[Kevin's Room – 6:45 PM]
The room was silent except for the hum of his ceiling fan and the faint buzz of his monitor. Kevin sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes locked on the glossy black headset resting before him. It looked like a futuristic crown — sleek, curved, and alive with faint pulses of red and blue light that formed a single name across the front:
FATAL RE:SPAWN.
He ran a hand through his spiky dark hair, the strands sticking up like restless sparks. His heart thudded against his chest. This was it. The moment every gamer on Earth had been waiting for. The game that had rewritten what virtual reality meant.
"Guess it's time," he whispered, his lips curling into a smirk.
He'd watched every trailer, every leak, every forum thread dissecting the tech. NeuralSync technology. Full-dive immersion. Real pain simulation—though not enough to actually hurt you, supposedly. It wasn't just another VR experience; it was the future of reality itself.
And tonight, he was going to step inside it.
He adjusted the headband one last time, making sure the logo aligned perfectly with his vision. His fingers trembled slightly—not out of fear, but anticipation. He wasn't a beta tester. He wasn't a streamer. He was just… lucky. He'd managed to snag a launch-day copy before the entire internet lost its mind.
Kevin exhaled and placed the headset over his face.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing—no sound, no feeling, no world.
Then—
A chime rang out like a divine bell, vibrating through his chest. Light exploded behind his eyelids—colors weaving into galaxies of spinning code. Binary numbers cascaded like stardust, forming spirals that reached infinity. Kevin's breath hitched.
He wasn't falling.
He was ascending.
> "Welcome to Fatal Re:Spawn."
The voice was calm, ethereal, and echoing directly inside his mind.
> "Initializing NeuralSync... scanning consciousness integrity… link established."
A surge of electricity rippled through his body—not painful, but exhilarating. His nerves sang with digital fire. Then the light bent, shaping into forms.
---
[Character Creation]
Holographic figures appeared around him—warriors in gleaming armor, mages wielding flame-coated staves, cyberpunk snipers with chrome limbs. Rows upon rows of avatars rotated around him, glowing like stars.
At the end of the lineup blinked a golden icon:
> [USE REAL BODY SCAN – RECOMMENDED]
Kevin tilted his head. "No way. It actually scans your body?"
He tapped the icon. A wave of light swept over him like a scanner beam, tracing every line, every breath. When it finished, a mirror image stood before him—his real face, his real stance, but sharper. More heroic. Like the world itself had drawn him in anime style.
His reflection smirked back.
"Yeah. That's me."
> [AVATAR ACCEPTED. SYNCHRONIZATION 100%.]
The air around him hummed as energy wrapped around his body. He flexed his fingers; every motion flowed perfectly. No lag. No delay. Just pure control.
> [STYLE YOUR AVATAR.]
Outfits swirled across a digital rack. Heavy knight armor? Too clunky. A hooded assassin? Too try-hard. His eyes landed on something better—a black and dark-green combat jacket with glowing neon veins on the sleeves. Light pants, reinforced boots. Sleek. Efficient. Cool.
He locked it in.
> Player ID: KTG. Welcome, Kevin Rukky.
He grinned. "Alright, Fatal Re:Spawn. Show me what you've got."
---
[The Spawn Hub]
Light folded, and suddenly the void burst open into life.
Kevin stood in the middle of a vast cyber-metropolis. Towers of glass and steel soared into the clouds, their windows pulsing with ads for guilds, weapons, and tournaments. Hovercars zipped through the air on glowing tracks, and holographic dragons coiled lazily around skyscrapers like digital guardians.
Crowds of players flooded the boulevards—avatars in dazzling outfits and weapons glittering like constellations. NPC vendors called out deals in dozens of languages, their programmed enthusiasm blending perfectly into the chaos.
A notification flickered in the corner of Kevin's vision:
> [GLOBAL SERVER LAUNCH: 1,027,444 PLAYERS ONLINE]
His eyes widened. Over a million already? He let out a low whistle. "Man… this is insane."
Everywhere he looked, someone was showing off a weapon or emoting dramatically for a group of friends. Giant floating screens broadcast real-time stats of global players—who leveled first, who completed the starting quest fastest. It felt like being dropped into a living anime city.
Then a small glowing arrow appeared in front of him.
> [PRESS NEXT TO BEGIN TUTORIAL.]
Kevin flicked his wrist dismissively. "Tutorials are for noobs."
The arrow blinked once… then vanished.
Now there were no instructions. No guidance. Just the hum of the neon city and endless possibilities.
"Freedom," Kevin said under his breath, grinning.
He walked through the crowded streets, taking in every detail—the smell of ozone from neon lights, the faint vibration under his boots from the energy-powered roads, the reflections dancing across his jacket.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, something caught his attention.
Between two skyscrapers was a narrow alleyway—barely visible. No markers, no signs. Just shadows and faint static flickering at the edges.
"Hidden path, huh?" he murmured. "That's way too suspicious to ignore."
He slipped inside.
---
[The Glitch Cavern]
The deeper Kevin went, the more the world seemed to break.
Textures glitched, colors inverted, and the air buzzed with distortion. His footsteps echoed unnaturally, repeating twice—once in the real world, once delayed, like a corrupted recording.
The alley ended in a jagged tear in the wall—an actual hole in the environment's code. For a second, he hesitated. Was this… supposed to be here?
Curiosity won.
He stepped through.
Gravity shifted. The city fell away.
He landed in a dark cavern, its walls alive with flowing static. Stone and data overlapped like broken reality. Glowing fragments of code floated in the air like embers.
And at the center… was a sword.
It hovered above a cracked pedestal, radiating an ethereal blue glow. Strange symbols spiraled across the blade, pulsing like a heartbeat. The longer he stared, the stronger the pull became—something deep inside calling to him.
Kevin took a step forward, mesmerized.
"No way this is part of the tutorial."
There was no quest marker. No dialogue box. Nothing. Just him and the sword.
He reached out.
The instant his fingers brushed the hilt—
The entire cavern convulsed.
Static tore through the walls. The ground shattered like glass. A piercing shriek of corrupted code roared through his mind. His HUD exploded with red warnings.
> ERROR 404: SYSTEM FAILURE
CORE AI COMPROMISED
FINAL BOSS ACTIVATION SEQUENCE: ENGAGED
Kevin's heart jumped to his throat. "What the—"
Before he could react, the world collapsed.
He was flung upward, ripped from the cavern like a ragdoll. The light around him shattered into pixels, reforming and breaking over and over until—
Darkness again.
Then light.
But the world that came back wasn't the one he'd entered.
---
[The Collapse]
The shining metropolis was gone.
The streets were cracked and smoking. Towers lay in ruins, their neon windows shattered. Highways hung suspended in midair, crumbling into digital dust. What had once been a city of life now felt like a graveyard.
The sky churned with storm clouds of static. Lightning forked down, forming binary code that disintegrated on impact.
Kevin stumbled forward. "No… no, this can't be—"
Bodies filled the streets. Not dead, but frozen—players locked mid-motion, their expressions twisted in fear. NPCs glitched, their forms half-rendered and flickering.
His HUD blinked violently:
> [1,027,444 PLAYERS ONLINE]
→ [763,002]
→ [342,111]
→ [ERROR]
Each number vanished faster than he could process.
"They're… disappearing?" His voice cracked.
A sound tore through the silence—a deep, metallic roar that shook the ruins. Kevin spun around just as a shadow covered the city.
From the clouds descended a creature so enormous it made skyscrapers look like toys. Its body was a warped fusion of armor, flesh, and code. Glowing red veins split across its chest, and two burning eyes pierced the storm.
It looked directly at him.
The Final Boss.
To be continued…..