Discover your true self. Live your dreams. Chase your fantasies. Let go of reality… RESTART.

These words played over and over in her head as she slid into bed, unable to contain her excitement. Tonight was the night.

Normally, nighttime was simply another dull moment of her existence. School was easy for her; a poor excuse of a time waster that society deemed necessary despite technology having taken over much of the world. Like most everyone in today's society, she learned more online than she'd ever learned while in a classroom.

Her social life was practically nonexistent, as she just couldn't seem to fit in with her peers. Other girls were more interested in chatting about designer clothes and makeup or flirting with guys at the school, while she would personally rather read books, watch anime, or play games in her free time.

The guys on the other hand, some of whom shared similar interests with her, were especially interested in being more than just friends, a fact she loathed. She wasn’t about that sort of thing, why couldn’t they understand?

Finally, her family life was well ... shit. Both of her parents grew up in the early 2000s and had met, fallen in love, which culminated in her existence the year 2030. Right on the cusp of what was simply referred to as the singularity. The singularity changed life for her parents. The singularity changed a lot of things.

In fact, most of the world changed. A little over a year after the singularity, everything had become automated. Planes, trains, automobiles: all automated. Wished to purchase something? Simply place the order using technology, and within 24 hours, you had it. The human in the loop for almost everything, excluding further technological developments, had become automated.

Within five years, nearly the entire world had embraced technology. Almost every form of business was conducted online, in virtual worlds. The world, which had been engaged in countless struggles before the singularity both political and physical, plus another war looming in the middle east, now knew a time of peace.

The biggest reason? The harbinger which had become the downfall of her family life? A full-on immersive world, accessible from every home in the world, known as the DreamScape. It was only a matter of time before her parents succumbed to the sirens call that was the DreamScape. Thanks to the DreamScape, she had been sorely neglected by her parents.

In the DreamScape, people could live their entire life without any of the hazards of actually, you know, living. You could go bungee jumping or skydiving and it would feel real. However, if something went wrong, there were no consequences and you walked away perfectly fine. Who wouldn’t want to live such a risk-free and easy-going life?

As such, her parents only ever logged out in order to eat, drink, and deal with the pesky biological functions that bodies still had to put up with. Science was amazing, but humans were still, well, human. Hell, most of the time they logged out, they didn’t acknowledge her. It was like she was simply another being living in the same house. She silently wondered if they had a new daughter in the DreamScape. One they actually interacted with.

Because of their blatant disregard for her, she had taken full control of her own life. Well, at least, as much control as she could until she turned 18. Until then, until the time she could finally leave her home, every day had almost the same routine. She would wake up, make herself a meal, take the local transportation to her school. She was pretty sure the only reason school was still around was so that adults wouldn’t have to deal with their children during the day.

Most people worked in the DreamScape anyways, but for some reason, society hadn't deemed it appropriate for children and teenagers to stop going to school. If she had to guess, the adults were simply making their children go through the same pointless routines they had to when they were that age. This is how she interpreted lessons she was able to glean from her history classes.

After school, she would head home, grab a quick snack, perhaps a Mt. Dew and some chips, and head upstairs. Her room was sparse, with a decent gaming computer on one side, and a massive bookshelf on the other. Though, sadly, most of the book space was empty. Paper books were hard to come by. But one day, she wanted her shelf to be full of them.

While she could easily log into the DreamScape, and accomplish all of her hobbies there, she tried her best to avoid it. Nothing could beat the feeling of an actual book in her hand, as she leafed through pages filled so lovingly with the worlds of the authors who wrote them. And even though those worlds could feel real in the DreamScape, in her mind they weren’t the same experience that the books gave her.

Her other hobbies: anime, and gaming could also be accomplished in the DreamScape, but she generally avoided the game world. Had her parents not been completely addicted to it, she would probably have been more willing to give it a go. She had a slight grudge against that particular technology and blamed it for her lack of family life.

Ironically, that same technology would probably give her a social life, and even more. But, those were the big questions she did her best to avoid pondering.

Tonight though was different. For as much as she loathed the idea of utilizing her DreamScape module, she was going to do just that. The reason; a game that she couldn’t play any other way. The hottest, most anticipated game of not only 2047, but probably the hottest game to drop since, well, ever. Sure, Pokemon Alpha and Omega had been grand, and Halo Infinite XX was probably her favorite FPS of all time, but this new game made those pale in comparison.

The game was called RESTART, and everything about it fascinated her. Part of her fascination was based on early reviews and beta testers. RESTART took immersion to a whole new level. Players claimed that the game literally felt real and that while playing, they actually forgot they were in a virtual world.

There was a second reason for her to be excited about RESTART as well. Because of her rampant attempts at avoiding the DreamScape, she had little to no income. Of course, that wasn’t as important in 2047, as her family received a basic living stipend from the government. Because most of the world dealt predominately in the virtual world, they had moved the majority of the economy into the virtual space. As such, it had been simple for the government to establish a basic real-world stipend.

'Basic' being the main point of the stipend. Every human at the age of 12 was equipped with an ID bracelet. This bracelet contained all of the information on the wearer, and could not be removed save by government officials, or in extreme cases, medical personnel. The bracelet was made of a smart synthetic material that fits snug and would grow and flex as the wearer did.

The Cuff, as many nicknamed the bracelets, were used in the real world for everyday needs. Purchases were routed through it, and the living stipend was automatically uploaded to it weekly via wireless frequencies. The amount placed on her cuff by the government was just enough to purchase simple sustainment powder, known as 'Soylent Green'; a powder which was mass produced provided the nutrients needed for the human body and tasted absolutely horrid. She was sure human flesh probably tasted better than Soylent Green. Tolerance for the taste varied person to person.

However, that could all change, and soon, thanks to RESTART. Nearly every form of entertainment in the DreamScape had ways to create virtual currency. This currency could be uploaded instantly into the user's cuff and use for real-world purchases. However, most people chose to keep their e-money in the virtual world in order to buy virtual necessities.

She, however, wanted the real world currency so that not only could she eat food other than Soylent Green, but most importantly, so she could purchase new books. The ones she currently owned were torn and tattered. The only reason she had been able to read many of the stories she enjoyed in physical form was courtesy of the local government library.

It was one thing to read books borrowed from a library. It was another to own them, to be able to call them your own and to cherish them. Ever since she had been little, even before her parents began to neglect her, she had dreamed about having a large, full, bookshelf. Her own little library. The few books she did own, were remnants from before her parents were consumed by the DreamScape.

The final reason she was excited about RESTART, was one that she partially hated about herself, was that this particular game offered exactly what her favorite genre of writing hinted at. Full on immersion in a virtual, fantasy, RPG setting. She had devoured practically every book in the LitRPG genre and calling her obsessed with it wasn’t really a stretch.

As such, even though she had an irrational or rational grudge against the technology, she would put that aside to live out her own portal type fantasy. Besides, what was the worst that could happen?

Because quite honestly, even in the stories where the players were trapped in the game forever, that didn’t seem too bad, considering the alternative. No, she had finally made the decision, that she would put aside her feelings with the DreamScape and give the technology a chance. After all, she couldn’t really blame the DreamScape for having crap parents.

In fact, shitty, negligent parents seemed to be a trope in some of the LitRPG novels she read. The thought brought an ironic smirk as she laid her head carefully down inside the poorly, ironic named VR device that was commonplace in every household. The DreamScape machine had one of those strange neck pillows she had seen people use on airplanes, though it had space for the entire head, not just the neck.

The inside of the DreamMachine was cushioned with a type of memory gel, and once the activation words were spoken, the machine pulsed gel lightly over her skin. The gel contained countless nanobots and would pulse electrical waves through the system into the user, and back, creating a full neural link. At that time, the user would be transported instantly from their frail human body into the DreamScape of their choice.

She had already ensured her DreamMachine was set to load her into RESTART upon activation, and she could feel her nerves rising again as she tried to steady her breath. She took in one last deep breath and closed her eyes, activating the machine with two words. Whoever had made the dream machine had a twisted sense of humor.

“Dream On”