Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Rise and Shine

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Nngh…”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“C’mon, not yet…”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Okay, okay, fine already…!”

Beep. Beep. Be-

The last set of shrill beeps was cut off by a loud, dull THUD, as the insistent alarm was greeted by a very awake palm slamming against it, launching it clear off of the nightstand it sat on. It’s collapse was unceremonious, becoming lost amongst a pile of discarded clothes nearby.

She groggily pushed herself upright out from under the sheets, eyes half-lidded as she looked around the room, light peeking through the slits in her blinds, disturbing the tranquility of her otherwise pitch-black room.

Her name was Monica Furdel, a 3^rd year undergraduate student at her local university, a part time employee at a nearby flower shop, and, though she may never be aware of the fact, the unknowing protagonist of the story that would be beginning today.

She finally found her legs under her, managing to shakily stand up and stretch her stiff limbs as she still struggled to fully wake up.

Digging the alarm clock she’d so bravely slain just a moment earlier out of the pile it now called home, she managed to remind herself while she’d woken herself up so early on an unassuming Monday morning, crisp and early at 7am sharp.

Today was the first day of summer, and after packing her previous two years too full of classes to ever have a moment free, she’d finally given herself the deserved mercy of a summer break, completely free of anything but the occasional shift at her job some days.

But if that had been all it was, she’d have gladly slept in till the sun had came and gone again, ignoring its unwelcome visitations like the horrid little creature of the night she was.

No, today was the start of much more than a summer vacation.

Today was the start of a summer vacation, and something else entirely.

She ventured bravely forth, procuring a hearty breakfast (of some very poorly scrambled eggs which had mostly burned themselves to the pan), a refreshing shower (where she remembered to actually wash her mess of hair for once), and a fine set of clothes to adorn her (most of which she’d actually cleaned!)

And with her most pressing issues taken care of, and her day started off well and truly, she sat herself in her living room.

Sat there with her was a rather large box, and another, smaller case sat atop of it, both covered in some very flashy logos and branding all over them.

The larger of the two had been responsible for single-handedly executing her recent paychecks, trying not to think of the hefty price tag it had tacked onto it as she started pulling it free of the packaging.

It was a game console, one of the newest on the market, sporting the sleek lines, incomprehensible edges, and needlessly clunky shape, all with an incredibly drab monotone color scheme that told you at a glance that it really was the pinnacle of modern consumer electronic design.

She owned plenty of older consoles, and had worn them all down from use over the years of love she gave them, but she’d not bought a new console for years at this point. Newer games never really took her interest, just from the cost of buying into a new generation of machine to run them.

But this one was different, and had finally gotten her to cave in where no others had, for a very simple reason.

After she’d set up the console itself, she pulled out the other item using most of the packaging space in the massive box.

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A blocky headset, with straps to secure it nice and tightly in place against your head, and a visor piece that looked a bit like a power brick, with a pair of screens inside it over where each eye would be.

This was a state-of-the-art console that advertised it’s main selling point as full immersion virtual reality technology, several magnitudes past what other similar items had been able to achieve in the past.

Most of the other students she’d had classes with had talked excitedly about it over the last year, the promises of “the most immersive VR experience” the company had made all apparently having been completely true, to most everyone’s surprise.

Monica fit the headset over her head, adjusting the straps until it fit perfectly snug over her head, the visor aligned just right as she ran through the initial testing and alignment processes it needed.

The full range of things it accounted for was enough to put her last few doubts about the purchase to rest instantly.

The test rooms it had displayed for her felt completely real, and when she ran her hands over the sample materials, they all felt so incredibly real.

Grass still damp from morning dew.

Pavement hot under an afternoon sun.

Snow that melted through your fingers.

Sand that smelled like the ocean waves.

None of it was real, but she’d felt it all as she spun around the sample areas while staying mostly motionless on her real, well-worn couch.

It was… already worth what she’d paid, she decided.

But after spending entirely too long in the test program, she finally convinced herself to remove the headset again, bursting back to her cozy apartment.

After all, this wasn’t what she’d bought it for.

Her gaze fell to the other case she’d purchased alongside it.

It was the case for a game, bearing the same branding as the console itself did, with a name she was very familiar with hearing every single day, in excited voices all around her.

Shadowed Land Argathy.

It was, to her understanding, the first game made from the ground up completely for this new console, a massive scale VR MMORPG designed to be almost uncannily immersive, to the point of feeling like being reborn in another world.

It had been in a beta test period for several months now, but today was the first day of the official public launch of the game, and she’d been persuaded to finally check what all the excitement for it had been.

And with the console itself having shattered her doubts entirely already, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling ear to ear as she tore the wrapping away, desperately pushing the cartridge into the console and reaffixing the headset.

She’d cleared aaaaaaaaaaaaall summer, just for this.

It was time to spoil herself a bit.

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