I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my world. In my world, everything was peaceful; everything was fine. Nothing was out-of-place.

The lively grass reached out their hands to the wind who caressed them along its fingertips before letting go. The blooming flowers that grew within the distant field were the brightest of colors. The vibrant green leaves on the treetops were swaying in motion with the wind as if it were their beat of the drum. Everything was sun-kissed and golden—

The sound of a glass breaking made my eyes pop open and sent a cold shiver down my spine. I stared at my door, as if expecting something to happen in just a moment. Then, I heard yelling and heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" I heard the person say. This so-called person is my mother.

On reflex, I sprinted to the door and locked it. After I did, I took a few steps back as quickly as my feet could manage. When she was just a few yards away from my room, I silently ran to my window and opened it before jumping out of it. There was a tree right outside my window, but it's about five feet away from it, so there was a high possibility of slipping or falling, or both. I reached back inside to grab my bag with all the necessities and closed the window before I swung off the branch.

If you were wondering, this is reality. Does it answer your question of why I'd ever create a virtual world in my mind? Okay, good. Oh, and the name's Alice Douleur Archer. Does it sound cool? Well, sorry to break it to you, but that's not the reason why my parents named me that. They named me "Alice" because of her story in Wonderland. They hoped that I would be like her and get lost, but they know I'll wind up in front of them again one way or another. "Douleur" means "pain" in French. In short, they want me, Alice, in pain. Thanks for the parents, God. Well, my biological parents abandoned me, and the ones who adopted me hate my guts, given the reason behind my name. That's why I'm always thinking why they'd adopted me in the first place.

Today is the day the new MMORPG game "Sword Art Online" comes out! To be honest, I'm a Beta Tester. Surprised? I'm serious, though. If you thought my step-mother would break my Nerve Gear, don't worry about it. Nothing of mine is there. I live alone in an apartment near my school.

I unlocked the door and entered. The only light that shone was the one climbing through the window and onto my wooden floor. I didn't bother to turn on the light. I put on my Nerve Gear and lay down on my bed. Another day in this world, I thought. "Link start."

Moments later, I was transported to this amazing world where I can just be . . . well, me. I was wearing a dark green mini-skirt, to my utterly disgust, a white, Medieval-modern tunic with dark green and white laces that bordered the edges and elbow-length sleeves, white combat boots with dark green shoelaces, white fingerless leather gloves, and armor plates on my chest, elbows, and kneecaps. My appearance was a nice Mediterranean tan, piercing green eyes, and glistening, jet black, back-length hair.

For the next two hours or so, I was training nonstop. I could do everything that would've strained my muscles in the real world. I could sprint farther, jump higher, and slice through things more easily with a single skill.

Then, just when I was about to kill a boar with one hit, I was transported to the main plaza. I wanted to complain about it. I mean, I was in the middle of a kill just now. The Game Master just talked about how everyone was trapped in this virtual world game, and the only way to get out was to beat the game. Ah, yawn~ I don't care about any of that. It's not that hard . . .

"No . . . no . . . NO! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! LET ME OUT!" The tiny girl next to me—was so small that I didn't even notice her until she screamed—started to cry and ran to the barrier and hit her little fists on it.

"Just shut up. Whatever you're doing right now isn't going to make a difference." This isn't very surprising to me. I stretched my arms out and yawned again before rubbing my eyes. I felt kind of tired, so I sat cross-legged right on the floor of the main plaza, looking at my surroundings as I did.

Why are they overreacting so much? They're such cowards who can't feed on their own. Why fear Death? You should fear not being about to live. What's the difference between those two? Well, you can still be alive without living because most people just exist. Death takes it all. Now, what do you think is worse? I'd say the latter because you only meet Death once, so what's the point of worrying about it now when you still have time left? Why rush?

Everyone received a mirror in their inventories. I took mine out and stared at it with boredom. Then, a light wiped away my vision for a moment. When I looked at the mirror again, everything was the same . . . except for the fact that my white hair showed instead of the jet black hair of my character. No . . . no . . . no, I don't want this! I held my head in my hands with fearful eyes. I don't like my white hair . . . I was always picked on because of it, but that's not the reason why I hate it. It's all because it reminds me of a white camellia.

"Please don't! No—AH!"

Anyways, away from topic, I finally snapped out of my little trauma and am now hurrying to the nearing town. Wait . . . . I stopped walking for a moment and thought. The crowd is going to be huge there. I should go to—I thought as I checked my map—the one due east of it. The crowd should be smaller. Okay, I've made up my mind.

I started running again. I'm in the middle of a field, so I kind of got distracted a few times . . . . Anyways, I reached the town. There were only about five players or so here. Good. That was what I was hoping for.

Looking at the lights in the sky, which I hoped were stars, many became clear in the dark, midnight sky. I needed to stop for the night. No, this is my chance! Not many people know what to do right now. I have much to do before they're taken away from me. Night is my friend, not my enemy.

According to the time, it is currently three minutes before midnight. I'm nearly out of breath, but I keep going; killing the wolves in front of me. I glanced at my level and EXP for a moment. Level 38, EXP 49.97 percent. It's not enough! It's still not enough! I have to do more! More! MORE! I looked at my health level. It was in the red.

I cursed under my breath and jumped back on a high rock. I checked my inventory for a healing crystal, but it was for naught because I ran out. I fell back and stared at the sky. "This is what I get for not filling up on supplies before I train, again."

I counted the stars as I waited for time to move along so that Night was replaced with Day. I looked at the constellations and traced them with my finger as I said their names aloud. "Lepus," I said as faint as a whisper while tracing the hare's leg. "Canis Minor," I said with a small chuckle following behind it. "Hey, it's Taurus! Hey, Taurus the Bull!" I waved at him and laughed.

I've always had a love for the nightly stars and constellations. When I still lived with my so-called parents, I would always climb onto the roof—or the tree—to look at the stars. Sometimes, I fell asleep on the roof. The good thing about sleeping up there was that the sun would rise and wake me up around dawn so that I could swing myself back into my room without being noticed and that I could have nights without the yelling and hollering of my parents.

I woke up to the blistering sunlight melting my eyes. I rubbed them a few times to get out the last specks of light in order for me to be able to actually use my eyes without straining them.

"Did you sleep well?"

I stared at him for a bit, waiting for my vision to clear up, and let out a small shriek as I flinched back a few inches when it did. After I regained my posture, I let out a sigh of relief when I knew that he wouldn't do any harm. The guy had short, black hair, big, round, black eyes, a bit of a tan, and not many visible muscles. I checked my health bar and was certainly surprised to find it full.

"Did you . . . use a healing crystal on me?"

"Huh?" he questioned, but soon his facial expression softened, and he smiled as he look towards me. "Oh, you noticed?" To be honest, I was kind of shocked.

"Y-yeah . . . " I held the gaze until he looked away.

"What were you doing, sleeping out here?"

I didn't really want to tell him that I was sleeping here because I was low on health, so as I rubbed the back of my neck, I said, "Er . . . star-gazing?" He tried to hold in his laughter, but he couldn't, so he let it all out.

"Wait, star-gazing?" he asked as he wiped a tear away.

"Yeah, I was kind of serious there, you know."

"Oh, my bad."

"It's all right. It sounds kind of weird, doesn't it?"

"N-n-no! Not at all!" he said as he waved his hands in front of him. "Anyways," he started when he stopped waving around, "I'm Kirito."

"Ali—Ellinia. I'm Ellinia."

"From Maplestory, right?"

"Eh? How did you know?"

"I'm a gamer, you know."

"Oh, right."

After that, there was a huge, awkward silence between us. Then, Kirito spoke up. "Um . . . were you training last night?"

"Yeah, you could say so."

"Was it to get out of this Hell?"

I laughed and said, "No, no! That's not it." I let out a slight sigh and looked up at the sky. "I train because it is fun."

"Fun?" he questioned me curiously.

"Yeah. It just takes my mind off of things and let me be myself, you know what I mean?"

"You could say so. This game helped me through reality."

"It might be rude to ask this, but what's going on for you?"

"Well . . . I found out that my little sister was actually my cousin and that my mom is really my aunt."

"I can kind of see where this is going. Your mother . . . died, didn't she?"

"Yeah, so what's yours?" I went with gravity and fell on my back with my hands cushioning my head.

"I was abandoned at birth, my adoptive parents hate my guts, my step-mother wants to kill me, and that's about it."

"I have no words for your family," he joked. I let out a small chuckle to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, I'm with you there." I stood up and hopped off the gigantic rock. "Well, hope to run into you next time!" I began to walk away.

"W-wait!" I stopped and looked up.

"What is it—" I caught the healing crystals he threw at me just in time before it collided with my face.

"Use those! You ran out, didn't you? Oh, and nice catch!"

"Thanks!" It's kind of embarrassing that he found out that I ran out of healing crystals, though.

I am staying at an inn in the village of Horuka. I sat on the bed and thought about Kirito. I reminisced that moment, and a weird shock disrupted my thoughts. I clenched my head in pain. The shock was like an electrical shock at a million volts, and the sound was like tuning a radio.

"Man . . . this hurts like crap."

The pain soon subsided in half an hour. Why did that happen to me? That was certainly strange . . . I put my thoughts aside and put on my armor. I walked downstairs and purchased some more healing crystals at a nearby shop before training. I can't the same mistake again.

I made some minor changes. I'm trying to fix up my chapters. Sorry, it hasn't been updating. I've been going through some stuff. I make announcements on my Twitter yourliesaresad. Please, don't rush me. I'm trying. I really am.

I do not own Sword Art Online. I do not own anything but my OC and story.