CHAPTER 1

 City outskirts, September 2021.

 The whole city, probably the whole world is immersed in its everyday hurried existence, but not a huge white facility, standing out with apparent cleanliness and brilliance, as if not subject to time and surroundings.

It lacked a clear geometric proportion, settling in against the rest of the ordinary and unremarkable background, immersed in its languid calm.

It was not the height of this structure that made it stand out from the rest, not at all, for it would reach twenty-five meters (82 ft) in its limitations, maybe a little higher.

Its main feature was an area that would easily accommodate four soccer fields.

Despite the location of the mentioned institution far away from all the city rush, the echoes of everyday hustle and bustle and the cacophony of sounds still provide the typical noise background of an irritating metropolis, but not in the facility itself.

The Giant as if disgusted with what is happening around, hides its inhabitants in the midst of the vastness of silence and privacy, because if something happens outside, to the attention of those inside it is unlikely to be delivered.

The people that are encountered inside can be classified into two categories: the residents, which are the patients, and the medical staff, which includes not only doctors and their assistants, but also researchers, whose task is to identify and eliminate the maladies of the residents of the institution.

Classified was the information on which the employees of the scientific staff were working on. The tasks themselves were initiated by the authorities of the country and other influential individuals, and if the public had found out the essence of them, the authorities would have been put on the stake. One could doubt the motives behind the activities of the scientific figures, which quite loudly voiced about them being of helping nature to the humankind.

 In one of the rooms of this facility, arranged in calming shades of gray and green, was a young man, in a semi-recumbent state, attached to various machines for the monitoring of vital signs. Today, as on all other days he was doing the usual - watching on his tablet recordings or live streaming of games that piqued his interest, but if you asked him himself, his true occupation was waiting, waiting for the end of these tedious days, the end of which would be the embrace of death, the waiting of which he had spent twenty-odd years.

- I'm so sick of these useless streamers, this one didn't even notice the loot in the second left corner of the cave. I swear, the dog that barked during the stream was also against the skills of its owner and objected, wanting to take up the game himself and show better results. – Grumbling a little, the guy closed the tab of another timeslaying action and looked at the clock, which leisurely pulled the day not wanting to put up with the needs of our acquaintance, 'dying' in the absence of his favorite protagonist.

The greatest interest of the young man was aroused by the game of professional players, one of which was particularly popular, and of which our patient of the medical complex was a regular. However, like any other living, and certainly leading an active lifestyle, the streamer at this time of day was resting, which led to the need to occupy himself with watching the game of other inhabitants of the vastness of the Web.

Myriads of games are the young man's true passion, a dream that is not destined to come true. He was unable to play due to his circumstances, being physically disabled, making it impossible for him to integrate into the gaming industry, which is designed for a healthy person.

There was nothing to read either, because since the end of the Middle Ages mankind has played out almost all possible scenarios of dramas and situations in books, which are possible in human relationships: from love with friendship to all kinds of betrayals and overcoming the twists of fate.

Unfortunately, most authors of the twenty-first century still do not understand the needs of the reader and from time to time write about the same plot events, or worse, ignore logic and common sense at all.

The works of brilliant minds have long been read, which strikes the imagination with a unique bouquet of emotions, when such coryphees create a work of masterpiece criteria. In order not to lose the taste our acquaintance stopped reading, so as not to be even more disappointed in the rest of the reads.

Accordingly, spectatorship remains the only worthwhile activity for the physically disabled to enjoy life.

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- Dr. Roth, the patient's vitals in ward twenty-four have reached critical values. - In another, much larger room, a middle-aged female assistant can be seen walking up to a man sitting at a desk, covered in paperwork, and handing over the reports for the week of said patient. 

- Double dose him with tramadol and exclude the experimental intradermal injection. – Replied the man without raising his gaze.

- But doctor, you could be in serious trouble. – The assistant was still urging, realizing that after such a dose, a patient in such a critical situation would simply not wake up the next morning.

- Don't worry, the board insisted, and Mr.Volpi himself has asked that as the Day approaches he not be informed of anything and just make his departure painless. His parents were fine with it too, though I doubt they still pay much attention to his condition. – Slightly raising his gaze and casting it at his assistant, he spoke with a note of displeasure. It was more aimed at hopelessness, because the elderly man had long been accustomed to such outcomes, but he could not adapt and stop feeling the heaviness on his soul.

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Going back to the young man about whom the conversation between doctor and assistant was going on, you could see how tired he was from waiting for his favorite broadcast to be aired. Deciding to watch the recording in the morning, he put everything aside and lay back down as fatigue with the slight headache that had begun to set in was beginning to claim its dividends. He absolutely did not realize that he would never again be able to enjoy the game of the skilled man, that professionally approached his broadcasts, in anticipation of which the young man spent more than one hour of his short life.