The machinery beeped and whirred as the ventilator pumped life giving oxygen into the wrinkled body lying on the bed. He was at the end of his life. No family, no loved ones, and no one to miss him when he leaves this world. He waited for the end as his mind, still agile in old age, replayed his greatest victories.
He had been the greatest gamer to live. He started playing games in the 1970's on a system with six games that were the same just a different background. He played those games with a controller that was only a knob that you turned to move a stick like plank to bounce a moving square back and forth. Tennis, Hockey, Pong, Bounce, Ricochet, and Racquetball were the game settings. Each game was played for hours and he beat everyone he ever played.
He stood in line for the Atari 2600 and saved money for months to get the Tandy computer system. He played all these games relentlessly. From Goat Jumper and Master Racer on the Tandy to Combat, Adventure, and ET on the Atari. He mastered them all. Others played sports and went outside to enjoy friends and sun, but not him.
As the years passed he continued to play. He turned pasty and gained weight from lack of exercise and sun. He basked in the glow of TV and computer monitors. He continued to play night and day, barely passing through high school. Eventually though Gaming came into its own.
People began to compete and earn money from playing games. They became professional e-sports celebrities and started to stream their games and he was one of the first to take up this mantle. He competed in thousands of games and his streams were watched by millions. He was known as the Grandad Gamer at this point. Now at the age of 76 he was finally done.
2051, the current year as he waited impatiently to die. He had never married or dated at all. He had paid to have his physical needs taken care of and watched the disgust on the faces of the women he had been with. He was morbidly obese with a face that was speckled with freckles and covered in a scraggly never quite grown in beard, but he was rich.
He had amassed millions as he only spent money on gaming equipment. His house was small and basic. It had only a bathroom and one big room with an attached kitchen. He slept and gamed in the same room. With the advent of VR he had played even when lying on his bed. It was his life, his dream, his love, and his obsession, and even now he would die gaming, except he couldn't have a rig in the hospital.
A neighbor had called an ambulance for him when they couldn't get him to answer his door. They were concerned about the smell from his house, and thinking him dead they called it in. Emergency services arrived and busted in the door. They ended his chance to die as he lived, in a virtual world where he was supreme. Now he lay here dying wishing he could still play one more game.
His breathing machine continued to pump the oxygen. His heart monitor continued to drone on with its steady beep. Finally, as he relived the glory days of gaming bit by bit and as time passed his heart began to slow. Even the machines struggled to keep him alive, and he lamented. It wasn't the missed opportunity he lamented though, not the missed family, the friends he never knew, nor the ending of his family name, but it was the excitement of getting stronger and better the constant improvement of playing a game where he could lose unless he was better than everyone else.
As his breathing slowed down, there was only one wish he had. He wanted to continue to play the game, any game he didn't care, just as long as he could play and compete once again.
"Would you wager your soul for this opportunity?" a weird voice sounded in his head.
Shocked at hearing a voice in his last few minutes of life, he couldn't even see who was speaking to him. Once again, the voice said "Would you wager your soul for this opportunity?".
The aging gamer tried to answer, but his voice wouldn't work. No sound came out except a feeble croak.
"Just think the answer." the voice said.
"who are you?" the Gamer thought.
"Does it matter?" the voice answered.
"No not really, but I'd like to know what game I would play for eternity." He thought back.
"It's simple really. You would play the greatest game ever known. A game that will let play throughout all the universes, where everything can be a possibility. As long as another player doesn't kill you, and your host." The voice told him.
"What if I die by something other than another player though?" He questioned.
"Then your host dies." was the voice's answer.
"And what happens to me?" The Gamer asked.
"You'll get another host. However, if another player kills you, then I get to collect your soul and all the power you have accumulated. The terms are simple and clear. You compete for me as a helper for your host. You decide how you appear to them, how you help them, and what you do for them. You can't inform them of the game though. Of course, you'll start out weak, you will have to gain power for yourself and then when you transfer to a new host, you'll start out a little stronger than you were before the last incarnation." The voice explained.
As the last breaths were being drawn the Gamer answered in his mind " I'm ready, sign me up." then he drew his last breath.