Prologue
Each time that headset came in contact with my head and stole me away to that crazy world, I never knew if I would make it out unscathed.
Vertigo, a gaming console (which was much better than Playstation or Xbox, in my opinion at least), released this new game, LiveStream, where you put on this headset and you could be ‘transported’ into a mind-blowingly dangerous reality game--all through a set of headphones.
The terrain of the game seemed to change whenever it pleased. At any given moment we could be running through the densest forest, flying over the highest mountains, or jumping from rooftop to rooftop in New York City. I don’t think that was supposed to happen, but it most certainly was an adventure (which is what Vertigo promised), so no one said anything or complained.
Naturally, I was one of the first brain-dead teenagers to invest in this product, because what else do I have to do with my time, schoolwork? Ha!
It seemed harmless at the time, “A new product?! Oh, that sounds nice!” No one thought anything of it. But as more and more people invested in this product, servers got crowded, details went a bit awry, and someone found a way to slip through the seemingly airtight security in the game.
That’s when things went wrong; people began disappearing without any word, just vanished into thin air. There were always those that would sign off because the adventure wasn’t their thing, but it started getting spooky. These weren’t just people-signing-off disappearances, but people--people who were still signed on--just disappeared, as if they were being sent somewhere else. It sure freaked me out, not to mention hundreds of others, but for some reason, no one spoke out; it was the so-called elephant in the room, and we were all chatting about the weather to ignore it. But it was hard; how could you ignore the fact that one minute you would be walking next to a fellow contestant in the game, and the next they vanish mid-conversation?
That’s why I’m talking to you right now; I needed to figure this out, and people need to know just how dark things got. It’s not safe out there, and sometimes I feel like this is the one--and only-- place I am.
