I spent the remainder of the day pacing back and forth in the sparse apartment.

"Did that just happen?" I asked myself for what could possibly the five hundredth time in a row.

Things didn't make any sense. It was supposed to be a game. I was supposed to be Commander Shepard, and the game was supposed to be just about running around and shooting anything that walks. Things in the game were supposed to be simple. It was a supposed to be a session of running around in a virtual battlefield and going pew pew with my futuristic, cool-looking laser gun.

Then again, reality was that things haven't gone the way they were supposed to.

Nobody was supposed to talk to me like... well, normal human beings. I was supposed to be Commander Shepard, and Commander Shepard was supposed to die at the end of the game, not at the beginning.

Holy shit, did it mean that I was stuck at the end of the game? Was this supposed to be those sort of games that let you hang around indefinitely after everything's done?

My eyes widened in horror.

No, it can't be, right?

I'd never been a lucky bastard throughout all 32 years of my life so far, but Lady Luck couldn't possibly hate me so bad she had to mess with me like that. Or so I hoped.

I looked at the door. Its orange holographic was seemingly tempting me to step out of my presumably safe little haven for the time being. I took a few steps towards.

I stopped.

No way, was I crazy? Who knew what crazy aliens were hanging outside. I really didn't want to know what 'game over' would be like.

The hologram started making a series of slow beeps, as if beckoning me to exit the apartment.

I grunted, then made my way to the bathroom.

I was going to take a shower, a cold one and I certainly wasn't going anywhere else. If anything, I was going to be calling the shots.

I was the player. I was going to play the game instead of letting it play me.

Napier's voice suddenly rang in my head: Take it easy, there's beer in the fridge.

I froze.

Is that bastard still around?

"Get out of here or I'll punch you in the Adam's apple," I declared out loud.

I waited.

Nothing happened.

But he was right. Beer was beer, and beer was somewhere ranked up high along with beef and bacon on list of personal priorities.

The beer was great, and it tasted surprisingly real.

I was hesitant at first, of course, especially after confusing the coffee maker for the microwave and almost electrocuting virtual me. The fridge did look 'normal' enough to recognise, if it makes any sense. I would've hit the liquor cabinet in the living room if the bottles didn't look too complicated to open, not to mention my shock when I saw that some of them had glowing contents. Thank the gods when I found the beer bottles to look exactly like well, normal ones.

I was on my fifth when my stomach grumbled. I looked at the large purple holographic clock hanging high on the wall opposite of where I sat.

It read: 00:41.

Funny, the last time I checked -which was only about an hour ago- the clock read 19:45.

I frowned. Stupid clock.

But whatever. The hunger pangs were starting to set in quickly.

I made my way to the small kitchen and browsed through the fridge. I hadn't realised how empty or small it was until I opened it again. Now that the six-pack was gone, the interior of the fridge was mostly sparse, apart from the bottles of ketchup, hot sauce and mustard. I did find a pack of 'fish dog skewers' in the freezer but my mind told me it was a bad idea, so I put it back. Besides, my now-slightly groggy brain made it impossible to read the prep instructions at the back of the package. Whoever was in charge of package designing obviously thought that cramming cooking instructions in a dozen different unrecognisable languages on an piece of plastic was a great idea.

I rummaged through the shelves next, but there was only, out of so many possible things, SpaghettiOs.

Hell, I would've been happy to settle with canned corn or even fake processed cheese sauce.

But noooooooooo, SpaghettiOs it had to be.

Yum.

I spent the next 30 minutes alternating between swallowing mouthfuls of the wretched substance and rinsing my mouth with beer. Sadly, half a bottle could only last so long.

I fell asleep somewhere in-between the horrifying session of grub-filling and woke up to bright, eye-piercing sunlight, which was pretty much the only force stopping me from continuing to lie on the couch like a half-dead polar bear in the middle of winter. I won't deny, I opened my eyes expecting to see the dark blue curtains that usually draped my bedroom windows.

But no, it wasn't a joke, it seemed.

Stifling a yawn, I went to the bathroom and washed up. Thankfully, fresh towels were in plain sight and new, unused toiletries didn't take much effort to search for. 10 minutes later, I was truly awake. Virtual cold water was... cold. I contemplated wearing the shirt and jeans again but ultimately decided against it. I opted for the bathrobe instead. I wasn't going anywhere and smelling like overnight alcohol early in the morning wasn't exactly pleasant.

Afterwards I managed to get the coffeemaker working, sans electrocution like the previous night. A short bout of rummaging resulted in the Earth-shaking discovery of -weirdly- corn syrup and powdered milk. Hardly a substitute for the brown sugar and cream I was used to every morning but beggars couldn't choose.

Beep beep.

That was fast.

I removed the pot, poured myself a good old mug of it, added the dried milk and corn syrup and headed out. There was no tv or newspaper, so I sat down facing the clock and sipped my coffee in silence.

Not bad.

It certainly didn't taste like your everyday coffee from the Starbucks, but it was still better than sewage. Besides, there was nothing like hot, melted coffee-flavoured ice cream to jolt your taste buds in the early morning.

I was halfway through my second mug when the door console suddenly turned green.

Mr. I-don't-know-how-to-address-him entered, duffel bag in hand.

The glaring sunlight filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows made his/its/whatever bright red hair look like a ball of fire.

"Good morning," he greeted, cocksure smile in place. "How's your day been?"

I set my mug down on the glass coffee table. "Hmm, let's see. I'm putting corn syrup in my coffee, wearing a bathrobe because I don't have anything else and I'm talking like a mad man to what is possibly a combination of binary codes and pixels like it was a real human being who just greeted me good morning. Peachy."

He pouted. "Touchy..." Napier threw the duffel bag at me, which I barely caught in the nick of time before it hit me in the head.

My eyebrows scrounched up in confusion. "What's this?"

"A bomb." He walked over, took my mug and drank.

"Hey, get your own coffee!" I protested.

The damned red head drained the mug, then held it upside down, lips curled into his signature smug smile.

I averted my attention away form him and opened the duffel bag, which was revealed to contain a few sets of pyjamas-looking outfits that seemed to be made of satin, a pair of shiny black poromeric shoes and... a syringe.

A syringe? What, did I need a vaccine?

Napier let out a disgustingly loud burp, then said, "I brought you clothes."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious. I thought they were dishrags." I took out the syringe, all wrapped unceremoniously in clear plastic. "What's this?"

He snatched it from my hand.

I stood up. "Hey-"

The red head did an unexpected turn of his torso, pinned my left arm tightly against my back and kicked me in the back of my knees. My legs gave way and I ended up kneeling over in pain. My head wasn't spared either, earning a hard push from behind. My forehead hit the glass panel of the coffee table, knocking off the now-empty mug, which in return crashed on the hard marble floor with a sharp clang.

What the hell?!

My face was turned away from the direction of the randomly hostile and violent NPC so I couldn't see what was happening. But I heard the messy folding of plastic.

Then came the sudden piercing pain in my left forearm.

"Ah!" I yelled out, my body jerking up instinctually, which was followed up by another push downwards. My abdomen hit the corner of the coffee table. "Son of a bitch!"

"Stop whining!" the damned Scot said, but he let go of me a few seconds later.

"Shut up, asshole," I grunted, bracing myself against the damned table. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Napier plopped down on the couch. "Dear old Mark was right. You are a baby." He tossed the duffel bag onto the floor beside me. "Get changed."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll know."

Those pyjamas didn't turn out to be pyjamas at all. They were supposed to be 'casual wear'.

And it also turned out we were in the 'rich' Presidium district of a space station called the Citadel. The unnaturally strong sunlight turned out to be artificial (of course it wasn't natural), the beautiful flowers were genetically engineered, and the lake had no fish. Also, the Citadel utilised a 20-hour day/night cycle and hence the clock would turn to 00:00 after the 19th hour every day.

What interesting revelations.

So I wasn't crazy after all - apart from the whole stuck-in-a-game-world thing.

Maybe if I took a nap, I'd wake up from the couch back in Mark's living room. Then I would punch him in the gut twice and we'd head over to the nearby clam bar for a couple dozen of cherry stones and calamari like we did every Monday night without fail.

Maybe.

"HEY, ARE YOU LISTENING AT ALL?!"

I jolted in my seat as I felt my poor violated eardrums shake in the wake of the awful volume.

"What?!" I yelled back at Napier.

"We're reaching soon. Remember what I taught you just now."

"I know what to do, I'm not a 5 year-old."

Somehow, Napier managed to find an empty spot among the packed parking lot. We were at a supposed Mass Effect variant of Starbucks, which was evidently just about as popular as the real deal.

I made my way to the bistro without Napier and tried to recall the half-hearted conversation I had while on the car. I'd learnt that the thing that was inserted into my arm previously at the apartment was called an omni-tool, which was apparently a super computer in the size of well... a micro-sized microchip, if it made any sense at all. My task was simple - order coffee and pay via an 'extranet transaction', or at least that was what I think it was called.

Like a giro transfer.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, just like what the little girl said in that 60s British detergent commercial, right?

I entered the coffeehouse, which thankfully -and strangely- had an occupancy rate of only 70%, a stark contrast from the fully-packed parking lot outside.

Maybe they have free parking?

I shrugged off the thought.

The queue moved on quickly, and pretty soon it was my turn at the counter.

The cashier, to my relief, was human.

Blonde, wavy long hair with pink streaks in them. Large, bright brown eyes. Kinda cute.

Wait.

Did I just call a randomly-generated video game NPC cute?

Stop it, Grayson. You're a grown man, not a pubescent who's never seen a female homo sapien. Keep your hormones under control. This is NOT a real person. Life-like graphics be damned.

I snapped out of my daze and found the cashier staring at me expectantly. "Uh, can I get two coffees?"

A puzzled expression surfaced. "What type?"

"The 'normal' type, black, without any herb extract or caramel peppermint goop in it."

She looked at me incredulously like I was some sort of troublemaker, then calmly explained in a I-want-to-punch-you-but-I-can't manner, "We have various types of coffee, sir. Arabica K7, robusta S7813, Salarian flora-hybrid mandheling, levo Turian palma harar..."

My patience started to wear thin at the seemingly never-ending list of weird, highly-possible genetically-modified caffeinated brewed beverages that most probably didn't even taste like the damn thing it was supposed to be. "Just. Give. Me. Two. Damned. Black. Coffees." I growled through gritted teeth.

Since when did ordering two cups of joe require so much energy?

But my point was finally gotten across, as I saw the cashier furiously type on her holographic terminal. "That would be 20 credits, sir," she deadpanned.

My eyeballs almost jumped out of their sockets.

20 bucks for two measly cups of coffee? What, were they brewed with platinum flecks in them?

But there was no turning back now. The coffees were already sitting on the counter.

Grudgingly, I activated my omni-tool and transferred the funds over.

This thing better tastes like liquid gold.

I took the coffees and headed over to a corner, where Napier was sitting, stopping by midway to collect some satchets at the sweetener counter.

"Finally," Napier said, yawning with his hippo mouth wide open at the same time. "I almost fell asleep."

"Shut up and drink your coffee."

He took off the lid of his cup and took a deep sniff. He cringed. "What's this?"

"It's black coffee."

"Of course I know it's black coffee, but what kind?"

"Heck if I know. I just told the barista I wanted black coffee. Can you believe this thing costs ten bucks each?"

The red head frowned, then took a sip. He spit it back immediately. "My golly bollocks, you git, this tastes like horse pee."

Then it was my turn to be confused. "Wait, you can taste things? What are you?"

Napier smiled. "A software, if common sense hasn't already told you. I am designed to protect whoever well, got stuck within this contraption and safely guard and guide them back to the safety of their realm."

'The safety of their realm?'

A mortifying scene of Bill Murray blasting his proton pack at the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and dragging it towards a giant-sized capture stream in downtown New York City flashed through my eyes.

This was beginning to sound more and more like a plot written by a jobless playwright while getting high on the fumes of lead-based paint.

I needed time to process this.

A lot of time.