I could only take in a deep breath of shock before exhaling. My mind pondered what this statement specifically meant. Such as the fate of humanity or economically or something like that. However, I knew there was more to it than meets the eye. "The future of humanity… like whether humanity survives or not?`` I asked. "No, not that extreme, but our way of life will be completely changed and become more dangerous,'' he replied. So, it wasn't like the end of humanity's type of event, but something that changed everybody's way of life.
"Here let me just lay out on you, and I'll let you sort those thoughts out,'' he said in a deadpan tone. I immediately tightened up and waited for his explanation. "You know how bad the pollution is right?" he replied rhetorically. "Uh, yeah, of course I know it's dog shit bad man," I replied in a distinct tone. "Well, back in 2043 there was a secret meeting that was held between the nations under the guise of an environment meeting. The major powers, China, U.S, Russia, and some other European nations had discovered enough evidence that Earth only had 29 years left until the planet would reach a temperature incapable of humans being able to withstand", he said in a heavy tone. My brain was trying to digest all this information, but when he mentioned the last bit, my mind went blank. "29 years left!? Dude, it's already been 28 years then!
Doesn't that mean we only have a year left before Earth is uninhabitable! I mean holy shit man isn't humanity already as good as dead then?", I said in an anxious tone. "Calm down, remember that they already had been discussing this since 28 years ago? Just let me finish at I have to say alright?", he said. I took a deep breath, calmed my nerves, and decided to let him finish. "Okay, I'm sorry I just got a bit anxious there. You can finish what you were saying,'' I said. "Okay, well during the meeting, they discovered that even with the entire nations combined, they simply couldn't migrate humanity to space. They weren't able to find a habitable planet, and they wouldn't have the time to search while humanity was in outer space. Plus, they couldn't even figure out how to develop the technology or proper ships in time to migrate humankind into space.
However, they discovered something unique in VR. In VR, humans were able to pretty much transport their consciousness into the game or VR. The nations realized the key to humanity's survival was VR. If humanity was able to carry their knowledge into another entity with a 'brain,' it could act as data storage. This would pretty much allow a human to control another body in this world directly. To manage this amount of data, they began to develop a ship that contained a super AI with the equipment to be sent out into space. From there, this super AI will full control over our lives." After his friend stopped talking, he heard him chugging some water down. My mind was in complete awe, I could barely comprehend what he was saying. Before I could say something my friend said in a nervous tone, "Oh forgot to tell you, but you see, they had to create more space on the ship because over time the servers wouldn't be able to handle all of humanity's data, specifically their memories. So, they designed it to where if you die in the game, you will be reborn as a baby with no memories of your past life. If you die, you will be reborn having the same intelligence as a baby completely native to this world with no memories of the past. You will have essentially have died." … I had no reply to this statement, it was almost impossible to imagine.
"So, basically what you're saying is that humanity is migrating to a video game?" I asked in a stunned voice. "Yup, unfortunately, I got to go now, this conversation took longer than I thought," he replied. "Wait-" "The contract will arrive in a couple of hours, my in-game username will be just my regular name, good luck!" Before I could say anything else, he hung up, leaving me with a dazed expression on my face. Urrrrrg, my mind was utterly torn between two sides. I wasn't an idiot who would just put blind trust in whatever he told me, even if he is my best friend. 'Yet, if it were a prank, my friend sure would have had to put a lot of work into it, hearing as real as it sounded. But, that still doesn't make sense because my friend wasn't known to make pranks and was a fairly serious person.' I could only let out a sigh, I would just have to wait until the contract showed up, which would prove whether my friend was pranking me or not.
2 Hours later: As I was relaxing on my computer, watching a video I heard a knock on the door, with my phone following up by letting out a buzz. I frowned, almost nobody ever interacted with each other when dropping off something. People usually would just buzz the door and leave, unless it was something serious. 'Hmm, maybe my friend wasn't lying,' by knocking on the door, it meant the person on the other side was wanting to have a conversation with him. I let out a grunt trying to get my lazy ass off the couch and made my way over to the door. As I was walking over to the door, I was looking at my door camera on my phone, and I became shocked at what I saw. There was a man in formal attire that carried himself with a confident aura around him. However, more importantly, the thing that shocked me the most was a navy blue colored envelope with what appeared to be the logo of the UN!
I tried my best to keep calm as I reached the door and pulled it open. "Ah, hello you must be Dagon Crossfield am I correct?", he said with a smile. "Yes, indeed I am,'' I replied with a smile as well. "Good, my name is James Charles, and I'm here with your contract, I assume you know what I'm talking about right?" His voice had taken on a more serious tone and was waiting for my reply. "Yes I know what this is about,'' I replied. 'That name sounded like a certain makeup artist that received a lot of criticism.' I decided to ignore it and proceeded to let him continue. "Well, before you sign this contract, I must explain to you how this works." I nodded at him to continue. "You see, to compensate for the large companies or families for losing their wealth. We had to set it up to give them a year head start before the rest of humanity migrated." I could see why it was set up this way, of course. There were simply too many major companies and powerful families that, if they favored the commoners, who knew what the consequences could be by offending all of them? "So, if you are to reveal this information you will be tracked down and killed immediately," he said in an almost intimidating tone. "Of course," I replied with a smile.
He nodded and then continued speaking. "Okay, with the bad part out of the way let's get onto the other stuff. We will be giving you the equipment and the game to go with it. However, if you are discovered by someone with this equipment, once again, you will be killed. And we will have no association with you whatsoever. Essentially, once you sign this contract, we will disappear, you're all by yourself. 'Ah, so basically the common shit of your fucked if you mention them or get caught. All I could do was just look longingly out the window. I had no other choice, all roads lead to hell. If I don't agree, then I will lose a chance to get ahead of everybody else. While if I do agree, then there's a chance I'll be killed. 'Eh, fuck it, not like I got to do anything interesting in my life, and I didn't have an interest in getting a girlfriend either.' So, doing this would give me a whole new experience and to live out my fantasies that I read in books. I took a look through the contract, and without hesitation signing my name to seal my fate. "Excellent, your equipment will be here by tomorrow, and I wish you luck in AscendFail Online," he said with a smile on his face as he took his things and walked out the door. When he left, I decided to drown myself in some ice tea while singing my heart out to those old west Virginian roads.