Entering his room, Milton navigated his way through all the dirty laundry on the floor to his computer. Sure, he was a bit of a slob, but at least he didn’t have empty pizza boxes and soda cans everywhere like Terrence usually did in his room. Unlike him, Milton was relatively neat – probably because he didn’t eat a lot. Usually, he was too engrossed in playing Crowned Lieges of Destiny to pay attention to something trivial like “eating”. This, in turn, made him really skinny – at least compared to a lot of his fellow gamers. Samantha once said he looked “unhealthy”, whatever that means.
The one thing he took pride in was keeping his desk neat and organized where his state-of-the-art gaming computer sat. On an all-white desk, he had three 32-inch monitors set up in a concave shape to display as complete a picture of the game as possible. He eventually wanted six monitors set up to have a full 360-degree view of the battlefield – information was power, and the more information he had on the changing states of battle would mean he would have an advantage over those that didn’t. Unfortunately, the expense of those monitors was a little out his price-range right now – especially since he still needed to pay rent.
Booting up the computer, Milton put his headset on and waited while CLoD loaded. Soon enough, the screen displayed one of the most thrilling MMORPGs that had come out in the past couple of years. It had everything you would normally see in other MMORPGs: quests, leveling up, character customization, thousands of skills and abilities, raid bosses, and new endgame content released with frequency. What made it stand out from the others was the guild warfare; it wasn’t just about two guilds hacking at each other on a field somewhere. No, it was much more than that – each guild could employ legions of Non-Player Characters to attack and defend locations in real-time battles. And players could participate in the battles as well.
No longer confined to tank-DPS-healer group combinations, the strategy behind these large-scale battles was where you got the chance to show your skills off to the world. There was no set “best formation”, you needed to be able to change strategies on-the-fly, taking into consideration your own assets and those of your enemy. Those strongest at this had to have intense concentration, lightning-quick reflexes, and the knowledge of troop and player strength and weaknesses. Only the best-of-the-best were put in position to lead their guild in to battle – and Milton was the best.
That was no idle boast either – the leaderboards spoke for themselves. At 22 years old, he was the Strategy Coordinator for Ravens, the top guild in CLoD. They were a guild of elite players that had been playing together for years and will probably continue to do so in the future. If not CLoD, then something else – they all had a love of being the best-of-the-best, no matter what was played. Some of the others tended to let the fame of being on top go to their heads, but Milton liked to think he played it off better than that. He took pride in what he accomplished and enjoyed the challenge of battling against other top players. Whenever he lost – which happened rarely, but it did happen – he saw it as a learning opportunity to fix any mistakes that were made. And he didn’t make them again.
Since he spent so much time playing the game, he started using it to pay the bills. Even though they were the top guild – it didn’t pay anything. It was more of a pride and boasting thing, but it also helped with his side business by opening doors to potential clients. He didn’t farm gold – he saw that only being for deadbeat hacks – but he did farm hard-to-obtain items for paying clients. His place on the leaderboards lent credence to his trustworthiness and his ability to provide anything for a price.
At first, when his parents stopped sending him money after their divorce, it had been hard to make ends meet. He had taken a job at a local retail store for a couple of weeks, but ultimately got fired because he couldn’t keep his focus on what he was supposed to be doing. His mind kept wandering back to a new strategy against a maneuver that beat him the other day – or something similar. After that, job after job payed the bills for a while until he started accumulating a client list in CLoD. Now all he needed to do was take a few well-paying jobs a month and he was set – then he could devote the rest of his time to directing guild battles.
And now it was time to pay rent. Scanning through his in-game messages, Milton found one from an old client that was always prompt with payment – which is what he needed right now. He opened the link to the item he needed to acquire and—what? The Horn of Dreevus? That would take some time, but he thought he could do it in about two days if he started now. The client was offering more than was needed for rent, so now he’d have some spending money at least. Compiling a quick message, he was about to hit the send button when he felt a strange sensation.
It was almost as if he was becoming lighter while the world around him paused. Something started quickly leaching the color from the computer screen – he thought his computer might be crashing. When he tried to turn his head to see if the other screens showed the same problem, he found that he couldn’t move. The colors continued to fade, and he felt less and less whole, as if pieces of him were being taken away without his approval. Eventually, he couldn’t even feel the chair he was sitting on and his whole view was white. Unending, all-encompassing, and bland white. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and sure as heck couldn’t feel anything. It felt like he was trapped in that place forever, but in reality, it was more like a couple of seconds.
All at once, the world came crashing back. Milton stumbled and fell as his uncoordinated body collapsed on a cold, unyielding surface. Looking around, he found himself in a small, well-lit room of dull-grey metal, bare walls, and no windows. And he wasn’t alone.
He got a little nervous as everyone in the room looked like they came straight from a battlefield. As soon as Milton got to his feet, he had nine weapons aimed straight at his face. He froze and put his hands up in surrender. He was too scared to say anything – not to mention too confused to think straight – but fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“Who are you and why have you brought us here?” The most dangerous man he’d ever seen in his life asked, his rough voice ringing with authority. Not only was he huge – he looked like he could pick Milton up and break him in half with one hand – he was also the only one holding a knife instead of a gun. That normally would make him seem less dangerous, but Milton could sense instinctively that he could still kill him quicker than any of the others with guns. Looking down, he realized that he may have pissed himself a little, but held it together long enough to answer, “I don’t know, sir. Please don’t kill me, sir!”
Milton had found over the years that it didn’t hurt to be respectful, even in tense situations. His father always taught him to treat others as he would want to be treated. It didn’t matter if you were talking to a grocery store clerk or a telemarketer – a little respect went a long way. In the first case, they were less likely to ‘accidently’ overcharge you and in the other case they were more willing to take you off their call list if you politely asked to be removed. This lesson served him well as they relaxed, putting away their weapons after realizing that he didn’t pose a threat. Well, all but the scary, dangerous-looking man – he still pointed his knife at Milton.
“Why are you different then? We’re all from different branches of the military – and not even all from the U.S. You’re the odd-man out here – I don’t know if you’re in charge, but it’s too suspicious to ignore. What do you know about all this?” he asked as he waved his knife around, encompassing the entire room. All while looking at Milton with an intense stare – now I know what a deer looking into headlights feels like. If he had the answer to his question, he didn’t think he would have been able to hold back revealing it.
“Again, sir, I don’t know anything. I was playing a game and suddenly I was in this white place and then I found myself here. That’s all I know…uh, sir.”
He grabbed Milton and slammed him back against the metal wall, his immense strength holding him up in the air by his grimy, retro gaming
T-shirt by one hand. His other hand still held his knife, which was currently held against Milton’s throat. “Don’t give me that shit – TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON!”
He was saved having to answer when they all heard a loud noise, similar to a semi-trailer releasing its airbrakes. The musclebound military man let Milton go and he slid to the floor, where he stayed, still too frightened to move. “What is—,” the man tried to say but collapsed suddenly in a boneless heap. Milton looked around and saw everyone else had collapsed on the floor as well. A moment later he blacked-out, completely oblivious of what was in store for him and all the others.
Chapter 2 – Where the heck am I?
Something jarred Milton awake. He wasn’t sure what it was, but as he returned to consciousness he panicked and thought about the Horn of Dreevus. Did I fall asleep at my computer? That’s never happened before – I must have been really tired. I need to start moving and get the Horn, so I can pay rent. Without opening his eyes, he tried to remove the headset he was wearing only to find out he couldn’t move. What’s going on? As he thought that, he started remembering the weird transportation to someplace else; a strange room with cold metal walls and military personnel, including one scary, knife-wielding maniac.
Did he kill me? Is this what death feels like? His musings were interrupted when he heard something that sounded like a strange birdcall. As he concentrated, he realized that he could hear the sounds of nature all around him: wind rustling through some leaves, high-pitched chittering that most likely came from some small critter, and the faint burbling of a stream nearby. It reminded him a little of the one camping trip that his mom and dad took him on when he was young; he remembered being so proud of himself when he caught a fish – even if his mom made him throw it back.
Even though he couldn’t move, he still tried to get his body to do something. It was like everything below his neck was gone – he couldn’t feel anything. I better not be some head in a jar somewhere. More angry than scared, he strained to open his eyes, but nothing happened. I wish I could see something, he thought – and was overwhelmed as multiple images bombarded his senses. It was as if he suddenly had fifty pairs of eyes open simultaneously, showing him a full 360-degree view of his surroundings. He thought about closing his eyes, but nothing happened – once it was turned on it didn’t look like it could be turned off.
He suffered through the information overload, trying to make sense of what he was seeing while trying to maintain his sanity. After a while, he gradually became accustomed to the visual bombardment, allowing him to concentrate on what he was looking at. He was in the middle of a forest clearing, with about fifty feet between him and the closest trees. Speaking of trees, these were some of the largest he had ever seen – and probably the strangest. Instead of the normal green – or various shades of yellow, orange, or red in the fall – the leaves on the trees were bluish in tone, ranging from light blue to an almost dark purple color. The size of the leaves was also strange; unlike most trees he’d seen – which had relatively uniform shapes and sizes – these had both very large fronds and small sequin-sized mini-leaves on the same tree. The contrast was both weird and pleasing to the eye, especially since the colors graduated from darker to lighter toward the top.
He also saw multiple birds flitting from branch to branch, which, fortunately for his already stressed mind, were very similar to birds he had seen before. The only difference was in the coloring, with pinks and oranges being more prevalent than black and brown. On the edge of the clearing, he found the stream that he had heard previously, winding its way through the trees and disappearing from his field of vision after falling down a small drop-off.
I don’t think I’m on Earth anymore – at least nowhere I’ve ever heard of before. If not Earth, where the heck am I? Since he was successful at opening his “eyes”, he tried to move some part of his body but found that he was still stuck in place, without even being able to feel anything. He knew he was elevated somehow, since his field of vision was off the ground a bit, so he tried to adjust his “eyes” down to look at his body to figure out what was wrong with it.
The visual input he was experiencing was still awkward, but he managed to look down – and stopped in shock. He wasn’t sure how his “eyes” did it, but they were able to expand outwards so that he could look at most of his current “body”. Smooth grey metal filled his vision with a slight curvature to it, almost as if he was looking at a giant metal chicken egg. Thin lines ran along the metal, emitting a subtle glow even in the bright sunlight. The look reminded him a little of a computer circuit board, but unlike any that he had ever seen before. From what he could tell, his body was trapped inside this 20-foot-tall eggshell, with tight-fitting doors cut into various places and about fifty mysterious indentations lined up on a ring along the top side of the egg. As he looked closer at these indentations, he caught something at the edge of his vision.
When he turned his vision to look at it, he saw something that made him freeze. Tiny floating orbs were circling his “prison”, spaced equidistant to each other and lined up in front of each hole. He wasn’t sure at first what he was looking at, but something in his head seemed to click as he understood. Each of the floating orbs were his “eyes” – that was why he had so much visual information fed to him. He experimented with them by attempting to move only one at a time and was successful; he was able to directly control where it went and what it was looking at. The focus needed wasn’t more than he could handle, since the other orbs didn’t need his attention and stayed where they were. However, when he tried to move more than one, his focus was just barely up to the task of splitting his attention between the two. He attempted to move three or more, but he couldn’t concentrate on each separate one long enough to move them, and they ended up stopping and starting in jerky movements. Needless to say, he went back to controlling just one at a time.
Ignoring any other pressing issues – such as where he was and what happened to him – he played with one of his orbs, seeing how fast he could move it through the air and how far away he could roam. He thought it was similar to a drone he had flown when he was younger, before he crashed it and couldn’t afford to fix or replace it. This was much easier, however, as he was directly controlling the orb with his mind and found that it was able to make pin-point corrections in the air so that he could race through the trees with ease. After what he thought was close to about 500 feet away, the orbs’ movements started to become sluggish and responded slowly to his mental commands. He immediately retreated back toward his egg, worried that he would lose one of his new toys if he continued any further.
On the way back, he realized that not only could he see with his orbs, he could hear with them as well. He passed closely by a bird high up in one of the strange blue trees, and the birdsong was a lot louder and clearer than he had heard from the clearing. He paused and listened to it, enjoying the faintly melodic song that came from such a small animal. When it was done, he watched it fly away and headed back “home”.
After breaking through the trees to the clearing, he paused in shock as a massive yellow bird, the size of a golden retriever, swooped down and snatched up one of his stationary orbs in its beak before he thought to react. Turning his attention to the orb snatched up, he found his vision looking toward the inside of its throat. He tried to get it to move, but it was firmly caught in its beak with no wiggle-room. From the view of his other orbs, he could see that he was successful on moving its head back and forth, but the stubborn bird wasn’t giving up its prize.
As the bird flew further away and higher into the sky, the control and responsiveness of the orb started to diminish. Realizing that he only had a couple of seconds before he lost all control, Milton instructed his orb to go in a different direction – right down its gullet. After a moment of despair, watching as it was still held tight in its beak without moving, he was relieved as he managed to wiggle it just enough to slide down its throat. He didn’t stop there – since there was
nothing holding the orb in place anymore – and shot as fast as he could down into its stomach and through its lower body. It met plenty of resistance, but the power in the little thing was enough to break through the birds’ insides and erupt through its backside in a spray of blood and viscera.
The monstrous yellow bird flew on for a little longer before it dropped like a stone, having sustained massive internal injuries. It tried to weakly flap on the way down, struggling to stay airborne but it didn’t have the strength. He lost sight of it just as his own orb crossed some range threshold and he lost his connection to it. It was like he had something chopped off his body, as the vision and sounds it was sending him was abruptly cut off. He was just glad that it didn’t hurt.
From his other orbs, he could see both his lost orb and the massive yellow bird falling to the ground through the trees. As he lost sight of them, he turned his attention back to his remaining orbs and immediately sent them back into the deep indentations surrounding his egg. He didn’t want to lose any more orbs to attacking birds or something worse – they seemed to be his only means to see and hear outside of his shell.
When they finished retreating into their safe-holes, he was surprised when a thought appeared right in his mind. It felt akin to someone depositing something in his mind and also as if he had always known it. The closest analogy he could think of was the movie Inception, where Leo went into someone’s dream and deposited a thought – it was just like that. The subject of the thought was strange, and yet familiar – but he couldn’t quite place it at first.
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