World Of Wonders

Hallorann Hawke had always had an interesting life.

At birth, he had been declared a miracle- his vitals had all flatlined while he had still been in his mother's w.o.m.b, but after a rushed delivery, he had startled the room filled with doctors and nurses by abruptly crying out loud.

In his childhood, he had been a prodigy- despite parents who fought night and day and left him to his own devices for most of his growing years, he outperformed his entire district and was declared to have bright prospects in the Federation.

In his teenage years, he was praised as the perfect idol- by inspiring his fellow classmates with his faultless work ethic and brilliant mind, he attracted the attention of the higher-ups, which resulted in him graduating with multiple offers from various top-tier academies in hand.

Many had assumed that he would choose the technology sector, where he would put his genius intellect to use to invent and perfect all sorts of products.

Hence, he was the target of envy.

It was the year 2043, and the Earth was not a peaceful place. Factions vied for resources all over the planet, and although Hawke and his classmates were all part of the strongest one: the Federation of Allied Nations, life was not easy.

Only those who were sought after actively by giant corporations could avoid the mandatory conscription, and once one went into the army, life or death was not certain.

Everyone expected him to use this golden opportunity he had been given to avoid putting his life at risk, and directly join the elite strata of society.

However…shocking everyone, he chose the offer of the Military Academy.

Even the selectors were surprised, and no matter how much the friends he had made during his schooling years asked him, he gave no answer.

He took to the life of war like a fish to water: he excelled in all areas, and he was directly recommended and chosen in the elite unit that would operate at the highest level of discretion.

His friends would meet him over the years, and every time, they would remark that he had changed.

His personality that had always been extremely reserved started to turn into a boisterous one, and for the life of them, they hadn't been able to figure out just why that had been happening.

"It's done!"

A harsh voice interrupted Hawke's musing, and looking up from the store counter where he had been sitting, he was greeted by the sight of a figure holding the head of a woman by her hair.

Looking closely, though, it became obvious that it was no ordinary woman: her skin was weirdly reflective, almost as if it was made of shards of glass, and her hair was a striking silver.

More than these, though, the most prominent thing…was that she was leaking silver blood.

"Wonderful! I imagine that it must have been an epic fight! These vile members of the Argentum Clan have troubled us for too long! I-"

"Shut up and pay up."

With a 'thud', the head was placed on the table, and the cloak of the figure was thrown back to reveal an elf with pointed ears.

'Another generic template user, I see. How ugly are you in real life?'

Getting this thought in his mind on seeing the stunning features of the female elf that greeted him, he paused, but that made the elf snap, saying, "Move! I've got an appointment to keep!"

ZAP!

"OW!"

A charred smell filled the room, and for a moment, Hawke's eyes spelled murder.

True, he was in the body of a man who loved his beer too much, with a potbelly that would need a separate chair when he sat down, but that didn't mean that he couldn't take down the one in front of him in barely three moves.

For the briefest of moments, even the elf seemed to feel something. She cowered, instantly releasing the spell that had caused a small cloud to appear above Hawke's head and zap him with a lightning bolt, but by the time she looked at him closely, she saw no indication of what had scared her before.

Indeed, it had only lasted for a moment: Hawke had controlled himself right away, as he didn't want a repeat of what had happened the last time he had acted on impulse.

Struggling to get the images of the red room with torture instruments that were dripping with blood out of his mind, he spoke in a curt tone.

"That is very rude of you, Miss! The shopkeeper's guild will be hearing of this! Here's your payment, and do not let your shadow fall on my door, ever again!"

For a few seconds after he placed the pouch filled with silver coins on the table, the elf stared at him suspiciously.

He had his hands on his h.i.p.s, and he was trying his best to act as the very image of a severely annoyed shopkeeper.

He maintained his pose, and seeing that she still wasn't moving, he made a shooing motion and said, "Leave, miss, or I'll have to call the town guard!"

This made her finally move. Picking up the pouch, she placed it in the rucksack that appeared, and then disappeared on her back.

As she started to walk to the door, Hawke let out a sigh of relief. He really didn't want another 'bug report' on him, and it seemed like he was out of the woods.

Only…at the door, the elf turned around and said something almost half-jokingly.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're real people, contracted by L.I.F.E to act like AI and generate all this buzz around realism. Ooh! I should post this on LifeBook…"

Only that last sentence was spoken with enthusiasm, and in the next instant, the elf was gone.

Seeing the empty doorsill where she had stood, Hawke couldn't help but say, "You dumb…sigh. I guess even if the truth is found, all I'll receive are 'thoughts and prayers'."

There was a certain desolation in his voice as he sat back down, and as he looked around at the house that was decorated with all kinds of weird things, he thought back to how he had ended up here.

There had been that military expedition, and the abduction.

After that was the…'Funtime'. He had decided not to call it 'torture' in case he ended up reliving all those memories, and right now, it was working.

Honestly, though, it was only to an extent, but it would have to do. After all, something like years of being brought to the cusp of death, healed, and then going through the whole thing again, over and over, with different tools and so, so much laughter(that had almost made him go crazy and laugh while he was impaled with red-hot pokers) could not be shelved away so easily, but he was trying.

Then…came the moment it had happened.

He had been abducted a second time, and he had been convinced that it was to the Underworld, if one existed.

Only…he had ended up in the body of a baby, and had witnessed his mother being killed.

This had been followed by a couple more stints of being in baby bodies again, with no explanation whatsoever.

That had actually been the most harrowing part: having no answers, and having to piece together what the f.u.c.k was going on.

Thankfully, it had only lasted a week, or around that time, as he had no proper method of keeping time between when he changed bodies.

He had already figured out a few things, but after being given the body of a teenager, he had finally been able to find out the truth by asking the person who was supposed to be his father.

They…were in the revolutionary game called 'World of Wonders', a VRMMORPG by the famous company L.I.F.E which had made its fortune in famous social media companies such as LifeBook and LifeTalk.

Hawke had heard about it, but he had only paid attention to the aspects the military had been interested in: they had wanted to try training soldiers in the simulation, but it had still been in beta.

Of course, this was before his abduction and subsequent…'funtime', so he had guessed that it must have really taken off from then.

After this, Hawke had asked the most important question.

Were they dead? Were their souls somehow in the game?

The answer…had made him want to pull his hair out.

No one knew.

All they did know was that they had been people with nothing and no one to their name. They were byproducts of constant war- a group of destitute individuals who had lost everything and taken to the streets to hope to live.

They remembered being mopped up one day and thinking that they would be jailed for a while, which they were used to, but they had ended up here.

Life was simple, they had said.

Just follow the rules: never act out of character, never try to harm the players, and never, ever try to speak about who you are.

If he did that, he had been told that he would have a much better life than what could be gotten on the streets…if he was lucky.

Lucky enough to not find players who would suddenly decide to go Deviant and kill him for the sake of it.

Lucky enough to not tick off the truly depraved ones, who might resort to things that shouldn't be put into words.

And lucky enough…to not be turned 'off'.

That was the ultimate punishment hanging over their heads- to be shut in a box, forever, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

Just thinking of that fate made Hawke shudder, as he had had a taste of it. Once, he had slipped up and screamed that he was a human, just like the one who had decided that he should be tied up and used for target practice, and he had been placed in 'The Box'.

There had been no way to tell the time. No way to get out. No way to even sit or stand properly, as the box's proportions did not allow either.

He could only stay in there, changing positions every time it started to hurt, until he began to beg that he wouldn't repeat his actions.

Pride of a soldier? Unbroken will to never beg?

Such things meant nothing after being trapped for what felt like years in that place.

Nothing.

As the sound of the bell at the door ringing reached his ears, Hawke realized that he had gotten lost in his musings for the second time on the same day.

Snapping out of it again, he was about to speak the regular greeting that had popped up in front of him in the form of a floating text box on his command, but he stopped and dismissed it when he found that it was an old man with long robes and an otherworldly look to him.

"Hawke! How have you been! It's been a long time!"

A smile spread across his lips, and Hawke directly stepped forward to hug the man.

Alas, the potbelly came in the way, but that didn't stop him from laughing out loud with pure joy.

Oh…he had forgotten how that sounded.

"How long has it been?"

As he asked the same question that he always did whenever they met, the old man answered in a deep voice.

"12 in-game years since you came here. And I have other news. There will be a server migration- they're expanding to World of Wonders V2, but the name will be the same."

12 damn years.

When he shifted bodies, Hawke would always lose his estimate of the time.

Hence, he would always ask this man, who had been the same one that had acted as his father all those months ago, and who had given him the first answers regarding this place.

After staying for a long time, the old-timers had apparently developed a sense to find out how much time passed, and that was how the man knew.

As for how they found themselves- every NPC could access a list of others in the same in-game area as them, and it looked like his friend had assumed the role of a Magister nearby.

The two of them sat, as this was luckily a town quite out of the way.

With a sigh, the old man studied Hawke for a while.

In their life, if they wanted to maintain a semblance of sanity and have friends, then they would have to look past the faces that would always change, and learn to study the eyes, which could contain more emotion than all the features on one's face, combined.

Whatever the old man saw in Hawke's eyes made him ponder over something very seriously for a bit, and following that, he asked, "We were interrupted the last time, and then I was killed. Let's resume the story. You told me about how you went to the Military Academy, and how your character changed. Why was that? What is the secret your friends never found out?"

Ordinarily, on hearing the question, Hawke would have given some perfunctory answer and dismissed it, as it was a very personal piece of him that he had never shared with anyone.

Yet…seeing the kind eyes of the man, and reflecting on the life he had now, Hawke felt a sudden urge not to lie.

Barking out a laugh, he said, "The answer…is anger! They only saw the perfect boy in school. The goody-two-shoes who was always so polite. So hardworking. What they didn't see... was the unwanted child who was beaten at home, almost every day, and sometimes even made to starve. They didn't know about the surveillance chip that made sure that he would never talk about what really happened to him at home to anyone, and the dread that filled that boy's eyes whenever the time came to go home. I chose the Military Academy because it was compulsory to board there, and the training…was SO F.U.C.K.I.N.G FUN! Blowing up things, shooting everything in sight, thrashing your opponent until they begged for mercy- all these things allowed me to let out the pure rage that had been building up inside me for all my life, and this finally allowed my true character to come out. Ah…those were the days. Those…were the days."

The first time he said those words, it was out of nostalgia.

But the second time…his tone was filled with the hopelessness that had been caused due to this life.

The old man seemed to notice this. A teardrop formed at the corner of his left eye, but he quickly wiped it away.

Hawke seemed to be lost in his memories, and seeing this, the old man continued to look at him.

A few seconds later…it seemed as if he had made a decision.

Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a round, transparent ball that seemed to hold the very universe within it.

It was an array of tiny, twinkling stars arranged in dazzling patterns, and taking a deep breath, he crushed it.

Instantly, Hawke's eyes went wide as the room they were in disappeared.

The wooden ceiling was suddenly replaced by the night sky, and just as Hawke was about to curse, a voice spoke out from beside him.

"Hallorann Hawke. You have been chosen. If you were given a chance to turn into a player, and if you could achieve freedom by winning the game, what would you do?"

Hawke's mind went blank as he heard this.

He didn't know what was going on, but from the very bottom of his heart, the answer reached his lips, almost as if it had been summoned forth.

It felt as if it had been there for a long time, but it was only now that it had gotten a chance to break free.

"I would f.u.c.k 'em all over, and make this World my bitch."

As his answer echoed in the void, the voice replied.

"Very well. May Fortune favor your Path."

Before Hawke could say anything else, he blacked out, but before he left the waking world, one thought firmly echoed in his mind.

'If this is all a prank, I'm gonna shove Dragon Chillies up that old man's a.s.s.'