Michael PoV

My legs are trembling from the excitement as the countdown on the screen is slowly going down.

’02:46:33’

“I can’t wait anymore!”

While I’m focused on the screen I hear footsteps behind me.

“You know that sitting in front of the computer staring like a zombie won’t make time go faster, don’t you?”

My little brother is standing next to the door of my room.

I turn around and see the smirk on his face, I’m sure he’s enjoying my desperation.

“I have been waiting for more than two years for this day!”

He looks at me and sighs.

“Then waiting a couple of hours should not be that hard”

I stand from the chair in front of the computer and throw myself in the bed.

My little brother sits in front of my computer and starts browsing through the internet.

I hear the clicks from the mouse and the typing on the keyboard. Suddenly a video starts playing on the screen.

“What is your wildest dream?”

I turn around and watch the screen, a beautiful woman stands on the peak of a mountain while a small dragon flies around her.

“Grand Dream Online is the place where you can make that dream a reality, a brand new world full of possibilities and adventures”

The dragon becomes bigger and the woman hops in its back, seconds later the creature flies through the skies while the woman keeps talking.

My little brother turns to me, a smile on his face.

As I look at his expression, I know he is as desperate as me to start playing.

“I wonder how the game works”

In his voice I can hear the excitement.

“I wish the company had shown more information”

I stare at the ceiling, thinking about the hours I spent looking for details about the game, for some reason the company didn’t explain anything about it, you can only find some short films played by famous actors publicizing GDO.

The creator said in most of the interviews that the game will change the world, considering his previous work, many fans hold high expectatives, including me.

Robert Wallace introduced the first VRMMO to the industry fifteen years ago, it was a hit, even though the hardware wasn’t well received, as it was only a couple of screens attached to a headgear. He wasn’t satisfied, so for the last twelve years he’s been working on GDO.

With GDO he introduced a new hardware, a headgear that puts you in trance and sends the information directly to your brain, allowing the game to reproduce the five senses as if it was the real world, at least that is what Mr. Wallace said.

“Are you listening to me?”

I look at Gabriel, I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t listen to him.

“Sorry little bro, I wasn’t paying attention”

He glares at me, then he sighs.

“Never mind, it’s clear that you didn’t sleep waiting for the game”

Now that he mentions it, I was up all night reading about the game, chatting with some friends about the possibilities from this new technology.

“And I’m sure you won’t be sleeping for a couple of days just to play the game”

I start laughing, clearly he knows me, I’m sure I will get too involved in the game and won’t notice the time.

My little brother turns around and keeps browsing through the net.

As I hear him typing something on the keyboard while I stare at the ceiling, my mind starts to drift, my eyes feel heavy… am I falling asleep? I have to be strong.

I yawn. I think I hear Gabriel laughing.

My eyes close by themselves, that’s it, I have no willpower.

Sara PoV

“I can’t believe that GDO ran out of stock”

I’m chatting with a blonde girl with blue eyes through webcam, she’s my best friend Lucy.

“Apparently the company only distributed 100.000 copies for the first week”

I’m frustrated, you can hear in my voice the lack of energy.

“I don’t get it, there are at least a million people on the waitlist for the game, why would the company put a limited quantity on sale?”

Lucy sounds as frustrated as me, we both have been waiting to play for months.

“I heard that they are trying to control the number of players logging in the first week, they will sell 100.000 copies per week”

My friend remains silent for a while, looks like she’s checking something on the net.

“At least we are on the waitlist for next week”

She says trying to sound positive, but she isn’t very persuasive.

I start remembering about what happened a couple of days ago, we went to the store the day they put the game on sale, when we arrived there were thousands of people camping outside to get the game, we realized that there wasn’t a chance of getting it there.

“Damn Michael”

My voice sounds irritated while I mutter his name.

“Why are you cursing Michael?”

Lucy sounds curious, she wasn’t supposed to hear that.

“Didn’t you see him that day in the store?”

Michael is the person I hate the most from my class, even though he’s a lazy bastard somehow always manages to get the top score on the exams, while I work really hard and end up in second place. It’s been like that since middle school.

“I don’t remember seeing him there”

She looks like she’s trying to remember.

“He was the first in line, I thought you saw him, that’s why I didn’t mention it earlier”

Lucy smiles, then looks like she thought something funny, but doesn’t say a word.

I wait for a while, until my patience runs out.

“What?”

“You must really like him to see him among all those people”

My face distorts at the mere thought, meanwhile my so called friend laughs really hard.

“Hahaha.. you… you… hahaha… you should see your face hahaha”

I try to compose myself, I take a deep breath and then look at her. I remain silent, Lucy keeps laughing until she notices the silence.

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

She stares at me with puppy like eyes.

“It’s just so fun to tease you”

I try to smile, for some reason she just doesn’t understand my hate towards him.

“Could you explain to me why is it that you hate him that much?”

I think for a few seconds how to explain, when I’m about to answer her, someone knocks on the door to my room.

“Wait a minute”

I close the chat windows and then turn around.

“Come in”

My father enters my room with a box on his hands.

“Excuse me, were you busy?”

I stare at the box on his hands then at his smiling face.

“I was just chatting with Lucy”

“I see”

He remains silent and looks at me with a face full of expectation, he’s always like that, he wants me to ask about the box.

“Dad, what is that in your hands?”

His eyes shine, he coughs for a second as if he was preparing to give a speech.

“This my little sunshine…”

I’m no longer a little kid dad, but I don’t say it, if I interrupt him now this will take a lot longer.

“These last few days you’ve been looking really sad, it pains my heart to see you like that, so I asked your mother what happened”

He stops for a second to think about what to say next.

My eyes start shining, I think I know what he has there.

“She told me about this game you wanted and how it was out of stock, so I contacted a few people I know and got it for you.”

A huge smile appears on my face.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t capable of getting two so you could play with your friend..”

My mind stopped listening after the ‘I got it for you’.

I jump out of my seat and take the box from his hands. I put it on the table and unpack the headgear.

My father looks at me silent while I examine the contents.

I’m so focused looking at the manual that I forget about my father standing there.

He coughs, then I turn around, he looks really pleased with himself.

I hug him really hard, I’m so lucky to have such a caring father.

“I’m glad you’re happy sweetie”

“You’re the best dad ever”

I can’t seem to get rid of the smile on my face.

“You deserve it, I will leave you with your game now”

He walks to the door.

“Don’t forget to eat, I know you can lose yourself when focused on something.”

Then he gets out of my room and closes the door.

I run to my computer and write a message to Lucy, then I open GDO homepage.

’01:18:15’

Looks like I don’t have enough time to get ready.

Gabriel PoV

I’m in my brother’s room, for a while I have been playing around in his computer.

I take a look at him, he’s sleeping, maybe I should wake him up.

I open GDO homepage and take a look at the countdown.

’00:22:58’

This could be fun.

“Brother, wake up”

He remains asleep.

“Hey bro, it’s time to eat”

He’s drooling, I need to hold back my laughter, he looks really funny at this moment.

“GDO already started”

Suddenly his eyes open, he gets up from the bed really fast and looks at me.

“How long did I sleep?”

I.. must.. not laugh. I control myself and look at him with a serious expression on my face.

“You were asleep for almost ten hours, you missed GDO opening you know”

His face loses color, he looks like someone who just received the news about not getting into college.

Is he going to cry?

I start laughing really hard.

He looks at me confused.

I turn around and show him the countdown in the screen, while I keep laughing.

His expression goes from despair to confusion, then happiness and finally he seems angry.

“DAMMIT GABRIEL”

For some weird reason he’s obsessed with being one of the first players to login in the games.

I remember the one time he had to accompany grandma shopping, just at the same time a game he wanted to play went online.

He went crazy, when he came back he didn’t enter that game, he just stood there in front of his computer reading what other people said about the experience.

‘It’s spoiled’ he said that time, and never played the game.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU”

Looks like it’s my cue to get out of here, I get up from the chair and dash to exit.

When I’m outside I turn around and look at him.

“You should get ready, eat something, go to the bath, you’re lucky I was nice enough to wake you up.”

He glares at me.

I walk away from there and enter my room.

I already had something to eat, I even took a bath.

In my room I go towards the headgear sitting on my bed.

There are only a couple of minutes left for the game to go online.

I put the headgear on, it’s really light and comfortable.

Then I lie down on the bed and turn it on.

There is a screen on the headgear.

‘10’

A number appears in front of me.

‘9’

‘8’

I begin to feel sleepy.

‘7’

‘6’

My eyes close.

“5”

A female voice keeps the countdown going.

“4”

“3”

Then I no longer notice the voice, all goes white.

Seconds later I open my eyes.

There is a beautiful blonde woman in front of me.

The room is completely white, I look around and the whiteness surrounds me from all sides, it doesn’t seem to have an end.

“Welcome to Grand Dream Online”

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Thanks for reading, if you find any mistakes, have comments or suggestions, please let me know.

English isn't my main language so it's possible that you will find a lot of problems with my writing, i apologize and hope you will enjoy the story.