At a coffee shop inside the Aurora Mall, a pale man could be seen. His fingers were dancing on the table as if he was anxiously waiting for something to happen. His eyes were drifting left to right anticipating for something to come.
"One more coffee please." The man tapped the waitress beside him. This was actually the 3rd cup he was drinking as he was an hour early for their meeting time. In a short amount of time, a freshly brewed coffee was served.
He checked his watch. The time was 11:58, two minutes until their meeting time. Seeing that the woman he was about to meet still wasn't there, he started to feel sad. Maybe all women were liars.
Everything started when he caught his fiancee cheating on him the day before his wedding. He witnessed another man making love to his fiancee when he went home early from work. As Lucas was about to enter the house, he heard a moan.
"Haha. My neighbors are wild."
Lucas then turned the key and entered his house. However, he felt that something was amiss. He found his wife's blouse on the floor. He silently walked upstairs in case a burglar came into his house.
But what he saw nearly gouged his eyes out. He felt something pierce his heart. His fiancee was on top of another man. A torrid kissing scene was laid bare in front of his eyes. A few seconds later, he blacked out.
When he woke up, he was in a hospital. His fiancee was on his side, crying. She seemed to be saying something but it was as if Lucas was oblivious to everything. The scene was still vividly playing on his mind.
He looked at his hands, it was bruised and it hurt like hell. Lucas looked at his fiancee and felt anger. He clenched his fists so tight that his nails started digging on his palm. Even though he wanted to hurt the woman in front of him, he could not bring himself to.
"Just go. Don't show yourself to me ever again."
"But bu-"
"GO!"
Lucas' fiancee immediately scurried off never to be seen again. When Lucas went home, he didn't have the will to do anything. It was through the hard effort of his friends that he started to like playing Virtual Reality Games where he could do whatever he liked.
He had played a number of games at this point but there was one particular game he liked - Virtual Wars. The game was set on a city where players would have to scavenge for supply and be the last man standing.
There was a solo mode and a duo mode. At first, he only played the solo mode as he wasn't in the mood to interact with others. After half a year of playing, Lucas was already in the Top 10 of the Leader Boards. He was considered a veteran and this game and if players were to see him during a game, it would be just for a second then they wouldn't know what hit them.
Lucas' weapon of choice was the Drag99, a sniper rifle and a silenced Uzi for his sidearm. There were only a few people who could beat him that was why he enjoyed the feeling of being on top of something.
When he got bored with Solo, he decided to play on the Duo mode. The first partner he got was a woman. This woman had red hair and she was definitely the epitome of beauty if one could say so.
"Don't screw up." The red-head coldly said to Lucas.
Lucas was confident that he would never screw up so he just nodded and left the woman alone. He was used to playing alone so nothing would change if he played alone. When Lucas left, the woman was pissed as it would be hard to play with no one covering her back.
A few minutes later
A bullet just scraped through Lucas' ears. Looking for Drag99 was taking him too long a time. He needed to get one as soon as possible. Holding the Uzi on his left, he was pondering over what he could do at the moment. He was actually pinned down by three different duos.
Knowing that there was nothing he could do, he decided to at least bring one of the duos down with him. Lucas charged towards South East. Bullets were now raining upon him and few even land on his body.
As soon as his enemy entered his sight, he raised the Uzi with his right hand. With the Uzi's rate of fire of 600 bullets per minute, the air was instantly filled with bullets. As if on cue, multiple gunshots were also fired towards Lucas. By the time two out of his six enemies were killed, his health was already down to half.
However, there were no more gunshots to be heard from the other four players who were trying to kill him. Lucas thought it was strange when he heard something from his voice chat.
"Enemy down. Try not to kill yourself. And by the way, my name is Zara."
Lucas didn't know who Zara was but she was actually the third player on the Leader Boards while he was only the 9th!
"Thanks." Lucas found it awkward to reply since what he thought a burden was actually the one who saved him.
"Tango at 2 o'clock." Zara said over the voice chat.
The duo continued their game and in the end they won the round. During the game, they found that their coordination was in sync. Lucas would be a close range fighter while Zara would watch his back as a marksman.
At the end of their game, they decided to add each other as friends and continued to play a few more games. All of which they won easily. After a few hours of playing, Lucas decided to log off. He was already sleepy as it was already 1 in the morning. He dreamed about the redhead he played with.
In his dream, they were beside each other, breathing heavily. For some reason, he could only see her hair but not her face. Their clothes were dirtied with blood and he was holding her hand. The girl seemed to be saying something to her but that was it. He couldn't remember anything.
Upon waking up, he checked whether or not Zara was online but she wasn't. So, Lucas decided to try out some of his games. He took Nine Clouds, an open world VMMORPG and started playing it. He was a high-level Orc in the game who could beat enemies two levels above him. In the game, defeating enemies at the same level was hard so it can't be imagined how good he was in this game.
As a warrior of the Orc race, they were given more perks than the normal races. However, many quests would be about killing Orcs so they were always hunted by the other races. As for particular day, Lucas was being hunted by a group of people. With a great sword in hand, he was frantically running for his life when out of the corner of his eye, he saw red hair fluttering. The next moment, the world seemed to be upside down and then he respawned. The last thing he remembered was a familiar face wielding daggers.