Sitting next to a girl as she cried her eyes out. Ah, back to a world I was familiar with, although usually the girl wasn't dying nor did she consider me a figment of her imagination. But hey there is a first for everything. Seriously though, I needed to to get this girl to believe I was real, or at least believe enough to give me some sought of worship so I could leave this fucking desert and get to a more populated place. As such I sat my character down next to her and tried talking to her, gaining her trust and what not, this time in a much less grandiose manner. Sad thing was her crying was putting me off my conversation game as such the best I could muster for a conversation starter was a pathetic.

"So, do you like jazz?" Now, I didn't know it at this moment but that seemingly unimportant and throwaway line would lead to my eventual captivity within the confines of the internet. In hindsight I am reminded of an article I read about the game, it was released by the developers in the upcoming days to the release.

The article written in some tweet or another and stated that the game, upon release, was expected have bugs as it was the first of its kind in this genre. As such the developers advised us as proactive players to inform the development team of said inconsistencies. One of which I assumed that I had just found.

For the NPC, in response to my enquiry started to without provocation, spasm uncontrollably, kicking up a furious cloud of dust and sand that forced me to instinctively fly away. When the storm had eventually gone down the girl was in the same position she was when I had first approached, sobbing softly to herself.

The only difference being both the fact that the number in the top-left of my screen which I would come to refer to as Prayer Points now read not as a value of zero but instead at 1,285, 733 and that my vision was clogged up with an excess of pop-ups the likes of which a veteran porn user would have if they were ignorant of antivirus software.

My jaw fucking dropped, figuratively of course. I had a vast array of achievements and options now available to me. Which, when all compiled into a list looked something like this:

- Achievement, Getting Started! (Rewarded for gaining over 100 scores in worship.)

-Achievement, On My Way. (Rewarded for gaining over 1000 scores in worship.)

-Achievement, True divine. (Rewarded for gaining over 100,000 scores in worship.)

-Achievement, Miracle. (Gain over 1,000,000 scores in worship from one act.)

-Achievement, World leader. (Have the most worship points either saved or invested into your character out of anyone in the world.)

- Alert, you now have access to the divine manifestation feature. You may now take physical form.

- Alert, You may now select your class features.

-Alert, you have over 1,000,000 in unspent points.

I think it was then that I logged out of the game. I awakened in my room sweating like a roasted pig and my heart pounding like a tribal drum. I could hear the flow of blood in my ears and it was almost deafening. I had to move. I stood and began to pace, rubbing the back of my neck and trying to focus on my breathing as I had before entering the game. An exercise I had learnt a long time ago.

Maybe it was just a visual glitch. I dashed to my computer and turned the thing on, smashing my keyboard like a petulant child as I furiously typed the URL for my accounts analytics. Grabbing either side of the monitor and shaking it slightly as the page loaded with the speed of fucking molasses. Shitty pc! Fuck, I had forgone uploading the thing, instead, investing in the full dive equipment.

The page loaded, its mocking purple background colour staring at me across the field, daring me, I scrolled down looking at all the stats, Hours played, no. Achievements, come on this isn't what I want. Worship Score, fuck yes, finally. I clicked on the sub-heading faster and more aggressively than I had anything else in my life, It popped open a drop-down menu.

1,285,733 WP.

I flopped back onto the floor of my room and closed my eyes. Now at this point, you may be wondering as to my reaction. Why oh why was I so panicked and emotional about a high score in a game. Well, you see in the hype that lead up to this game being released, people went a little crazy and eventually, the real world price of a worship point became around one-tenth of a US dollar. I had just made approximately $128,573.30 this was more money than I had ever held before in my life. I had just found a source of free money.

"Fuck me, this doesn't happen in the real world." Then I began to laugh, a small giggle at first, to try and steady my nerves but it would eventually turn into a torrent of cackles so loud that I'm amazed someone didn't tap on my floor again.

Why was I sad? I had found a glitch to make me super fucking powerful. Wasn't this what I wanted?! My god, please say no younger self, it will make thing so much fucking easier, you don't want this, just say it, please. Repeat after me I don't want this.

"Fuck yeah I want this!" The naive piece of shit.

I stood up and ran back to my bed, shovelling yet more food into my mouth and downing an entire bottle of water that was next to my bed. The water was stale but I didn't care or even notice. My mind was filled with other possibilities, like what if someone found my money maker, my beautiful dehydrated, jazz-loving, goldmine. Or what if the glitch was a one-time thing and would never happen again. Or what if the developers fixed it?! I had never logged into a game faster.

After logging back on finding myself once again next to my water deprived goddess I asked her the fateful words again, reverently almost like a prayer. A prayer from a god to a mortal woman, to a piece of code.

"Do you like jazz?" I whispered it lovingly into her ear. And as her eyes glazed over and her muscles seized a tear was brought to my eye. This was my shot at real power. And I wasn't going to let it go, no matter how much I would grow to regret it.