It was days such as this when Azhar questioned his own unending optimism. Years he had spent weaving together not one but an entire series of novels in an original work in hopes that dropping out of college would have actually seemed rational. So far, only third-grade sites like Wattpad had at all noticed what he wrote and even the reception there was minimal and rather mixed. He thought that out of the dozens he had emailed at least one publisher would be positively responsive. Really, an entire series! They would never know how much effort he spent to make all these books into an interconnected web of stories in a manner which was actually coherent. Or perhaps they did know, but they just didn't care. Based on current trends it seemed publishers were under the mindset that clients are only interested in written drabble about hollow shells of people mixed with unnecessary sexual intrigue. He sometimes joked that they forget that they were based in Japan and not the U.S.A and are going for the wrong demographic.

"Another denial?"

"Yup… seems that military sci-fi has yet to be popular enough for this to even be considered for publication." He looked to the screen in dismay, his hands moving along his scalp rubbing off a small film of the gel coating his jet black hair.

"That's a pretty steep hill to climb; books were already unpopular in Japan but Kayaba has been an utter nightmare for all writers, not just you. Chin up! You'll get lucky someday." With a perky smile on her face bright enough to drag anyone out of a dark corner, she toted the hefty laundry basket off into the chamber greeting anyone who walked off the last step into the basement.

While she did have a point in regards to the idea that a lack of published work—well, professionally published at least—wasn't entirely his fault he couldn't help but get hit with a deep sense of irrelevancy and lack of quality in his writing for the past few years. Was it incoherency? Lack of obvious thematic developments? Or were the themes something the publisher strongly disagreed with? His older sister would occasionally try to encourage him with the idea that his ideas were "too smart" for the publishers to notice because he'd put so much care and attention into these stories. In the end, it was likely none of the above; in a country known for developing some of the most creative storylines in the form of anime and video games, why read a book? Japanese creators had mastered the art of visual storytelling and the technique of "show-don't-tell" that they sneered at the idea of countries overseas handing out prestigious awards for doing what the people here considered the bare minimum. As a result, books weren't exactly mainstream media. Then, Kayaba Akihiko came around with his Nervegear and an already dying medium was shot through the head. Why read books or manga, why watch a movie or even play a video game on some of the most powerful consoles when you could live out the story yourself? VR had already existed beforehand and until now it had been widely regarded as a gimmick, and an absolute joke in Japan. The idea of FullDive technology had been floating around as rumors, just whispers in the air of a technology which then seemed to be a fantasy only to be accomplished once man had already left this godforsaken rock. Despite his breakthrough, Kayaba was often criticized for the product of his research; if the man was such a genius why not put it into something more productive than video games? No one really knew why he created FullDive and the world of Sword Art Online, all they knew that when the beta alone had come out the storm which resulted due to its demand was sheer insanity. Gamers clamored over the lucky few who were able to get early access to the game, some even going as far as stealing hardware and even assaulting or killing other customers in an immeasurable lust for the idea of complete escapism from the formalities of the real world. This raised even more eyebrows as to the risks associated with releasing such technology, and cases of in-game violent crimes going as far as sexual assault quickly became on the rise. The line between reality and virtuality had been blurred and the lack of real-world consequences was becoming apparent. Because these events never really happened according to law, nobody was reprimanded for what they did in the world of Sword Art Online. The only evidence was the abandoned accounts and the mental scarring of having been forced to go through a horrible experience. Server populations fluctuated periodically as there were periods when people were scared to enter a world where our rules of law did not apply. Of course, there were those die-hard players who integrated VR heavily into their lives despite its short existence. There were rumors of a certain player who made it through even the fifteenth dungeon in mere weeks while other players were struggling to cross Floor 3. Azhar didn't obtain beta access but rather supervised Clara when she dived in the room next to his office. She rarely ate or slept and the weight loss became rather apparent during the closing days of the beta.

Once launch time came around for the full game, concern over the addictiveness restricted the lower age demographic due to the discretion of parents, but overall sales were high nonetheless. Azhar bought one himself though it still confused even himself as to why. Perhaps some materialistic Stockholm's Syndrome pertaining to the device which killed his career as an author? The sheer curiosity towards the game that has captured the sanity of so many? There was, however, that strong allure of the virtual world; escaping the issues of a regular life and becoming a hero of your own story. Diving into a place designed to be, for lack of a better word, perfect. Either way he managed to snag a copy along with his sister, and considering her pre-existing experience having been a beta tester, the fact that she spent hours planning things out for herself and her brother and even wrote her own tutorial for him to memorize rather than what would show up in-game was no surprise.

His face was cupped in his hands in frustration and an increasing amount of regret from choosing not to apply to a decent college sooner. He had skills as a programmer despite his only application of binary being the creation of cheat codes for popular games. An ironic hobby, considering it was drawing a certain level of popularity to the gaming market which was draining away his chances at success with each passing second. His moment of torpor was interrupted by a hard sandal striking the back of his head.

"Oh quit staring! It's not like your depressive gaze is gonna change what's in that email." She gave him a rough pat on the shoulder, tugging his chair away from the desk a bit.

"Yeah yeah, I'm aware… I mean I could make it look like my books were accepted through altering the contents of what they sent…"

"Yes you could, and you would also go to jail for God knows how long and it wouldn't matter. No hurry up and put on your damn headset, the servers have been online for the past hour. I don't want brother-sister bonding to be ruined by some opportunistic farmers. I'll be in the other room."

His nostrils flared a bit at the idea of jumping into this new world. It wasn't real, whatever happened there would do nothing to really affect him. On the other hand he was stricken with an almost paralyzing sense of anticipation as to what awaited him in Aincrad.

He rolled away from his desk on his chair, swiveling around towards the shelf atop which was the overpriced motorbike helmet, as he'd affectionately refer to it. It was said that early stages of the Nervegear had it about the size of Azhar's bedroom, yet it took them less than a few months to go from scratch to the product he held in his hands. Even if the only commercial application it had at the moment was gaming, he could tell this technology was a miracle for all intents and purposes. Despite the risks, most had a glistening optimism for what awaited their future with a mind like Kayaba.

"Hurry up! I'm diving in now and if you don't show up in the next ten minutes, you're on your own bucko… Link Start!"

The room was engulfed by a cold silence save for the faint noises of Clara's headset switching on from behind the wall. He considered for a moment simply putting it back on its shelf and looking after his sister in the other room. If he dived in, no one else would be looking after them. The only person to check up on them would be the land-lady, but she rarely interacted with her tenants unless it was about an issue with their lease. Games on new consoles tended to have day-one issues even after a thorough examination of the beta, and sometimes a hotfix would take weeks, even months to release. What if an issue started to affect her brain negatively? What if she couldn't wake up? Who would be able to keep her alive then? Well, now that he thought about it… what could he do? All he was capable of was calling 911 and getting her into an emergency room, but if something like that was to come up who's to say the hospital won't already be rushed with gamers who have a Nervegear stuck on their heads. His prowess in coding and circuitry could only get him so far, and considering this thing connected to her brain, there was no telling what would result from interference with the system… and if she really was gonna get stuck inside… she'd be all alone. He suddenly remembered the reasons for Sword Art Online's female demographic being low and the multitude of criminal cases related to SAO left unchecked. Who would protect her? Who would actually be willing to look out for people outside of their own parties and in-game social circles? He let out a deep sigh, hopping onto his bed up against the wall.

"Eh what the hell, I don't got much else to do anyways… Sword Art Online, you better not be fucking around with my sister right now or you'll have hell to pay…" he thought aloud.

The helmet felt heavy, but not enough to cause difficulty in balancing his head. He lay his head onto the pillow as the machine started whirring on with a small HUD on the visor displaying menial information such as time of day and battery life. He considered the idea of a dead battery being their escape from any difficulties, but then immediately remembered that time Clara showed him a newsletter about the Nervegear's 5-year-lasting industrial battery which could undergo long periods of continual activity. Well then, he thought while inhaling sharply, this is it.

"Link start!"

He felt his consciousness slip away as if his soul was exiting his body, and he was experiencing it from the body's point of view. There was a brief period of dizziness and nausea cut off by a sudden loss of feeling in his entire form to the point where he couldn't even feel himself breathe. It felt like he was being transported physically when in reality it was his thought pattern shifting towards the Nervegear's program and into the world's first VRMMORPG. Throughout the calibration he couldn't look at himself, in fact he couldn't see at all. He couldn't hear, smell or even taste the garlic-laced saliva in his mouth after eating lunch. He couldn't even tell where he was, he just… was. Suddenly, a large title board with the game's title became all that was in his field of vision and he couldn't seem to look around. It felt strange, rather unnatural. It felt… wrong all of a sudden. Like a deepening sense of corruption suddenly enveloped wherever he was and it was slowly suffocating his consciousness out of existence. The title board glitched, distorting to the point where it was just a white flash, and at that moment the transport into hell was finished.

He was placed-or rather tossed-into a large circular plaza brimming with people. Strange, there didn't seem to be any avatar creation in this RPG. He felt dizzy, which was a sign that some semblance of normal feeling was coming back to him. The sense of unnaturality still lingered, every breath he took felt like he was breathing something else besides air. The light coming down from the sky above was a foreboding red. In his hand was an object, a small rectangular mirror no larger than the palm of his hand. Strange, he thought, why would they- wait, is that…

In the mirror he saw what he presumed to be his "avatar"'s face. Its shape was a humanly average oval with a slightly thinner than usual neck. The skin was a light brown as iff an oak tree's bark and been grinded down and lightly dusted onto his visage. The hair was a deep black, the sides having been cut down to no more than half a centimeter while the hair on top all waved forward and spiked ut a bit at the edge of his hairline. I took him a few seconds to realize that what he was looking at was his actual real world face. The most notable feature was the eyes; their shapes were fine and perfectly symmetrical, but the pupils were a dark red as if someone carved a ruby into each cornea. He looked around and saw a state of panic amongst everyone in the plaza. Some were trying to exit, but were stopped by an invisible barrier. A short girl two feet in front of him with brown hair tied in two pigtails had her arms tightly crossed, and she was frantically shuffling around in the same square meter, bumping into other players. They didn't take notice, still enveloped in some shock of their own. Azhar's hearing had yet to fully optimize and this was aggressively obvious. He could see people talking, feeling the subtle energy of their voices vibrating through the "air" striking his ear drums. Instead of coherent voices, all he could interpret was abject and distorted noises in compound time.

"Wha… what the hell? What's going on… where am I… Clar- AH-"

His cranium was struck with a sharp, stabbing pain preceded by a screeching pop in his ears. It felt as if someone grabbed a serrated nail and scratched it against his ear canals to the point of digging into his auditory nerves. Following a second painful yet brief ringing, his hearing slowly came too. The distortion from earlier was not replaced by the noise of panic. It's like that dark feeling from earlier had manifested itself into the voices of these players. A sense of hopelessness and utter defeat weighed down on him like a massive brick pressing his torso against a cinder block. It was as if he could himself feel the summation of all the negativity in the lobby. Were empathic senses a feature? He got up, dressed in what looked to be default novice-level armor shaded red and gold. Getting his bearings, he looked up into the sky and saw a massive figure concealed in a red hooded robe.