I wanted my last moments to be in the world I called home. A place where I could stand on my own two feet, not in a chair and not without the support of crutches. Even if it embarrassed or disturbed my family and what little RL friends I had as they kept vigil over me, bedridden, connected to a VR Immersion Unit, an elevated chair/bed that allowed me control of my avatar. I wanted the last light filtered into my eyes to be of my online comrades and confidants. The headset deafened the sobs and beeps of the outside world as I faded away. As Ichiro Miller faded away. Goodbye, Azure Blue Online. Goodbye to my guild, the Tattered Banner. And finally, goodbye to my avatar, Raelle. The real world? The real world can just go fuck itself.
. . .
[Zen VR 2 - Copyright © 2057 - REAL Electronics LLC]
[Diagnostic Troubleshoot - Initialize]
[ Unable to register user input. Neural patterns are unstable. Retry]
[Adaptive haptic failure - no vitals found. Please reconnect the HMU device]
[Save Data is at risk - Uploading to RE: Zen Cloud Storage]
[Loading Avatar Parameters . . .
Name: Raelle Astoros
Race: Half-Vasque/Half-Human
Sex: Female
Level: 50
Class: High Mage
Guild: The Tattered Banner (Officer 1st Class)
Nation: Strovos
Parameters loaded]
[Error: Unable to save current data]
[Character Rollback required]
[Loading original perimeters . . .
Name: Raelle Astoros
Race: Half-Vasque/Half-Human
Sex: Female
Level: 1
Class: None
Guild: None
Nation: Strovos
done . . . ]
[Uploading data to RE: Zen Cloud Storage]
[Upload complete]
[Device failure]
[Auto Shutdown in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .]
[Thank you for playing Azure Blue Online]
Flashes of light disturb my vision. Images dancing beneath my eyelids like a spinning kaleidoscope. The only light in a void of darkness. I no longer feel the pressure of the chair and surrounding instruments. So, this is what death is like? It's dizzying.
The images continue to race faster and faster. And then a sudden, sharp pain that stabbed my forehead. I scream – or rather try to - but nothing comes out. Instead of seeing the images now, it's more like I am submerged within them. I can't see my hands or feet, but I persist in a shattered jigsaw of pictures. I see a newborn baby with a small patch of lavender hair held against its mother's breast; I see the child's first steps and the elation of both their parents: a beautiful woman with golden eyes, hair of silver lavender, elongated ears that peeked through, the hair spilling down her back, and a burly brown eyed and black haired man, cleanly shaven; I see his back as he leaves through the manor's front door, off to a war that is unclearly explained to the viewpoint of a child. The child hugged their mother's leg. I can feel their confusion and loneliness. In some ways, it's like I am even seeing through their own eyes as one of the maids closed the door after papa.
After papa? What am I saying?
"Where is papa going?" the words spill out of my mouth. The words are high pitched and of a foreign sounding tongue, but clear as English to me. As clear as if they leave my own lips. I feel them on my own lips.
"Your father is Knight Commander. He goes on tour to Nassin – that is a place a thousand ytola south to us. Do not worry, my blood. He will return to us soon."
The child cries out. I cry out.
"Don't go!"
I feel a tug at my navel as I am wrenched through a maelstrom of further images, sounds, and realities. I see days, weeks, months, and years pass by as I am yanked down a light filled tunnel. As quickly as I am pulled, I decelerate and come to a jolting stop. I float in space, a mirrored sphere filled with the child's memories. Raelle's memories. Before I question how I can even recognize these as Raelle's memories, the sphere shatters and I am pulled toward the event horizon of the hole it leaves in its absence. And then nothing.
They say that hearing is the last thing to go. However, I wish I could stop hearing the insistent chirping from outside.
Chirping? I shouldn't be hearing anything that loud with my headset on. A warm light splashes on my face. I open my eyes to a room filled with morning light. My eyes turn to the windowsill, falling on a bird sitting on a nearby tree branch singing its song. A tree branch from what should have been a windowless high-rise apartment bedroom. I no longer see the sight of friends and family, nor the medical equipment for my home hospice care. In fact, I am in an unfamiliar room in a canopied bed. My hands touch the soft sheets, almost like satin, as I push myself up and to the edge of the bed. My hands? My legs too? Both sets are smaller in proportion than I remember.
I sink down to the floor on steady feet and move towards the dresser mirror across from me. I see a familiar face. Not the normal "brush your teeth" face you see every day, but rather the younger face of someone I once knew. No, that isn't right either. When I turn my face, this face turns. When I raise my hands up, their hands raise up. It's uncanny. I reach around where the visor should be on the headset but nothing.
What I see is the true reality. A much younger face of a recognizable avatar. Lavender hair spilled down around the shoulders, framing large brown eyes, a small rosy nose, and lightly freckled ivory skin. She wears a white petaled blue nightgown that surrounds a short frame. She is nine, maybe even ten in age by the looks of her. But no matter how hard I try to separate the fact, "she" is me in every definition. I match her every move and every turn. And her face is unmistakably Raelle's face. The face of my avatar.
I check . . . everything is anatomically correct. Or rather what should be there isn't there. I want to faint from the shock of it all. I pinch myself hard and wince in pain. This is impossible – how the hell can I, a twenty-year-old male, now be in the body of my avatar on Azure Blue Online? On top of that, the avatar is a foot and a half shorter and much younger than the mid-level mage I remember.
I bring my hand to my ears, slightly elongated with an elvish tip. Raelle was half Vasque – analogous to being a half-elf on Azure. My eyes, brown like papa's but without my mother's glow.
Papa. Mother. The words are both foreign and familiar. However, I can clearly remember (albeit fractured) the memories that lead up until now. I know that papa – my father, is on his way home from his tour at war and will be home in only a few days. I know my mother, or what I remember from the backstory portion of the character creator, was formerly a court mage before marrying my father. And that I, Raelle Astoros, will be able to learn what was impossible back in the real world: magic. I push whatever worrisome thoughts of "maybe these are the fantastical neural firings of a dying brain" out of my mind and slap my face with both hands. Ouch! I see red color flush in my cheeks and small, dull impulses of pain. Azure Blue, here I come!