Even as the darkness swallowed him whole, and every sensation in his body dulled to nothing but the distant mory of pain, one stubborn ember of thought refused to fade.
"I am a loser... my life ended without proving anyone wrong. Without proving that I’m not a necrophile."
His lungs had stopped. His heart was no longer beating. There was no air, no light, no feeling. Only a void stretching endlessly before him, cold and silent.
Yet deep within that abyss, Sid’s mind still echoed with the cruel laughter from chat, the whispers of doubt that had taken root long ago, and the twisted images of the zombie bride.
They thought they knew him. They thought the way he froze ant sothing sick lived in him.
"I’m not sick."
"I’m not done."
"I haven’t proved it yet. I’m not broken like that."
"I just... I just wanted to prove I wasn’t."
"If I get one more chance... if there’s any way back... I’m going to show them.
Not for the stream. Not for the chat."
"For ."
He felt like he was sinking into wet velvet, suffocating in nothing. Until, he felt it. A sound more than heard, a vibration deep in his chest. The one he always hoped to wake up to after a long sleep.
The sound of logging into a ga.
DUNNNN... DUN-DUN...
That login chi.
A jolt ripped through his chest like lightning, as if soone had slamd a defibrillator into his soul. That sound wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. He wasn’t at his desk. He wasn’t even alive.
"What is happening?"
It was familiar. Not a sound from real life, but one he’d heard thousands of tis before. The log-in tone. From Dead World Online.
His eyes shot open, and for a mont he expected to see the ceiling above him but there was none. Instead, he saw only the sky: endless, wide, and impossibly blue, spreading endlessly around him.
And he was falling.
"WHOA WHOA WHOA! WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT THE F*** IS HAPPENING?!"
Wind blasted against his face as he plumted, limbs flailing. His breath caught in his throat. The clouds rushed past him. His stomach turned inside out.
"This—this isn’t real! This isn’t real!"
But the burn in his lungs and the pressure in his ears said otherwise. He looked down. Below stretched a ruined city, streets lay cracked and broken, so drowned under rainwater, others blocked by overturned cars and rubble.
Vines and weeds had begun crawling over the concrete, green creeping in around the edges, but it was still mostly ruins.
A place he knew too well... the Dead World Online map. But this ti, it wasn’t just pixels and textures.
It was real.
"Nonononono this is NOT OKAY!"
His jacket, hoodie, and the deep green T-shirt beneath flapped in the wind. His cargo pants, the sa ones from his last stream, whipped around his legs.
"What the f—Did I just get sucked into the ga?!"
His headphones slipped from his ears, yanked by the rush of air. He snatched them, fumbling, and looped them around his neck.
"SH*T!"
The realization hit him harder than the fall.
He was inside Dead World Online.
He scread as the ground rushed toward him, his stomach flipping with the force of freefall. Every muscle in his body tensed in pure terror.
"I’M GONNA DIE TWICE?!"
A loud PING! shattered the roar of wind in his ears. A glowing blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes, floating in midair as if so invisible HUD had turned on.
A calm female voice, the sa one from the ga, spoke:
[WELCO TO DEAD WORLD ONLINE]
Tip: Survival begins the mont you land. Good luck!
"No no no no! Don’t hit with good luck! I just died, and now I’m falling out of the sky?!"
The wasteland rushed closer, the ruined city pulling into sharp detail. Sid’s throat burned as he scread again, limbs kicking uselessly. his mind caught up with his panic.
"Wait... waitwaitwait... if this is the actual ga, then—then the spawn drop works the sa way, right? That ans... parachute."
His words tumbled out in gasps as a desperate mory clawed its way forward. The tutorial, the first ti he had ever played, the mandatory sky-drop intro that always ended with yanking the chute right before impact.
"Co on, Sid! You’ve done this a thousand tis before!"
His hands darted across his body, patting down his body in a frantic search.
"Yes, there! Parachute! Co on, co on, co on!"
Fingers trembling, he found the release cord and pulled it with everything he had.
The chute burst open above him. His body shot upward, the speed slowing fast, air catching in the fabric. The ground was still racing up to et him. He looked down.
"Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding ..."
The ruined city spread out beneath him, but his drop line wasn’t over cracked streets or rooftops. It was headed straight toward a cluster of rusted radio antennas, tal spikes jutting upward like spears waiting to impale him.
"Seriously?! Out of the whole damn sky, I get dropped on a death trap?! What did I do to piss God off this bad?!"
Sid’s pulse spiked. His hands dragged at the chute cords, pulling hard left, trying to swing away from the death trap. The parachute groaned, fabric twisting, and he felt the drag pull him sideways.
His whole body fought against gravity as he kicked, leaning, trying to steer like his life depended on it because it absolutely did.
"Co on, co on, don’t make the first guy to die by kebab!"
The antennas scraped him, close enough he swore he could feel the tips graze the air.
"Too close way too close!"
His stomach lurched again as he barely cleared them. And then finally he spotted it.
A flat rooftop. Small, square, and blessedly solid. The faded red letters of an old convenience store sign still clung to the front, half cracked and dangling, but it was still a roof.
Sid pulled hard again, steering for it. The rooftop swelled up fast in his vision. Too fast.
"Oh, crap—crap—crap—"
His legs flailed, trying to brace for landing. He catched a glimpse of his knees before kissing the rooftop and he rembers it. His knee.
Not the knee. Anything but that.
"Sh*t my knee!"
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