A hooded figure slouched out of a convenience store with a shopping bag, the store’s bright lights spilling out onto an otherwise grey and dreary evening. They stopped, rummaging through the bag, to pull out an energy drink.

A bus drove past, spraying water onto the curb. He watched it leave. On the back was the advertising for the newest VR console. How long had it been? He wondered as he looked up to the grey clouds. A year? No, more like one and a half. A year and a half since he’d last been in a game. A year and a half since he’d been fired.

He began walking.

‘Why’ he asked himself, except he didn’t know what he was asking about. Why was he fired? Why did it matter? Why was he living like this? Why live at all? What did this world hold for him anymore? If only he could escape, go to another world... if only.

Another bus passed by, splashing water onto the curb. He watched the people standing inside and made a decision.

Then, taking out his phone he purchased a single item.

Half a year later…

Kade looked at the sleek exterior of the gaming pod, the flawless polished chrome out of place in his messy apartment. His face was reflected back at him. A head with brown eyes and short flat brown hair looked back. It wasn’t a remarkable face, just ordinary, or at least what he considered ordinary. He wasn’t tall, or short. He didn’t have much muscle, but wasn’t skinny either. Worse than ordinary, he was average. His mother used to say that she loved his eyes, but the ones looking back at him now just looked tired.

He looked around his bedroom. Clothes hid the floor and a dirty sock rested next to a bookshelf full of action figures. The only place in the room that was free was around his VR gaming console, a little nest surrounded by empty chip packets.

He glanced towards the user manual on his bed, wondering if there was anything he needed to touch up on. He’d skimmed it briefly. Most of it was just the usual warnings for VR games. Things like players not having to go to the toilet in-game and still needing sleep and stuff like that. Since not much changed between different capsules, he hadn’t paid much attention.

The only thing differing the manual from any other was the front cover. His gaze rested upon it for a moment, the name of the newest VR game printed in an elegant gold font:

New Earth

The game and the capsule were supposedly the accumulation of decades of cutting-edge neuroscience and it was the first virtual full dive technology that promised a full replication of all the senses.

Working on the principle of deep sleep, the technology would allow for longer game time immersion, while offering a time dilation of up to four times. To further increase player game time, the capsule also had an inbuilt nutrition delivery system. A simple set of nutrition pods, which would sustain the immersed player.

Kade ran a hand through his hair, admiring the capsule. He had pre-ordered it nearly a half a year ago on that overcast day, but due to demand, it had only arrived yesterday. The game had already been online nearly two weeks now, so two months in game. Professional gamers and game companies had had the chance to ordered capsules from a limited stock of 1000 capsules, before they were available to the public. But he wasn’t a professional gamer, at least not anymore.

Stripping down to his boxers he opened the capsule and lay down, the gel lining embracing him. As he pulled the lid closed, he glanced around his room last time, his eyes landing on a picture of his late parents. Then the lid closed and everything went black.

Black, that was it. No sight, no sound, no feeling. Kade had expected to feel claustrophobia at being trapped in the small space of the game capsule, but it took him a moment to realise that he was no longer in the silver pod. His surroundings were vast, there wasn’t any other word for it. Despite not being able to see he could feel the seemingly endless space. He tried raising a hand to look at it, then realised that he couldn’t. Not because it was pitch black, but because he didn’t have one. Trying to look down in panic he realised that it was just as impossible. He completely lacked a body.

He realised that he probably should have read through the manual a bit better, as he mentally licking his lips. He used his non-existent voice box to call out into the void, “HELLO?” The word seemed to stretch on, before finally being lost in the distance. Or maybe he hadn’t actually called out and it was all still in his mind. Either way, there was no reply.

However, as if his words had triggered something, golden flecks of light began to converge from nothingness, like thousands of fireflies coming together in single purpose. Together they formed into large ostentatious gold writing, spelling out two words:

New Earth

Then, black began to fade into grey and finally white, as the writing burst apart like fireworks, shooting stars in an endless void.

When he checked again, he found himself in a familiar space; a stereotypical white room. It was better known as ‘The Waiting Room’ by players. VR Game companies called it the character creation room.

Kade felt something bubbling up that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He knew the feeling. It was excitement. The blank room! This room marked the beginning of every new adventure.

Kade was excited. Despite having left the professional stage for nearly two years now he felt his gamer’s blood boil. There was nothing more exciting for him than creating a new character. The developers of the game had disclosed very little to the public, simply announcing that the game would be a one of a kind, a new frontier for mankind, hence the name; New Earth.

avoided most of the posted videos by players and had forced himself not to look at the game forums. He wanted to keep everything a surprise. But from what little he did watch, from programmers to vloggers and everybody else with a capsule nobody had posted a video of this room. It was a total mystery.

The pristine white wall brought up an unwanted memory, of marketing and PR managers speaking to him in game, telling him what choices to make and how to style his character. He shoved it down.

A polite cough from behind him drew him out of his reverie, causing Kade to whirl around, startled. He had not expected anyone else to be here. Briefly he wondered if he could hold a conversation with another person. It had been far too long since his last conversation, not that he minded.

As he turned, in some dim part of his mind, he registered that he had a body to turn with.

“Welcome” said a female voice and he saw a secretary staring back at him. “I believe you find this form comfortable… yes?”.

Kade nodded. He’d never been good with the no-nonsense business types. Dressed in a from fitting black business suit and skirt, she certainly looked the part. The glasses on her nose only added to the look. Generally, he avoided those types. They were good for keeping things on track, but that was about it.

Azrael raised his gaze to look into her eyes. They were blue, framed by a professional blond bob. Just because he hadn’t spoken to anyone in… forever, didn’t mean he didn’t mean he was going do back down.

The secretary cleared her throat once again to catch his attention, before conjuring a small coffee table and two generic chairs. It seemed she acted as down to business as she looked.

He sat down and she handed him a touchpad. He looked at it. It was the terms and conditions.

Frankly, the next few minutes were his least favourite part in starting new games; the terms and conditions. He just wanted to start on his character. With a flick of his finger he scrolled down to the bottom, where he signed. The game companies always had the same things.

The secretary raised an eyebrow looking at him. He shrugged. Whether he read it or not didn’t change the fact that he had to sign it if he wanted to play.

Accepting back the touchpad she swiped her hand across the coffee table and a naked holographic figure floated in front of him.

He froze. It was a perfect model of him. He checked the figure’s left eyebrow, and sure enough there was a small scar, from when he had tripped and fallen as a ten-year-old.

The secretary began to speak. He hadn’t even been sure that she’d been capable of speech. It was so humanlike that he suspected the secretary was a real person, instead of an AI, but it wouldn’t make sense to hire people for an automated job.

She answered his silent question.

“The capsule provides us with a full body scan for better character handling and monitoring of player vitals” she stated.

He looked at her and shivered. It was creepy how she could tell what he was thinking. “Your mind is linked to the device” she said “It was in the terms and conditions.”

He could have face palmed. Of course, a device which worked based of his thoughts could read them. It was still creepy though. Actually, so was a lady staring at his naked body, even if he wasn’t in it. He looked back to the avatar himself, or at least his floating avatar and wondered how much he could change.

“Twenty percent”, she stated, and he turned to glare at her. People should mind their own business and she really needed to stop reading his mind. He decided to just ignore her and started to play around with the settings, trying on different looks.

Once again, he affirmed that his features were the epitome of ordinary. Flat brown hair, brown eyes and skin that was neither tanned, nor pale, always seemingly stuck in between. Then there was his height. He wasn’t tall, or short, just average.

He returned to fiddling with his avatar, trying to change that. A small bar appeared as he did so, showing him when he was exceeding the 20%.

In the end he got so annoyed trying to work with the percentages that he asked the secretary to pull his character from his first VR game. His character was pulled up and conformed to the twenty percent limit. He tweaked a few things that didn’t seem to fit.

In the end he settled with an avatar of a slightly taller height of around one eighty, with tanned skin.

The tweaking had given his game character a well-defined jaw, making him look extremely intimidating when scowling, but which softened when he smiled. His hair, unchanged, was wavy raven black and tied back (his natural hair was flat as could be, and didn’t look good any other way than short).

Re-checking his character he sighed, he really wanted to add more muscle to his character, but he had needed to sacrifice that for the little extra height. Glancing at his bar he noticed that it still had 1% left, so he edited his eye colour to gold. Not the metallic sort of gold, but the fiery molten gold of a burning sunset.

It was an edgy character if he’d ever seen one, but he’d gone through a phase back then. He might have been able to change it more, but the character was as much him as the real him; a trusty partner in all of his games.

Satisfied, he stepped back to admire his work. He turned to the secretary.

“Please choose a username name” she said bored, without even looking up from her clipboard.

“As in the name I’ll use in-game?”

“No, the username is strictly for you’re the registration of your account. In game you may choose call yourself whatever you wish.

“K.Evans”

“Accepted, now please choose a character name” she said still bored. He couldn’t really blame her though. To be fair he had spent nearly an hour to design his character (and that was before he’d asked her to call up his old character).

“Cain” he said, before raising his hand forestalling her “No, wait”.

He scratched his head. Cain had been the name he had used previously, during his rise in the gaming world. It meant ‘trouble’ in old English, something that others claimed he caused, but rather seemed to find him more often than he sought it.

He wasn’t searching for trouble this time. This was his chance to start over.

“Azrael” he said finally. It seemed fitting. He wasn’t religious, but Azrael was a biblical figure known as the archangel of death. Cain was dead, no more, leaving behind only Azrael. However he would rise from the ashes again like a phoenix. It was time for a new him.

Accepting his name, the secretary nodded, handing him her clipboard with various bits of information on it. To him it looked almost like a questionnaire. He quickly scanned over the page. He’d learnt his lesson about not reading documents.

At the top of the page, under the name AZRAEL were a series of questions, while the bottom was covered with a partially completed map. Going back to the top he read the questions.

The entire thing was only asking for his consent for various in game permissions. These included pain, adult content and explicit violence amongst other things.

He knew that a few of those things raised a lot of controversy amongst the media and online communities. However, many of the game makers defended themselves that the people who played the games with those settings had consented of their own volition. Other argued that it was better in-game than out. He really didn’t care.

Lastly, he checked the map at the bottom. Written above it in bold letters were the words

“Known World”.

He looked over the map. A grid was overlayed over two rings of mountains that encompassed the vast lands on the map. The map showed lakes, forests and mountains with great detail, as if he was looking down from a high altitude. The rest of the map, which Azrael assumed were still undiscovered was hidden in a grey mist. This included everything outside the outer ring and a fair bit between the inner and outer ring of mountains.

He was impressed. While the map was currently small, comparative to earth, it was still a phenomenal size considering it had only been explored in two months in-game time. For a moment Azrael hesitated in choosing his starting location, before selecting a box in the furthest North-western corner. His reasoning was that most players would have chosen to start somewhere near the center. And if there was one thing Azrael wanted to avoid it was people.

People couldn’t be trusted, not anymore, not after what had happened to him. That was also one of the reasons why he played games. People always wanted something from you, or hid their true intentions behind pretty words, NPCs didn’t. NPCs issued quests and you either completed it, or you didn’t. You could gain favour, or lose it, but it was black and white. An NPC with high favourability was unlikely to stab you in the back.

He handed back the clipboard and the secretary gave it a quick glance before looking up at him.

“Welcome Azrael” she said, as Azrael stepped back into the gaming world once again.

“Starting submersion” a robotic voice stated, as he slipped out of consciousness.

“Commencing neural configurations.”

Briefly Azrael wondered if he should’ve read the terms and conditions more thouroughly, as the world went black for the second time that day.