No Escape

Chapter One

 "There is no such thing as the word 'escape' in this world." Those words repeatedly echoed in my head. This was it. We were all doomed.

Earlier that day...

"I'm telling you man, this game is going to be amaze-balls. It's like a fucking MMORPG, with a large variety of weapons! And what's even cooler is that there are actual quests you can perform!" Gareth stared intently at the game cover as if he were about to make sweet love with it. Gareth has always been a weird dude, he doesn't like to socialise with anyone unless they are female, about 5 feet tall, low self-esteem and had a nice rack. Well females and myself. We've known each other ever since we were both 4. He isn't your everyday handsome jack but he's cool. He has short curved blonde hair and an average body build, the girls all like to say 'he has luscious blue eyes' but they look pretty normal to me. "Dude? Uh... Hello? Earth to Kato!" I widened my eyes yawned and looked at Gareth.

"Uh yeah? What's up?" I spoke feeling like I've missed something. He leaned against his car and laughed.

"Your habit kicked in again." He looked at me and smiled. I've had this habit of blanking out for a few minutes, even hours. I've had this problem for about 8 years.

"Ah shit. How long man?" I looked at him feeling embarrassed and concerned.

"Uh well, when we came to the car you blanked out for about twenty minutes, so I decided to talk to some ladies but they were obviously too busy for me." He obviously got rejected. We tried ignoring the awkward moment and drove on home, he dropped me off at my house and told me to get on my NetVisor right away. I ignored my parents as usual and my little brother Flynt, he wasn't as bad as my parents but he still had a hint of annoyance in him. I rushed into my room and grabbed my NetVisor, I then inserted the game chip and lie down in the bed.

"Game...ON!" I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep. It was blank for a moment then the loading screen appeared. I was in the virtual world. The game loaded, I was introduced to the game by the sound of an A.I she told me about the game and what I needed to do. The rules are as follow:

1- Never EVER kill another player.

2- Guilds may be formed but only for good intentions.

3- Every player MUST have an item of significance that separates them from others e.g. Hat, gloves, lucky bracelet, necklace etc.

4- Do NOT become emotionally attached to too many people... it'll kill you.

That last rule spooked me but I guess it was a joke, it had to be. After all that I then spawned at spawn of W.E.O, Weapon Experts Online, which was the name of this beautiful game. My interface appeared to have everything in order beside the large counter in the bottom left corner it currently said: 198 976/200 000. It probably was the limit of people that could access the game, luckily I joined the game when I did. I analysed the area around me and people were just everywhere, most people were piling into the armoury store obtaining their weapons, just before I could go and select my weapon of choice I was called out.

"Yo! Ka- I mean Ziro!" I instantly knew who it was, it was Gareth, I turned to look at him and he winked, he looked virtually different in game, well everyone did, for identity security purposes. He scanned my body and nodded. "Impressive, you gave yourself longer hair, taller body and I bet a bigger wiener too!" He then broke into laughter as I punched him lightly on the arm.

"Shut up. You look completely different! You've made yourself masculine, gave yourself red hair and now it looks like you're the red head version of Yugi Moto." I said in return. He scoffed but laughed it off.

"You're a little party pooper, just have to one up me don't ya?" He laughed again but then came to a sudden stop. His face froze and looked curious. "Hey buddy? Do you know the extremely cute girl about 100 metres behind you that is probably checking me out but staring at you just to hide it?" I turned to see a mysterious girl, she wore a leather black hoodie and her long blonde hair covered her eyes. She stood motionless then gasped when I took notice into her. "No dude! Don't scare her off you jerk!" Gareth walked up towards her and she looked down at the ground. I decided to follow. Gareth stood by her side and smirked. "Hey there cutie, wanna go on a virtual da..." he was cut off by her thrusting her fist into his gut. I chuckled lightly and looked back at the girl.

"Hey, why were you giving me looks?" She doesn't answer but instead plays with her hands. She then takes off her hood revealing her pale white face and her beautiful purple eyes. She then opens her mouth to speak.

"You." She points her index finger at me, "Are you the one that they call 'Ziro'?" Her face suddenly turns into a serious looking mode and it makes Gareth jump back a bit. I decide to answer her truthfully.

"Yeah? And who might you be?" She nods and then clasps her hands together.

"Oculus was right. You are exactly like he pictured." She began playing with her interface pushing different buttons. "Oh how rude of me." She exited the interface and looked directly into my eyes stepping a little too close to me. "My name is Sakura, I am the friend of Oculus. You MUST meet him at once but however the prophecy he has foreseen is about to begin." It was odd the name 'Oculus' it sounded so familiar but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. She then bows and places her hood back on. "It's best that I go now. I will send you a friend request in approximately 20 minutes. I will need to meet up with you again, so please go forth and equip your weapons." She then teleported away. She must be mage class, the only class in the game that can teleport. I looked at Gareth and he was already chatting up a different girl and then my screen was flooded with blackness, I think everyone's screen had filled with darkness, I could hear murmuring and gasps. Then a voice came into our ears.

"Welcome! All of you! I'm very pleased that you have joined my magnificent game. As some of you may know, I am Jack Mashiko, the creator of W.E.O and the NetVisor, and I know a lot of you are very big fans of me, which is probably going to change in the next few minutes. Plenty, if not all, of you have noticed there is a player counter in the bottom left of your interface. It is currently full, 200000/200000. You may be thinking that means this game is full, well it isn't. I set the game capacity to 200000 because that is all I need for my entertainment..." He was then interrupted by this rather fat man.

"Can you just let us play this freaking game?!" He shouted.

The man on the screen laughed and then his face grew with hatred. "Don't you understand, tubby? You are playing the game! You are all playing the game! Plenty of you have probably noticed that the log out button is missing! And that's exactly what I want, you people are all trapped in here until you finish my game! You're probably wondering 'Where did this psycho get this idea from?' well I can answer that my little minions. A popular show called 'Sword Art Online' had inspired me to destroy people just for my entertainment, it's such a simplistic yet evil idea. Now, the rules have slightly changed and so have the mechanics. You may kill other players. But be careful, because each and every one of you only has one life. Once you die in here..." I then clenched my fists in anger, how could this happen? Someone actually made it possible. I then spoke.

"You die in the real world..." Jack grinned.