The Great eGress – (Chapter 01) – Spawn Burn

Jeremy leans over and presses the button on the spiral. Following Axel's instructions he keeps his eyes on the red light that appears. Without warning a gray mist is instantly sprayed in his face. Right away his eyes sting and his nose burns as when snorting water at a swimming pool. His ears start to itch crazily, the vein at his temple throbs. His arms go numb and then all ten of his fingers twitch.

He can only hear his heart beat.

There is nothing but the sound of a large drum surrounding Jeremy. Only a second has passed. Jeremy remembers to breathe but instead of a deep inhalation he gasps heavily letting air into his lungs.

To use the word “Surprise!” would be an understatement and very possibly evil. This is exactly what Axel says to Jeremy at this time.

The experiment subject Jeremy, wanted to reach out and strangle the roommate turned mad scientist sitting across from him. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do anything but squirm in terror as he felt the nanobots spread throughout his body

He burned, He itched like crazy everywhere!

Jeremy was no longer Jeremy. There was only a flesh bag of bones, blood, and pain. At times like this a persons perception slows as adrenaline flows. This only made the pain greater and last longer. If Jeremy could think straight his thoughts would be filled with murder, and self loathing.

He didn't even ask if it would hurt!

It was too late now. Too late to find out that he would essentially be 1 of 10 Beta testers from outside the country. Too late to find out that he would be one of the first out of 1000 beta testers to actually enter the game wireless. The only thing it wasn't too late for was wishing he could pass out and get away from the pain.

The bag of pain named Jeremy wasn't currently capable of having that thought, but when his vision blurred and darkened he knew it was over.

It wasn't over, he couldn't see but the pain continued. Fortunately it did dull quite a bit. His tremors slowed and then stopped. His pain turned into a relatively comforting soreness. The overwhelming sound of his heart throbbing became relaxing until it turned into a pierce ring that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

His thoughts returned and he could finally let out a curse! He wanted to scream, he wanted to tell Axel where he could stuff this game. Except he could not hear his voice, he couldn't even feel his mouth that he tried to use to scream. Jeremy panicked. The fear of being blind deaf and mute after a failed experiment resonated in his mind.

What had Axel done with him? Would this last forever or would it wear off? Was he asleep, did he enter a coma , was he dead!?

Jeremy wasn't dead but something strange did happen during his booting sequence. The game was about to start. Usually it isn't nearly as painful, at most you would only feel the nanobots enter the head area and then almost instantly enter this void space.

Although the Loading Sequence was a shocking experience to the other Beta testers and the players to come, this sequence of events Jeremy experienced went above and beyond the pain tolerated by the safety boards commissioned to review this game.

A total of 5 seconds had passed. Axel knew nothing of the torture that he putt Jeremy through. He only scribbles something about perspiration and the expected, “frozen” state.

The Voice Space was preceded by the piercing bell Jeremy heard, the sound slowly turned into a hum. At this time Jeremy started getting the feeling in his “body” back. Starting from his pink fingers, moving up his arms, through his chest, down to his legs. He felt his breath come back! At last, he could feel air going into his lungs. Then he distinctly felt himself floating.

There was a sharp rising feeling in his gut as if he just dropped down the steep part on a roller coaster. Jeremy felt himself spin slowly in weightlessness. Then his eye sight seemed to come back.

He could see again? No, only there appeared to be a light far away in the distance. Jeremy sighed in relief.

The light pulsed and changed color in a pattern. It also brightened and appeared to shift swiftly towards Jeremy.

When it reached him he could see that the light emitted from a sphere. The sphere pulsed the same 6 colors over and over again.

Green Blue Purple Red Orange Yellow

There was a flash as the sphere neared Jeremy. The sphere split into 6 balls, one for each color. Then seemed to lose form and then turn into words.

ALL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL

LOADING SEQUENCE INITIATED

The words blinked twice, returned to spheres, then separated into more spheres. The number of colors doubled.

LOADINg SOUL CARRIER

LOADINg HUD

BOOTINg LOG

BOOTINg BRIEFING

SOUL CARRIER INITIATED

Once again the words flashed and changed color and then split into words, but now there was only a bright feathery white light emitted.

BUILD YOUR SOUL CARRIER

CHOOSE A PURE BASE AURA

The original 6 spheres reformed. In two flashes they increased to an enormous size. They were each the size of a 10 story building . They began to move around Jeremy and then he himself seemed to float towards them. Then in a heartbeat he was passing into the first green sphere.

Before Jeremy could even get used to the harmonious feeling he felt inside the green sphere it changed to something darker. He felt like it wasn't enough.

Then he found himself in the Blue Sphere. There was truth to be found there but also a distinct sadness. In the red he felt excited and then angry, in the orange he felt that everything would be fine but then he was in the yellow and was weighing that emotion against reality.

Two flashes and again 6 spheres.

Jeremy had an idea on what just happened. He was suppose to pick a color that represented a certain personality. Each choice came with a positive and a negative trait.

Jeremy was right but it wasn't the only thing he was choosing. As a beta tester (or test subject depending on how you look at it) he was meant to figure everything out. Later this log-in sequence wouldn't hold as much mystery.

Unfortunately for Jeremy he didn't get any kind of preparation for this. Axel wasn't a very informative guy and Jeremy by nature wasn't great at asking for information. That being said, Axel didn't know or care about what was actually happening in the game. He was only tasked to monitor Jeremy's body and collect a written report at log-out.

So Jeremy had no idea that the A.I of this game was observing him in extreme detail to initiate his choice promptly.

He ended up staring at the green sphere a moment too long while he was deep in thought.

After all green is easy on the eyes.

HUD INITIATED

Two flashes and all the colored spheres vanish except for the green one.

Two flashes and the green sphere shrinks into a little ball.

Two flashes and then the small orb shoots directly into Jeremy's left eye.

Two blinks and Jeremy's vision tints slightly green on the left side and a small ghostly screen appears in front of him.

The ghostly screen wavers like a water reflected image. As Jeremy watches the image grows more solid. Green lines shoot from the bottom shape into 4 roots almost the size of Jeremy's legs. Out of the root legs grew a torso instead of the expected trunk. The torso did seem to be wearing a bark shirt. Out of the torso grew arms and a attractive neck. On top of the neck was a beautiful young woman's head and face.

“WELCOME TO eGRESS!” said the Treant

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