The Earth is My Prison by Richard Sean Clare

Author:Richard Sean Clare [Clare, Richard Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-21T22:00:00+00:00

5.

I woke up feeling refreshed with sunlight pouring through the window. I had had pleasant forgotten dreams and gave a silent prayer to Morpheus as I threw myself out of bed.

Walking down the corridor, I was surprised to see Matthews still in his study.

“How long was I out for,” I asked, yawning.

“About 5 minutes, I took the liberty of speeding up your sleep cycle. Come with me.”

~

Matthews brought me to a meeting room with modern décor that overlooked the castle baily. Code was there and gave me a solemn look as I sat down.

“Tag,” Matthews began, “we know this is all new to you and we wish we could give you more time to adjust but that's time we don't have.” “Code.”

Code stood by a blank painting on the wall. She gestured and it changed to show different images.

“Tag,” she said, “are you ready for some heavy exposition?”

“Hit me.”

“In the beginning Ember was much like Hell. Players would risk their lives, battling demons over a variety of different Hellscapes. The only sanctuary was Greenvale where the player would rest and resupply for their next mission. As the War broke out and the real world became unliveable, a group of five people made up of Mr. Matthews, a game dev and three high level players banded together and sought refuge in the Gameworld.”

“Question?”

“Yes?”

“Weren’t there any nicer games?”

“Ember was the largest, most well maintained game world on the planet. It was the logical choice.”

“I see, please continue.”

“It being a hell dimension did present some problems. We had to make things more cosy before we moved in. We deleted the more sinister enemies, sealed off the dungeons and removed things like yearly fire rain.”

An image of a peaceful village appeared onscreen.

“Greenvale. The world hub, where they player could, rest, resupply etc. And it just kept growing. Ezekial begat Hebron, Hebron begat Zachariah, you get the idea...”

Greenvale grew in size, the castle being built at the centre.

“With each generation the people grew up a little, culturally and technologically. The Knights of the Round were formed to keep them safe and give a gentle hand to their development.”

I put up my hand to ask another question.

“You don't have to put up your hand, Tag.”

“Sorry, but, if their real bodies were in the real world wouldn't they still need food and water and all that stuff.”

“Ah that was a tricky one alright,” said Matthews, “the original team finally realised the only way to get around that was to sever the connection with their flesh and blood bodies. So, they made the ultimate sacrifice.”

I was shocked to see images of desiccated corpses in chairs.

“Don’t worry,” Matthews said, “right now your body is in a state of metabolic hibernation. It will be weeks before you have to face a choice like that.”

“And the other people,” I asked, “the game people, do they know this world is fake?”

“No, we protect them from that truth, which would probably destroy them. How would you feel if your life was just a story written by some nerd?”

I nodded.

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