Chapter 1 - River of Time

Jacob Eivli was sprinting through the moonlit forest with a horde of demon beasts chasing behind him. As he ran his steps got slower as he lost more and more blood from the multitude of wounds that covered his body. A demon beast in the shape of a large snake shot out from the undergrowth and wrapped itself around Jacob's ankles. As he fell he twisted in the air just in time to see the gaping maw of a wolf type demon beast about to clamp down on his throat. Reflexively he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable feeling of his throat being torn out. After what seemed like minutes without feeling the jaws around his throat Jacob opened his eyes. The scene in front of him was the same as when he closed his eyes however there was now a large hourglass that seemed to overlap with everything in front him. As he watched nothing moved except for a few grains of sand that were surprisingly flowing back up into the top section of the hourglass. Slowly specks of yellow and orange light came out of the hourglass and formed into the image of a majestic looking river. As the bottom of the hourglass slowly emptied the light of the river became brighter and brighter until Jacob had to close his eyes to block out the blinding light.

Once some time had passed Jacob slowly cracked open his eyes only to see a desk with an old laptop sitting on it and some posters that he used to have decorating his room. One of the posters stood out from the rest. On the poster was an image of a world with many impressive figures looking down at it and the words 'New Dawn - Creation, COMING 12/11/2036'

"No fucking way" Jacob muttered under his breath, somehow he had returned to a time before what the event that had come to be known as The Assimilation had occurred. The Assimilation was an event that happened exactly one year after the release of New Dawn. During a period of only one week the world changed as the contents of New Dawn spilled through dimensional cracks into the earth. As whole cities rained from the sky and the use of magic became possible the result was the death of billions of the humans living on earth with only those who had a certain amount of luck or skill being able to survive.

New Dawn - Creation was a very mysterious game that was produced by a company that had never been heard of before called Merge. New Dawn appeared out of nowhere just six months before its release with the most rigorous marketing campaign that had ever been seen. No matter where you went you would always be able to see an advertisement for New Dawn and the new fully immersive VR capsules required to play the game. While these capsules were leagues ahead of anything else on the market and there was virtually no information on the illusive company Merge, the capsule managed to gain the verification of a lot of the biggest tech and gaming companies. The mystery behind where the game came from was gradually buried beneath the excitement and anticipation for this revolutionary new game. Nearly two billion people, both young and old, purchased the extremely affordable VR capsules before the games release and that number nearly tripled by the time of The Assimilation.

It was at this moment that Jacob remembered something, if he had returned to the past, then his family was still alive! He quickly rushed down the stairs and into the kitchen where his mother was cooking dinner. He ran up to her and embraced her with a hug, nearly tackling her to the ground. "What's got into you?" she half yelled as she nearly got squeezed to death. "I missed you mum," Jacob said quietly while trying to hold back tears. "Well maybe if you stopped fangirling over that new device of yours and actually left your room for a while you'd get to see me more. You do know that I live here too right?" A short while later Jacob released the hug and went to sit at the table to wait for his father and little brother to get home.

Soon after he heard the front door opening and his mother saying "good, you're home just in time for dinner."