“Hah! Hah! Hah! Just what the hell is that!?” I looked up at the huge monster that had flesh-like wings and six eyes. Its tall, massive body stood taller than any building ever had. There were thousands of us. Standing here under the smoke and debris of what used to be New York. Blood flowed down my body from my open wounds as I gazed up at the massive figure. It was as if the gods of old had decided mankind should not exist. But if we do not stop it here, the world itself will be over….

*Ringgg!!!* *Ringggg!!!*

“What the hell….” My alarm was once more going off. I have no idea why I keep setting it. It’s not like I have to work until later tonight. I held my head as I slowly sat up. I felt heavy like I always did. “That dream again….”

It was the same dream…. The same dream I have been having for many months now. Every night, it would be slightly different. And I could remember the dream clearly. But tonight was the first time I had ever seen anything like that in my dream. The strange thing is that it all started with the game I am currently waiting to play, Mortal Online, a deep-dive MMORPG.

While not the first of its kind, it is the first to support some of the most realistic graphics ever made. It is said to use your own dreams to create the world around you, filling your brain with electric signals that will translate the game world into reality in your dreams. While the concept was not new, it never felt real, and the company Mortal Beyond, the creators of Mortal Online, have stated it will feel as real as if you were walking down the sidewalk in the real world.

Being the gamer that I was, there was no way I could pass up such a thing, hence why I was waking up so early. Now that I was thinking about it, I had taken on extra shifts just to buy the equipment needed for the game.

I sat up, rubbed my bedhead, and tried to smooth it out with my fingers as best as possible before heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. As for a shower…. It can wait until tonight. I normally shower before bed as it was too much of a pain to do it when I woke. If my parents could see me now, they would probably wonder why the hell I was such a grub, but well, whatever… Such is the life of a gamer.

At least I was not sitting in my parent’s basement mooching off them. As antisocial as I was, I was still working a part-time job paying for this stupid apartment I got lucky to find. Five hundred a month with everything included in the basement of some old lady’s house. I even got my own entrance. It was quite big and took up an entire floor except for one section, but that was all locked off and was meant to be an emergency exit.

The only thing I have to deal with is cleaning up the occasional dead rat that will get caught in one of the traps I set up around the edge of the house. Luckily, this only happens once in a great while.

You can say my life is quite simple. I have little to no furniture as it costs too much. I have a small fridge with just enough to get me by until my next paycheck. I have three pairs of pants…. Ugh… Now that I think about it, I really have nothing at all except my computer, which took me almost a year to build. Being nineteen and a high school dropout is not easy. I do not know any skills, nor have I learned any. I could learn so much just from watching tutorials online, but I feel it would take away from my game time.

If I was not so low-tech, I would even stream games as a side hustle. If I cleaned up a bit I was not all that bad looking. I was five foot four, with long black hair and deep blue eyes. I might not be the prettiest girl, but it would be enough to get people to watch me play games.

But sadly, unless I had the latest VR headset, there was no way I was going to be able to stream since no one cared about the old-school games anymore. However, this might change once I start playing Mortal Online.

To be honest, even as I walked out the door, I was thinking about that game, not just because of it supposedly being an amazing game but also because of the dreams I was having. I have dreamt of playing that game. Running through the game world and even doing quests. I had even dreamt of reading the forums and seeing the rare loot people would find. “I wonder if it is because I am excited to play it….”

But it was strange. In each dream I have had since the dreams started, I remember it as if it was just yesterday. I haven’t forgotten a single detail. It might sound strange, but deep down, I have this feeling that these dreams might just be as real as the me of now. Why this is, I do not know. Just one of those gut feelings. I guess I will find out once I get the game.

It was currently winter time so I was wearing a black hoodie with my hood over my head. My hair hung down along with my hunched posture. Anyone looking at me would think I am some kind of goth girl or something but I was far from that. Most of the music I listened to came from games, and well, it was nothing more than background noise. I stopped at the street corner to wait for the walk signal and let out a breath, causing a white fog to escape my lips. “It’s cold….”