12 Chapter 12: Galactic Casualties of war, Part 3

He plopped back down on the sofa and the bag of tacos were smooshed between his left butt cheek and the cushion.He lifted his rear end up just enough to slide the bag to the side and another hot sauce packet fell to the floor.

The download bar read 100 percent and then the words "Place Virtual Headset on now" flashed on the screen.

Not willing to let go of his new powerful controllers, he grabbed the Virtual Headset and slid the black band around his head and over his ears.The wide dark glasses covered most of his face.

"Totally awesome," he said.

A futuristic symphonic sound blasted from the speakers and as the words Galactic Casualties of War II:Return of the Kryvons appeared, the controllers vibrated in his hands."Way awesome," he said.

He sat patiently, like a dog begging for a treat, while he watched the intro video.He learned his prized Green Squadron had been wiped out during an ambush of Kryvons and he was the last original solider remaining.Left nearly for dead, he was revived by nearby freedom fighters.They had to come to terms with their interplanetary differences to defeat the hoard of Kryvons before the seven moons became aligned.Once aligned, the moons would give the Kryvons the ability to open a portal to other realms and their insatiable need to feast on other worlds would become unstoppable."It's totally up to me," Thornton said."This is what I have been training for.Let's do this."

As the opening story wrapped up, Thornton reached down and rubbed his leg, suddenly stiff and throbbing.He was about to remove his Virtual Headset to check it out when the first battle sequence began and he found himself surrounded by a hoard.

Level after level, Thornton felt more and more like he was actually in the game, in the world of Kryvons, the freedom fighters, and interplanetary market places.

By level three, he had gained enough silver bits to upgrade his ship.By level four, the cause of his leg pain moved from the vein in his leg and passed through his right femoral vein.

By level five, he was blasting Kryvon spaceships into bits of moon dust and the tiny clot found its way to his right external iliac and then his common iliac.

During a brief moment of hibernation, Thornton put down the controllers and reached for the bag of tacos, now cold after hours of game play.He unwrapped one of the tacos and shoved it quickly into his mouth.The top of the shell remained hard but the bottom was soggy from the grease of seasoned hamburger meat and sour cream.

Unexpectedly, a Kryvon appeared on his ship and tried to break the glass of his hibernation chamber.Thornton quickly grabbed his controllers and he had to find the release button to wake his character up or die.

After a quick battle and ejecting an escape pod out of his ship just in time, he was on his way to the freedom fighter's base on the Hemora Sea Planet.He didn't know that the clot also boosted itself into his inferior vena cava toward his right atrium.

"Years in the making," Thornton said to the screen as his pod neared the base.Little did he know how his words rang true, but not only to his glory of returning to the world of Galactic Casualties of War, but about the clot that had formed in his leg.From years of sitting, eating fast food and drinking sugary carbonated beverages that could burn the paint off cars, his sedentary lifestyle had come with a price.

His escape pod landed at the Hemora Sea Planet base and he joined the freedom fighters for an epic battle.Using his bounty of silver bits, he loaded himself up with level ten firearms and armor.He felt invincible and nothing could harm him.

Unfortunately, deep beneath his armor and layers of protection, the clot reached his right atrium, passed to the right ventricle and eventually found its way to his lung, circulating though the pulmonary artery and its branches.

The base doors slid open and Thornton rose to his feet and prepared himself for war.As he had gotten the first glimpse of the size of the Kryvon's epic army, an excruciating pain radiated from his chest and he immediately felt light-headed.He shook his head back and forth, thinking that wearing the Virtual Headset for so long had taken its toll on his eyes.His heart raced faster and faster and he began to cough.His cough continued and soon his cough became wet.Because he failed to remove the Virtual Headset, Thornton didn't realize that he was coughing up blood.With each wet cough, he wiped his hands across his shirt, the dark blood smearing against the bits of nacho cheese dust and sour cream on his chest.

Laser fire and sonic blasts rocked the screen and the controllers in his hands vibrated violently.His hands gripped his controllers in a quick, sudden burst and he fell back onto the sofa.The taco bag slid off the sofa and the wrapped tacos poured onto the floor.Like a fish flopping on the deck of a SeaRay, Thornton's body seized and froze.His eyes bulged and the last thing he saw as the Pulmonary Embolism ceased his life was a Kryvon soldier standing over him and a beam from its sonic blaster rocketing toward his face.