserved to be repeatedly stabbed. How was it that a person like me, with a history of being standoff-ish, would ever be able to make friends? By the moment I realized my own folly, every smile I gave to those in my school was replied with an odd stare.

Every attempt to socialize became awkward. Any attempt to make friends only had people warded off away from me, with them being told to not associate with the 'geek'.

I felt terribly alone.

As the years passed, I continued to feel even more closed-off. In return, I delved deeper into what was familiar to me – my studies, my books, my course of programming in my college. If I was going to be lonely, then I would just have to become respected and gain friends that way. It was simple, right?

Wrong.

That only worsened my situation, as my name broke out in my field as an ‘upcoming genius’, especially with the mention of my father. I continued to feel even lonelier – now, even those who didn’t even know of my history thought they knew me before I even met them.

It got to the point where inside my own home the unfeeling personality I had made to protect myself showed.

I was lonely. I was alone. I was absurdly craving for companionship.

And thus, after so many years of not touching the technology my own father helped develop, I finally caved in to the promise of a new world, a new life outside of my own. It wasn’t for adventure, it wasn’t for excitement, it wasn’t for pleasure – no, those weren’t for me.

All I wanted was friendship.

“Link system, begin.”

“Mental connection would start up after countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1-”

I just hoped it would be a successful venture.

“Connection created. Link start-up!”

And then it all went up to black.

When I woke up, I was in a wide, empty, and white space.

Above and in front of me was a single caption, in black letters.

My brow furrowed at that. “Of course. Please, show me all that is available to edit.”

In a few seconds, a large window appeared in front of me, filled with multiple checkboxes and bars. Dozens of options were in view; from language to sound, from graphic to even subtitling. I took a moment to admire all the effort I knew the programmers placed in the game – truly, my own field really had its gems.

Within minutes, I was finished. I turned up most of the ‘Realism’ options, from sound to visuals to even the much-feared and hated ‘Pain’ option. While I knew that placing it at 60% was quite a foolish thing to do, in the end I had decided long ago to make my own gameplay as real as I could without possibly damaging my sense of reality.

And if just pain alone was enough to scare me from my goal, then I wasn’t even worthy to reach for it in the first place. There were far more things to be feared than faked physical pain. If anything, at least with these settings I could get used to to pain while it was harmless to me.

The announcement came this time in a soft masculine voice – my own. It was a rather strange thing for the programmers to allow this setting, which made me decide to turn it on.

I already made this decision long ago.

“Yes. Please, load up the game ‘Fate Online’.”

I couIdn't help but smile as I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, the world was in light blue.

Another caption was right in front of me; this time in gold. Soft music filtered through my ears, a slow serenade of classical instruments, filling me a sense of welcome. I licked my lips in anticipation.

“Yes.”

Suddenly, the world around me was ripped away as several three-dimensional models appeared in my vision. Again, this made me more impressed – if I didn’t know I was in a virtual world, I would’ve thought they were real.

I interrupted the feminine voice before she finished listing. “Human, please. And yes, I am sure of my decision.”

I gave a look at my character – the appearance I was going to hold for the rest of my time in this world. A few minutes of shuffling through options, I was done. Black, messy, straight but slightly spiky hair. A softly rounded face. Lightly colored skin. Brown eyes like both my parents had. His stature was lean, but far from muscular.

I gave a nod. It was identical my own appearance in the real world. “Is physical development available in the game?”

“Yes. But please disable scarring, if the option is available.”

“Yes.”

That was something I forgot to think about before, so unlike everything else, I took a few moments to decide. A strange expression lifted my face when I finally answered.

“Rain.”

Rain was a bit of a strange name, I knew. But at least it wasn’t GrandHAXxMaster or something along those lines. And plus, Rain was both close and far from my real name – I only took away a letter and shuffled two letters. That would be enough so I wouldn’t find it difficult to answer to my new nickname.

And lastly… 'Rain' sounded both sad and hopeful to me.

I didn’t know back then.

Back then, it was all just an ‘experiment’. Just the final option I took after so many years of loneliness.

I didn’t know back then how important the world I entered would be to me. I didn’t know how that world would change me so much, would make me so much better as a person. I didn’t know just how many people I would meet, just how many lessons I would learn that I would’ve never seen inside a book or through listening in class.

Yes, I didn’t know really anything before I entered the world of Fate Online.

But, if anything, at least I remembered smiling when I started the game.

After all, that expression would stay on my face for the most of the time after.

Yes, and welcome, my new life.