Private The Worst Day

[Tsukiji]

Life as he knew it had ended.

Once a smiling man with a bright future, when he looked at his reflection now he knew he would never smile again. Fault lines in the glass tattered the image of his face, already repugnant in his eyes. Blood still dripped from his fist, glass still cluttered the floor. The pain was nothing next to the overwhelming emptiness. In that void, hellfire. That was what it felt like to be Chad, forever.

Blood trailed along the carpet behind him as he navigated the house, familiar but foreign, smacking into walls and corners like a blind man. His fingers fumbled along the drywall for the door to his room, but he failed to find it. His eyes still burned from all the tears, but infinitely less hot than when their saltiness touched his broken, cracked, blistered skin. Where had it all gone wrong?

You saved a mother and a child from that fire. You're a hero, Chad. No one will care about the burn scars.

But they did. The thankfulness of the mother lasted all of a day before she faded into obscurity, no longer even a shopper at the store. The child was too young to remember his face- a blessing, perhaps, for the boy- but everyone else, who saw him on a daily or weekly basis, did not weigh him on merit for what he had done.

Only how he presented.

He can't come to work like that. That's grotesque. He'll frighten customers away.

"This was my life," Chad whispered, his voice wavering. "I was almost happy."

His hands shook as he fumbled with the pill bottle. The sound of its contents shuffling around reverberated theough the room as he stared down at the task, laboring to find the courage to see it through. "We were almost happy."

We could still be happy. Put down the bottle. There is always another way.

"There is no other way. My face will never be the same. I will never be the same."

You haven't even looked.

.............................................................................................................................................

The cursor flashed on the screen while his hands lingered over the keyboard, hesitant. What would he find, searching the internet? What sort of thing was there to be found, to change the stars for someone who had lost everything?

"I want to start over fresh." he typed into the search bar.

Hundreds of debt solutions and technical school ads flashed across the screen. He frowned.

"New life."

Newborn children, churches, various religious propaganda.

Chad toggled the safe search off, and as he began to type, it struck him.

"I want to be someone else."

@Aerial

 

[Aerial]

..

Eyes fluttered closed and consciousness drifted into a peaceful land of-

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Bright colors penetrated her eyelids as her computer turned into a raging strobe light. It was a hell worse than a simple alarm clock. Groggy eyes opened, the blinking lights blurred by her tired eyes. "Five more minutes." she grumbled to her empty apartment. Her weary body desperately yearned for a reprieve. However, that insistent beeping refused to be ignored.

Wait. Beeping? Suddenly, the woman jumped out of her warm, comfortable bed and onto unsteady feet. The cold floor caused her toes to complain but she swatted away their melodramatic concerns of frostbite. Within moments, she leaned over her keyboard to peer closer at the text on the monitor. Eyes narrowed as they tried to recognize the cloudy text. Fumbling to find her glasses, clumsy fingers managed to finally provide clarity to her poor vision.

An alert on the screen flashed. Keywords had been detected: "new life", "start over", and "someone else". A definitely not legal program was opened and already tracing the IP address-

Bingo.

Once her gear was connected and her headset firmly in place, she started a very special stream. It was under an anonymous username but would appear in the person's browser, safe search now toggled off, listed with their unique IP address as the subject of the stream. Face covered by a simple black mask and beanie pulled down to her eyes, Gigi watched the chatbox with her makeshift costume (hopefully) concealing her identity.

Would the user panic and shut down their computer or would their curiosity win? Only time could tell. Until then, she leaned back in her chair and waited.

@Darian​

 

[Tsukiji]

Words populated on the screen with a search bar that lacked the padlock symbol that meant the site was trusted and secure. These things had been protocol well back into the early 2000s to prevent people from navigating to sites that could compromise their PC and by extension, their entire network's security, but of late, the authorities that controlled cyberspace used them to keep people from looking for certain dangerous materials as well. What he found there was just such a material, governed in a different region of the world by a group called VRSA.

He'd heard the name Terrasphere in passing some four years ago, but it was shrouded in obscurity. The news hadn't touched on it for more than a few minutes, and British Broadcasting was even more quiet than American media when it came to things that should not be discussed. What he was reading now- yes, this was something neither country would want people to talk or ask questions about.

A few flashes across the screen came before a chat window opened, and a masked individual sat looking back at him in a box. Thankfully, he never spent money on things like webcams or microphones because he had little interest in streaming or games, but something told him that was irrelevant. He wanted to know more

Especially now that there was someone who was obviously dying to divulge information on the other side of the screen.

"What is all of this?" he typed.

@Aerial

 

[Aerial]

..

"What is all of this?"

Holy shit! It worked! Now she just needed... She just needed... Fuck. The woman should have prepared a script besides the ones used to set this all up. Triumph crumbled into despair.

No, she wouldn't panic. She'd go with her usual method: figure it out on the go and pray she doesn't fuck it up.

Voice filter activated, Gigi stared directly at her camera. Unblinking eyes appeared calm despite the turmoil (and cries for sleep) rampining within. "You wish to start a new life, yes? I'm sure results have mentioned Terrasphere." The line between question and statement had blurred.

"I can help you access a new world." she paused, fingers thrumming on her desk, "I must ask, though, what prices are you willing to pay?" The robotic voice remained monotonous. "Would you be okay with the possibility that you could never be able to return to your current life?"

@Darian​

 

[Tsukiji]

While he waited for the person to finish typing, Chad scrolled down the page further. Accounts of disappearances, unexplained, and people logging into a world and then having torturous nightmares, even clinically documented psychosis greeted him. "More than just a game" scrawled in blood on a wall, pictures from a murder/suicide with almost zero context, and a heavily redacted police report. Despite the initial horror, he felt himself becoming entranced.

Could such a thing truly be real?

You wish to start a new life, yes?

At the very least, this person had seen the buzzwords he'd typed in his search. With the safe filters off, anyone could easily do that. He'd learned as much from corporate when dealing with company internet, and how to avoid undesirables breaching their network. He knew what he was doing was dangerous. He knew how little sense he was making; but at the end of the day, if it took a bullet to the head and he could shed his skin and take on a new life, he would pull the trigger himself.

I'm sure results have mentioned Terrasphere.

"Yes."

I can help you access a new world.

There was a pause. He began to type, but the voice prompted him to delete the text before it formed a coherent thought.

I must ask, though, what prices are you willing to pay? Would you be okay with the possibility that you could never be able to return to your current life?

"I have no life to return to."

There was no easier way to ask this faceless entity to give him the red pill. He had nothing to look back on. His life had gone up in flames, his face, the one thing he had that everyone adored was scarred horribly, irreversibly, and even the people he had trusted to have his back no longer did.

"I just want to feel alive again."

@Aerial

 

[Aerial]

..

Brown eyes slowly digested the dismal messages. A question intruded her thoughts, "are you okay?", but she bit her tongue. Delving into personal issues was not why she was here. But maybe she should start if it meant less people playing that horrid game. Alas, she was no trained therapist.

No words would change this individual's mind. At least, nothing she could say. Frustration urged her to scream but what would that do? Absolutely nothing. The person behind those words would find the QR code for Terrasphere one way or another. It'd be best if she provided him one.

The idea betrayed her goals. However, whispers of shady individuals stalking the forums for prey forced her to acknowledge she might be sending someone to their doom (a thought which caused her stomach to churn).

Rumors suggested fake QR codes were being given - sometimes even purchased through transaction when the dark web found an opportunity. It wasn't just scams, though. Allegedly, nefarious and deadly schemes were utilizing these fake QR codes.

"I will send you the code," she paused, "But keep in mind that each death experienced in Terrasphere presents the opportunity to lock you into the game or end both your physical and in-game lives." The original Terrasphere caused user interfaces to lock after three deaths. Whether that was the case in this new variant had yet to be personally verified.

She attached the code that unlocked Terrasphere into a file sent through the chat box. "Be careful. Don't throw your life away." With her last warning, she cut the connections.

Her monitor flicked back to its everyday screen as she rested her head on her keyboard. Dammit. She'd have to brainstorm a new method to dissuade new players. Maybe if she exaggerated the details? Unfortunately, lying wasn't her strong suit. All she could do, for now, was helplessly warm curious minds of the dangers that lurked within the game.

@Darian​

 

[Tsukiji]

Don't throw your life away.

"Too late for that," he said as the download appeared on his screen, and as he opened the attached file and appended the QR code, it sought access to a virtual peripheral. He remembered a device that had belonged to his fiancé, left behind in obscurity after some degree of inattentiveness and disinterest. They had persisted in the relationship fine for some time after that- some two years, he recalled.

At least with the mask on, he could start fresh. It didn't matter that it was hers. It didn't matter how he got it. If the words of the masked being were to be believed, none of it mattered. This began his dive into a new world, a new life. The dangers could be damned. There was no threat on his life. He'd been thinking about ending that anyway, for months now.

Herein came an opportunity to save him the effort, if not perhaps the grief. But who would grieve him now? After he had pushed the entire world away? Those who loved him no longer even kept in contact. The people who he wanted to care, would not.

Chad slid the device over his head and lay himself down on the bed, surrounded by a room filled with depression clutter and damage wrought by his own rage. The blood on his hand had not yet congealed, and so, when he opened the window for character creation, he could see the wound. It would be remembered by the system, it seemed. And the scar on his face?

Yes, that was who he was. Why change it? He could be anyone, but when he first stepped into this world, he was himself. His flesh would serve as a reminder of what he left behind. He would build upon that to create his new life.

"A name?"

He looked absently at the prompt, as if it had stunned him with a question he did not expect. He would not use his own for this purpose, that made sense. It would obfuscate him a bit more, in the event people came looking. He closed his eyes and entered the first thing that came to mind.

"Call me Darian."