I’m feeling bumptious.
Not only do I get a salary boost, but I also get to sit in Luke’s cool lab instead of with the other dorks in the main office.
I also get a ton of pantry benefits. Luke doesn’t skimp on good food, and I’m treated to a wide spread of bagels, cream cheese with a multiple selection of flavors ranging from strawberry to banana, organic orange juice, and specialty donuts.
No more Krispy Kreme donuts for me. And that’s saying a lot, because Krispy kreme donuts have been my go-to donut since I was three years old. Do not underestimate the power of a free donut.
Luke knows how to feed people. I bet his pantry is always full, unlike mine. Mine’s always half empty.
I’ve been changing as of recently though. Sometimes I feel that life is more buoyant than usual, and I’m a balloon ready to go off into space.
Feeling lighter than usual, I skim through the list of tasks Luke has for me. It’s a short list, mostly consisting of going into the game and fixing some bugs left by the virus.
And there’s a lot of bugs.
I start writing a program that I can execute while I’m in the game to automate the process of fixing the bugs that I encounter in the game. It’s something that’s really useful and a lot of fellow Eden nerds do. Kind of like cheating on a math test by writing equations on your hand.
Programming is meant to accomplish an end to a means, and I wouldn’t call it Machiavellian but solutions-oriented.
I was born a solution, that’s how solutions-oriented I am.
Anyway, I finish writing the program and place it in my equipment rucksack in my game before heading to the pods to finish what I started.
Fastening the belt across my body, I take a look at the pod that Raj had been taken away from. It’s empty and broken by the paramedics who took Raj away to the hospital, no longer usable but a relic of our battle in Thessa.
I hope I don’t end up like him. From one software engineer to another software engineer, Raj –
Take care of yourself. Don’t let the system overwrite you. You have what it takes.
Gag.
With my uncharacteristic moment of altruism over, I lower the visor over my head and sink into the game.
Finally. I haven’t played WOE for a while, so distracted I was by homework and trying not to think about a rod and by BB my pet robot and college applications. Also, I’ve been trying to make some fixes on Age of Atheos, which I still have to deploy to the game store. I’m not going to deploy it until everything is perfect.
People say perfection is out of reach, it’s not possible to be perfect. What I think?
Perfection is an objective state of reality where the discrepancies between expectations and achievement are minimized. With enough training, enough effort, enough experience, you can and you will reach perfection.
My job is to minimize the difference between this sad state of reality we live in and my ideal perfection.
No matter how long it takes (hopefully not that long), I will make Age of Atheos perfect.
But, right now, I have other things to worry about. Like how to undo my mistakes and “uneff” World of Eden.
World of Eden, you used to be my perfect unicorn. I held you to impossible ideals that were made possible by Sai Tanaka. The world he created became my world too.
But, you are disintegrating, world of eden. And it’s partly my fault, that you’ve become so effed up.
I knew you partly once, and now I know you fully, as you are fully known.
And now that I fully know you, let’s fix you. Because you are so far from being perfection that it’s mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually (?) debilitating to even be inside you.
You need to be fixed, Eden.
I mumble an affirmation to myself, a kind of rite I do when I’m really stressed out, and start maneuvering the control system.
I’m back in Thessa. At least that’s what the game tells me, but I don’t see the same space that Luke, Raj and I were in before. The stones are gone, the angels aren’t here.
It’s a completely different environment. An environment more familiar to me.
I’m in a city.
There are skyscrapers and cars zooming around me, and I’m in the middle of a road. There’s a ton of traffic. Cars are zooming around me, but magically, they’re not hitting me.
And instead of monsters, there are people around me.
People dressed in real-life clothing instead of the fantasy-medieval gear that WOE is known for.
Are they players? NPCs?
I try to click on one, but the game’s not returning any data to me.
Where am I? I’m supposed to be in the game. Not some real-world rendition of NY. The whole point of gaming in a fantasy RPG is to escape the real world, not to suddenly be confronted by it in the middle of my working hours.
Ugh.
There must be something I can do.
I look around. Right, left, sideways, clockwise, counterclockwise.
At least my directionality is still functional.
I look up and the sun’s red. A crimson burning scarlet ball of consuming fire, and it’s larger than life.
I frown. An illusion?
It’s probably a bug. Suns in World of Eden don’t even exist.
I call up. Tapping the sun with my fingers, I drag and drop the program onto it.
I press Enter.
And everything stops.
-
I’m running away again. From the unknowns in my life. I’m breathing so fast, it feels I’m going to defibrillate soon. I’m not in control anymore, my world’s collapsing all around my shoulders, my feet are failing to carry me, and my entire world is breaking down.
I’m running again. But I can’t feel my feet, and my vision’s shutting down and my body feels like fire and electricity.
Have you ever felt like life has gone so far out of your control that it feels like you’re catatonic while life is a hurricane around you, and time is out of your reach, and your space just feels like a pocket of outer space separate from everyone else.
I call out,
Can anyone hear me?
A shout into the void, and then my voice disappears.
Hello?
I try to speak but words fail me.
Where am I?
My thought echoes, verberating around me.
I see my thoughts like images dancing in my consciousness.
Pictures are being formed and then deformed and then unformed in front of me.
Memories being played out.
Him. Her. People. Places. Things. Events.
Memories tossing and turning in my mind, I’m spinning, distorted, contorted.
And
I can’t see. I can’t hear. I can’t feel.
What just happened?
I try to type something but I don’t know where the controls are and I can’t feel anything in my fingers.
There are no sensations in my body. Not in my head in my legs in my body. I can’t move. Not even in the virtual space. Not even in the physical space.
It’s all darkness around me.
There’s no light.
Where am I?
Who am I?
And how do I?
And now that I am lost, floating, in space, with no direction, all I have is my thoughts.
My consciousness is still here.
But negative thoughts are flooding me.
And I want this game to end.
I want this life to end.
But I’m trapped.
At this moment,
Eva
Who is this?
Eva
Who is this?
Child.
“God?”
Yes.
I am here.
“How do I get out of this? I can’t see anything, I can’t feel anything, I can’t move even. What do I do?”
Pray, daughter.
I haven’t prayed in years. Not ever since dad died, not ever since everything that has happened to me.
But somehow, I feel this is the answer.
“God,” I start off with.
There’s resistance here. So much resistance. I don’t know what words to use to, and there’s heavy pressure inside me and around me, trying to negate me, and I don’t know how I can verbalize a good prayer. There’s no one listening, but I want to do a good job on this prayer, and there’s no one listening, but at the same time,
God is listening to me right now, and I don’t want to fail Him.
Daughter. Pray. Words will come to you, when you need them.
I shudder and try to speak.
“God,”
I repeat.
“I want to pray for… for light. For a light to ---”
I’m shaking. I don’t know what to say, it’s been so long and I can’t, I just can’t. God, I just can’t.
But,
I have to. It’s the only solution I could think of out of this mess that I started out of this darkness.
“God I pray for light to enter me. To help me escape, to free me from the darkness. Please God save me from the shadows here. I can’t see, I can’t feel, I can’t hear, I’m paralyzed, God, I’m immobilized and I have nothing –”
You have everything, Child.
“No I don’t have anything, I don’t have you god I lost you and I lost my dad and my family’s broken and I have no friends and I’m most likely going to be fired soon and college’s up in the air, an unknown variable that I’m trying to solve for and I act like I have it all figured out, but I DON’T HAVE IT FIGURED OUT, GOD, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT ANYTHING IN MY LIFE.”
Child.
“And there’s this stupid guy. Who I don’t even know. And it’s not like thoughts of him are consuming me or anything. I don’t even know him, but I can’t get that night out of my head.”
Tell me.
“age of atheos my game isn’t going well. I’m penniless and I’m supposed to be a fallen angel and a demon slayer and a high school student all at once. World of eden has been consuming my life, and that’s not a good thing. I feel like quitting this job, and world of eden, and to tell the truth GOD?”
Yes, daughter.
“I did it on purpose.”
“I FUCKED UP THE GAME ON PURPOSE AND I’M A FUCK UP AND I’M FUCKING UP MY LIFE ON PURPOSE AND GOD I WANT YOU TO SAVE ME FROM THIS FUCKED UP BEING I AM.”
Save me.
God.
Save me.
“Tell me God, what I should do. God, what should I do? God, how can I go back to things before they changed. God, how do I exit the hell that’s been my life for so many years now? Give me an exit strategy, god, I need an exit.”
Child,
I am all you need.
Say amen.
I hesitate.
Say amen, child.
Amen.
And then,
Light breaks through.
-
I’m in Age of Atheos.
Angels are lifting me up. In the game I created, the chosen ones get to pilot Angels.
In the game I created, there is God. The God who created the gold and silver and the heavens and the earths and the day and night, the morning and the stars and sun and moon.
The God I couldn’t find in World of Eden.
It’s here.
I put a bit of my game into World of Eden.
And I’m going to change it.
Line by line,
Code by code,
Scene by scene,
Person by person.
World of eden ends.
Sai, this is the end for you.
A new age is coming.
The age of the new heavens and the new earth.
This is my revelation.
And it starts here, with a single word in the world I’ve been fighting for and against all these dark days.
Released,
I wept.
