It was hard to believe, but I was born here. The world I lived in was not real. A long time ago, there was a point in where people thought if there were too many people living that we could all move to another planet out in space. But now, the thought of living in reality seemed silly. When the technology was created, one half of the people on earth were required to scan themselves molecule by molecule into computers that brought them to the world where I lived. The other half was required to ensure that the virtual world was properly maintained, though not many were needed so many of them decided to join the others in the new world.

We did not know what happened, but lately the whole world has been blacking out for up to five minutes each time at least once a week. There has been no message from the other side, and we are beginning to believe that they are dead. Since there is no way to get back to the real world from inside the virtual one, if the computers running the system were to burn out everyone's data in the virtual world would be erased. Although, if someone in the real world were to log everyone out, there was one problem. Some of the people in the virtual world have no bodies in the real one, like me, and that those who had bodies would be too frail to even walk and would most likely die shortly after being logged out. We have been told that life in this world was much easier than life in the real one and that those in the real world did not have menus that they could open with a flick of a couple fingers. I have always wondered how they managed to go about daily life without the same functions as we do. Maybe they are just used to it. Everything we do is done through the menu. This includes simple things such as cooking, changing our attire, and interacting with each other.

One of the most complicated things about this world is the marriage system. If two people were to marry one another, not only would they share an item storage, they could, in a way, make a baby by purchasing an item called "cradle" and selecting "add player" so it randomly added your genetic code to the baby's appearance. But not many people chose to create more players as the item was very expensive and even more costly to care for the child. And, on top of that, there was no safety feature for those born in the game, as the system crashed, their data would be lost have been told that life in this world was much easier than life in the real one and that those in the real world did not have menus that they could open with a flick of a couple fingers. I have always wondered how they managed to go about daily life without the same functions as we do. Maybe they are just used to it. Everything we do is done through the menu. This includes simple things such as cooking, changing our attire, and interacting with each other.

A lot of players would look down on people like me. They thought they were not real people and no better than NPCs. Most of the time, I would hide the fact that I was game-born and very few people knew I was at all.

I was an outcast. Everyday, I would go out into the field, kill a few monsters, and come back home late at night with dinner for me, my mother, and father. My father never really wanted a child in the game for the amount of negative attention it drew to him and it was starting to seem like my mother was beginning to feel the same way. I never really had any friends, and any that I did have were only temporary. The only friend who ever sent me a friend-request was a girl who lived a long ways from my current position. I could see her location on the map and she could see where I was, if she ever looked. "Angelica," I whispered as I closed my window.

character: Merak Yaxha_equipment_attire_lvl 1-maroon night clothing

hunger- 92% fatigue-3%

inventory_medicine_sm. sleeping potion_use

I drank the sour liquid from the bottle until it shattered into shards of light and vanished. Within five minutes I was fast asleep.

"Boy! Why ain't you gone out into the fields yet? Our dinner ain't gonna hunt itself!" my father said harshly as I scrolled through my menu preparing to leave.

I looked up for a moment and muttered, "Do you realize that I could leave anytime and live on my own."

"Ye wouldn't last a day on your own."

I said nothing. Secretly, I had been going to a lake with high level monsters that gave off a tremendous amount of EXP and had leveled up twice during the past few months. My current level was 10, which was 5 higher than my parents had thought.

friend/guild_friend_message box

I had a habit of checking my message box every morning even though no one ever messaged me. I knew or thought this would be empty, but today it was not. There was a message from someone who I never thought or expected would ever talk to me. "Angelica?" I said out loud. It had been years since I had heard from her, even though I checked on her status every night before I went to sleep.

ANGELICA: please help! Someone has kidnapped me and no one has come yet. I have been here for a week and i have only two lives left to keep me alive. no one is here and i am slowly dying of hunger!

I opened my menu.

friend/guild_friend_position check

Her current location was in a cave three if not four days walking from here. I would never make it in time. One life could keep her hunger levels at bay for up to twelve hours. The only possible way I could get to her in time was if I could get my hands on a teleport crystal. My only friend in the world could be dead by morning break, and that is what drove me to do something crazy.