"Wow! What a camper!" rang out in the chat. Fighting the urge to laugh, Jack turned his attention back to what he was doing. He was in a game of Survival. A game type in which four teams of six fought in a slow, usually organized way.

Of course, this was a game. In the current year of 2021, a new game system was created. It was based upon a virtual world in which when one put on a helmet shaped like a helicopter pilot's helmet, only this was much more comfortable, it transported the wearers consciousness into a virtual world.

To use this new system, all anyone needed was the helmet. Any game could be accessed through this new system. Instead of using a controller to control, for example, a first person view of a soldier holding a gun, now people could experience it in person. This included the pain of being shot or stabbed, however only lasted for a brief moment.

Jack lived for this. The rush of that first kill in a new game or even the fear of being killed. See, Jack was an adrenaline junkie, although the most peculiar one. His obsession with extreme sports and hobbies landed him permanently in a wheelchair. A rock climbing incident ending in permanent nerve damage in his knees and feet cut off their communication with the brain.

Besides the wheelchair, Jack was still an unusual person. Being 17 and in a wheelchair since he was 14, he no longer grew and remained at a height of five feet three inches and a mere 105 pounds.
Jack refused to let this stop him and found his adrenaline rush supplemented by this amazing new technology. For one, the system was designed to take in account the actual appearance of the player along with things like height, weight, and strength. When playing his favorite game, Age of Warfare, the game took into account all of these attributes so Jack's in game experience was influenced.

He was the last alive for his team, with only two people left on team Charlie. It was on the very small map known as Crashsite. Four three story tall buildings served as spawn points for the four teams. All four of which have four evenly spaced windows on the second and third floor, an open rooftop with a silver fence border, and a single door in the front. Each window was boarded up but had cracks and holes in them so players could see out, or in. In the middle of the four buildings was a downed helicopter that was designed to transport troops from place to place, so naturally it provided as decent cover if you could make it to it.

Jack was well equipped for this map. On his back he had his vector sub-machine gun equipped with a red dot sight, silencer, and a grip. In his hands was his trusty semi-automatic M110 rifle equipped with a silencer and a thermal sight that picks up heat signatures and makes them glow bright red. At his waist was a claymore which he used to cover the nearest doorway with trip-wire lasers that when disturbed discharged an explosive upwards at the target. He also had two stun grenades.

Jack was laying down on a table in the middle of the room on the third floor about five feet from the window. He was directly across from the building in which the two remaining players of Team Charlie were waiting. The game would go on forever until only one team was left alive. Jack had never played these two before but was not concerned.

A cool feature in which Jack enjoyed was the HUD feature on his tactical band. This band could show him a 3D model of the map, the scoreboard (In which all players still alive where shown under their respective team name), and allowed him to chose his load out before a game started.
Checking the scoreboard, he saw the other two alive both lacked any kills, and were ranked at levels 3 and 12, on a scale of 1 to 100. To rank up each player had to win, earn kills or complete an objective, like defuse or plant a bomb, some times in certain ways or under specials conditions.
Jack, being ranked 29 was not worried at all. He knew he had this in the bag, all he needed was for them to become impatient. Jack has earned 10 of the 21 kills so far, and had changed his spot many times.
He knew the other two also possessed snipers, but being so lowly ranked they failed to possess anything other than a side arm.
Jack finally turned his thoughts back towards the enemy building. He has one sniper located. Being the noob he was, he was sitting right up against the window of the third floor, frantically searching for Jack. The other, however was nowhere to be found. Jack wished to give his viewers a good show, so he decided to take both players out in quick succession. He scanned the roof top once more before starting from the bottom floor up again.

Finally, upon reaching the second floor, he noticed something move. The other sniper was perched in the back corner of the building on the second floor, crouched upon a table. His mistake being that he shifted slightly causing his arm to come into view of Jack's sights. With a slight chuckle, Jack slowly dragged his sight a few inches to the left, steadied his breath, and placed his finger on the trigger. Suddenly holding his breath, Jack struck the trigger twice, pumping lead first into the snipers shoulder and then finally one straight to the heart.

Readjusting quickly, Jack brought his scope quickly to the other sniper who now became aware of his teammates death. Before the enemy could even react, Jack had placed his crosshairs on his forehead, pulled the trigger, and muttered, "check mate".

Upon killing the final enemy, Jack's vision went black as he was transmitted from the map to the game lobby. His pixelated body appeared sitting in Team Alpha's row of chairs. Most of the seats where empty, although a few were occupied by his teammates and the two he had just killed.

You see, upon either dying or winning the player is pulled from the map and is dropped into a chair. If the player chooses to stay, they can watch the game unfold on a big screen in the front of the room. The four teams chairs where lined up accordingly and faced the screen. The player also had the choice of leaving through a door in the back. They would then joined a much larger room, referred to as 'Game Central'. There players could mill around and talk with friends, join a private match and invite other players, or join a random lobby for the game type of their choice.
On the screen, read in big bold letters:

"Winners- Team Alpha
Survivors- JackTheRipper"

Jack smiled at his new name. He was know to "rip his enemies to shreds" his viewers claimed so he decided to make his name fit his viewers interests.
Jack had what was known as viewers. These viewers were people that watched his every match. Almost everyone in the world was either a player or viewer. Viewers paid a small fee to follow a single player as a fan. Some viewers chose to televise their player. Others "donated money", a process in which people gave money to the game system's company and they transferred the funds into the players account. This money was then used to unlock things like extra load outs, new guns, new attachments, or abilities known as modifiers.

Modifiers cost the most of all the options, but gave the player abilities like faster reload, invisibility to thermal scopes, protection for explosives, and many more options. To make money for these, the player either received donations from viewers, or received money after every game based upon number of kills vs. number of deaths(known as K/D ratio), win or loss, and win/loss streak.

As Jack stood to leave the lobby, he received many glares from players on the other teams. He was well known in the community as the lone-wolf, silent killer type player that you hoped and prayed was on your team.
Fortunately, Jack was very close to reaching tank of 30. This meant two things. One, he would now be playing with players ranked 30 and up, as well as now he could join or create a clan. A clan is a group of people, varying in size from 6 all the way up to a couple hundred. Clans always played together in groups of six and almost ways won. They also got to join tournaments in which the top prize consisted of experience, in-game currency, as well as real world currency.

Jack was excited to create his own clan. Jack had the most viewers for so wine under the tank of 30, and every game he played we televised. This brought in a very steady cash flow, allowing him to not have to work and just being able to play AoW(Age of Warfare) whenever he wanted.
Checking his tactical band, Jack watched as his money earned for the game was calculated, followed by a steady grow of his experience bar. Once it stopped, his tactical band glowed with a golden light, signaling his achievement of rank level 30. Giddy with anticipation, he was finally able to completely customize his uniform and finally create his clan.
Jack received many envious glares as he left for Game Central. Upon entering, he finally got to witness, as the lower ranked players referred to it as, the high life. By high life, they referred to sense of individuality and the presence of some truly great players. He drank in the sights of clans standing in small circles talking amongst themselves, draped in their pride for their clan and matching uniforms.

Upon reaching the sign off stand, he turned to face the crowds before him. Taking one last glance around, he sighed and turned to sign off.

Once he entered the real world, Jack ate dinner in silence in his somewhat large one room apartment before going to sleep for a few hours. Little did he know, tomorrow he would receive the inspiration he needed to begin his path to greatness.