The world of Vexlorn was drowning, and Chris was right at home.
His character, x_CyrisWarden_x, moved through the Sunken Cathedral of Y'haam with a fluid, deadly grace. Water, a shimmering, beautifully rendered sheet of digital liquid, sloshed around the Riftwarden's knees, each footstep sending out concentric ripples that distorted the reflections of the corrupted gothic architecture. Eerie, phosphorescent corals clung to the crumbling stone pillars, casting a sickly green-blue light on the submerged corridors. The air, or what passed for it in this abyssal dungeon, was filled with the haunting, multi-layered harmonies of a spectral choir, a sound both beautiful and deeply unsettling. It was the perfect atmosphere for a late-game grind, and Chris was locked in.
He had been in the Sunken Cathedral for nearly an hour, a meticulous, painstaking crawl through its treacherous halls. This was not a place for reckless aggression. The enemies here, the Deep-Dwellers, were hulking, amphibious demons with thick, blubbery hides and an arsenal of slowing, armor-sundering attacks. They hit like trucks and could soak up an incredible amount of damage. Each encounter was a calculated dance of attrition—baiting attacks, dodging their telegraphed lunges, and peppering them with Aether-Bolts from a safe distance before moving in for a quick, high-damage combo when their defenses were down.
It was working. His inventory was glowing with the icons of rare crafting components—Abyssal Pearls, Y'haamite Crystals, and a particularly lucky drop, the Flawless Scale of a Leviathan Broodmother. This was the good stuff, the kind of loot that could upgrade his gear from merely 'great' to 'legendary.' His focus was absolute, a perfect, unbroken laser beam of concentration. The world outside his headphones, outside the glowing rectangle of his monitor, simply ceased to exist.
That's why he barely registered the first sign of the apocalypse.
It was a sound so low, so deep, it was felt more than heard. A guttural rumble that seemed to vibrate up through the floorboards, through the base of his gaming chair, and into the base of his spine. It was a faint, almost imperceptible tremor that barely penetrated the symphony of Vexlorn's ghostly choir and the wet, sloppy sounds of his Riftwarden wading through the digital deluge.
For a split second, the lights in his room flickered. The three monitors dimmed for an instant, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it dip in power before returning to their full, vibrant glory.
"Huh," Chris grunted, his eyes never leaving the screen. He chalked it up to a momentary power dip. It happened sometimes. Pete was always complaining about the rural power grid, calling it a patchwork of "1970s technology and squirrel-related interference." Chris dismissed it from his mind as quickly as it had registered.
On screen, the Deep-Dweller he'd been fighting for the last two minutes finally succumbed, its massive, frog-like body dissolving in a satisfying shower of light and loot. Among the glittering gold coins and generic potion drops was a shimmering, sapphire-blue icon. A "Tome of the Sunken Arts." A rare skill book.
"Oh, hell yes," Chris whispered, a grin spreading across his face. He maneuvered x_CyrisWarden_x over to the loot pile and clicked, the tome vanishing into his inventory with a satisfying shwoop. That was worth the whole trip right there. He was so engrossed in admiring the new acquisition in his inventory screen, fantasizing about the new spells it might unlock, that he failed to notice the change in the world outside his window. The gentle evening sky was gone, replaced by a bruised, angry-looking sheet of dark gray clouds. The world outside was becoming a distant, unimportant, and increasingly stormy place.
The second attack came without warning. It wasn't a digital monster this time, but a physical force of nature. A sudden, violent gust of wind slammed into the side of the house with the force of a battering ram. The entire structure groaned in protest. The windowpane in his bedroom didn't just rattle; it vibrated, a low, resonant hum that sounded like a cello string being plucked by a giant.
And then came the rain. It wasn't a gentle pitter-patter. It was a torrential assault, handfuls of water thrown against the glass like gravel. The sound was sharp, aggressive, and impossible to ignore, even through his noise-canceling bunny-eared headphones.
This time, when the monitors flickered, it was for a full half-second. The screens went dark, then buzzed back to life, the image reappearing just in time for Chris to see his Riftwarden taking a massive hit. A second Deep-Dweller, one he hadn't seen hiding in an alcove, had capitalized on his momentary blindness. It had swung a massive, coral-encrusted anchor, catching x_CyrisWarden_x square in the chest.
The health bar, which had been a healthy green, plummeted into the red. A critical hit.
"Gah! Cheap shot!" Chris growled, a surge of frustration making his fingers tighten on the mouse. He reacted instantly, his training taking over. He slammed the health potion key, executed a perfect dodge that sent his character gliding backward through the water, and frantically tried to reorient himself. The fight wasn't lost, but his rhythm was broken, his run sullied by an external intrusion.
As he was trying to kite the new enemy, his phone, lying face down on the desk amidst a clutter of empty Rocket Riot cans and stray USB cables, buzzed. The screen lit up, casting its own small glow. He glanced down for a fraction of a second. It was a text from his mom.
[Misty]: Storm looks bad. Hope the power stays on.
The message, already processing along with a thousand other things, filed under "Irrelevant." The power staying on wasn't a hope; it was a necessity. It was a non-negotiable requirement for his continued existence in the only world that currently mattered. He snatched the phone with his right hand, his left hand still expertly maneuvering his character with the WASD keys. His thumb, moving with the same practiced speed as his gaming fingers, tapped out a reply. He didn't bother with capitalization or punctuation.
[Chris]: its fine
He tossed the phone back onto the desk without waiting for a response. Fine. It had to be fine. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. The urgency of saving his digital life, of protecting the hour of progress and the mountain of rare loot he'd accumulated, was a roaring inferno in his mind. His mother's concern was a tiny, flickering candle in the face of that blaze. He had a Deep-Dweller to kill. The real world could wait.
Another crack of thunder, this one directly overhead, changed everything.
It wasn't a low rumble this time. It was a sharp, explosive CRACK that seemed to shake his very desk. The tower of empty Rocket Riot cans finally surrendered to gravity and tumbled over with a sad, metallic clatter. The lights in his room didn't just flicker; they dimmed to a sickly, brownish-orange, holding there for three agonizing seconds while the ceiling fan slowed to a crawl. An ominous, electrical buzzing sound filled the air, the death rattle of a power grid on the verge of collapse.
Then, just as suddenly, the lights surged back to full, blinding strength.
But the damage was done. The illusion was shattered. In that moment of buzzing, dimming light, the reality of his situation crashed down on him with the force of a physical blow.
The power was going to fail.
It wasn't a possibility anymore; it was an inevitability. He was living on borrowed time, every second a gift from the groaning, overloaded transformer down the road. Panic, a cold and greasy dread that had nothing to do with the amphibious demons on his screen, seized him. It wrapped its icy fingers around his heart and squeezed.
His progress. The Flawless Scale. The Tome of the Sunken Arts. Over an hour of meticulous, painstaking, soul-crushingly difficult progress. If he disconnected now, if the power cut out before he reached a save point, it would all be gone. Wiped from the server. It would be as if it had never happened. The thought was a physical pain, a sharp stab in his gut. Unthinkable. Unacceptable.
The nature of the game changed instantly. This was no longer a methodical exploration. This was no longer a loot run. This was a prison break.
"No, no, no, no, no," he chanted under his breath, his voice a panicked whisper.
He abandoned the fight with the second Deep-Dweller. He didn't care about the loot it might drop. He didn't care about the experience points. He just turned and ran. He slammed the sprint key, and x_CyrisWarden_x churned through the waist-deep water, sending up huge plumes of spray. He ignored the enraged bellow of the demon behind him, ignored the new packs of enemies that lunged at him from the shadows. He dodged, he weaved, he chugged potions whenever his health dropped, his entire strategy reduced to a single, desperate objective: forward.
His eyes darted to the corner of the screen, to the mini-map. He zoomed it out, frantically scanning the layout of the dungeon. There. A tiny, pulsating icon of light at the far end of a long, straight corridor. The Echoing Save Crystal. It was the only one in the entire zone, a single point of sanctuary placed cruelly right before the final boss chamber. It was his only hope.
It looked so far away.
His gameplay became a blur of frantic, reckless motion. He Phase-Dodged through enemy packs, not to set up an attack, but simply to get past them. He used his Chrono-Stasis Field not as a strategic tool, but as a "get out of my way" button, freezing a corridor clogged with monsters just so he could run through them unmolested. He ignored the glittering allure of treasure chests in side alcoves, ignored the tempting glow of rare resource nodes growing on the walls. Victory was no longer the goal. Preservation was everything. He wasn't a hero clearing a dungeon anymore; he was a rat fleeing a sinking ship.
The storm outside intensified, its fury a perfect, terrifying echo of his own inner panic. The world beyond his window was no longer visible. It was just a chaotic, swirling mess of wind and water, a dark void punctuated by silent, strobe-like flashes of lightning. Each flash was a system shock to his senses, plunging his room into stark, black-and-white relief for a split second. The faded K-Pop posters, the leaning tower of game cases, the silent, accusing pile of laundry—they all leaped out of the gloom like ghosts, their shadows dancing and contorting wildly on the walls.
CRACK-BOOM!
Another clap of thunder, so close it made his teeth vibrate.
From downstairs, muffled by the floor and the roar of the storm, he heard Pete's voice. A shout. He couldn't make out the words—something about "...unplug the..." or maybe "...the hell was that..."—but the tone was urgent, alarmed. It was the sound of the real world trying, and failing, to get his attention.
He ignored it. His entire universe had contracted to the glowing screen in front of him.
On that screen, a miracle. x_CyrisWarden_x, battered and bruised, his health bar a sliver of angry red, burst out of a narrow, monster-infested passage and into a long, final hallway. And at the far end, it pulsed. The Echoing Save Crystal. It was a beautiful, ethereal thing, a large, floating shard of sapphire that cast shifting patterns of soft blue light on the wet stone walls. It was a beacon of pure, unadulterated hope.
"Come on, come on, come on," he gasped, his knuckles white as he gripped the mouse. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a panicked rhythm that perfectly matched the relentless, percussive drumming of the rain on the roof.
He was so close. The crystal grew larger on the screen, its gentle blue light seeming to promise safety, stability, salvation. He could see the intricate, glowing runes carved into its surface. x_CyrisWarden_x was sprinting, his animation a testament to the game's artists, every muscle straining. Chris leaned forward in his chair as if his own physical momentum could somehow propel his character faster.
His Riftwarden's hand was outstretched, the digital fingertips of his Shadow-Weave gloves reaching for the shimmering surface of the crystal. Mere pixels separated him from his goal. He could almost feel the phantom sensation of contact, the wave of relief that would come with the shing of the save confirmation.
Ten seconds.
Five.
Three...
A flash.
Not the distant, silent strobe of lightning anymore. This was a blinding, absolute blast of pure white light that vaporized the darkness outside his window. It wasn't just seen; it was felt. It bleached all the color from his room, from the world, turning everything into a single, overexposed photograph for one eternal instant.
It was followed by a sound.
A sound so loud, so concussive, so fundamentally violent that it bypassed his ears and struck him as a physical blow. It was the sound of the very air being torn in half, a visceral, bone-jarring CRACK that slammed into him, shaking him in his chair.
And in that exact, deafening instant, everything died.
The three monitors, his windows to another world, snapped to black with a final, pathetic pop. The epic, orchestral score and the ghostly choir of Vexlorn vanished, leaving a void of absolute silence. The gentle whir of his PC's cooling fans spun down, their hum fading into nothingness. The small desk lamp he kept on for ambient light fizzled out with a sad little spark.
He was plunged into a darkness so complete, so profound, it felt like a physical substance. It was a thick, suffocating blanket that swallowed all light and all meaning. The sudden, shocking absence of stimuli was utterly disorienting. One moment, his senses were overloaded with light, sound, color, and motion. The next, there was nothing.
Nothing but the relentless, drumming tat-tat-tat of rain on the roof and, deep in his ears, the faint, ringing after-echo of the thunderclap.
The digital world, with its rules, its rewards, and its power, had been completely and utterly erased.
Chris was alone. Powerless.
And sitting in the dark.