Evander was now in a game. The game [No Man's Land Ultimate]. Through trees of pine and nettle brush, in the centre is where Evander slipped into this world. He stares up at the grey skies that he recognises as the game's aesthetic he'd seen before in a glimpse. Evander couldn't tell if the game gave him a poor landing on purpose knowing his personality, or maybe it just liked messing with all of its kidnapped humans.
A stereotypical game panel popped into existence, spraying Evander and his surroundings with colourful confetti.
[ PING! PING! CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ASSIMILATION! ]
He stares at the damned thing with a dark expression. What the fuck you mean assimilation? You trying to push Stockholm syndrome on gamers?
Evander knew he hated this game the moment it came in a CD case. He found the game in his grandmother's old, abandoned house, when he was cleaning it out with his cousin to sell the land. Some big company - that Evander saw the name of in documents on his father's office desk a few times - came to their family house and asked to buy the place. They wanted to break down the structures and build a warehouse or something. Since Evander's dad had a pretty decent relationship with the head of the company, he decided why not. They weren't using the property and had no plans for it. Evander's deceased grandmother even said in her will to do whatever the hell they wanted with the place.
Evander only went with his cousin to empty the place of any photographs of them or anything of value really. And in a random unnamed box of random junk in the basement, Evander found the game. Luckily it was a game for the computer and not for some old game system that would be frustrating to find online. He didn't want to put that much effort into playing a random game his grandmother thought was worth keeping.
After a quick search online, he found out that this game was remade to an online version. It wasn't that popular but it had some good reviews. The old version could also still be played with the online game. So, he installed the old game and made an account for the online website. Evander wasn't going to play the game unless his cousin, the person who nagged him to play it, was able to play it with him. Evander is a gamer, but not that much of gamer to randomly play games by himself. He enjoyed co-op strategy games.
When Evander opened the game with a click click of his custom gamer mouse, he quickly found that the game was kinda tacky. Well, maybe the old start up menu was only tacky. After a spectacular pixelated character, that looked too bulky of a design with jewellery all over - entered front and centre of the scene, the title [NO MAN'S LAND ULTIMATE] chugged on behind the character. Then the character winked, beginning the screen wiping transition animation. From the transition came a more HD version of the bulky designed character. Evander could tell now that the character was elf-like, with long pointed ears in front of jaw length cropped blonde – almost white – hair. The character was feminine but had a male physique and posed by showing off their jewels. Gold, red, blue, green colours littered the almost monochromatic colour scheme under the jewels.
Behind the character came the title in gold fashion and the background of blue skies with a valley below it. After a minute, the screen imagery flickered to an almost negative filter. The skies had turned grey and pink clouds crowded above the brown valley. The title turned silver and the character's gold eyes turned black, filling the sclera with the same ink. The atmosphere of the title screen turned from a cool fantasy adventure game to a cold survival one.
Evander crinkled his eyebrows downwards into a frown, his mind dropping questions over each other. The images on the site showed the green valley gameplay and colourful character customisation. He hadn't seen any screenshots or fan art of this negative version of the game. The game had even been rated thirteen ages up with no tags of horror or survival. Was this version added in because Evander had the older version? If so, he guessed this made the disk he found valuable indeed.
He logged in and everything played as he expected. A typical fantasy monster hunting game. Evander met up with his cousin in-game and played for a few hours. The story was sent in the ages of cart horses and castle mansions. The NPC stories and quests were easy and short. Even the main story was very plain. The enemies in the game were the demons who wanted to take over the minds of the humans. The fae and heavenly beings in the game hated the demons so they sided with humans to defeat the demons. Outro battle sequence and peaceful people. The End.
There were daily challenges that were somewhat fun to play in groups with other players, and the game achievements gave great items … But that was it. Evander and his cousin were disappointed but shrugged it off. Maybe this game would've been fun a few years ago when it came out. But the thing needed a whole new game restart again for replayabilty to come in as a factor.
Evander's cousin left the game, probably uninstalling it. Evander wanted to uninstall it too but decidedly was too lazy to clear this game from his pc, the same as all the other games still creating clutter on his desktop.
However, there was still that one question in his head about the title screen difference. So he turned to the Internet again as one would and went to add a question and scroll through other questions concerning the game.
[Newuser173: Question; does anyone have the original game of No Man's Land Ultimate?]
[Wolfpebble: Re:Question; I don't have it but my dad used to play it when he was young. I remembered it so I played the online version but it's not worth the hype]
[RADnerdie: Re:Question; Woah, that's a dinosaur. The original disks are a legend at this point lolol]
[Newuser173: Re:Wolfpebble; Do you remember what the game looked like?]
[Wolfpebble: Re;Newuser173; Not really qwq But I know it is a lot gloomier than the current version. The gameplay even used to be difficult. I remember because my dad complained about it when he had found the game again. But then he lost it again ugh]
[StormStalker: Re:Question; I have the disk but mine is broken sad]
[Newuser173: Re:StormStalker; Have you played it then?]
[Newuser173: Re:Wolfpebble; Damn, thanks for answering tho]
[StormStalker: Re:Newuser173; I did. Here is my number ###]
Evander knew to be cautious on the Internet so he didn't dare message the number. But at least he knew that that alternate version of the game was from the original game. But how could he access that version? Evander started opening the files of the game and trying to find the start original pack. But found nothing of the sort. He opened the game again, this time looking through all the options available.
Was there some sort of hidden text with a link or option for the game? Evander let his mouse cursor scour all the screens in the game. And nothing. An idea popped into his head and he went to one of the more obvious places alternate content could be selected. He went to the website of the game company and clicked to his account settings. It was there inside games on your account that he finally found … nothing. It was only the extra items you got from achievements in the game.
Evander sighed and covered his face with his hands. This was why he didn't put too much energy into these types of things if results were unknown. This way of thinking didn't make Evander very popular at school. Which is why his cousin is one of his only friends.
The way his thinking was leading was making Evander create a dark stereotype in his mind so he decided to forget about it, turning off his computer and curling up in bed to sleep.
The day he was transmigrated into the game, was when his cousin found and purchased a new game. Another online multiplayer for the computer. As Evander started installing the game, an error popped up on his screen.
[Unable to install]
Evander frowned and tried to install it again. But the error came up without the wizard even starting. Evander knew that the game didn't contain any virus because it was a known developer, so it couldn't be the firewall causing problems. Evander deleted the download and tried again, but again the error came up.
Evander's frown deepened. As he went to check his computer storage, he finally noticed that all the applications on his computer had been deleted. All except for [No Man's Land Ultimate]. The game icon was of the main screen character as its pixelated form staring right at Evander. He started to find some discomfort from it and decided to be petty immediately, by clicking and dragging the application into his recycle bin.
Then he clicked open the control panel and, just because he's spiteful, uninstalled the only game currently on his computer …
[Failure to uninstall]
[Try again?] [Cancel]
… Evander slowly got up from his comfortable desk chair and unplugged his computer tower. He picked up the tower and walked with it out his room and down the stairs of his parents' house. He opened the glass backdoor and stepped right up to his outdoor pool. Once stood stable on his feet, he dropped the damn thing into the clean blue pool.
The thing seemed to gurgle as it drowned to the bottom of the deep end, impossibly able to survive this murder.
Evander held his hands together and gave a bow for the computer's service to him for two years. But it was time he moved on. Once you became a zombie, there was no turning back.
Evander's cousin came up to stand next to Evander and they both stared at the watered corpse.
"… Reason for murder?" his cousin finally asked - as though making sure there was probable cause for this act of sin, and he wouldn't have to chuck his own cousin into the death pool as punishment.
"A zombie in our midst," was all Evander replied to his lord, making Evander the executioner for their kingdom.
Evander's cousin took a deep breath, for what he was about to do will cause himself to grieve for months. His cousin shoved Evander into the pool on top of the deceased computer.
Evander's body slammed the water surface unceremoniously. For a second or two, he weighed heavy under the water. Then Evander let his body become light as he floated back to the surface, shattering the light and creating small bubbles that instantly disappeared. It was then that Evander was decidedly deceased too.
"Time of death-" his cousin stared at his empty wrist solemnly but then his attention was yanked up to Evander.
It was not the scene of Evander opening his eyes and reaching out to his cousin that made all feeling in his cousin's body feel cold and numb, it was that the blue pool Evander was in had now become a pixelated mess of lightning. Evander was reminded of low-resolution burning fire as it animated in a campfire. Except, it was all around him and purple. Audio of charged energy crackled all over and throughout him.
A loud engulfing bass boom created this sort of waving net that quickly swallowed Evander. The movement acted like a space portal but felt like a computer shutting down. As if he had been gulped by the cyberspace devil-