The Transience of Her

How We Start Our Days... in Separate Worlds

What has happened to me can be best described as a huge blur.

One second, my heart stopped beating, my breath drew naught, my body felt nothing, and my consciousness fell into the void.

The next second, I sensed myself as an ether, a living draught, a thing many call a soul or a spirit.

Trying to make sense of it all, I watched as the mortal half of me was nothing but a bloodied, lifeless mess on the side of the road, surrounded by yellow police lines, crime scene operatives, observant passersby, and weeping friends and family.

So, this is what death feels like... even though logically, one cannot feel it once it hits. Permanently.

For the rest of the otherwise silent night, I've been wandering the immediate neighborhood, looking for a place to call home.

Oh wait, there is one. My own.

As a floating disembodied being, I flew over to my home, to my room.

As I penetrated though the door with ease, I turned the lights on with what used to be my hands.

Good. My room's still in great shape.

I have the usual girly stuff – cute pillows and bed sheets, makeup, and the clothes that make a lady a lady.

But I also do indulge in some things usually favored by men.

For one, I'm a fan of alternative rock. I have a modest collection of albums of my favorite bands, and a few posters decorate my room.

I also am a gamer, having a few digital titles downloaded and ready to go on my PC.

Since I could not rest my formless body onto the bed, I pondered on the next best course of action.

I could not stay here as a ghost, lest I'd be the prime target of people such as guys with proton packs, exorcists, or really powerful demons who haunt people's dreams and turn them into deadly nightmares.

Also, I didn't care what happens to the mortal half of me. Bury it, cremate it, who cares? They would still treat it with respect, anyway.

I know! Before the unexpected shedding of my mortal coil, I was still playing Skypaths Online.

Most likely, my guildmates – and especially Soren – still don't know that I'm honest-to-goodness dead.

To ease the sting of them knowing that I no longer live as a human, I would do something no one has ever done before.

Find the central server of Skypaths Online, access my account, and possess my character.

Easier said than done, obviously.

I didn't want the administrators getting spooked out by the news of a spirit possessing an online avatar, more so its own. Even though I was doing this with clean and honest intentions.

I wanted the world of Eleftheria to know that I'm still alive and kicking.

I wanted to... be reborn.

As I left my room back to what it was before I left it for the last time as a human, I surfed the breadth of the information superhighway, searching for what I would call my second home.

Going through wireless signals, fiber optic conduits, and data lines of copper and silicon was like penetrating through the eye of a needle.

Validation checks were needed to verify that I'm no malware plaguing someone else's systems.

It's like trudging through a dungeon, right? Only with no hands and feet?

And after a long, arduous journey...

I've finally found it. My avatar, Linnia Beferia.

With nothing but courage and a sense of adventure, I let my ethereal body possess the virtual one I created with my own two hands back then.

And then...

I felt a gentle warmth inside me, a stark contrast to the cold lifelessness that was my formless soul.

And as I open my eyes, I saw a breadth of clear blue skies, feathery cumulus clouds, rays of sunshine, and patches of green grass everywhere.

There were not much monsters, much more notorious ones, in sight.

This is the Uph'od Grasslands, where I last logged out.

I could sense my limbs moving like a normal human should, even though they were still digital three-dimensional renders of my chosen character, a Holy Dragoon.

In mere seconds, I got used to the lifelike movements of the one they call Linnia Beferia, which was made possible by the developers employing motion capture technology.

No sooner did I rise from the lying position, feeling reinvigorated after a period of stillness.

I brandished my Standard Bearer's Polearm with ease, performing savage thrusts and brutal swings that more often than not dealt huge damage to foes I've faced so far.

Yes, my desire of being reborn in another world, albeit a virtual one... was finally accomplished.

But I still have a long road ahead of me.

And I have to cherish every single step taken.

6:45 am. I rise once again from the bed, feeling a hint of rejuvenation from the nightmare that evolved into an impromptu play session.

It's the start of a brand new day, though technically, I already started it the moment I woke up almost three hours ago.

Now to do my mandatory morning rituals like a young adult should.

I take a bath with some shower gel and anti-dandruff shampoo with caffeine extract that invigorates the hair strands.

These, combined with the lukewarm water coming from the shower head, add a much-needed jolt of vitality.

Afterwards, I do the mandatory teeth-brushing and shaving to add another layer of freshness.

I don my best outfit: a black shirt with the design of one of my favorite alternative rock bands, The Dreamwalking Releasers, and wool short pants. To match the shirt, I have my music player packed with all the albums the band released so far, in lossless format.

For breakfast, I have hash browns topped with ketchup, mayonnaise, and mustard; creamy macaroni soup with croutons; melon bread; fresh lettuce; fresh blueberries; and a special chocolate-coffee drink.

The hybrid chocolate-coffee drink contains lots of energizing substances such as ginkgo biloba, grape seed, green tea, mangosteen, gotu kola, agaricus mushroom, seaweeds, moringa, and stevia. To top it all off, it has a coconut-based sweetener and creamer.

This entire course should be the gold standard for the fabled “breakfast of champions”.

“Hey, Soren.”

My mom calls me while I'm drinking the loaded concoction. I wait for her to let me finish my drink first, and I then answer...

“Anything important, mom?”

“Yes, it's about your friend Lianna. You don't plan to go to her burial this Sunday?”

“No plans yet. I've already attended her wake, anyway.”

“I understand your pain, my son. You two were inseparable, stuck like glue. And I'm quite surprised you didn't become lovers before...”

“C'mon, cut that out. Please give me some space.”

“I'm sorry. Even now, her sudden death still stings you, that you even don't want to go to her final resting place because it would sting you more.”

“I know.”

“Well anyway, you still have school. Dad and I hate it when you're late, even in college.”

Finished with my breaking of the fast, I stand up from the table, getting my gear ready before leaving.

“See you later, my precious son.”

“Later, mom.”

And off I go. To the nearby community college.

I'm currently on my way to earning a certification in computer repair, which should pave the way for a bachelor's degree in network systems administration.

The college day passes by without a hitch, but with no fanfare either.

As I prepare to go home after an uneventful day, something enters my mind.

Ah yes, I'm also commanded by dad and mom to do my weekly groceries.

They gave me quite an exhaustive list of things our family must stock up for the next week and beyond.

Let's see...

Cheese, all-purpose cream, peanut butter graham crackers, condensed milk, fruit cocktail, a pack of spaghetti, Bolognese-style spaghetti sauce, some multivitamins, chocolate bars for baking, a bunch of apples, a huge pack of hotdogs, and caramel pudding.

Man, that list is ginormous. It's stuck in my brain for roughly a week now.

But I know I can do it.

Who needs puny written shopping lists, anyway?

One late afternoon trip to the nearby supermarket later...

On one hand, I carry the spoils of war, ahem, the groceries inside a huge durable paper bag.

On the other hand, I sip on some strawberry soda float.

The walk shouldn't be difficult, since this town I live in is relatively peaceful, with no incidents of gun-related violence whatsoever ever since its founding.

As I listen to The Dreamwalking Releasers' latest album while walking, I wonder...

How does she start her day, anyway?

How do I start my day?

The answer is... simple and complicated, at the same time.

On one hand, I can't eat. It would be silly for AI creatures to eat human food, even when they're possessed like in my case. The only food they need is fuel from power sources such as batteries.

I also can't keep track of time, as I've said before. No watch accessories? What a bummer.

I can at least look at the time in the clock towers of each town, but in dungeons and the overworld? Forget it.

At least this game has a day/night cycling feature, which should make timekeeping easier.

On the other hand, exercises are the way to go.

Combat is the best way of exercise, but one must also know that a seasoned warrior must have some pre-combat conditioning, much like working out in a gym.

Even in this virtual land, stamina is of utmost importance.

Run out of it, and one would be asking for trouble, especially in dungeons full of hideous monsters.

Greeting other people, NPCs or not, is also possible and permissible for me.

A heartfelt sentence of encouragement, no matter how short it can be, is the tool for adventurers to get pumped up on whatever they will face for the rest of the day.

And what do I do in my downtime?

Simple. Skypaths Online has so many mini-games for adventurers to enjoy.

Card games, games of chance, racing games, puzzle games, rhythm games, even straight ports of old but gold arcade games made by the same company or officially licensed from other companies.

These mini-games are a great alternative source of money and rare items and equipment for those who want a break from combat.

One mini-game I excel at, by the way, is the fabled memory game.

Instead of colored tiles with various designs, one must match paper bills of various yeso denominations.

The denominations range from the lowly 2 yesos to the legendary 200,000 yesos.

There are double, even triple, bonuses for revealing similar bills in under a second.

In fact, I'm getting better at this game everyday.

It sharpens my memory skills, which is a must for people who want to prevent degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer's later in their lives.

And one mini-game I don't like? The so-called “fortune wheel”.

That one is a huge money sink. Despite timing where the needle will land, I still have a 40% chance of actually earning whatever is pointed at by the needle, because the wheel can sometimes tilt sideways before it stops completely.

What in the blasted bowels is this? Tilting is illegal in pinball, so why should it be implemented here?!

As for the million-yeso question one might ask me, “How do I even sleep?”

I know I can't log out because I might lose access to the data I rightfully created and owned, so I'm permanently logged in.

No worries. Even when the game is in system maintenance, I still can move, albeit within lawful and ethical bounds to prevent game-breaking glitches.

But in situations like this, I need rest.

I can always find the nearest inn within a town or the nearest monster-free spot in the expansive overworld and snooze off, preferably 30 minutes before the announced downtime.

And as for unannounced maintenance periods? That is a tricky one.

Just to play it safe, I can always steer away from the epicenters of chaos and enter dreamland before the servers are down.

It's been a long, hard day, isn't it? Sleep well, like I always do.