3 Ready. Set. Go

Kaden hurriedly went to the nearest gaming store and without any hesitation spent his entire savings and then some more on Apocalypse Online's gaming helmet.

He was completely broke now and pretty much maxed out his credit card but that did not matter. This had to be done. He had already missed his chance once and he was not about to do it again.

In truth, Kaden had ended up playing the popular game in his last life as well but unfortunately, he had started a bit late.

Worried about the cost of the gaming helmet, the electricity bill, and the chance that he could become addicted to the game, he had hesitated a lot and ended up only playing a little over four months later.

This would have also been fine, except that even then he focused on earning money using the game and spent most of his time doing odd jobs and grinding tasks such as mining or farming.

Thanks to the popularity of the game, he had also earned quite a bit and this motivated him to go more into the business side of the game, rather than the combat and exploration side.

If only he had known back then how much this was going to cost him, Kaden would have never done such a thing. However, now everything was going to be different.

Kaden rushed back to his small studio apartment immediately after buying the helmet. Boston evening traffic was tough to navigate but he used his bike to fly through the crowded streets.

The freezing cold December wind hit his face hard making him shiver, but this was only refreshing for Kaden. After being stuck in the comatose body for so long, he loved the cold and the pain. At least it made him feel something.

Kaden enjoyed the rest of the bike ride and soon arrived at his apartment complex which was located smack dab in the center of the city along with other congested student apartments.

He shoved his bike and rushed up to his place as the first of the tasks he had set out for himself was now complete. The next task was to secure some food which was quite easy.

He rummaged through his small apartment and just like he expected, he found some ramen packets. There were about twenty or so packets stacked. This was enough for ten days?

Kaden did not care. He hadn't tasted actual food for years so he was pretty sure that anything at this point would taste good. Sure, he would love to go outside and have a nice meal but that can wait. First, he needed to achieve some things in the game.

This had to be given the first priority no matter what!

Kaden rearranged some of his stuff, changed into comfortable clothes, and then sat down in front of his laptop. Now that the gaming helmet was secured, food was secured, the next was his classes.

He was currently a sophomore at Boston University and he was studying computer science. Normally, professors wouldn't care if students attended classes or not but he had a problematic professor who tended to demand in-person meetings when attendance dipped lower.

Kaden did not want to deal with this troublesome situation so he started the official process of deferring his classes for a year. This process took about half an hour but it was time well spent.

With these three things taken care of, he was now free to focus on the next and the final task which was the most important one of them all, to make a list of all the cheats that he could remember!

"This is going to be difficult." Kaden chewed his pen. He sat down with a pen and paper and tried his best to write down everything that he could remember especially all the key points.

The good thing was he had entered a coma pretty much a month or two after the game ended so it was not like he had many other memories that confused him.

But the bad thing was that he had spent a lot of time in his ghost state and those memories were not as crisp as he wanted them to be.

Stuck for an eternity in the middle of four white walls takes a toll on anyone.

Kaden tried to squeeze things out of his brain as much as he could. After a while, he nodded and closed the notebook. For now, he had a solid plan.

With that, he hit the shower and spent a good hour taking a nice long hot water bath, made himself some eggs and ramen with the leftover groceries in his fridge, and devoured the meal. He then finished the whole event with a nice piping hot cup of coffee.

It was almost eleven in the night and it was snowing outside. Kaden silently sat down near the window and enjoyed the scene while slowly savoring his coffee.

In one more hour, everything was going to change!

'Apocalypse Online', the game that was boasted to be the highlight of the technical advancement of the century, was about to be launched.

The popular video game company Tornado announced this mysterious game all of a sudden out of nowhere as if they pulled it out of their asses.

Even for the employees working in the company, this came as a surprise. There were absolutely no promotions done for it. No news about the game development.

Just three months back, the game magically sprang into existence and ever since then, it has been the talk of the town.

Of course, the talk was both positive and negative as no one believed that this kind of technology could possibly exist.

This was because Apocalypse Online was advertised to have 100% reality.

'The game and real life would be indistinguishable' was the tagline!

No other video game had ever achieved something like this. To make things more interesting, the company also somehow managed to acquire rights for currency exchange.

The in-game currency could be exchanged for dollars!

These two points were more than enough to grab the attention of the world and the game became the most-awaited game of the decade!

The hype was so big that this year instead of celebrating New Year in bars and restaurants, many people, particularly those who enjoyed playing video games, remained inside their houses, waiting right next to their gear.

Naturally, Kaden was also one among these early birds. When it was 11.58 in the night, he promptly placed the gaming helmet on his head and lay on the bed.

The helmet was quite comfortable and lightweight and there was no difference between going to sleep with and without wearing it. The instructions to use were also quite simple.

All Kaden had to do was push a button on the side. A beep sound rang in his ears and the equipment immediately whirred alive.

The next second, he experienced the familiar sensation of complete darkness. Some people might find this kind of setting extremely claustrophobic.

To Kaden, of course, it was different. He welcomed the darkness with a big smile because this represented the beginning of everything.