Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, or in this case Gun Gale Online. I have been playing SAO: Fatal Bullet though, and it's one of my favorite games to play. This story is just an attempt at a short horror story taking place in GGO.

I don't know what caused them to all go about fighting each other in the middle of the Remnant Wasteland, all of them hiding on or behind rocks, ducking for cover near buildings in the Extinct Civilization City, some of them even made quick work of the Elite Automaton and Shield Automatons at the Floating Tower, but for some reason, they all seemed pretty fucking peeved with each other. I usually tried to stay out of conflict in this game and just fight Lurker Insects or Agitated Bees because it they were rather weak and I just wanted to level up to take on hunting some bigger bounty. I didn't know much about guns, so I always got nervous fighting with damn players who had better weapons than I did.

For some stupid reason, they all agreed to be using a type of Gatling Gun called a Benetnasch+. Those things shot wicked fast, but had to cool down after a prolonged period of shooting at each other. I stayed away from the Remnant Wasteland while they did this because I wasn't looking to keep respawning in the SBC Glocken with half the rewards I earned killing enemies. Sure, I could go to the Control Facility, but if there were assholes shooting each other on the outside, there were likely assholes shooting each other in there too. The SBC Glocken was unusually empty today, and I was watching this event going on via a television in my home in the SBC Glocken. It felt boring as shit to just sit in this game, watching it here, but it was better than being outside of this game watching it live on Twitch, listening to my annoying roommate running his mouth for ten hours straight, despite him clearly seeing me doing something. I honestly wonder if he's still talking to me while I was sitting in my room with the AmuSphere on my head.

I sighed. "Ah, well. Once they fucking kill each other, they'll all just return here, and then the last man standing will come back shortly after and gloat like an arrogant dipshit," I commented. I didn't like the fact that this was going on, but there wasn't anything I could do really.

I wondered how many bullets were being fired per second on even one of those Benetnasch+ guns. It had to be a lot. God only knows how many were being fired per second on all at once.

After about ten minutes of watching this with only one person dying in the outside area of the wasteland (I'll say this about these guys, they either got some skill in this game or they're such lousy shots that they couldn't shoot the world's fattest man if he was laying on the ground, motionless), my theory was confirmed as several victors from inside the Control Facility, the Extinct Civilization Research Lab, and the Cave all came out with a Benetnasch+ in one of their hands. I even could've sworn I saw a couple show up again after they respawned in the SBC Glocken. That's gotta be illegal here.

They all got their Gatling Guns ready and began firing them randomly into the Extinct Civilization City, seemingly not even caring if they took out their allies. Then again, I've been told friendly fire doesn't exist in this game, so maybe they'd be safe from each other.

I don't know how many bullets were being fired every second at this point, but I'm damn sure it was at least a thousand. And my guess is that's what made the next part happen. Things appeared to freeze up for a centisecond every couple of seconds. I thought it was the TV at first, but then I remembered the TV wasn't connected with cable, it was just part of the game. After a bit, I noticed small black circles kept appearing out of the muzzles of their weapons, spreading a short diameter around the muzzles, and then vanishing after things started moving again. That didn't seem normal. Actually, I know it wasn't normal. I'd been playing this game for five months, and I'd never seen that happen before at all.

I noticed the little black circles were expanding slightly each time they appeared. This definitely wasn't good. I gotta log out.

I pressed my right index and middle fingers together and swiped them downward, but there was a problem…

My menu didn't open!

Quickly, I ran outside to see if anyone else was having this problem.

I looked up in the sky and saw it there too.

A black hole in the sky.

That's what was going on. All those bullets being fired caused so much lag that it was beginning to destroy the game with us in it. This was just like with that old copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl I had where I kept trying to hit a bunch of Sandbags in Vs. mode (with another controller plugged in and no one using it). I kept hitting the fuckers, and one day, several Smart Bombs were being used on them and it ruined my game in this way.

I looked down at the few people who were still in here with me. They all looked at the sky in absolute terror.

As the black hole got larger, I began feeling my head getting warmer. And not my head in the game. My head in real life. Specifically where the AmuSphere was on my head. It was beginning to overheat. No, no, no fuck!

Whenever people playing Sword Art Online died in the game, the NerveGear suddenly fried their brains. If it was happening here in Gun Gale Online, that meant we weren't even safe playing this one!

There was no denying it at this point.

We're fucked.