The Immersive

Chapter I

"BAM"

This was the only sound I heard as I stared down the barrel of a gun. I flinched as the trigger was pulled but there was no surge of pain.

"Am I dead?" I wondered.

We should backtrack, this is the end of my story, not the beginning. My name is Matt, and most of my life occurs inside a video game. I have some friends and we all hang out together in our fictional world. You see, my friends and I created this game, and no one has defeated us yet.

The Immersive as we call it, or Imagine as the rest of the world knows it, is an immersive sensory device that allows the user to become apart of their favourite worlds and complete quests. We designed it as an escape for people of all ages. If you look around you can find the original Stars Wars universe, a Percy Jackson planet, and even a planet dedicated to Sesame Street.

Now let me introduce you to the team, there's me, now you know that. I'm short and a bit stocky, with dark hair. I tend to stick with t-shirts and sweatshirts more than anything else until I get into the game, then I splurge. Then there's Adrian, there's only two geniuses I know personally and he's one of them, he has blond hair and is really tall; we tend to follow each other in fashion. Both he and Julianne decided to continue their education after we all became millionaires. While we're here let's talk about Julianne, she's the other genius I know. She and Adrian are so similar, many people claim that they're twins. She's tall, just a bit taller than Adrian, with dirty blonde hair that falls just below her shoulders, and her face is speckled with freckles; too many to count. Last but not least, there's Naomi, she's kind of insane but, hilarious to be around. The rest of us tend to baby her a bit and protect her like she's our child.

~ • - • ~

BEEP, BEBEEEP, BEEP.

The sounds gradually got louder until they startled me awake. It was my phone alarm.

"Shit." I looked at my phone, and there were over 100 notifications, "Time to get to work."

I got up and took a shower, hearing about another dozen notifications go off.

I stepped outside the tub after I finished and watched the steam rise and the mirror fogged up; I was finally relaxed.

Of course this had to be interrupted. My phone's screen lit up showing that Adrian was calling.

"Yello, this is Matthew, what do you need Adrian?"

"Matt, this is extremely important. I need you to come in, we all need to discuss the Immersive."

"Can't I just log on?"

"No, I know you have work to attend to inside the Immersive, but I need to make sure we aren't being tracked." He said firmly, but he sounded more paranoid more than anything.

"Alright, I'll be over there soon, hour max."

I got dressed, more nicely than normal wearing a deep blue dress shirt and walked to the nearest metro station. The thing about living in D.C. is you have a metro to take you anywhere of significance, it was pretty cool to think about considering we had all grown up around a big city with only shitty buses for public transportation. It's taken some time, but I've learned to love the chaos.

As the train stopped I was careful to look around to make sure nobody was following me. As always the station was busy and I cautiously approached the station wall, rapping "a shave and a haircut"against it. The sound reverberated across the busy, concrete bunker and the wall swiveled, swallowing me by into the wall. I was then plunged into darkness, missed by all of the people due to their own self absorption. Sometimes hiding in plain sight is the best way to go.

"Identify yourself." A computerized version of Julianne's voice spoke.

"Matthew E. Pugh"

"Identifying Phrase?"

"Manners maketh man."

The invisible door in front of me opened, as I stepped through the door and all if my friends greeted me with remarks.

"I've never understood your pass Phrase." Julianne's voice joked.

"They're simply words to live by." I replied.

"Hey Matt." Naomi said.

Adrian's was the most direct, "we've got our first threats, have you received yours?"