“Garrett. Garrett, wake up, quick.”

He didn't want to wake. He rarely did. Yet at his sister's voice, he opened his eyes. For Nelly, he’d labor through his breathing.

She looked down at him, the usual concern in her eyes. Even though it was in the middle of the night, he could see her perfectly. In a hospital, the lights never went out.

She licked her lips nervously. “How's it feeling today.”

“Like one of my lungs has collapsed.” He tempered his words with a wry grin. For her sake, he tried not to let the bitterness that had been brewing inside him for all the years of his condition show. He could be strong. He only had to hold out a little longer now.

Nelly grinned back, but he could tell he hadn't fooled her. “Yeah. I bet.”

Only then did Garrett notice she was hold two boxes under the crooks of her arms. His eyes widened as he realized what they were, and despite himself, he felt a rush of excitement. He wished he wouldn't. It would only make the disappointment that much greater. “What did you bring those for?” he whispered carefully.

“Oh, these old things?” She casually lifted them up, like they weren't worth the thousands of dollars that they were. “No reason. Just like getting in my exercise. I'm in high school now, remember? I have to keep slim for boys or something like that.”

He couldn't help the smile returning. Nelly had always been different than other kids, never seeming to want the same things they did. Boys, he knew, were the last thing on her mind. Their relative isolation were another thing that brought them close together.

But things like what she held in her hands were the first thing: Elementia Online visors, needed to access the latest and greatest in ASRs, or alternate simulated reality, gaming. From his bedside, Garrett had seen ASR invaded every corner of life. Businesses met in projected chatrooms, like their dad did for his work as a lawyer, making interaction that much more personable without the hassle of travel. People did their shopping in simulated environments, getting the benefits of feeling out the product along with reviews and ratings floating next to everything, and being able to price compare on the fly. People often went on ASR vacations, spending hundreds rather than thousands to visit far off exotic places. Most people spent most of their time in one ASR or another.

But all of that had been out of Garrett's experience. Beyond a few simple calming simulations deemed mild enough for him to endure and that helped him through operations more than any anesthetic, wheezers — as he and the other kids with cystic fibrosis on his wing liked to call themselves, so they could laugh instead of cry about it — weren't allowed into ASR. It was too intense, they were told. They could have an attack while they were under, and then what would they do? Garrett, already detached from everyone else, was even more excluded when he was at school for never having been in ASR. Even more of a weirdo than being a wheezer made him.

It was all he wanted. To be able to escape into another life, another world. Even just to be able to get out of bed with his chest aching and his heart pounding and every breath a battle would be nice. But even more, he craved being something more than who he was. Being more than the illness he'd fought his whole life.

Their mom and dad had bought the Elementia Online visors a month before after the doctors gave the tentative go ahead. But while they were still shipping, Garrett suffered his worst attack yet. And this time, draining the fluid wasn't going to do it. He had to get a lung transplant.

They'd found a donor quickly, and the operation was in a week. But Garrett knew it wasn't a silver bullet, not by a long shot. Though his parents tried to keep the gory details from him, he had the Internet at his fingertips and an incessant need to know. So he’d learned the odds of survival weren't good even in the short-term, and long-term, a new pair of airbags might buy him just a few more years.

His outlook on life only stayed afloat for Nelly's sake. Because he knew it would tear her apart if he let go. So he fought on.

But now, she was teasing him cruelly with those visors. “Take them away. You know I can't use them.”

“Oh no? Then why do I have two?”

Garrett started shaking his head, then stopped. Why was he fighting this? If Nelly was offering he should jump on this. Entering Elementia in particular had been his dream. He'd studied all the aspects of the game he could without actually playing. He'd drawn up what kind of character he would make, what path he'd advance along. He'd dreamed so many times he had made the jump.

But… Mom and Dad had told him it might kill him. Kill him? Garrett shook his head and smiled. He was nearly dead anyway. And if Nelly was offering this, she knew it too.

Nelly took her visor out of the box. All Elementia Online visors were tailored to look like the different elemental paths that players selected when creating their avatar. Nelly's way had been fire, and her visor reflected it. Red and orange and yellow, it glowed and almost seemed to burn as she switched it on.

She set her visor on the bed and lifted the second box. “Want me to open yours?” she asked.

Garrett shook his head. Rallying his fragile strength, he accepted the visor from her and moved his clumsy fingers over the box. She'd already cut the tape, so it was just a after of lifting up the cardboard flaps and pulling the visor out of the box.

His glowed white, softer and gentler than Nelly's. The movements along the side were calm and in swirling patterns, shapeless and ever-changing. Maybe it was inevitable, considering the disease he'd fought his life, that robbed his very breath from him. He didn't care. He'd opted for the way of wind all the same.

“It's really simple to use,” Nelly said softly. She hadn't entered Elementia until a week ago, when he finally convinced her to go in without him. She'd only agreed because he insisted it'd be easier if she knew a bit of her way around for him to jump in later when he could.

“Just slip it over your head, and the visor does the rest of the work,” she continued. “The neural network connecting and all that.”

Garrett tried sitting up so he could get the visor on, but it hurt too badly. He hated asking for help, but long years of lying in a bed had forced him to do so all the time. “Could you…?” he muttered.

She instantly knew what he wanted and helped prop him up so he could put on the visor. But before it fell all the way over his face, Nelly stopped it and held it up.

“You're positive you want to do this, right?” she whispered.

Garrett nodded. “I am now.”

“Okay. You'll have to get through your opening sequence before we can meet up, but then I'll find you, okay?” She squeezed his wrists and grinned. “It's everything you've dreamed, Garre. I can't wait for you to see it.”

“Me too.” He gave her one last smile. Then, eager not to see the hospital room any longer, he slipped on the helmet.

The constant hum of nurses walking the halls and other patients turning in their beds gave way to complete silence as the visor sealed around his head. Oxygen was filtered in so that sound didn't come with it, to help complete the immersion experience. With the silence came complete blackness. The inside of the visor was complete sensory wipe-out.

Garrett felt the top of the visor fold in and meld to the shape of his head. The neural network, people called it, which read the brain's electrical impulses and fed them back. The early days of ASR had featured full body haptic suits, but developers had improved to the point now that only a visor was required. The brain was where everything was processed anyway; it made sense it would be all you needed.

A moment later, a message flashed in front of his eyes. At the same time it played in his ears. But Garrett had the eerie suspicion both of them were coming purely through the impulses and that his eyes weren't actually seeing the words, for his ears hearing them.

He realized he'd missed the message. “Can you repeat that?” he whispered, his voice flat inside the helmet.

It was a woman's voice that spoke. “The neural network has been established. All systems are functioning normally. Would you now like to enter the world of Elementia Online?”

Garrett licked my lips, barely able catch his breath. Well, even more than usual. “Yes,” he whispered.