"I'm late, I'm late!" I repeated to myself over and over again. It was the only phrase in my head.

"I can’t be late! How can I be late?!" "This cannot be happening..."

I could barely speak. Because of being sprinting, my not very athletic legs no longer put up with the pain. My lungs were desperately looking for a way to breathe. "I can’t" I cried several times.

What a day it had been. I fell out of the bed in the morning; I ran away from school and was late for that important appointment. Also when I was cycling, a cat crossed my path and trying to avoid it, I crashed into a wall. My bike was shattered and without much thought I decided to follow my course running.

"Why didn’t I struggle more in physical education classes?"

So it was. I, who never had me interested in other things apart from my hobbies, have had many problems of all kinds.

On the athletic field, my condition was bad; I did not like sports, and just kept in shape because of the kendo club that my mother forced me to attend.

In the social sphere, I had no friends. I was always just thinking about stories of great heroes and fierce dragons. All my life I have lived in a fantasy world inside my mind. This had obviously made me not to worry about making friends or having a girlfriend.

I'm 17 and I've never kissed a girl. It's funny because I've been told I'm not bad looking, in fact some girls have even approached me to talk. But as I open my mouth and start moving my lips everything goes wrong. Is this a curse?

I'm so pathetic that my only dream is to play a MMORPG with a system of total immersion, in other words, a VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). That's what I want most in the world.

Why?

12 years ago there was a very popular movie film about people trapped in a MMORPG. By that time I was five years old and, like all children, I was very excited with it. I liked it a lot and day after day it became an obsession.

Since then I began to wait impatiently until this technology was no longer science fiction and became a reality. Every day I was reading blogs, watching the news, researching in technology magazines and all kind of stuff.

Currently much of the technology needed for a game of this type already exists. The artificial intelligence (AI) is well advanced, almost no noticeable difference when talking to a normal person and a robot or AI program. The image quality and 3D modeling are basically identical to real life.

The speed Internet we currently have is 50 GB minimum and 1000 GB maximum, plus the connection is very stable. So failures of this type are not very common.

The only problems posed by virtual reality games are that three of the five senses are quite difficult to simulate and the map, to be realistic, must be very large. To make a map for a VR game you must not only make an object look real but also configure how it feels, how it tastes and how it smells, what has made this work quite hard.

Actually there are a couple of VR games out there but no one is real enough to get me excited. Or so I thought.

The reason I'm running so desperate to avoid being late is because I may be about to fulfill my dream.

A week ago I was checking some blogs on the internet and someone mentioned something about a beta version of a new game.

"Gambling of the Gods! It's great! It is a new VRMMORPG coming out soon and the developers are looking for people to join the beta. It is very exclusive and only 200 people will enter."

Upon hearing those words it was obvious that I would feel excited.

I quickly asked if I could send the link of the official website to register.

Curiously, the response did not take more than a minute to go. Of course, the guy was as excited as I am.

When I opened the link he sent me the first thing I saw were huge letters on my computer.

"Closed Gambling of the Gods (GOTG) Beta, Best VRMMORPG to date!"

How many times have I already heard those words? An infinite number of false promises that never came to something.

However, despite having been deceived so many times, I kept reading.

"Cutting edge technology! With our improved system senses Gokan 2.1 you'll hardly notice the difference with real life! Finally we solved the eternal problem of VR games. The senses of touch taste and smell that are really hard to simulate, are finally emulated perfectly."

Attached to this information, there was a 3-minute video with a demonstration of the game.

The video showed a person who had never played a VR video game. He was a man of about 30 who looked incredibly excited about everything that he was living.

I could not do anything but get carried away by emotion. The man's face illusion was so spontaneous and different that it was impossible that he could be lying.

At the end of the video I directed my gaze to the letters that were below it.

"Participate in a very limited quota of 200 people. Applications close on Friday, April 17, 2024 at 7:00 pm"

In an act almost immediately I turned my head to the corner of my computer screen.

6:50 pm.

After an odd mixture of feelings I cried.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"10 MINUTES!"

I quickly downloaded the form and filled it as quickly as I could.

Name: Shiro Kurokawa Gender: Male

Age: 17 years. Occupation: Student.

Why do you want to play our Beta: For

all my life I've been a big fan of virtual reality,

as a child I read articles and I have always been

looking forward to this day to come. Please

let me in! It is my dream and what I love most!

"I cannot pass up this opportunity. I just can’t"

Just as I finished writing I pressed the “send” button and instantly a message appeared "Thank you for sending the form, tomorrow at 5:00 pm we will send a message to all the winners. Good luck!"

While watching the screen a sense of relief ran through my body. After a while I calmed myself down and decided to listen to some music and relax. Thus it passed the time until I fell asleep.

________________________________________________________________________________

Saturday is always a very busy day for me. In the morning I went to Spanish classes, then I went to flute classes and finally spent all the afternoon reading doujinshis and playing video games.

Throughout the day I was very quiet without thinking about the answer of the enrollment, but when it was nearly 5 p.m. everything changed.

My heart beat faster, my hands were sweating and my legs were shaking.

"I’m so pathetic for being so excited over something like this."

I checked my watch; it was 4:59 pm.

I was very afraid. I feared that when the clock put the five nothing happened. I was afraid my dream fell apart again. I was afraid that once again I could not be able to do the only thing that will give me bliss.

As I thought about all this my clock vibrated telling me I had a message.

It can’t be, really would it be possible?

I raised my arm slowly; do not know if it was because of the suspense or because the nerves were shaking my arm so that I could not move well.

"You have a message from: Unknown"

"Open message" I said with a hasty and uneasy voice.

A small light came on my watch. This emitted a screen sized to read messages without much effort.

"Adventurer Congratulations! You have been chosen to participate in the closed beta of GOTG Gambling of th..."

I didn’t even read the rest. I had seen what mattered and it was enough.

The truth is that I didn’t know how to react. Should I’ve jumped of happiness? Or maybe laughed?

I only fell to the floor and then stared at the ceiling of my room. I pinched myself a few times to make sure that what I just read was not a dream. And when I thought I was already convinced, I pinched myself a couple of times more just to confirm.

It was amazing that something so miraculous happened. To me, who had never had any luck at all.

But none of that would be worth if I don’t arrive on time.

I kept running as fast as I never ran in my life.

I saw the clock and realized it was impossible, I could not reach. Not if I kept walking.

At that time I decided to raise my hand along the road waiting for a good Samaritan to take me there.

As luck was on my side, an elderly couple coming out of the grocery store where I stopped to wait for a car asked me if I needed to get somewhere.

"Yes sir, I need to be in the Tokyo Big Sight in 4 minutes. Could you please take me?"

"Tokyo Big Sight"

I knew that the request was a little crazy but it was the only way.

"I understand if you don’t want it is a little long."

"Do not underestimate me brat! We’ll arrive in 3 minutes. Let's go! "

My eyes filled with hope again. "Thank you!" I told the grandfather as I got into the car.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" The car moved to one side.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" The car moved to the other.

This guy is even better driving than me on racing games! He was a grandpa well used to drive, really impressed me.

Indeed, as he said, in three minutes we arrived, I could not believe it.

"Haha long time didn’t run like this!"

His wife just laughed carelessly. What a beautiful couple.

"Thanks Grandpa," I replied. I wished them a good trip and got off the car speeding to arrive.

When I finished up those huge steps a man dressed very formally asked me the e-mail showing that I had been accepted.

Actually I found it very strange that there were so many security men in suits and dark glasses. They seemed like some kind of spies of the movies or some secret service guys.

Also the place was surrounded by a very strong security. The atmosphere was different.

I've been here many times for all kind of activities but this was the first time it felt this way.

The excitement of the people felt, but it was overshadowed by an atmosphere of seriousness.

Although very different from what I had imagined the whole week, I ignored this strange feeling and the excitement of what was happening was great enough to make me don’t really care about it.

I showed him the e-mail with my cell phone at the man in front of me.

He, in a very serious tone, told me to go and look for the section that was assigned to me.

The mail said that we were going to be separated into 10 sections of 10 people because of the order. Below that was my number, 9.

I went to the place and it looked extremely different from the other times I had come. Everything was dark and the atmosphere was very off.

While watching with a look a little confusing the place I looked for my section.

"Nine ... Nine ..." I said softly.

Because it was late, everyone was already in their rooms. I finally found the place where I should have being a while ago, and entered in a hurry.

"Sorry for being late!" I exclaimed loudly as everyone looked at me seriously.

My cheeks flushed as they all looked at me as if I were a strange creature.

Just a friendly girl told me not to worry as we had not yet begun.

I went to my place and sat.

"Okay, it's time to start."

When we hear that, we all turn our heads toward the entrance of the room.

A woman of about 27 years entered the room as she said those words.

"All of you I want to welcome to the GOTG program, the first MMORPG using a system of total immersion. This is a very ambitious project that our company has been working hard in recent years. We really hope you enjoy it.

Now I will proceed to explain all you have to do before and after playing. How to play will be explained within the game."

We were all pretty excited. So we listened to the guiding instructions carefully.

"The first thing you will do is put this special clothing. It must be light clothing so that the machine has no problem taking your height and other details on the computer to generate a body designed according to your characteristics. Also because what we are testing is an RPG, clothing bears a resemblance to the clothing worn by your characters when you start a new game. Change your clothes in this locker right here and then I’ll indicate you the second step.

When she said this, she proceeded to deliver our clothes and went to the lockers.

It was a fairly large room because there were some dressers with lockers for our belongings and also several special beds connected to computers to play.

"Wow, the clothes really look like the ones you start in these games." It was kind of a robe like those of hospitals but the cloth looked worn, also your butt wasn’t exposing. It gave this effect of really old prisoner clothing.

After I changed myself I quickly went to the bed where there were only five men in the room. The other 5 missing were the women that were still changing. No wonder, women always take longer. It reminds me of my mom.

My mom ... I hope she won’t notice that I ran away from school because if she does, she’ll surely take all my games.

I feel a little bit bad about lying to my mother, but this is the opportunity of my life. I can’t waste it.

For now let’s enjoy the game. If I’m gonna be grounded after this, let’s make it worth it.

"I'm ready" Said the last girl.

"Well now comes step two. I'll give you these special watches that are going to measure your heart pulse while playing. With this we can monitor you in case something happens. When playing, your virtual bodies will also have these watches and with them you can access the menu of the game and all its features. It also has a speaker that will explain everything you need to know in the game. "

The bracelets had a pretty cool design. They were white with some blue details and projected a screen with our information. After we put them on our wrists the woman continued.

"The third step is what comes just before the end of the game and after it finishes. One hour before the beta ends we’ll be warning you every 15 minutes how much time you have. Finally you will be advised when 5 and 1 minutes are missing. After you finish your game you will proceed to change and fill out a questionnaire about the experience."

Well, one more step and I can try the game.

"The fourth and final step is more an advice than anything else. Don’t die."

When she said that we were all a bit frightened by the tone in which she said it.

"Because of being such a real experience, your death could confuse your brain and cause some sort of trauma. Please prioritize your life above everything else." She concluded.

"Okay, now if you are ready. Please lie down and put on the virtual reality helmet. You will feel a weird tingle but it's normal. Stay calm and do not move. Good luck guys! You’ll need it..."

"Did she just say we’ll need good luck? Or so I seemed to listen. I think I'm being influenced by everything she said. I'll be fine; I just need to not die. "

I putted on my helmet and everything that happened afterwards was a completely new experience for me. I listened as they closed the bed; it was like a coffin. Then I heard all kinds of things.

"We are ready!" was the first. It was followed by the sound of a machine turning on and then an energy generating machine starting to work.

Then I felt as if my body was slowly disappearing. I was a bit scared because it was very rare. It was different to just put a virtual reality helmet and start playing.

When nothing could be rarer, I opened my eyes and saw a type of white portal that was taking me somewhere. In addition I felt as if I didn’t have a physical form, as if I was floating in space. Then I felt like if the parts of my body started to gather slowly and woke up in a bed.

I finally made it.

Hey guys! This is the corrected version of chapter 1. I know this sould have been out sooner but i've been doing tests so it was impossible for me. Actually I haven't finished exams but I hope that chapter 2 is ready for the next sunday. Thank you guys for your support and I promise everything will get better from now on. Thank you again!