Cory stroked his katana, feeling the cold steel with his small, frail hands. He was within his room, sitting on his bed. Outside, rain poured down, soaking DC in a triumphant scene. The katana in Cory's hand glowed dully, making the entire room a bit brighter. There were no lights in the closet he lived in, so the sword was now his main source of light to push back the darkness.

Becoming bored, Cory decided to go talk to the president, whom he hadn't seen since Cory had betrayed the country. He walked down the halls toward the oval office, looking down so he wouldn't make eye contact with anyone. Eventually, after a tiring walk up a flight of stairs, he arrived at the door, and cautiously knocked.

"Enter, Cory."

Cory entered, staring at the president, "how did you know?"

"I know everything, Cory."

"I'm bored, give me something to do…"

The president took a large chug of absinthe, almost choking, and stood up, motioning Cory to follow him. They slowly made their way down the hallways to the elevator, which led them into the secret presidential lab, which had created his katana glove. They made their way to the end of the room, where a large group of scientists were gathered.

"I found you guys a test subject," the president said, pushing Cory toward them.

The scientists happily took Cory and placed him to a chair, strapping him in and securing a machine on his head. The machine was large, with lots of lights and tubes coming out of it.

"Name?" one of the scientists holding a tablet asked.

"U-uh… um… It's C-cory."

"18 or older?"

Cory nodded eagerly, but the president shook his head.

"Sex?"

Cory didn't know what that word meant, the president whispered it to the scientist, who put a question mark in the field.

"Welcome to the first test of our brand new internet experience, we have recreated the internet as a virtual world, instead of usernames and passwords you'll have one ID, this will be used everywhere. Please stay calm as we inject you with 40 different chemicals.

Cory braced himself as scientists, one by one, began giving him shots. Cory began feeling numb, and very dizzy. His head felt like it was in a dream world, everything was blurring. The last image he saw before his eyes was the president laughing at his state.

Cory woke up within a field next to a large city. He looked around at the tall grass, not knowing where he was. He reached for his katana, but he wasn't wearing it anymore. Cory stood up and started stretching, the effects of the injections wearing off. He reached into his pocket, and felt something. Pulling it out, he realized it was an ID card. He was in the internet.

Cory began wandering toward the city. As he went along, he admired the appearance of everything. It looked so natural, maybe even more natural than real life. The wind blew through the grass, causing pollen caught on the blades to fly with the wind, mystifying Cory. It appeared to be summer, different from real life, where it was spring.

As he neared the city, he realized it was a large metropolis, but no one was in it. The city wasn't abandoned, it just wasn't populated. Cory walked into the city, looking around for something to do. Billboards everywhere carried ads for pills and other scams, filling Cory with dread as he remembered the growth pills.

Cory entered a building on his right, labeled 'information.' As he entered, he saw large boards telling him about the place he was in.

"Welcome to the world wide web. This is the main metropolis of the internet, where all the most popular sites thrive. Outside of that are the smaller public sites. Far away on the north side is the private part of the internet, and the deep areas. The deep areas are guarded by specially trained guards, you won't be getting in there. Thank you for using the internet!"

Cory ran outside and began searching for his favorite website, tumblr. He eventually found it, entering. Inside, Cory found many strange beings were speaking in robot voices. These were the users who were not within the internet. Cory, being the only one within the internet, was the only human in this world.

Most of the users were complaining about stupid stuff, so Cory started to leave. He walked outside, looking up at the skyline. One building dominated the entire city, the google building. It seemed to devour all other buildings near it, making them part of it.

Cory looked around for a map, but only found stairs to a subway. As he entered, he realized that this was the search engine. He jumped onto the bullet car and entered 'otaku culture' in the keyboard. The car's visor shut, and it flew off as fast as sound, going straight to the large google building, giving him a large tablet with all the results of his search. Cory picked his favorite Japanese culture website, and was instantly transported to the building.

Everyone in the room held a katana, some had fedoras on their heads. The users were talking about how Japan was the greatest place on Earth, and how it would one day rule the world. Cory, knowing Japan no longer existed (the United States 'accidentally' destroyed Japan and took all their art and architecture to keep its culture alive), joined the discussion.

"You guys know that Japan doesn-" Cory was interrupted by a group of users dressed as the police, who erased everyone's memory and removed Cory from the site.

"You must not tell government secrets," it said, in a robot voice. They then left, leaving Cory alone again, naturally.

Meanwhile, in the real world, scientists realized they had forgotten to make a way to get him out of the internet.

"What do you mean you don't know how to do it? We need him for the project!" the president began shouting at the scientists, overreacting.

"I guess it may be possible for him to escape… if he gets to the deep part of the internet and shuts off the entire internet, but he will never figure out how to do that…"

"You must have some way of sending someone into there, right?"

"Ah, yes, we may have someone we can call up to send someone into there, but they are not human."

"Who cares? Just send the aliens in there, I don't care!"

Later, Cory began walking down the street, not knowing where to go. Half of the city was blocked off from him, due to his age. Suddenly, Cory felt as if he was being watched by someone. He turned and looked around, not seeing anyone but still feeling fear. The boy began to run for his life from an unknown enemy, accidentally running into one of the age restriction barriers.

A figure jumped from the top of a building, landing before him as a blue blur. The figure moved their cape away from themselves, revealing themselves as Xerath, the blue alien girl. She was part of a race of aliens known as the Xerath's.

"Cory, it appears you are in need once again," she said, throwing her cape behind her back.

"Yes, I am looking for a new site to go to."

"Oh, you don't wish to escape this world?"

Cory looked at her, confused, "why would I want to escape? This place is great!"

Xerath shook her head in shock, "you must go back to the real world, they need you."

Cory gave in and asked how they could get out.

"You must go to the deep area of the internet, and shut down the entire world wide web. Such a catastrophic event will bring you back to the real world, but we are unsure what will happen to you before you wake up."

"Sounds good, let's go."

"No, I will follow you but cannot accompany you in this world. Also try not to make too many stops on the way to the deep web."

Cory nodded, and Xerath jumped up, disappearing in a blue blur. Cory looked around, trying to figure out how to get to the outside of the city. He started walking down one of the streets toward the outskirts of the city. As he walked, he saw a dating site and couldn't help himself; he entered.

Inside, he found many people talking at different tables. All of them had preferences above their heads. Cory walked up to one girl who said she liked tall, rich guys. Cory realized that this was another thing he could add to his list of qualities he needs to get a girl. Cory walked over to the archive room, where he discovered Tim (the guy from Iowa) had most of the posts on the website, at least before he went to maximum security prison. Most of the girls he talked to had told him to go away, other than one who just wanted him for his money that he claimed to have.

Cory exited, realizing Tim had a better chance of getting a girl than him. He kept walking toward the edge of town, nearing the suburbs. Before he could get there, though, he ran into the ghetto of town, where all the sketchy looking sites existed. Advertisement billboards were everywhere. Most of the buildings were painted in bright colors with a black background, making them look cheap and sketchy.

Nevertheless, Cory decided to enter one site, where a real life psychic could give you a reading. Cory pulled out his ID and gave his information to the site, admitting himself into the door. He stood there, and 0.02 coins were taken from his account (about 30 dollars at this time). His mind was 'read' and he was given a fortune, "your reading wasn't clear, please donate again to get a clearer reading. Cory donated again, which yielded him the same message. Cory decided that he wasn't in the mood to get his mind read again, and moved past the ghetto into the suburbs.

The suburbs were nicer, but still bad quality. Here were mostly personal sites and blogs, boring stuff. Cory decided to hurry through this section the internet and move on the the deep area. This area was far away from the rest of the internet, surrounded by a wall of fire and many guards.

Xerath swooped down, and handed him another ID card, this one was different though.

"You'll need this to get past the guards, you can thank me later," she winked, though in a friendly way. As mentioned before, no girl likes Cory.

Cory thanked her and looked down at his new ID. This one had the letters T, O, and R at the top, with an onion symbol on the opposite side. It was a card to get past the guards, but it didn't look very useful against the firewall.

Cory continued forward to the lines of guards. They were large, blurry users. They seemed to carry some sort of gun, but Cory couldn't make out what it would do. He didn't want to find out.

Using the ID card, he was able to easily make his way past the many guards, and approached the firewall. Taking a deep breath, Cory jumped through the wall, his ID card shone with light, protecting him from the wall. Cory was in.

The deep area of the internet seemed to be below, in the large, well like structure the firewall protected. Cory climbed the stairs up the walls, going up so high he could see the city clearly. Cory looked over the fields around the city. The city was gigantic, but there was so much more area that could be covered. It seemed to go on forever.

Did Cory really want to leave this place? He could make a life here, he could live in isolation, never again having to see another human. Even after the entire world fell, he could still live here.

No. Cory had to go back. He couldn't abandon his people. Cory turned and walked to the edge of the deep well, looking down. It seemed to go on forever, larger than even the city. It seemed to be difficult to find specific sites in this area, and there didn't seem to be a way down. Cory realized he had to jump. Maybe there wasn't fall damage in this world? Who knows?

Cory jumped, not able to keep straight, and landed in one of the sites built into the side of the well. This site was a creepy site about conspiracies. Cory walked through it, occasionally reading some of the content. At the end was a strange passage: "we are all held within a computer simulation, none of this is real."

Cory thought about this, if scientists could make a computer simulation in real life, why couldn't they all be living within a computer simulation? How many simulations are there until you reach the real world? Is there even a real world? Cory fell over, he had thought too hard and now his brain was dying.

Cory recovered, turning back to the well and jumping once again into the abyss. This time, he landed in a site that claimed to have evidence of aliens. It featured many pictures of what Cory realized was him and Xerath talking at night. Someone had ignored the curfew in Washington DC.

Cory jumped again, this time falling for a straight 10 minutes, only to land once again in another site. This one claimed to be a group of people who had revived Hitler. Cory laughed as he read that they recovered an elixir of life from Satan and were able to revive him fully, planning to take over the white house in the coming years.

Jumping again, this time falling for 20 minutes, Cory landed in a site that sold a telephone that could let you talk to fourth dimensional beings. Cory bought two of them for 0.2 coins each.

Eventually, Cory found himself at the bottom of the Deep well, but noticed that it went down further if he wanted to explore more. No, he had to turn off the internet and escape this world. He walked through the sliding door at the bottom of the well, leading through 8 security checks and to a console with a single button. Cory pressed the button, bracing himself for destruction, only to find that was the button to call the elevator. Cory entered the elevator, which moved at the speed of sound, and was able to get to the top in about 1 minute.

He exited the elevator, realizing he was presented with the controls for the internet. In front of him was a large glass window that showcased the entire city and the surrounding area. The emptiness of this world was both scary and invigorating. It was as if the city called for people to come, but none came. Cory walked up to the control panel and saw the button that would turn off the internet.

Cory once again considered his options, he could still turn back and live here. He'd been to hell and back, and even to Iowa. He had experienced the worst nightmares in real life, this could be his break, his retirement. Cory closed his eyes, and pressed the button.

He opened them to find the city and everything around in in this world slowly fade away. The entire world faded to pixels in a line that slowly moved toward the tower Cory stood atop. As it came closer, Cory stared in horror. Eventually, even the tower was consumed by the push of the button.

Cory woke up to darkness. Was he dead? If he was where was he? Then Cory realized he just had his eyes shut and opened them. The scientists all looked bummed, and the president looked like he was about the kill Cory.

"You pressed the delete button, idiot!" the president said, grabbing Cory by the collar.

"O-oh s-sorry…"

"Sorry ain't good enough. I use the internet all the time instead of doing work, what am I supposed to do now?"

Cory thought about it, but couldn't think of an answer. Eventually the president calmed down, but he once again grounded Cory to his room, this time planting officers at the door. Cory polished his katana all day everyday, wondering whether he should have stayed in that world or not, and whether fate made him press the wrong button.