1 Chapter 1: January 1st, Year One

Hugh's life prior to logging in felt like a dream, which was backwards from what he knew to be true. Thrive was a game proposed to be played during sleep—a lucid dream controlled by a gaming system. It wasn't reality, yet it enveloped him so thoroughly he couldn't tell the difference.

Maybe it was because he started off as a demigod of creation with access to an intuitive terraforming interface. He don't know anyone who'd stay humble with such power at their fingertips. After only a few minutes of trial and error, he was carving rivers and crafting hills with the skill of a master sculptor. He didn't question the whys or hows. Most of the world hovering before him was hidden in shadows—locked out of his control for now—but the starter area gave him enough landmass to craft a full continent.

He don't know how many minutes or hours or days he spent as a demigod, nudging rivers into place and painting groves of trees across the landscape, creating an island surrounded in three directions by snow-topped mountains. He only knew he was mentally exhausted by the time he stamped his world as done and moved on to the final details. He set a reasonably temperate climate into motion, scattered a selection of starter prey evenly over the land, and placed a marker where he wanted his home camp to be.

Once he named his world 'Destination' and clicked the last finalization button, he finally heard something aside from his own breathing.

"Earth is dying," a soft-spoken woman whispered in his head. "The causes are numerous, but like any disease can be traced back to one source: humanity. We are killing our home. For that reason, we must leave it."

Hugh recognized the spiel from all the commercials. It was even printed on the box for the Tryton 4D Cryosis gaming suit. However, that's where everything he expected came to an abrupt end and the wildest conspiracy rumors proved themselves to be true.

"We at Tryton Industries regret to inform you, you are one of the ten billion self-selected participants in the government sanctioned project codenamed Gateway. As we speak, your body is being sealed within the Cryosis gaming suit you donned prior to logging in and will be moved to an underground facility where it will be remanded for a minimum of one hundred years. During this time, we have provided entertainment in the form of a four dimensional simulation game, Thrive. Go. Explore. Build. Thrive. But, most of all, be at peace. Earth will be a better place when you wake up. This is the promise of Tryton Industries, the World Council, and the Navigator Core System."

"Really?" he grunted as his godly body shrank down to human size. By the time he finished the one-word sentence, he collapsed atop a flagstone patio on the world he'd just spent so much precious time making.

Hugh didn't weep or cry or rail at the heavens. For the longest time, he just sat in the middle of the patio and did nothing. His mind was blank. Occasionally there was a niggling of "I should—" but he dismissed it on reflex. There was nothing left he absolutely had to do in order to exist. While his body was in stasis, food and drink were unnecessary. Bodily functions were halted. Technically he wasn't even breathing anymore. Not in the real world.

But here—this world he'd built was starting to breathe for him. A gentle breeze blew across his bare skin and rattled the whip-like branches of a nearby willow tree. Inhale. A brook babbled across smooth rock and gurgled down several small waterfalls, heading down to a river roaring in the distance. Exhale. His five senses were stimulated as thoroughly as if he was still in the real world.

He'd never been the type to meditate, but he felt like he could go on breathing in the environment for the next century. The night air felt cool and the lack of the ever-present hum of the city made him wonder if he'd ever known the true meaning of silence until now. The air smelled strange. He hadn't known the scent of grass and pine could be so intense. It made him sneeze twice while he tried to put a name to everything else overwhelming his nose, but it was all too different from the common scents he encountered in the real world.

He supposed he could have immediately searched for a "Call GM" function and demanded some answers, but he didn't actually care. Hugh loved the thought of living inside a game and he'd prayed for the opportunity from the first moment he watched a fictional show featuring such an event. In the real world, there was a limit to how a person could grow or how far they could rise. A person could work the same job their entire life and never get anywhere. But in a game? In a video game, hard work always produced experience points, even if it was only a fraction of a decimal point. As long as he didn't give up or rage-quit, he'd eventually reach level cap. The only question was what path he wanted to take to get there.