When Otis awoke, his head throbbed, and a cold sweat plastered his clothing to his skin. He gasped and attempted to sit up, but found that leather straps held his chest to what appeared to be a stretcher.

“Don’t try to sit up Otis, just listen to me.” A familiar voice spoke quietly, making Otis’s head throb. Ebrima spoke again. “I’m sorry you had to get here like this, but the director decided you might cause trouble if we brought you here in a more, let’s say traditional way.”

“Where am I?” Otis spoke softly, clenching his eyes as another wave of pain rushed through his head. “And why does my head hurt so much.”

“That’ll be the gas still taking effect, nasty stuff, but it does the trick. It shouldn’t kill you, I think.” Otis was not in the mood for E’s humour, and he shifted in his binds, trying to rest his head in a more comfortable position.

“Why am I in binds? I’m not going to run away.”

“I know Otis, but the people higher up aren’t so sure. Thing is, your surgery is scheduled for 2 o’clock.”

“What time is it now?”

“The middle of the night, well, closer to one, but the point is, your surgery is in an hour, and they want to make sure that you don’t bail on us last minute.”

Otis had so many questions, and his throbbing head did not help him to decide which ones he wanted to be answered.

“Surgery. You said surgery. I wasn’t told about any kind of surgery.”

“Don’t worry about the surgery, it’s a small procedure, they’re just implanting chips in various parts of your body, which will allow the integration of your body and mind into the digital world. You’ll be given some local anaesthetic, but we can’t put you under for fear the medicine will affect your mind in a way that would be detrimental or possibly fatal to the integration process.” E stood up, and Otis could see him now, his face rose above Otis, blocking a part of the bright lights that shone above Otis, illuminating his body.

“Good luck Otis, I mean it.”

“Th-thank you E.” In this bright light, Otis noticed the striking brown colour of Ebrima’s eyes. Ebrima began to slowly lower his face towards Otis, before stopping.

“Don’t trust the director, he’s not who he says he is.”

“What? What do you mean?” Otis was met with a blank expression.

“Just wait here Otis, they’ll come and get you in a little while.” With that, E turned and walked away from Otis. After a few seconds, Otis heard a door open, then shut. Left alone in the silence, Otis’s thoughts drifted, naturally, to his current predicament. All of a sudden, he felt a tinge of regret at what he had done.

After a few minutes, Otis’s thoughts once again began to drift, this time towards a topic he had not thought about in many months, his brother.

“What would he think of me now?” Otis asked himself internally. Otis’s brother had been adamant that we needed to preserve reality, rather than abandoning it for virtual spaces. Otis was so enthralled in his thoughts he didn’t notice the newcomers in the room.

“Hey, Otis, It’s me, Layla.” Otis recognised the familiar voice and turned his head to look at the people who had entered the room. Layla was accompanied by two doctors and a man in a suit, who stood with his hands crossed in front of him in a serious manner. Otis guessed that the man was a security guard.

“We’re going to take you into the operating room, is that okay?” Before Otis could answer, the doctors accompanying Layla began to wheel Otis’s stretcher.

After a few seconds, Otis was rolled through a doorframe, and into a new room. This room was even more brightly lit, and Otis could hear beeping from one side of the room. Although his view of the ceiling limited his understanding of his surroundings, he was sure this was a surgery room.

Once, Otis had seen a surgery. His brother’s, to be specific. It had failed. This had made Otis’s faith in medicine very small and had influenced his habit of not going to the doctor when he should have.

“Okay Otis, so we’re going to begin prepping the injection points.” Layla’s said as Otis felt one of the doctors, gloves covering his hands, roll up the left leg of the sweatpants he was still wearing, and rub a cool cream on the side of his calf muscle. He did the same to Otis’s right leg, before walking to Otis’s left, and repeating the process, this time on his wrists.

“Bring him into an upright position.” Muttered the doctor to one of his colleagues. The man on the receiving end of the order hurried away, and a few moments later, Otis’s stretcher came to life. The stretcher began to tilt forwards, until Otis was in an upright position, held against the stretcher by the straps binding him.

“Otis, you’re going to feel a little something in the place where your head meets your neck. Don’t panic.”

“Oh-okay,” Otis muttered as he heard a sliding noise, and a rush of cool air hit the part of his neck Layla had mentioned. He heard a buzzing noise, and he felt a small amount of hair shaved from the bottom of his hair. Moments later, the same cream applied to the rest of his body was slathered onto the back of his neck. The coolness of the cream, however, was soon contrasted by a sharp sting as he felt something enter the back of his neck. Otis grunted, and his neck throbbed once before the coolness returned. The procedure was much less noticeable when performed on his various appendages, and when it was done, the doctor wiped off the cream with a paper towel and lowered Otis’s stretcher back into a horizontal position.

“Is it done?” Otis asked cautiously, twisting his neck to look at Layla.

“It sure is Otis, we’re going to unclip you now,” Layla said, and a moment later, Otis felt the pressure on his limbs and chest released. He sat up slowly and inspected his surroundings. In one corner of the small room, Otis found himself in was a computer. On this computer, Otis could see what appeared to be his vital signs. He looked down but did not see any devices that would be capable of collecting the data displayed on the computer’s monitor. Otis concluded that the small chips inserted under his skin were responsible for the gathering of the data.

“Please follow me,” Layla said, motioning for Otis to stand up. He did so, and they walked into another room. In the middle of this room, Otis made out large aluminium box, about twice Otis’s height, and about his width.

“This is the pod your body will lie in for about a week while your brain is integrated into the game.”

Otis walked around the pod, inspecting it. In the top of the pod, there was a glass pane. Under this glass, Otis made out a padded area that stretched for around two thirds the length of the pod. Multiple lights blinked from inside the pod, steadily switching on or off every few seconds.

“Layla, listen, I need to ask you something.” Otis tried to ask Layla before he was interrupted by a loud beep, that resounded through the air.

“Otis, that’s the signal. It’s time.”

“No, Layla, see– “

“There’s no time Otis, come with me.” Emily led Otis to the other side of the pod. She pressed a button, and the box began to rumble. Then, the padded area Otis had seen earlier slid out of the pod in the form of a tray. Emily motioned for Otis to lie down on the tray.

“Go ahead Otis, when you lie down, the machine will automatically connect you, and you’ll be out in a matter of seconds.”

Otis complied, first sitting down on the tray, then rotating himself, and lying down. Before he let his head touch the indent in the padding intended for it, Otis looked around and wished reality a silent goodbye.

As soon as his head made contact with the bedding beneath him, wires seemed to snake out from nowhere, sticking magnetically to various parts of Otis’s body. Otis winced and shifted once more before his vision began to swim, and the steady beeping that surrounded him was replaced by white noise.

In a matter of seconds, as Layla had promised, Otis’s reality was replaced by darkness. Otis tried to shake his head, or blink his eyes, but found he had no physical existence. Then, all of a sudden, a dialogue box cut through the darkness, bringing Otis’s attention to it.

LOGGED INTO SHELL WITH USER ID A-0001.

Immediately after reading this, Otis’s vision came alive with multiple buttons.

[ENTER DELTA ONLINE] [VIEW EXTERNAL CAMERA] [SUPPORT] [NEWS]

Otis focused his consciousness on the button reading ‘view external camera’ and a loading bar appeared. This bar quickly filled and was replaced by a small window. After a few moments, the image in the window blinked to life and Otis could see what appeared to be the outside of his pod. The pod seemed to be being wheeled through a hallway.

Otis willed his consciousness to return to the home screen, and it complied. Otis was just about to press, if you could call it that, the button titled ‘support’, but he was interrupted by something. No, someone. Otis turned his vision 180 degrees and saw a figure striding towards him. It was a woman. Her brown hair was tied up in a bun, but strands of hair fell forward over her face. She wore a beautiful yellow robe, which contrasted her dark skin.

“Hello, player A-0001. My name is Jeneba, but you can call me Jay. I am the AI helper designed to help new permanent players of Delta Online during their integration process.”

“Thank you,” Otis said, before he jumped back in shock, or would have if he had a body. His voice was robotic, and without accent or flow.

“I know, it is very confusing, but you will choose a voice in the character creation stage.” Said Jay, obviously reading Otis’s thoughts.

“Can I enter the game?” Otis asked in his robotic voice, eager to get started.

“You can enter when you’re ready, and I’ll be there.”

Otis needed no further encouragement, he turned and willed himself to enter the game. Immediately, he felt his consciousness once again transported to another place, another world. This time Otis’s consciousness was situated in front of a grey character model. To the left of this model, A customization bar shone, and to the right, Jay.

“Welcome to the character creation menu. Here is where you will, well, create your character. Start by choosing a gender.”

Otis chose male, and the player model shimmered but did not change significantly.

“Okay, male it is. Now choose your race.”

Otis looked at the new popup. He was presented with a range of options this time, rather than just male, female, or custom as he had for gender.

HUMAN, ELF, ORC, DWARF.

Otis paused for a second. Previously, he had always played Elf, but he felt he may as well try to maintain at least a little bit of similarity between his previous life and the one he was about to enter. He selected human and turned to Jay.

“Human, I see, so you’re not one for change. Your character model should update now.”

Sure enough, his character model had been replaced by a man, tall, and with exceedingly pale skin. His hair was short and raggedly cut. He was not entirely clean shaven, and Otis could make out some stubble, that lined his chin. Soon after, Otis was presented with a sleuth of options. Otis played around with his character, adjusted the hair a little, and lowered his hair. On Otis’s previous body, a line of scars had decorated his upper left arm, less than positive reminders of a time past. On this body though, Otis placed a tattoo, one of a pitch-black dove.

When Otis had adjusted his character to his liking, he stepped back. His character was slightly taller than average, around 6 feet, Otis guessed. His muscles were toned, but not exceedingly so. His hair was pitch black, and medium length. It fell around his head in waves, partially covering his eyes, which on a whim, Otis had made a piercing purple-pink colour. Otis had customized his starting clothes to match, with a black base, and purple stitching.

“Alright. I’m done.” Otis said finally, turning again to Jay, who was watching him blankly. When Otis fixed his eyes on her, she came back to life and asked Otis the question he had been expecting.

“And what would you name your character?”

“That’s easy,” Otis answered. “Ash.”