Faylynn: When Virtual Games Become Reality

Giddy's Revenge

In society today those who aren't up to date on the latest advancements are mocked whereas those who do keep up to date are looked up to. How did we get so caught up in newer and better while forgetting those less fortunate? I used to be the type that wanted the latest Phone or Console, anything that made me feel looked up to like I was somehow better. Then the accident happened and we lost everything; according to my father my mother had fallen asleep with a cigarette lit and it caught the drapes then the house on fire. Though we kids knew the truth, she was so drunk she passed out and dropped her cigarette in her booze. Dad was always trying to protect us from the truth thinking we couldn't handle it, only we learned early on that the truth was always better. He worked two jobs day and night, was barely home so of course us kids would cause trouble for attention. Mother drank away what he made barely leaving us to scrape by, my brother took to doing some illegal activity just so we could eat. Dad never found out but he somehow knew the money Jayson was bringing home wasn't from working fast food like he claimed. About 2 years after mother died Jayson was approached by a man named Virgil Simms, he was a video game designer who was designing a full dive system where you could literally be in the game. It attached itself to your nervous system taking a full scan of your body, voice tone, walk, even quirks like a stutter. You could still go in and change what you didn't like such as body fat too much or too little; Jayson was so happy I couldn't believe it, dad and I were so proud he was going places. He spent a year working alongside Virgil, even testing the system himself. They ended up naming the game Faylynn after the story our father used to tell us of a faery Kingdom called Faylynn. Everything was going smoothly there were no more bugs and they'd even added in more characters of all different races, but one man kept their progress behind. Gideon Lee was a designer working on the game with Jayson but he was jealous that Virgil and Jayson had become so close. He was Virgil's pupil but he'd become bitter since his wife and baby girl had passed during childbirth, he wasn't truly to blame as he wasn't in his right mind but nonetheless his actions caused his downfall. Virgil planned to release the game on Halloween night at midnight to 300,000 people the first 300 would get free copies. That night Jayson took us out to celebrate explaining he and I would be one of the first 300, sadly I had work that night so I wouldn't be able to join him until the next day. We had a wonderful time dad even smiled for the first time since the fire, Jayson told us in confidence that they had fired Giddy for attempting to upload a program that would wipe the game. Virgil was devastated he still considered him his pupil but he knew for the good of the company and game he had to let Giddy go; of course Giddy put up a fight claiming this was all Jayson's doing, that he had brainwashed Virgil. Jayson felt bad for Giddy but couldn't shake the feeling that he was a danger even telling me that night he was worried Giddy would try something again to ruin the game.

I watched on the news the game being released all over the world, people flocked to get Faylynn, it was the biggest thing on the market, kids adults and even some elderly were getting the game. Jayson texted me telling me he had our copies and headsets he was going to join till I was off then we could play together; That was the last i'd hear from him. About 6 hours after the game was released at 6 am exact a program was uploaded to the servers causing a system shutdown. Only when the game was rebooted they found they no longer had access to the game and no one could log out. They spent a month attempting to get back in the system but found they couldn't the program was designed so only one user had access, Giddy. People around the world started dying from being trapped for so long and if you attempted to force the headset off they would die; hospitals were created just for the people left trapped in the game. Jayson was one of them still trapped, I visited him everyday I could. During one of my visits I was talking to Jayson telling him about my day how dad was doing, he'd taken it the hardest, when a voice spoke from behind me.

"I'm so sorry to have done this to your family, Jayson deserved better than this." Virgil said with tears in his eyes

"Jayson wouldn't want you to think that way. " I told him softly "my brother knew what he was getting himself into, he was proud to work alongside you he talked about you like a second father. We were so proud of him for following his dreams, don't take that away from him."