Prelude:

Hello! Welcome to SAO: Specter 2. This is the second part in a FF series, but I'm trying to write part 2 in a way that allows for new readers to still get on board from here! This one takes place in a futuristic Underworld, and since Vol. 24 hasn't been officially translated in English yet, I had to take some creative liberties with how that world and the characters introduced would work, look, and feel. I hope you enjoy.

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Prologue

GGO: September 1, 2026

12:00

(30 days after the Specter incident)

Why do I still come to these sessions?

The man wearing clear-framed glasses crosses his legs and pencils something in. He sits deeper in the loveseat. Strobe lights flash behind him through the window. SBC Glocken: always awake.

The man stops scribbling whatever. He takes off his glasses and looks me square. There's that tick of his too—the beard rub between his fingers when he's thinking of something polite to add. There's nothing polite about this—about my situation.

Why did I come here?

"You ok?" The man breaks my concentration.

"Ok?" Ok? The very notion of ok is laughable. "Yeah, I guess you could say that, considering I'm stuck here, considering—I did the high-output scan, considering I took what little life I had left."

"You're still alive, here, right now." The man objects.

No. "This ain't living. This ain't a life." This is a lie, this is wrong. I shouldn't even be here. I'm not alive, I'm not even a person, and I'm not an A.I. I'm just—wrong.

"Have you met any other players? Anyone to spend more time with?" The man shimmies forward and leans in. Laser focus. Maybe I'm scaring him. "Anyone to help transition you to this new lifestyle?"

"No." I got bored. And what would I tell them? That I'm part of this world now? That GGO is my literal life?

"So that's why you still come to these." The man's chair squeaks as he leans back.

So you think. "And why's that?"

"You want to spend some time with someone who understands your situation," The old man says. "You don't want to be alone."

"Well—" My tongue wrestles for more to say, but I don't have anything. He's right.

I don't want to be alone.

And I never should've been.