1 Prologue
I opened my eyes to find this thing in front of me.
_____________________________
[Enter character name]
-------------------------
[Server]
XXXXXXX_5
[Choose Appearance]
- Hats
- Skin Tone
- Shirts
- Trousers
- Dinosaur Skins
[Accept]
________________________________
It was the window that was used to enter the new character's information in a game. But the problem was that it was an all too familiar thing for me. It was in the MMORPG game 'Age of Taurus'. The game that I was just playing before everything went black. It was like this. I had turned on my laptop computer, clicked on the internet explorer, and typed in 'Age of Taurus' in the search bar. In the search results, it was at the top, since it was quite popular.
It was awarded as 'The Best MMO of the Year 2013' and the 'Best Action Browser MMO' by some company I didn't know. Because I only knew these awards from the homepage of 'Age of Taurus'. The words were put at the top-right corner of the homepage in an awarding style embroidered with black gift-style wrapping paper. And next to it was a similar element with the words '10 Million Registrations' typed in bold white letters on it. Yes, it was a popular MMORPG with 10 million people registered worldwide.
But those ten million were only registrations, and the number of actual people actively playing it was far below that number. It was sad, but also inevitable. The game had far passed its prime. It was launched between the years 2011 and 2013, where it became a popular and trending game. But time passed and with it came new MMORPGs, which boasted better features and better next-generation 3D-Graphics with the copied innovative fame system from 'Age of Taurus'. And now, nearly ten years later, in 2020, where MMORPGs had taken to the next level, giving birth to VRMMORPGs and Immersive MMORPGs that had taken over the gaming world. Free PC MMORPG games like 'Age of Taurus' and other games by 'DividedScreen Studios' were buried under the midst of those games.
Only a handful of gamers, who had been playing the MMORPGs since the time they were launched until now, knew that the games existed, and stayed loyal by actively playing and awaiting future updates while supporting for the creators.
Anyway, it was normal up until I logged in to the game and the panel popped up into view. And then the weird thing happened. Suddenly, everything went black and I remembered nothing after that. I had just opened my eyes and found myself seemingly sucked inside the game, the new- character making panel blocking my view in front of me. I looked around. Everything was black, up to the point where closing or opening my eyelids made no difference. I couldn't make out how large the space was. I tried randomly throwing my arms as far as I could around me, wanting to see if I was inside a small place. But no matter how far my arms reached out, it didn't make contact with any object whatsoever.
I was stuck on the spot. I tried in vain to move my legs and step away but it seemed like I couldn't control my legs. It was as if I wasn't in control of my legs anymore. Someone or something had seized control of my legs, restricting my movements. But I was aware that my body and arms could move freely. I was still in control of parts of my body other than my legs. But I had an intuition telling me that if I stayed too long, that something or someone might slowly take control of my body altogether. I had to take action fast, that was what it was telling me.
So I did. I snapped my head towards the panel in front of me. It was every bit the same as the panel in the game 'Age of Taurus'. So I knew what I had to do. I was immensely relieved that it was identical to the one I knew, if it wasn't then I didn't know what would have happened. I shivered at the thought that had crept up into my mind. If I didn't know how to operate the unfamiliar panel, then who knew how long I would stay in this blackness just to figure out how it worked. The Something or someone from before might already have taken over my body by the time I finished filling the info up. And then... I shook my head wildly to snap out of my thoughts. No, don't think of those bad possibilities. It hadn't turned out like that so I had to be grateful that the circumstances right now were widely in my favor.
And the important thing right now was to quickly fill in the blanks and move on to the next scene, that I had hoped it would be the same as in the game. The thoughts that I had up to now were unnecessary and would only waste my time. I knew that. But I couldn't help myself to not think at all. If I hadn't thought of the situation at all, then I had feared that I might turn insane from the pressure that was bearing on me at that moment. I wanted to think of everything I could think of so that I wouldn't fear that my memories might be lost from me if I didn't remind myself of it. Okay, enough. Let's accept the reality and make plans for the future, then move on.
I looked at the panel. At the topmost part, there was a blank space with the words above it asking me to input my character name on it. My username before was 'Gamesgo2'. Should I use it? I didn't see any reason not to. Except that if there were other people like me, then I wouldn't want them calling me with a name like that. If there were other people... And I wasn't hoping that there would be other people sucked into the game like me, it would, of course, be better that I was the sole person that the game chose to suck. It was just that... It would be great if I had fellow gamers to talk to and to accompany me throughout our time stuck inside the game. I would be sad to think that I would be alone, doing whatever the game asked, for me to be able to get out from this hellhole of a place.
I'm sure the game had put me in here for a reason. If not, then what good would it do for them that I was stuck in here, possibly, forever? For the sake of entertainment? That... could be. No! no, no, no! Don't even think of that kind of possibility happening. It could make me go crazy. And my wanting to live would be gone. I couldn't think of stuff like that. I shouldn't. I should believe that I was put in here for some kind of reason and they would release me as soon as I had finished doing whatever they want me to do.
But could I promise myself that I would do everything and anything they ask me to do? I would. Even if it involved kill... ing. No. There wouldn't be killing in a game. Except if it was like in SAO, where there were PVP and death. And this wasn't SAO. But, then again, I didn't know what this was either. Killing might be needed to satisfy my kidnappers. I shook my head so wildly that I thought it might come right off. What was I doing? Wasting my time again, piling more worries than necessary. Now, After this, no more thinking.
Wait a minute... How do I enter my character name? Haha, this situation was just like in the novels I had read. I had just noticed it now, how dumb could I be? Maybe because I hadn't drunk any water and that my head had been filled with worries and all other kinds of stuff. So no ridiculing, please. Well, according to the novels, I could either say it, think it in my mind, or... I could touch it? Type in the words? Let's try saying it first.
"Uh... Character name. Gamesgo2."
...
... And nothing happened. Yes, I decided to use my old username. It would save my time and sanity in thinking of other character names. So, next up is thinking of the name in my mind, like some kind of telepathy, or telekinesis, or... ? Whatever. Let's concentrate hard.
'Character name. Gamesgo2. Gamesgo2. Gamesgo2... '
I tried saying the name in my mind over and over again. I concentrated and focused so hard that I thought my mind would burst from the pressure. In the end, I was just worn out from the intense thinking and slumped down to the floor. Well, I tried to. But, when I loosened my body, it dropped down only to a crouch with my legs still standing up. So it looked like I was doing a lazy work-out routine.
The next thing to try was to tap on the panel and see if it would provide me with a hologram keyboard that I could use to type in the username. Or something else beside that. Anything was fine. I tapped on the blank space under the question. Suddenly, another smaller panel popped up.
____________________________
[Loading keyboard... ]
____________________________
It's loading a keyboard. So there was a keyboard all this time. I felt kind of offended. I imagined the system or my capturer laughing his head off somewhere far away, cracked up after seeing me like this. Well, laugh all you want, system or whatever. It might cause you your life, so be careful.
The keyboard popped up and I typed in my character name with succession.
____________________________
[Character name]
Gamesgo2
[Server]
XXXXXXX_5
...
There was the server. But I knew I couldn't do anything with it, so I left it be. Now, it was time to choose my character's appearance.
...
[Choose Appearance]
- Hats
- Skin Tone
- Shirts
- Trousers
- Dinosaur Skins
[Accept]
______________________________
I tapped on the icon 'Hats', and after it loaded, three slots were in a horizontal line and in each of them were different types of hats.
...
[Hats]
1 Sombrero 2 Cowboy Hat 3 Green Flatwater
...
I chose the 'Sombrero' because I had chosen the other two quite often before, when I was making more characters in my account. The 'Sombrero' didn't really fit my character as a cowboy, and the other two had looked so much better because they fitted with the other set of clothing.
For my character's skin tone, I tapped on white. Then I chose a brown checkshirt for the 'Shirt' icon, brown jeans for the 'Trousers', and a clear azure color for my dinosaur's 'Body Skin'. After checking that I had done all the things I needed to do, I took a deep breath and tapped on the 'Accept' icon.
The panel blurred, then dissappeard. I was plunged back into total darkness again. The light from the panel dissipated and vanished in the blink of an eye. The afterimages from the light kept dancing in my eyes for a while, before they were gone too. I fell unconscious after that, I think.
And when I opened my eyes a few millenia later, desert sand flooded my teary eyes as I blinked furiously and scoffed out the sand from my mouth. I was finally able to shield my eyes and opened them wide, only to see that I was lying in the middle of a rocky desert. I snapped my eyes around me, and saw that, on either side of me, there were big rocks that seemed to squash the opening I was currently lying in.
I bolted upright and swiveled my head behind me. There were no huge boulders big enough to block my view, and I could see the misty horizon through the sands that were swept up by the wind.
The rocky desert beyond me was littered with large rocks scattered randomly and dozens of scrubs of cacti that swayed with the wind. My eyes drifted back to the path in front of me. There was a rocky path that cut through the two boulders on either side, it led onwards until a fork in the distance, barely visible to me through the sand swathed in the wind. Small dried cacti and shoots of tall grass grew on either side of the path, following it in a messy line into the mist beyond.
Suddenly, something came out of the mist. It was the thing I was waiting for. In the game, dinosaurs were used as a mode of transportation and for PVP battles or fights with bandits that roam the west. The starting dinosaur was a Coelophysis*.
