In bright day of the city, tall skyscrapers reflected the sunlight making today's heat almost unbearable.
But all of these factors were seemingly nothing to a single individual, he was running down the busy street, earning gazes of contempt and disgusting, but mostly disgust.
Of course Alexander felt these gazes on but he could not blame, of course the normal person would find appalling to see an overweight person running.
He, in fact, did not care about those gazes, he had gotten used to them. Anyways that was not important, the main thing he focused on right now was the package in his hands.
A few minutes later he burst through his apartment door and running straight to his bedroom and set the package onto the bed.
He didn't even have the patience to rest a bit, his greedy eyes set themselves on the box while his hands were quickly but also carefully unboxing it.
And there it was, in front of him, the product he spent all his collage tuition on, a whole twenty thousand dollars down the drain for the item in front of him.
It was a virtual reality helmet, not just any VR helmet, it was the most technologically advanced VR helmet.
Although Alexander was pained to spend such a massive sum of money on it, he felt no regret about it, after all this could change his life for the better.
He quickly checked it's battery and saw it was still full. He hurriedly laid on the bed and put it on, ready for a new experience.
What made the headset special was not the fact that it could play one game, it was that it was made specifically to play this game.
It was the only way you could play the game, the headset was equipped with the latest technologies allowing players to feel in game sensations in real life.
The VR headsets suddenly flashed, then Alexander felt sleepy, eventually closing his eyes.
[Traveler welcome to Eryndralis, may your journey be fruitful!]
That was all he heard before opening his eyes again, finding himself in an old run down village.
There was nothing interesting in sight, but little did he know that this place was the humble beginning of the 23rd place Ranker of Eryndralis "Maverick" a.k.a himself.
...
5 years later
A young man walked through the cold night in a trance like state, surrounded by skyscrapers, which lit the surroundings like daytime. His black hair was tied in a shoulderlengthponytail, and his clean-shaven face was unassuming. Only his deep brown eyes were striking, other than that he could easily be ignored.
Unlike five years ago, he now had a better build – an athletic body, neither too bulky nor slim. Some would say it was a martial artist's physique, but he wasn't satisfied. Everything about him had changed: his walk, breathing rhythm, and the air around him. It was like a night-and-day shift.
His manner was no longer that of an innocent youth but rather a middle-aged man who had weathered life's ups and downs. Ever since he started playing the game "Eryndralis" his lifestyle had taken a complete turn – a slow change at first, considering a procrastinator's mind is the hardest to change.
From being a hardcore procrastinator to a gym rat and bookworm was the hardest transition he'd ever made. All these drastic changes were brought about by one simple thing – or "World," as he called it – a video game released five years ago. "Eryndralis" had changed the world's structure as we knew.
Eryndralis was not just a simple game it took real world attributes and copied them in game. It earned the game quite the ire from the public, even from Alex himself since he wasn't in the best of shapes when he started playing to say the least.
If not for a few luck encounters he would not have made it into his current rank of 23rd in the game. Which he has been stuck in for over a year.
This was simply because the top twenty nty were in a completely different league. If the top 1000 were called holy talents, then the top 100 are divine talents and the top 10 were heaven defying. The number spot no one even new what to call that monster. People only new him by his in game name "Kaidos"
It was near impossible to encounter that monster but he did, just thinking about that freak caused him to snap out of his trance.
A deep sadness- no- despair welled within him, today especially.Why? It was simply because today, on the fifth anniversary of the game, Eryndralis' release, it was going to be shut down.
Thus that was the reason for his sadness the game he played, which was such a changing point of his life.
He could earn a living, no not just a living, he got wealthy of it and now it was going to be gone.
He decided to go to a bar something he hadn't entered his whole life, maybe to just drink the sadness away as he reminisced about the good and bad times he had.
As he entered the bar, he saw the the bar was full, but was lucky enough to find a table. He sat down and ordered some food first.
When his food arrived he quietly, the sound of his utensils hitting the plate were drowned out by the roars and cheers of the atmosphere, but even in that loud atmosphere he heard a few sentences quite clearly from the big screen tv currently playing the news.
[BREAKING NEWS, many players among the top 1000 players of the game Eryndralis have died mysteriously in the past few hours. The cause of death is currently unknown. Authorities believed that this is an attack by Eryndralis Studios. The death count is hurriedly rising as it is approaching midnight.]
Alexander's eyes widened and hurriedly opened his mouth in shock.
"What the....." was all he could utter before his vision went black.