Chapter 1 - What is a Full Dive?

I open my eyes as I hear that loud ass alarm in my right ear. Ahhh... I can never get used to that alarm, sounds like something you would hear as your town's getting carpet bombed by a shit ton of bells. Gotta change it..

I get up to go brush my teeth, and take a shower as I prepare for a usual summer day for me which is doing absolutely nothing, chatting with my brother Kannen, looking at videos, and eventually hoping on the game to play with the gang.

I sat there at the table with a bowl of cereal, looking at holo tv connected to the corner of the dining room as it played the latest highlights of the tournaments for Valve's Competitive Team-Based VR FPS CSVO. *Beep* Huh..? How'd it turn off? I'm not sitting on the remote. I look around until I hear someone clear their throat behind me. almost made me jump and hit my head on the table while I was looking under for the remote. Pops stood there with three boxes stacked on top of each other with blank covers on the front. And he doesn't look happy...

"Guess what I have here, Cole." At this point I was a little freaked out. My old man doesn't usually have a serious tone, I've only ever heard it a few times in my life. If anyone in the family other than Mom, have a bad fuckup.

I started to feel a little nervous as he picked up the box and went to grab whatever was in there. Suspecting he found some form of evidence for the payments for some... *cough* (Special Websites) *cough*. I was hoping to not get a heart attack today. As he pulled out whatever was in the box, a bright smile formed on his face. One that almost blinded me.

"I FUCKING GOT IT!" As he held up the retro looking vr device like that monkey did to the cub from that disney classic, my old man likes|The Lion King|. He's visibly shaking from excitement and starts dancing like he won the lottery all of a sudden, for a moment my eyes start to bleed. "So what is it you have there, dad?". He stops and looks at me with the serious face he had moments ago. "This thing is the collective hard work squeezed from the balls and brains of thousands of scientists and game developers that collaborated for this special project over the last few decades that will revolutionize the world of entertainment." He said with the straightest face I have seen in a while. "First off take a breath, second why did you have to say bal-". "This piece of sweet sweet tech.." Abruptly cutting me off while rubbing the side of the retro vr device. "IS THAT FULL DIVE DEVICE I'VE BEEN FUCKING DREAMING AND SPEAKING OF FOR TOO MANY LONG AND SHITTY YEARS WOOOOOOOOOOO!" At this point I feel like my ears have been next to concert speakers for 30 minutes. But I remember all the talks I had with my old man about the concept of a super immersive version of virtual reality envisioned and discussed when he was in his teens.

Now I'm not gonna lie. I wasn't too interested in the idea of this device, because of the VR rig that replicated sensations and movement in my room. but it sounded like it would be a fun thing to play with, so what the hell might as well give it a shot. "Since i preordered this baby last year, we received it a month early as a sincere thanks to all the dummies willing to cough up extra money." I look at him like he's stupid as he keeps eyeballing the device to see the work of it. "And since i'm a massive idiot and impatient i got three of 'em just for us three since ya ma and sista's outta the house. Speaking of, where's your brother?" He finally stops molesting the vr device as he looks at me. "Dunno, probably jacking it to his fantasies of being an edgelord." I say as I get up to grab a box to check out the VR. "Ew, don't say that again I wouldn't want to imagine any of you doing that." As he makes a disgusted face. "You just talked about people having their balls squeezed." "Fair point." *Generic Ringtone* He looked at his watch to see who was calling. "Ah you're mom's calling, i need to talk to her for a bit. Get yourself set up on the device. I had them install one of my favorite games from back then on there. It was kind of stupid that they didn't include the rest of the series. Well, they'll add the other one's in a bundle soon. hopefully." I watch as he walks away with his box, while talking about making it up for forgetting the anniversary with what I presume is an angry mom.

I turned the box around and looked at the logo that was a shining honeycomb with the word Honnet under it. If I remembered this was a collaboration of a bunch of VR companies. I pulled the device out of the box and checked it out for a bit, it resembled the design of Valve's old line of VR's. But a bit more sleeker and compact. To the side of the VR was a couple ports which I guessed helped connect the device to your head and charge to the device. I look inside the box and spot a few wires and a manual. After a bit of time reading of the features and instructions and warning labels, I end up in my room sitting down on my comfortable chair with a quarter sized rubber suction cup with wires built into the suction cup over the area where I had a chip implanted in my head. I sat there for a moment before I pressed the button to the side of the device, and a woman's voice started to countdown. "3.. 2..1.." For a couple seconds I felt as if I was being warped across space as light began to fill my vision.

I come to notice im in a white space, for a moment i find myself confused as i stared into a blank nothingnes- "Calibration Complete." I hear the same woman's voice as all of a sudden an environment builds around me. I stand on a wooden bridge surrounded by a well decorated garden, plants of all kinds surround me and the smell was as welcoming as the environment. 'This is new' I thought to myself. I look over at an island in the middle of this large pond. A white podium made of what appears to be a marble sits in the middle of the little island. with a small light hanging above the podium. As I walk towards the island I notice the fish in the water. a variety of exotic fish swim around calmly, as if they didn't realize just a moment ago they didn't exist. I reached out to touch the water and felt the cold sensation of liquid, quickly accompanied by the sight and sound of fishes swimming away from my hand. 'Neat fish ai'. I get back to what I was doing and walk over to the podium that has a little light sitting above it. As I reach out to touch it, a holographic window grows out of the center of the light. I'm met with a menu with all the usual things you would find in a home screen. I browse around for a bit before I press on the games tab and check out what I have installed.

A few games pop, some generic shooters with compatibility with older gens like the 50th call of duty (still garbage), a couple of fantasy, futuristic and other fiction vrmmos, and other questionable games. 'Who the hell would play solitaire on a vr device? Skip over that'. I spotted that game the old man mentioned. Dark Souls, a line of brutal games infamous for their difficulty. I never looked into the games before but it can't be that bad. I mean i beat skyrim on master difficulty.

I pressed the yellow start button. *FWOOOSH* A gust of wind seems to violently rip away the garden environment, as I currently stand on semi gray clouds. That reaches out as far as the eye can see. I hear a choir sing a dramatic hum with music to match this song (Main Theme Ost). I hear a crackle and pop behind me as I turn around, greeted by a lit bonfire with a coiled sword embedded in the middle of the burning bonfire. I walk over and as I get close to the bonfire a text box pops up with the word "Grab onto your fate.". 'Ahh come on, they couldn't hire a voice actor to say that line. Would have been cool.' I thought with a slight disappointment. "As you wish." a booming voice could be heard from where it seems far away but at the same time right next to me. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" I almost fell on my ass from having nothing to grab on since I twitched so hard I almost jumped. "NEXT TIME GIMME A WARNING DUDE." I yell out. "No need to scream, I can hear you perfectly fine." It responds quickly. Now this was a mindfuck. 'Did this dude just respond to me? I thought it was an ai?' Still baffled that an AI formed a proper response to me. He added. "This world is different from the ones you know. Grab onto your fate". 'He can also read minds, what a nice touch' I thought sarcastically. As I took a step toward the bonfire to reach out and grab the handle. The bonfire flares up and an explosion of fire spreads with darkness following behind it. It eventually is pitch black.

End

What did you think? Was the storytelling good? Any bland moment where you thought to yourself 'Man i could be doing something better, than reading this shit'. Putting what you think in the reviews would help me understand and think over what I could improve on. Thanks and Cya. Bye!