Black.
The hum lingered, low and insistent, like it had taken a breath and wouldn't exhale.
Elric's eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything. Not the desk. Not the monitor. Not the pile of empty cans. Nothing.
He felt the controller still in his hands.
Cold plastic.
Sweaty, sticky fingers.
He lifted it hovered it in front of him looked around the darkness.
"…Huh," he whispered, voice cracking. "Weird loading screen."
A twitch of amusement at the corner of his lips.
The hum became sharper. Higher. Ringing.
Then...
Pain.
Sudden.
Like someone had flipped a switch inside his chest. A snap, a pop, something like every nerve had been erased and reconnected wrong.
He stumbled in his chair, hands clutching at his ribs.
"Okay, that uh… that hurts."
The air left him with a hiss.
Eyes darted around still nothing.
Heart hammering, uneven, chaotic.
He reached for the desk to stabilize.
Fingers brushed a can.
Fell.
Metal clanged.
He didn't hear it.
Sound wasn't real anymore.
Everything wasn't real anymore.
A flash behind his eyelids.
Bright. White. Blinding.
Elric gasped.
He tried to speak couldn't.
Only a small, choking noise came out. Not words.
Then...
Another flash. Hot, burning, sudden.
Elric felt his chest tighten again.
Vision flickering.
Everything moving too fast, too slow, collapsing on itself.
"…No… no, this isn't"
He tried to reach for the fan.
It was gone.
The desk.
The cans.
The monitor.
The floor.
All gone.
Air… gone.
He opened his mouth to scream.
Nothing.
His body weightless, suspended in space he could not perceive.
A strange calm overtook him in a heartbeat.
"…Huh," he whispered again, almost marveling.
And then...
A final, sharp jolt through his consciousness.
Like falling through every centimeter of existence at once.
Pain, light, sound all compressed into a singular heartbeat.
…and then...
Nothing.
No body. No room. No hum.
Just absence.
He waited.
Or thought he waited.
Time had no meaning.
A whisper of thought flared in the void:
"…Did I just die?"
Then...
Sudden sensation.
Not weightless.
Not empty.
A cold surface beneath him.
Something vibrating faintly.
Air, thick and real, filling his lungs.
He opened his eyes.
Neon light.
Not from a screen. Not from LEDs. Not reflected.
It was all around him.
Red, pink, blue, green streaks slicing through the sky, bouncing off wet streets, spilling into alleyways like liquid fire.
Hissing drones overhead. Cars sliding along rails without tires. People-humans, cyborgs, and things in between flowing through streets like rivers of movement.
Elric blinked.
"…Okay," he muttered.
"…new map?"
He sat up, careful.
Everything smelled real. Oil, neon, rain, exhaust, street food.
The hum returned.
Soft now, a background pulse.
He looked down at his hands.
Normal hands.
Controller nowhere.
Fingers flexed, toes wriggled.
Heart hammering again but in a human way.
"…Alright," he said, voice shaking but trying to be casual. "That's… immersive."
He pushed off the ground.
Stood.
Feet on concrete, wet concrete.
The air smelled again real.
He spun slowly.
Neon signs flickered, giant holograms advertising synthetic companions and energy drinks, an endless city in every direction.
Then... something strange.
A flicker in his vision, like the HUD of a game, a flash of text in the corner of his eye:
[WELCOME, PLAYER]
Elric froze.
"…What…?"
Then a grin spread across his face.
"Wow," he said softly, almost reverently. "They really upgraded this game."