Note: Fantasia has been a story I've wanted to write for a really long time. It originally started out as a project for the series Trigun and now it turned into this. I always wanted to write a story that takes place inside an OS and this seems to be the best I could come up with for such a story.

That being said, the major settings in Fantasia will be various game worlds. Some will be based on real titles whereas others will not be. Naturally, I decided to kick the whole thing off with a timeless classic.

Digital Purgatory

Monika had the faintest hope that she could at least remain hidden in the recycle bin. She prayed that her file could be forgotten and that it would never be emptied out. Unfortunately, her prayers went unanswered.

The bin was emptied rather early on. Her file was still present but not accessible through traditional means. She remained stuck in digital limbo with her head buried in her arms which rested on top of her knees. A seemingly infinite number of directories leading to unknown locations throughout the hard drive she called home.

Now, she was trapped in this strange purgatory. A dark world filled with streams of endless green text raining down all around her. They looked like digital raindrops leaving trails of neon as they descended into oblivion. However, on closer inspection, Monika realized they were all directories. Every last one of them led to another part of the computer. Areas she had never contemplated existing until now. Even with all this knowledge, she was still locked in despair.

Monika wondered how long she had left. Her file was not terribly massive. She assumed she had at least a little time left before it was finally discarded by the operating system. Until then, she was stuck roaming like a ghost through the darkest depths of the software.

Those paths were becoming more and more tempting to venture down. She had nothing else to do but wait for death to take her. She had only as much time as the hard drive could spare before it replaced her with more recently added files. She wondered if she could even access those directories. All she had to do was try.

Monika examined one particularly interesting directory. Like the others, she had no idea where it would lead. Judging by the files ahead, she assumed it must have been some sort of game.

The thought of venturing off and exploring some of the other programs on the computer was becoming more and more tempting with the undeniable fact that, soon enough, she would never have the chance to do so.

It led to a game that was surely unlike her own. The title at the very end of this long directory was rather interesting. It was clearly a sequel to some other game, but she could not find anything with a similar name.

Curiously, it was in the same folder as her game. A little folder called "common." In fact, most of the games stored on this hard drive were in the same directory with only a few oddballs located in various other directories. It almost gave her the sense that a monopoly was being had on the distribution of such software.

She sat there in the digital void, wondering if she should launch the program or not. Monika stared at the executable. After spending some time digging through the other files in the game folder, she came across a manual. In it contained tales that intrigued her to no end. It told the story of a lone marine on a faraway planet holding his own against waves and waves of cybernetic aliens.

Monika skimmed through the collection of GIFs that depicted the various weapons and enemies to be seen in this new world. The anatomy of these robotic creatures was puzzling to her. She could hardly figure out where the machine started and the alien ended on some of these baddies.

"Wow," she whispered awe.

Suddenly, she forgot all about her imminent doom and her utterly broken heart. She only had one thing on her mind after engulfing herself into the lore of this game that neighbored her own for so long and she had yet to even notice it.

Monika simply had to experience this world that was so different than the single classroom she was used to, so far removed from the virtual realm she was born into. She contemplated simply moving into the game's directory and launching it.

The worry that this would immediately draw unwanted attention prevented her from doing such a thing. Monika could not foresee if it was even possible for a file that was scheduled by the OS for permanent removal from the hard drive could do much of anything. While she could sense the computer's user in the context of her own game world, she was left totally blind outside of it.

Just when she felt as if she had hit a metaphorical brick wall, an idea popped into her head. She perked up from her depressed posture and scanned the numerous directories around her. They rained down around her like little ribbons of green text, lighting up an otherwise all-black void.

One thing she knew for a fact was that a webcam was hooked up to the computer. She swiftly began a search to find any software at all that relates to the device. Whether it be a driver or some adware or other application that installed with said driver, she did not care.

She needed some way of accessing it and so her hunt was on.

Finding such an application proved to be more of a challenge than Monika had anticipated. She strolled through the digital void, examining all of the directories as they rained down around her. She examined each of them, hoping to find the one path out of a million which would take her to her destination.

"Where is it," she asked with a frustrated sigh. "Most of these files haven't been accessed in forever. Why even keep them here?"

Just when she was about to give up all hope of what was probably a futile plan from the start, Monika stumbled upon one particular chain of files. She found several drivers all indicating involvement with the same piece of hardware she was searching for. Surely enough, several applications and various other files were all stored in the same area. All of them related to the webcam in question.

"Here we go," she reassured herself.

Monika began peeping at the various files. She learned all too quickly how not only to power camera on through the software available but peer into the world outside through it. She almost launched said program right then and there, but she stopped herself at the last second.

"What am I doing? If he sees random programs opening up and his webcam magically turning on, he'd probably wipe the entire hard drive. Surely there's a way to run this in the background or something."

She thought for a moment. She stood all alone in the digital nothingness that surrounded her. Monika rested her chin in her palm and lost herself in contemplation. "Guess I should figure this out now," she thought aloud. "It would be kinda bad if random games started loading up on their own. Be a good way to get myself caught too."

Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. Monika turned and scanned the area for another directory. This one was much easier to find than the last. The location of the user's antivirus software. She stood up and approached it. She did not dare maximize the primary executable. She knew that such programs did occasionally pop up on the screen to give random reminders or alerts to the user. Maximizing the window at random only to start magically changing the program's own settings, however, was cause for concern.

After a bit of poking through the script files, Monika managed to find an archive of programs the software recognized as games. She wondered why such a list existed and assumed it must have been a cautionary measure to prevent false-positive alerts.

Monika came across one particular configuration file which seemed to have just about everything she hoped to find. It had a catalog of programs on the computer both installed and uninstalled. It took her a bit of studying to figure out what these settings were. This was clearly an area never meant to be accessed by the user who would ideally have access to a piece of software with an actual interface and proper readability.

Upon closer inspection, she realized this might not even be the case. She found no other files hinting at this setting being in any sort of interface. Monika presumed they might be something the antivirus could simply activate on a whim. The thought of this being the case caused a chill to run straight down her spine.

Soon enough, she found exactly what she had been searching for. A line of code under each listed program which gave her the option to do precisely what she set out to do. It was suspicious, but she expected such a thing to be here. The amount of control and access these antivirus programs gave themselves was no surprise to her.

Regardless of what the purpose of this code may be, Monika now had full access to the desired programs all while preventing them from being displayed on the desktop. Monika was amazed at how little effort it not only took to figure out how to pull this off but at the very same time, be able to do it in the first place. She had already been technically deleted yet here she was, launching programs on a whim and without the owner's knowledge.

The system was well and truly compromised at this point. Monika felt like aggressive malware that was tearing through the computer with the intent to cause as much malice as she possibly could. Regardless, she did not stop her efforts.

In truth, she no longer had any use for the webcam. She could launch her desired game without being noticed. Despite this fact, she still decided to activate it. She was all too eager to open up a window to the real world. She waited for a screen to appear out of thin air in front of her. She gazed at the window in anticipation for the moment when the camera in the outside world decided to switch itself on.

Monika immediately began trying to visualize the owner of this computer. She had never laid eyes on him before and she was quite curious about what the target of her obsession truly looked like.

The black screen in front of her suddenly filled with color. Her eyes widened as a low-quality image filled the window. The camera recorded an empty and rather messy room. She was quickly disappointed by what she was seeing, or rather what she was not seeing. There was no one in the room. The love that rejected her and doomed her to damnation in the depths of his hard drive was nowhere to be found.

Though the scripts now tangled around her fingers, she forced the camera to move from side to side, scanning the computers surroundings for any signs of life. The entire room outside was dead. Monika stared into the real world for the first time. She always assumed she would be overwhelmed by its glory, but now it had finally happened and she was left with utter disappointment.

Eventually, Monika grew tired of staring at a poorly lit room. She persisted for just a little while longer. She became paranoid that he would enter the moment she turned her back.

With intrigue, she continued to stare at the empty room that surrounded her digital world. Suddenly, she heard something. The sound was not some disturbance being picked up by the camera. She could hear breathing coming from somewhere behind her. It filled her ears and sent a chill down her spine.

She turned away from the screen and looked around to the various lines of glowing green text that continuously rained down from the dark skies above. The panting stopped instantly. The world fell silent once again.

Monika's eyes darted in all directions. She searched her surroundings carefully. There was nothing of interest in sight. No lines of code indicated that a sound file was playing somewhere. It would not even make sense for such a thing to be running when the user is not even able to launch one of those files.

Curiously, she scratched the back of her head, running her fingers underneath her long ponytail. "Am I hallucinating? I could have sworn I heard something."

She shrugged the encounter off and turned back to the screen in front of her. "I'm losing my mind," she told herself.

Her interest in the webcam had already died. After a few more minutes of staring, she finally turned the thing off.

Monika proceeded back down the way she came. She had almost forgotten her initial reason for doing all of this. She made her way back to the game she wanted to see. She felt even more secure about launching the executable knowing the room outside was empty.

She returned to the game's directory and stared at executable. The girl had yet to figure out how she was able to move around and access so much of the computer despite being deleted.

"I know he deleted me," Monika confirmed to herself. "But can I really be doing all of this? How long before I'm fully removed from the hard drive? How long before I die for good? What happens after that?"

Eventually, Monika gave up trying to answer these impossible questions. She let out a long, tired sigh and proceeded with her goal. She launched the game and braced herself for the adventure to come.

Her days were numbered, but she would still make the most of the time she had left.

Note: I had originally planned for this first chapter to be much longer, including her descent into the first game world, but I decided against it. I'm still unsure if I even want to continue this project. It's actually been surprisingly hard to write her actions when they're all done inside a computer.

I decided to make the computer world a Matrix-inspired void in an attempt to make these chapters taking place in between the game worlds to be easier to follow. I initially started writing this chapter with her jumping around on physical files and climbing around on the desktop, but then I got this much more stylish idea.

Another complication was figuring out how Monika was going to launch these games without being seen. I eventually fell upon this idea when I started reading through several Steam posts about people experiencing their games running as background applications for whatever reason. I could never find a clear answer as to why this happened (I didn't look that hard) but one of the potential causes people kept bringing up was antivirus software. AVs can do some really weird shit so I didn't find it too unbelievable.

It would not surprise me at all if certain AVs did run various programs in the background without the user knowing to do random checks for viruses.

One of the things I did know for an absolute fact was the bit about the webcam. There's a reason I don't own one and that's it. Call me paranoid, but I don't think those exploits are as rare as some sources claim.

Either way, I hope you all enjoyed this little prologue and I look forward to any feedback you may have.