System Shock
You put on the VR glasses over your eyes and boot the game on your computer, a fine electronic snow filled the screen as the disks of the HD spun. As the sensorial emulators kicked in it was like being surrounded by ethereal mist, you brace yourself for the expected snap of tiny sparks to crackle over your skin. But instead, there was only an irking warmth that spread through your body as the thickening mist began to swirl faster with every heartbeat.
Had something gone wrong? Something didn’t feel right. After so many hours spent on the game, anything out of the norm was suspicious. Was the VR gear broken? Were they updating the game, or worse, were the servers down? Maybe the computer was having a malfunction.
Dozens of horror stories about malfunctions of the VR gear causing brain damage came to your mind, you had always dismissed those as paranoia and fear mongering, but now you are not so sure anymore. You had to log off!
Frantically trying to stand to reach the computer, you felt the floor dropped away. As gently as falling through a cloud, you descent into the artificial forever of the virtual reality.
However, even as it started, your fall came to a strangely relaxing halt and the electronic snow faded away to leave you in a strange, badly textured room. The software struggled to make sense of the corrupted code, senses spiraling out of control, mixing and conflicting until the safety overrides took over and made you numb.
“Piece of crap,” you muttered, as your character’s gear took a moment to load. Your armor and weapons were all there, but things were not right, their textures were corrupted, names glitched.
Feeling nervous, you decided it was better to log off at once, you couldn’t even imagine what would you do if all your gear had been permanently corrupted by this bug, it took you way too long to grind for that gear. You could feel something strange on that dungeon, nothing immediately evident, but the place felt weird. Everything seemed normal, but not exactly normal at the same time, and that was scaring the hell out of you.
With a simple gesture, you brought down the menu and reached for the logoff button to no result.
Written by ashley-natter on 14 July 2019