Surrounded by many friends and lovers, Aia has always felt lonely. Changing appearance many times, she always felt like she is not enough. Life was passing away, while Aia spent all of her time in the next generation metaverse called Elysium, a real...
I wake up in my room. It's early morning outside. The city has woken up. The noise of high-speed trains and cars flying a few meters below fills my room, the window is open. I feel my limbs freezing, like I'm dead. I brew cheap instant coffee and light a cigarette, then lazily scroll through my work email on a touch screen hovering inches from my desk. There are many messages, but one of them especially catches my attention.
From: Elysium Community Team
"Congratulations! You won a rare element that will make your life in Elysium better. Happiness is everywhere, you just have to focus on it!"
And two bottoms below the message:
[accept] [farewell]
Without thinking for a long time, I press the first one to accept the bonus from the game. They often delight players with similar messages with gifts, bonuses, and unexpected accruals of minutes. Among their so-called rare items, jewelry, access to secret locations, rare expensive clothes, in general, anything can come across.
I don't understand what happened to me. No pictures of my gift, no explanation or instruction. It's like the message isn't for me at all.
After walking around the city, I pick up things from the laundry, and then I smoke at the convenience store at the station. When I get home, the voice assistant greets me, reminding me that I have four new messages.
These are from my parents. They often call me. For some reason it becomes embarrassing to read their letters. I just can't get used to it. Even just visiting them once in a month seems to be something difficult. After setting a reminder to reply tomorrow, I head back to the Elysium.
I don't feel like sitting in my room, so I go to one of the locations from the favorites section.
With a catchy title: "I will wait for you until the very end," the room represents the sandy beach at dusk after sunset. It differs from thousands of other beach locations in that there are no bars, loud music, or a huge number of people on the built-in dance floor. This is not the Beach Club like most similar chatrooms in the metaverse, because everyone loves to hang out. It's just a wild beach.It's empty and quiet here. It was silence that I always lacked in life, not only real, but also virtual.There are few players here. About three or four people, I didn't even noticed.Sitting on the cool sand, I watch the horizon, waiting for darkness to cover it, knowing it will never happen. Time in locations has frozen. It is static. It won't get darker. Lighter too. But you can always go to a room where the night is clear and it rains during the day. Or vice versa.
I rarely manage to sit in absolute calmness. The account is always torns from the number of messages with various invitations to event lives, friends ask for minutes, someone from the app invites me to a date in the chat room.
But I don't want to go anywhere. I have many minutes of physical access that I decide to use right now. You can spend it getting drunk on the most expensive alcohol or kissing someone you like. But I don't care about something like that.
I turn them on and feel the breeze coming from the ocean, the coolness of the sand that falls through my fingers. At some point, I get to my feet and rush towards the water. I don't have time to fully feel the cold of the ocean on myself, as I am immediately thrown out of the location, only to my surprise, I find myself not on the server with the list of rooms, but in my personal location.
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