The rain was falling outside. Not a rain from Elysium, with its purple skies and drops that shimmered with mana. It was a São Paulo rain, gray and incessant, running down the window of Luan's room like dirty tears on a forgotten face. The sound was a constant hiss, the white noise of his existence.
Inside the room, the only universe that mattered pulsed with life. The 32 inch screen was a portal to the one place where Luan wasn't a ghost. On it, the sky was an apocalyptic work of art. Black clouds, pregnant with electric fury, swirled over the Citadel of Eternal Ice. Below, dozens of avatarsbeams of colored light and desperation clashed against the colossal form of Nidhogg, the Serpent of the End.
"Raiden, the left flank is about to collapse!" a voice distorted by Discord shouted, a Korean man with the urgency of someone watching his own army being decimated.
Luan didn't answer. His words were too heavy to be spoken in the real world, but in the game, his fingers were poets of a violent epic.
His character, Raiden, was a slender silhouette wrapped in a crackling aura of blue ozone. He didn't move so much as exist in one spot and then the next. A blink of an eye, and he was behind the serpent's head. Another, and he dodged a breath of frost that froze the very air. Every movement was precise, economical, deadly.
His right hand rose. The air around the avatar snapped.
[Skill Activated: Wrath of the Ancient Dragon]
The artificial sky answered his call. A pillar of lightning, as thick as a skyscraper, tore through the clouds and struck Nidhogg's head. There was no thunder, but an absolute silence that preceded the explosion of light. The health bar of the world boss, a monster that had devoured entire guilds, plummeted by 15%.
The game chat exploded in a cacophony of admiration and relief.
Luan watched the praise with the same detachment with which he looked at the untouched plate of food beside his keyboard. They were just pixels, empty words in a chat log that would be lost. The only satisfaction came from the perfection of the execution. The mathematical dance of death.
The bedroom door opened with a soft creak. The smell of disinfectant and concern invaded his bubble of stale air and digital ozone.
"Luan?" His sister's voice, Júlia's, was like a needle. Sharp, precise, and always finding the right spot to hurt. "Are you really not leaving this room? Leo called. He wanted to go to the movies."
He didn't take his eyes off the screen. Nidhogg was recovering, its icy eyes focused on Raiden. "I'm busy."
"Busy." The word left her mouth devoid of emotion, which was worse than if it had been spoken with anger. She leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed. Júlia, the future doctor, the personification of the success he had abandoned. In the game, she was "Hestia," the Goddess Ancestor, the healer who kept everyone alive. Here, her words were poison. "Do you know what day it is?"
He knew. It was the anniversary of the day he dropped out of college. The third anniversary.
"It doesn't matter," he mumbled, his fingers already moving, preparing the next sequence of skills.
"Of course, it doesn't. Nothing matters, does it? Except for this... thing." She gestured toward the screen, toward his world of glory and light. "Mom made your favorite cake."
Guilt was a physical pang, more real than the mana on his screen. He felt the weight of her stare on his back, a silent judgment he deserved. "I'm not hungry."
Júlia sighed. It was a tired sound, the sound of a battle lost time and time again. "Fine, Luan. Keep being a god in your little world. But when this box of light burns out, what will be left of you?"
She closed the door, and the silence she left behind was heavier than before. Her words echoed, mixing with the battle cries from Discord. What will be left of you?
Nothing. And that was the point.
He focused back on the fight. The team was regrouping, using the opening he had created. He was the axis, the center. Without him, they were nothing. It was an addicting thought, the only affirmation of worth he knew.
And it was then, at the height of the battle, that the world stopped.
Not the real world. The world of Elysium.
Nidhogg froze in the middle of an attack. The player avatars stopped moving. The chat went silent. Even the electric clouds around Raiden became motionless in the air. Luan tried to move his mouse, pressed keys. Nothing. A global freeze. Impossible.
Then, the sky of Elysium, once a stormy whirlwind, turned completely black. An absolute void, as if someone had switched off the stars.
In the center of the darkness, text began to form. It wasn't a system dialog box. These were archaic, golden letters that seemed to burn reality itself.
[To all Children of Elysium, greet the Dawn.]
The voice that followed didn't come from his headphones. It came from everywhere and nowhere. Deep, ancient, resonating not in his ears, but directly in his soul. A voice that sounded like the universe itself speaking.
[For eons, you have played in our cradle. You have learned our laws. You have wielded echoes of our power. You called us a 'game'.]
Luan's heart began to beat erratically, an arrhythmia of pure panic. He tore off his headphones. The voice didn't disappear. It was in his room, as present as the rain on his window.
[The game is over. The cradle has broken. The world you know and the world you dream of will become one.]
Luan looked at the screen. His reflection was superimposed on the golden letters. Pale, thin, with deep, dark circles under his eyes. The opposite of the electric god he commanded.
[The 'Transcendence' Expansion begins now. Your souls are bound to the system. Your classes, your skills... they await you on the other side of the veil.]
[Close your eyes, Children of Elysium. And Awaken.]
[Countdown to Global Synchronization: 10...]
Luan stood up, his chair rolling back with a dull thud. His body was trembling. This wasn't a game event. This was something else. Something impossible.
[9... 8... 7...]
He heard a scream from the living room. Júlia. He ran to the door, his hand on the knob.
[6... 5... 4...]
The smell of ozone. The same smell his avatar gave off. It was in his room. Strong. Real.
[3... 2...]
He looked down at his hands. And he saw it. Thin, almost invisible threads of blue electricity danced between his fingers, crackling softly, illuminating the gloom of the room.
[1...]
The computer screen went black. The world plunged into absolute silence. The rain stopped. The hissing ceased.
[Welcome to the First Day of the rest of the World.]
And in the total darkness of his room, the only light came from his own eyes, which now glowed with the contained fury of a storm about to be born. The static of his anxiety had found a new form. And for the first time in years, Luan felt something other than emptiness.
Fear. And a terrible, dizzying spark of power.