A awoke to a sharp pain in my neck. I twisted my head out of its awkward position between my CPU and my monitor. Wincing as I gently massaged my neck, I sighed, perhaps my friends were right: I was playing The World too much. Untangling my FMD from my hair, I glanced at my monitor where the regular "time out" message displayed. No doubt, I had looked rather odd, standing in the middle of Mac Anu for the 45 minutes before my session timed out.
I reached down and plucked my controller off of the floor, I had an entire week of spring break ahead of me, no use in going back to bed when I had already slept. Slipping my FMD back on, I moved my head back and forth, my neck still aching. Soon, the familiar BG music of The World's login screen boomed in my ears as I prepared to go on an other adventure.
As soon as I logged into The World, a familiar voice sounded from behind me, "Finally up, Aimi?"
"You know it, Hiro." I said, not even bothering to turn around.
"I saw your character standing in the middle of root town," Hiro said, his voice had taken on a superior tone.
"Is that so?" I said flatly, my face red behind my FMD, "Must've forgotten to logout again, my bad."
"You should watch yourself, Yamada," He sneered.
"Giving advice, now are we, Hiro?" I said, still facing away from him, "You think a noob like you would be a little short on advice."
Hiro remained silent, so I continued, "What gonna PK me?" I taunted, both of us knowing that PKing had been removed in version 2.01.
"I wouldn't rule it out, Yamada." Hiro said slyly, walking past me.
I sighed as he walked off towards the Chaos Gate, "What a noob!" I muttered to myself, "PKing isn't even possible!" I treated myself to a good laugh as I walked after him to the chaos gate.
Yet, I pondered, as I prepared to gate to another area, Hiro's tone was really troubling me, he sounded serious, like he knew something I didn't. Like he actually knew a way to PK me... Pushing those thoughts out of my mind, I gated to a lower level area: Time to wail on some weaklings.
As soon as I gated to the area, I immediately knew something was different. The graphics were all weird, pieces of code floated through the air, and I could see the binary right through some of the objects in the area! Even the BGM seemed to freeze and skip at some points.
"–the hell..?" I muttered as I surveyed my corrupted surroundings, "I don't even–" I cut off as I spotted a large building, covered in corrupted code and binary: The dungeon.
I began to move towards the dungeon, curious of the treasures that may lay ahead, but a voice seemed to hinder me. "Don't go! It's dangerous! It's a trap!"
"What's a trap," I asked, immediately regretting it. I sighed. now it was official: I was talking to invisible voices.
But the voice seemed to reply, "The dungeon! Don't go!"
Convinced the voice was just my safe side, I laughed, "Whatever. What's life without a little risk? It's just a game right?"