I slept well after logging off.


    The smells of recycled air and now-cold dinner leftovers filled my scent-deprived nose, and I trailed my hands along the gritty drywall for a few minutes just to feel something again. The water I drank after brushing my teeth tasted slightly of minerals.


    It was good to be back in the land of the living. My sheets were warm, and soft, and helped me forget the poorly-simulated rain.


    My dreams were filled with bugs.


    ***


    Sadie cornered me in the cafeteria the next day. “Any luck?” she asked, sipping one of those soy-based lattes I thought tasted like dish soap. “Your cousin any better?”


    “No and no,” I replied, setting down my cold slice of pizza. “He''s not moved a muscle. I looked into the game he was playing during the accident, but there doesn''t seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on.”


    “Hmm.” She tapped the counter top with one finger and took another sip of her drink. “I had a thought.”


    “Oh?”


    “Bring your cousin’s PC tomorrow, if you don''t mind. I want to check something.”


    I swallowed my bite of pizza. “Uh, if you like. What are you looking for?”


    “More a hunch than anything.”


    “You planning on searching the SSD for that phantom virus of yours?”


    Her cheeks colored. “Oh, lay off. We ruled out physical malfunction of the headgear, but I wonder if there might have been something wrong with one of the hardware components of the PC.”


    I felt bad for teasing her, and gave what I hoped was a warm smile. “Sorry. Do you repair computers in addition to building controllers?”


    “Not really, but I’d like to branch out.”


    “All right, I’ll bring it in tomorrow. What made you think it was an issue on the PC end?”


    Sadie looked away too quickly. Odd. “Uh… All right then. See ya.” I finished my pizza and left her alone in the cafeteria. Back to work. It was nice to have a job so mentally engaging it could pull me away from the things I didn’t want to think about. My first ever job had been in paintbrush manufacturing, and in the dull repetition I almost killed myself when my first girlfriend dumped me. Having nothing to do for hours on end but stew in your troubles isn’t very healthy, as it turns out. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d had to deal with this whole David situation while still working at the factory.


    ***


    I wanted to play CoD when I got home that night. The new game had released less than a month ago. David and I had completed out competitive placement matches earlier, and I was itching to get some great competitive play in. Of course, I''d be without the other half of my normal duo. The thought of playing without David was depressing, so I looked at the headset and sighed. On the positive side, I forced myself to make dinner from scratch that night instead of eating out. I''d been skipping the gym too much lately and didn''t need the worse food to top off my ever-thickening waist.


    I chopped onions and peppers, heated oil in a pan, and tossed everything together over high heat with cracked pepper and soy sauce. Nothing fancy, and it had way too much oil to be called "healthy," but thrown on top of a bed of steamed brown rice the fragrant dish was a sight healthier than anything Id eaten for a couple weeks. That I was getting up and coking instead of worrying or moping showed I was on the road to recovery, I guess. I wondered if that was a good thing. Mourning was supposed to last a while for normal people, wasn''t it?


    David wasn’t dead yet, of course. I felt terrible for even thinking of him in that light. Still, the doctors hadn''t had any hopeful news.


    Well... I looked at my PC again. I didn''t want to play any CoD without my cousin, but maybe I needed to give Bug Hunt another go. It wasn''t as if I''d experienced much of the game. A couple hours of walking wasn''t the greatest indication of the game''s quality, I supposed. I must have just had a shitty spawn. The players and bug I''d seen might have made or some interesting encounters once I''d gotten settled in, I guessed.


    So I put on the helmet, attached the electrodes, lay in bed, and dove back into the encrypted server.


    I sat up on the floor of the same building I ''d logged off in. My dryness and hunger bars were the same as when I''d left them, but my health had returned to full. Thank God. I''d played in some survival games where your character remained persistent event when logged off, and that would have been a real pain in the ass here. Of course, I wasn''t exactly in a great position. At least the weather outside looked pretty sunny. I pushed open the window to the room and looked out, expecting to feel sunlight and breeze on my face, forgetting this game had no sensory feedback.


    I couldn''t tell if th weather was supposed to be warm or not, but I wasn''t taking any damage despite being pretty damp, so I decided it must be intended to be a warm sort of sunny. In addition, there didn’t seem to be any appearance of life outside. No bugs, and no crazed players with pistols.


    I checked my mini map. Looked like the guild that had contacted me was only about a mile and a half away. I could get there within an hour so, and with any luck they''d be able to supply me with food and better equipment. I thought about taking more time to check some of the buildings for supplies which others might have left but which would be upgrades to my current state of... Well, nothing, but decided against it. My hunger meter really was low, and I didn''t know what would happen when it reached empty. I didn''t want to spend hours more walking in the wilderness after a respawn.


    I set off down the road, but kept watch for any approaching players or monsters. It was a trade off, using the more convenient manner of travel, but being more likely to encounter dangerous players. I walked and ran intermittently, trying to break up the pace and stave off boredom. I''d spent most of the previous night''s play just traveling, and didn''t enjoy the prospect of continuing on in that vein.


    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Nothing of interest occurred for a long while. I stopped once or twice to approach what looked like a point of interest, but in only one case did it turn out to be anything. That one case was a small spring nestled against some rocks which I used to refill my water bottle. I drank the bottle''s contents and filled it again twice before a notification popped into my vision.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="text-align: center">Drinking too much in short time will cause vomiting and loss of all hunger!</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Dammit. I filled my bottle and put it into my inventory again, wishing there was some indication that would tell me when it was safe to drink again.


    Then I was at the guild''s camp. A pair of players walked back and forth in front of a large structure of dirt and stones. Their movements were so clean I figured they must have had scripts on. I approached and waved, but neither of them responded. I stood in their paths but their character models just clipped right through me. Some guards. Finally I targeted one of them and gestured a few times until a context menu appeared. I selected "message target" and typed a short greeting before sending it off. A window popped up in front of my face, and I groaned.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="text-align: center">You must survive for three nights to unlock private messaging directly! You can reply to messages in the mean time though.</td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    It would have been nice for the game to have told me before I composed the message. Oh well. I walked right past the guards. If someone wanted to keep me out, they couldn''t say I hadn''t tried to go through proper channels.


    There didn''t seem to be anyone inside the compound. The camp itself seemed to be formed of a bunch of identical buildings of mud and stone, some with corrugated metal roofs. A single large brick building rose in the middle of it all, and I approached it. There were few sounds in the compound, mostly the ambiance of birds in far-off trees and some cricket-like insects in the grass.


    I entered the building through the unlocked door, stepping in and looking around. The floor was of wooden planks, and a bare light bulb hung from the ceiling in front of me. The inside of the building wasn''t partitioned at all into rooms, but chests of wood lined the walls and a variety of animal skins covered the floor. It looked like an adventurer''s guild, all right. However, there was no one around. I felt annoyed. Was this a completely empty server aside from the murder-hungry trio on the road and the two brain dead bots "guarding" the door?


    My shooter instincts wouldn''t let me cross a wide building without ammo or armor, so I walked along the wall. Thankfully no gun-toting enemies popped out to frag me me. I tried opening the chests, but they were locked. At least these guys weren''t complete idiots.


    I walked across one of the skins of the floor and an exaggerated clanking sound rang out. I knelt and pulled aside the bearskin to reveal a trapdoor embedded into the floor. Interesting. It was unlocked, so I opened it. Blackness down below.


    There was always my flare, but wasn''t sure I wanted to waste it on something so soon after finding the base.


    What the hell. I doubted I''d last much longer around here with nothing to stave off hunger or exposure. I equipped the flare, lit it, and dropped the sparking stick of light down the hole.


    There didn''t appear to be any traps below, so I climbed down the wooden ladder propped against one wall and jumped the last few feet to the ground. I picked up the flare, crouched down, and continued on my way.


    The tunnel was narrow. I had barely enough room to continue while crouched. In real life, the flare would likely have blinded me from its proximity. Here, it was merely a bright light source. So long as I kept it out of my field of vision, I was good to go.


    I noticed the tunnel widening and the ceiling rising as I continued. I could stand, and walk faster. My hunger was almost completely depleted by this point, so I rested to drink my bottle of water. My hunger was only at twelve by this point. If I didn''t get food soon, I''d probably die. With no sensory feedback to reinforce this, though, I didn''t care. The hunger meter meant nothing until it was gone.


    The tunnel opened into a cavern lit by tiny candles on stakes. I gaped at the sudden feedback after almost twenty minutes of dark tunnel. My flare ran out, and I dropped it at my feet, my way now lit by candlelight.


    The cavern was filled with still water, but a dock or bridge led to a small island in the center of the cavern. Upon that island rested a stone pedestal, and moonlight lit it from above. I glanced up as I walked along the dock, looking at the moon through the hole in the ceiling above.


    I approached the pedestal. There was nothing on it. Had something been here before? Had it not been placed there yet?


    A sound came from above. I looked and jerked back as I saw another player peering over the edge of the hole. I waved and yelled, but was probably too far away for him to hear me. He dropped a rope over the lip of the hole, and I sighed in relief at the prospect of meeting another player.


    He slid down the rope and came to a halt in front of me. The newcomer wore a suit of rough animal hides and had an AK-47 strapped across his back. Hi s face was obscured by a gas mask, but he waved as he approached.


    I smiled and returned the gesture, and noticed too late he held a hypodermic needle in his other hand.


    I fell to the ground, unable to move, watching as the player rifled through my backpack. Dissatisfied, he kicked me a few times and giggled as my health meter dropped. I felt no pain, but it was frustrating nonetheless. He tied my hands behind my back with something and hoisted me over his shoulder. The player seemed to have no trouble carrying me as he hauled himself back up the rope, taking us to whatever lay above.


    Apparently everyone in the game was an asshole.