“This is so fucking weird…” He said.

The last thing he remembered was getting into the machine as instructed and slowly dozing off after he put the headgear on. He wasn’t expecting much, just a normal VR experience with some new peripherals, but this? This was totally unexpected.

He was standing on a white room of around 7mt wide and long with no particular characteristic, only white, and that, plus the fact that his whole body reacted to his movements and that he was able to feel things brought this experience closer to reality than a simple headset and some cool controllers.

While he was looking at his hands as a baby who had just discovered that he can see himself on a mirror, a door materialized on one of the clean white walls, breaking the monotony of the room.

The sudden appearance of stimuli brought the boy back to his senses and made him look towards the door.

The door slowly opened and revealed a woman with her black hair tightly packed in a ponytail and wearing a two piece suit, high heels, a pair of rectangular black glasses and a smile bright enough to bring even more light to the already well lit room.

As soon as she walked into the room, she began talking.

“Welcome, Mr. Anton Levi, to the Deep Dream Reality Program, a joint venture between NASA and Bluelight Corporation.” She said. “My name is Alexis and I will be your guide throughout the first step of this demonstration.”

At this point, a normal person in a normal situation would have greeted such a pretty woman back and probably engaged in a normal conversation, but this wasn’t a normal situation and Anton knew it, he knew that what was standing right in front of him wasn’t a person, but a computer generated AI assistant.

And computer assistants had never looked better.

A week prior to him walking into the best VR experience he had ever lived, Anton’s homeroom teacher had called him and other classmates to his office. He had told them that, due to their good performance in school, they had earned a visit to the Bluelight Corporation Headquarters, where they were going to be able to see and try the newest technologies the company had developed.

“Consider this a reward for your all efforts.” He had said with a smile on his face, and for Anton, a tech geek, this was the best reward he could dream about.

“How does this all work?” he said, looking around the white room and walking around Alexis, who was standing in front of him, in order to see if she was a 3D object or only a hologram.

It may have been a simple white room with only one AI, but the fact that he was able to move freely, without the restrain of cables and batteries or heavy helmets on his head, and as easily as he walked around his room, had left him awestricken.

Alexis turned around to look at him and talked. No matter how you looked at her, she looked exactly as a real human would, and she even looked a little uncomfortable due to Anton looking at her so much.

“You and your classmates are currently inside the latest prototypes of the DDRM’s, or Deep Dream Reality Machines. In short terms, these machines work by putting you in a deep REM cycle, projecting a virtual reality directly into your mind though the VR helmet and giving control of the character model to the conscious mind.” Said Alexis.

“So, in other words, I’m sleeping and this is a lucid dream where the environment and world rules are controlled by the machine.” Completed Anton, he had learned from his sister to complete people’s sentences, even if this bothered them.

“Put in very simple terms, you are correct.”

“Cool!” He said and stopped walking around Alexis in circles. “So, What now?”

The virtual assistant waved her hand and three rectangles detached themselves from the wall behind her and hovered over and stopped next to her.

“As part of the demonstration, we have prepared three different types of games for you to try.”

“What? So it’s not just some demonstration thingies in this white room?”

“Of course not, we created three very different games that we thought you and your friends could find interesting, but to ensure that you enjoy and immerse yourself to the fullest, you will only be able to choose one of the three that will last for the entire duration of this demonstration.” She said and touched the first screen; on it appeared the picture of a seemingly endless grass field. “This first one is for a game called “Land of Lords”, a demo for an RPG game.

He looked closely at the screen, and even though he hadn’t noticed it before, he could now see that the grass seemed to be moving and that the clouds run through the sky. It wasn’t just a picture, it was a video.

Alexis touched the second screen and a ship floating in space, surrounded by a belt of asteroids appeared on its surface. The asteroids and the ships slowly drifted through space.

“This one is a joint project between NASA and our team of developers to try and recreate as much of the known universe as possible. It is called ‘Silent Space’.” She touched the third screen, after which a decrepit house illuminated by the light from a full moon and some flickering lights appeared. “And last but not least, we created a horror game called ‘Darkest Hour’.”

“So,” said Anton pointing at each screen in succession. “I can choose between Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror.”

“Indeed.”

“Then I’ll go for fantasy.” He said, immediately.

“Are you sure? Don’t you want to think about it a little more?”

“No, there’s no need.” He said. “I’m really bad with horror games and driving things in videogames and real life gives me nausea, so yeah, the only viable option for me is fantasy.”

Alexis smiled and waved her hand, sending the screens that depicted ‘Silent Space’ and ‘Darkest Hour’ back to the wall, where they turned back to a pristine white colour and disappeared.

“Good choice sir.” Said Alexis. “Before we start, I need to leave some things clear. Due to the fact that my server only works as a medium between the game’s server and the outside’s consoles, I won’t be able to communicate with you like we are talking right now, the game’s server’s act as its own isolated entity without further outside input and are controlled by very complex AI’s. But you don’t have to worry, as you will still be able to send me messages through the dedicated messaging tab on the user menu, which is the only way of communicating with the outside world”

“User Menu?”

“Yes, if you look on the lower right corner of your field of view, you should be able to locate a faint blue dot. If you concentrate in said dot, you will open the user menu.”

Anton moved his eyes around and soon found the small dot Alexis was talking about. He tried concentrating and as soon as he thought of the menu, a window popped up in front of his eyes.

“Wow…” he said in a low voice. “Just like in a game…”

“You may have noticed that the information provided right now is limited only to your personal information, the options tab and the messaging screens, but as soon as you step into the game, the menu will provide you with contextual information relevant to your needs, including, but not limited to, stats screen, inventory and ability screen.” Said Alexis.

The fact that she could talk for so long without needing to stop to breath was starting to unnerve Anton a little bit, but nonetheless, exactly how Alexis had said, the information on his screen was very simple, reduced only to his personal info and three different tabs.

Player

Messages

Options

Name: Anton Levi.

Age: 17

Close [X]

“You can interact with the menu by using it as a touch screen, voice commands or using mental commands, but I would recommend using the latter as it is faster and easier to use.”

Anton found his way to the messaging tab and saw that his only available contact was Alexis.

“So, if for whatever reason I need to talk to you, I only press you name, right?”

“Yes, indeed, that will prompt the message recording menu, where you will be able to record a voice message to send me.” She said. “With that said I don’t have anything more to add, do you have anything else to ask before stepping into the game?”

“I don’t think so.” Said Anton.

His heart was beating so fast on his chest with excitement that he could almost feel it if he put his hand against it, even in this simulation.

“Well sir.” Said Alexis. “As soon as you start, you will have an hour to enjoy your game. You will also find that you have some abilities that you can try that were given to you based on the personality test you took when entering the building.”

Anton smirked and remembered the almost nonsensical test that they all had to take when they arrived earlier in the morning.

“Ok? Let’s hope you didn’t give me some useless stuff.” He said, laughing.

Alexis smiled once again and pointed to the screen.

“If you were so kind as to touch the screen sir.”

Anton walked up to the screen and stretched his arm expecting, up to the last second, that he was going to suddenly wake up and realize that this had been all a silly dream that existed only inside his head.

He touched the screen, which felt as cold to his touch as a window that is constantly beaten by wind, and a bright light surrounded him.

He closed his eyes and raised his left arm to try and protect them from the light to no avail; the light was spreading inside his eyes erasing it all, as if everything was going back to white, even himself.

He could hear the voice of Alexis faintly in the distance, as if he was moving further away from the white room.

“I hope you enjoy you playtime.” He heard her say. He couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the AI, always living inside a white, boring room.

And suddenly, the light stopped shining on his face and he could open his eyes again.

The intense contrast between the blue sky and emerald grass field in front of him left him speechless.

He found himself standing in beautiful field, next to a dense forest and under a clear blue sky. The red sun was shining high up in the sky.

He thought to himself, ‘I hoped I had more than an hour to enjoy this.’ He thought.

He didn’t know he was going to end up regretting saying that.