ARE YOU READY?

It feels almost like being weightless; light as a feather. One minute he’s standing before the mirror of character creation, appreciating the avatar he had put much much effort into customising to his personal preference, and the next the ground vanishes beneath his feet… or he’s lifted by a force so gentle that it is almost imperceptible to him. It’s hard to tell which it really is.

The feeling is disorienting, regardless of what it is.

The feather softly falls into a brightly lit room… or the invisible hand of a digital creator places it there with dextrous care. All of a sudden, it’s all around him: machines with ominously twinkling red lights, a maze of old pipes, disorderly piles of books crowned by ominously bubbling liquids, and garbage bins that look as if they have been accumulating trash for months. What is this place? A hoarder’s house? Disgusting. He wants to look away, to turn around, to find his way out, but the moment he even tries to glance to his side… he can’t.

He can’t look away.

He can’t turn away.

He can’t step away.

He can’t even say that he wants to get away.

He’s stuck. Akin to the Christ at the Cross imagery that was so prevalent when he was a kid, his arms extend to the sides and his legs are as if glued together while he’s forced to permanently face forward. How strange. When he was a kid, he sometimes wondered what that would feel like when having to look upon a crucifix. He had imagined it as painful, agonising, but now, forced into the same position despite the lack of a tangible cross, he feels nothing. There’s no aching, there’s no soreness, there’s not even a hint of any physical agony. Reduced pain threshold, he recalls. It's all the more disturbing.

His surroundings flicker and shift.

A woman in a lab coat steps into view, colours splitting out of her image while whole portions of her body do too. She looks at him. Is she smiling? Saying something? Making fun of him? He can’t tell for sure. In his ears, there’s only ringing, and where her mouth should be, there’s only a dark box. Empty.

SPOILER: Click to show

{UNOVR STARTER LAB}

One second she’s there and the next she’s not.

The lights turn off, and just like that, the strange room is gone.

Around him there’s nothing at all.

SPOILER: Click to show

{AUTOASSIGN}

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