I died. As simple as that. It wasn't an accident. Nor was I murdered. I was just unlucky. I had cancer. Lung cancer to be exact. The ironic thing was I'd never smoked a day in my life. Not that 24 years is a very long time.
So, I lived 5 years in a constant pity party. I had no family to speak of, and my friends all bailed at the first sign of trouble. I guess they weren't very good friends were they?
The only constant I had was video games. RPG style games, especially the newest VR RPG Second Life. Which uses full body VR technology to simulate the five senses. I always had my settings on high so I could feel the damage done.
So, I died. There was nothing spectacular about it. There was no seeing the light or feeling my soul leave my body. nothing. Everything just was then it wasn't. Like falling asleep. You don't even notice that you do.
Except... I noticed. It wasn't the black of total darkness, but of the night sky after a meteor shower. Colors so dark you almost don't notice them shifted against the void.
Like that time passed. Nothing happened. I simply floated there among the vast shifting colors. So, I did the only thing I could do. I started imagining stories and how this or that story would continue. Obviously I was the main character. I had to feel awesome some how.
Eventually, I ran out of stories, and ideas. So I just stared into the void. Thinking on if the shifting colors were souls.Not that I'd ever get an answer. All this continued until a thought crossed my mind.
'Will I be here until my mind breaks and disappears?'
Even I couldn't take that in stride.
As time passed that thought came back time and time again. And as it did it was getting harder to shake.
[You have been chosen.]
'What?'
I would have jumped in surprise if I had a body. I stared at the square containg the message for a minute or two. Though it could have been hours. It looked like the message screen from the game Second Life.
After that analysis was done the darkness that had surrounded me for who knows how long started to change. Little by little it change to a blinding white that ate everything else. Soon, there was only white.
And when the white disappeared, I woke up.
[Welcome.]
"What the hell! Where am I?"
Upon opening my eyes I found myself in a lush, green Forest the only problem. I was the size of a bug.
Looking down at myself I found not the human body I was used to, with arms and legs, but the body of a caterpillar.