Johan went back to his room, took a deep breath, put on his VR equipment, consisting of glasses and a controller that would shape itself after whatever he was holding in his hands in-game, and logged back on. He resumed from his last checkpoint, which put him in the shrubbery, still with a profusely bleeding leg, and he began feeling the violent, unfiltered pain from his wound, where all muscles, veins and tendons were laid bare. Johan knew he did not actually have a gaping hole in his leg which laid bare all its internal parts, yet the pain beamed from the wound he could clearly see. Unsure of how to remain alive and how to proceed, he checked to see if his 'guardian angel' was still overlooking his progress and to help him further.
"Hello..? Hello, sniper dude? Are you still here?", he asked, probing for a response of any kind, while he was wondering what to do if he received no aid. No answer. "Hello? I could use some help here. The edge around my whole screen is pulsating, and, like... Blinking red. I think I might die here if I do not do anything pretty soon. Any good tips?", he asked again to the silence of the radio. Some snow fell from the branches of a tree nearby him.
"Hello, good sir. I am here. You're back already? Ready to slaughter more bad guys?", the unknown one asked cheerfully. "I'll keep being your 'eye in the sky', baby!", he said to reprise what he probably wanted to be his catchphrase, trying to hype Johan up - it worked just a little. "Now, just look through your inventory for a roll of gauze. It should be there as a part of your starting inventory", he advised.
Johan felt comforted with still having assistance as he explored his in-game operating system, clicked a button and began scrolling and looking through his inventory, and surely, there were a couple of white rolls of gauze. "But I have had my entire calf mauled to shreds of just - well, shredded meat, it makes me nauseous just to look at! I won't be able to walk, right? There is no way a roll of some cotton can magically fix this nasty piece of work", Johan explained. "I need a full-on surgery, can that be done in this game?", he joked and looked at his health bar that was falling lower and lower every other second. He was also, again, feeling the full effects of the 'pain simulator', and kept forgetting he had not actually been injured because of the perceived pain and because it looked so realistic. He touched his calf and felt his actual leg was intact, but touching the area of the wound made even more pain shoot from his leg out through his entire body, and Johan screamed in his agony.
"Just do it, it will help! I promise!", the unknown voice insisted. Johan took ut the gauze and began rolling it over the wound and around his leg, again and again. A small, circular timer came up that counted down to 30 seconds, and his health bar began creeping upwards again. "Oh snap, your screaming attracted someone or something, it's moving in on you fast!", the voice warned Johan, who was still healing up. He then saw an armed silhouette through the leaves - this someone was running towards him from the road. A deafening sound broke the winter wonderland silence, and the enemy fell dead like a sack of potatoes - right in front of Johan's hiding place. "Got ya covered, buddy. I had to switch to a bigger calibre, sorry about the increased noise", he apologized intently.
"No, no, thank you", Johan said to assure this sharpshooting whiz kid buddy of his gratitude - he had noticed that he did not sound as if he was older than himself. Johan was then healed to full health after some gauzing, and he tried supporting himself on a tree stump to help him rise to his feet. No pain, all good, and he sat up to have a breather. A box popped up saying he had unlocked an achievement - "Self-medicating". Johan chuckled, and got to his feet, slowly limping towards the gravelly road. The ground began shaking and rumbling, and all the snow fell from all trees in his immediate proximity - the vibrations even set off a small avalanche. "What is that?", he asked with a tint of worry to his tone of voice.
"Not sure, really. This game keeps throwing screwballs at me. Just be ready for anything to come down that road from the mountain. Reload your gun if you have not already done it", he said.
Johan could then see a war tank rolling down the winding road. It boasted a cannon longer than two 'Johans' and was larger than most public swimming pools, almost too wide for the road it was driving on. "Ok, you should probably take cover right now!", his sniper helper advised him, advice he would carry out immediately. "But I think you have some C4 on you. Throw some out in the middle of the road, and then go hide", he said - and so, Johan did. He then hid in a patch of shrubbery even closer to the road and waited for the rectangular beast of beasts to approach his position.
"Does it explode upon contact or something?", Johan cried, as it was rolling down and just a few hundred metres away from the explosives.
"No, no, you have to get your detonator ready and time it to perfection. Just expect a small delay, so press the button just a second before it is right on top of the C4 pack, ok? If it goes at full speed, just count from when the tip of the gun is approximately right over the packet", the voice informed him, but Johan started panicking as he did not find anything that even looked remotely like a detonation device.
"What... What does it look like? Just a small thing with buttons on it or whatever?", Johan mumbled while frantically looking through his inventory. The tank slowly entered a clearing where the road was flattening out, the main gun swivelling with the turret house in Johan's direction. "Found it!", he exclaimed and saw he had seconds to press it. The gun got close to the bomb, and Johan counted "One, two...", and pressed the button. A second longer than a minute followed before mayhem was unleashed.
...
"Johan? That's your actual name, right? Johan?", a voice said. Johan opened both eyes but struggled with not seeing double. A ringing in his ears, but he managed to sit up, grunting in pain and confusion. "I think the tank slowed down a bit right before you pushed that button, but that is not your fault. But the tank seems like it is unable to drive anywhere - maybe the belts were destroyed. The smoke is clearing, be ready", it said.
"Did I... Did I get it..?", Johan asked him, and he did not hear that first bit of info while in shock, as he clearly was stumbling with his words. The smoke fully cleared.
"No, it is still mostly intact! Incoming!", he yelled.
Johan clumsily readied his other rifle, one for closer range he had seen while scrolling through his inventory earlier. A couple of sneaky characters came out from behind the disabled tank. They looked armed and dangerous, yet still oblivious as to where Johan was hiding.
"Listen, I'll take out the guy closest to you, and you go for the other guy. Get ready", the sniper guy whispered in Johan's ear. He crouched a bit further down and tried stabilizing his rifle as much as he could, still shaking and waving his gun around a bit. They readied, and he counted. "One, two... Fire!", he said, and they took out one guy each. Perfectly stealthy work. "I think we've taken out the ones who survived", he said.
"Great, thanks. What's your name, by the way?", Johan asked to try and find out if he knew who the other guy was in real life. "... and where are you, exactly?", he followed up, getting a chance to breathe.
"I'm just another beta tester, as I assume you are too since you are in here this early", he answered, completely disregarding the second part of the question. "You can go check out the tank by now, I presume", he suggested. "There has not really been any movement up there for some time. I have been keeping an eye on the tank and the road for some time now", he said. Johan walked slowly then heard a loud, creaking noise, and he had a small jump scare, turning his head to see what it was. "Move! Get out of the way!", the on-looking friendly sniper screamed over the comms.
The sound was the tank's main gun that had been aimed directly at him, and as he looked down the barrel of it, a shot was fired right at him. He felt everything, absolutely everything - the impact and force of the projectile, the explosion and the wildly strange sensation of being obliterated to pieces.
...
He snapped out of the game, and deactivated the "game mode". Johan remembered he had been walking around on the VR treadmill just wearing a t-shirt and his underwear. The 'winter winds' from the simulator had made him quite cold, and he decided to find a blanket and make some tea before he went to bed. He grabbed a wool blanket from the couch and wrestled up a drawer to get out a teabag, while he was shivering and thinking about how realistic that game had felt, and whether he was still in shock or not. And whether you could actually get a cold from cold air blowing at you while playing a game in your undies?