"Come on, spread it wide for me!" a male voice grunted, breathing heavily.
"I'm trying... Why don't you just pierce through it?" a female voice replied, equally exhausted.
The sound of grunting and thrusting lasted for exactly five minutes before the female voice screamed in frustration.
"Just burst through it with that thick rod!" she said desperately.
"Alright, here I go!" the boy said, mustering all his strength as he thrust his thick rod forward with everything he had.
**[You died from suffocation]**
Looking at that message, Damien sighed deeply. It would take exactly another six hours before he respawned, and the game wouldn't let him do anything except wait in this white room. No exploring, no fighting, no progression. Just waiting.
The white space around him stretched endlessly in all directions, a sterile void that made the death penalty even worse. At least they could have given him something to look at.
[Status Menu]
[Death Replay]
[Respawn Countdown: 5:59:45]
[Log Out]
"I'll just log off," Damien muttered as he called up his menu and tapped the log out button with a thought.
[Logging out...]
The world around him began to pixelate and fade. Damien waited patiently as the familiar sensation of disconnection washed over him, that strange feeling of his consciousness being pulled back into his physical body. It always felt like falling, even though he never actually moved.
Soon, he was no longer in that white space. Instead, he found himself in a hospital room, lying in bed with tubes connected to his body. The antiseptic smell hit him first, sharp and clinical. Then came the dull ache in his legs, not pain exactly, since he couldn't feel them properly, but that phantom sensation that never quite went away.
This was the real him, not Hades, the strongest player in Eternal Descent, feared across servers and known for solo-clearing dungeons that required full parties. Just Damien. A seventeen-year-old cripple. Nothing more than another broken person the world had discarded.
The harsh fluorescent lights hummed above him, casting everything in that sickly hospital glow he'd grown to hate over the past two years. His room was small but private, one of the few benefits of his family's wealth that still remained. Medical bills had been eating through the inheritance steadily, but there was enough left to keep him comfortable, at least for now.
As Damien attempted to quickly remove his VR neuro-gear headset and hide it under his pillow—Kayla always scolded him when she caught him using it—the hospital door opened with its characteristic soft click.
A young, attractive nurse walked in, holding a basket of fresh fruits. Her honey-brown hair was tied up in a neat ponytail, and despite it being near the end of her shift, she still had that warm smile that had kept Damien from giving up completely.
"Mr. Damien," Kayla said with a knowing look, clearly having spotted the neuro-gear before he could hide it. "I already told you, you can't play those games too often. It's not good for your health. Your brain needs rest too, you know."
She set the basket of fruits on the desk beside his bed, apples, oranges, and some grapes. The same mix she always brought, knowing they were his favorites even though he never told her.
"What else do you want me to do?" Damien said, his voice coming out more defensive than he intended. He placed the neuro-gear on the desk and turned to gaze out the window, watching the city lights beginning to flicker on as evening approached. "You know this is the only thing that makes me feel human."
Kayla's expression softened immediately. She couldn't help but look at him with that mixture of pity and concern that he both hated and desperately needed. She stepped closer to his bedside and placed her hand on his forehead, checking his temperature out of habit, before gently ruffling his dark hair.
"I thought we agreed you wouldn't say things like that anymore?" she said softly, her voice taking on that gentle tone she used when she was worried about him.
Damien shook his head slightly, feeling a faint blush creep onto his face. He hated how easily she could make him feel like a kid again. "Hey, stop that! I'm seventeen—I'm not a kid," he protested, pouting despite himself.
Kayla chuckled at his childish behavior, the sound light and genuine. It was one of the few sounds in this place that didn't feel clinical and cold. "I'll stop if you promise not to say things like that anymore. Deal?"
Damien pouted harder and turned his face completely toward the window, refusing to answer. He could see her reflection in the glass, still smiling at him with that mixture of amusement and affection.
Her laughter filled the small room, chasing away some of the sterile atmosphere. "Alright, alright. I have to get going, evening rounds are starting soon. You can go back to your game, but please, don't stay on it too long. And actually eat something this time, okay? The fruits aren't just decoration."
She gave his head one last affectionate ruffle before turning toward the door.
"Thanks..." Damien mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.
Kayla paused at the door, glancing back with a genuine smile before stepping out and closing it softly behind her.
The room fell silent again.
Even if he wanted to log back into Eternal Descent, he was currently under a death cooldown, so there was no way to rejoin for another six hours. The penalty for dying in a high-level dungeon was brutal, designed to make players think twice before attempting dangerous content solo.
"I guess I'll just play on my console," Damien muttered to himself, reaching across to the desk for his handheld gaming device. His arms were strong at least, two years of being bound to a bed and wheelchair had made his upper body surprisingly muscular from compensating for his useless legs.
---
This had become Damien's daily routine after losing his family in a car accident that left him disabled.
It had happened two years ago, during what should have been a normal family trip. His father driving, his mother in the passenger seat, his younger sister beside him in the back. They were laughing about something, he couldn't even remember what anymore. Then came the screech of tires, the blinding headlights, his mother's scream.
After that, nothing but darkness and pain.
When Damien woke up three weeks later, his family was gone. All of them. The drunk driver had walked away with minor injuries while his entire world burned to ash.
His family had been wealthy,old money from his grandfather's successful tech company. So the doctors tried everything they could to save him, to restore his mobility. Experimental treatments, multiple surgeries, the best specialists money could buy. Yet with all the money in the world, he still couldn't regain the ability to use his legs.
They said that the spinal damage was too severe, and his condition was going to be permanent.
'Permanent.'
At first, he had felt nothing but anguish and rage. He refused to eat, screamed at the nurses, threw things when his useless arms could reach them. He attempted suicide at every opportunity, tried to choke himself with his IV tubes, refused his medications hoping something would go wrong, even tried to throw himself from his bed hoping to break his neck.
But no matter how hard he tried, the medical staff kept saving him. They couldn't just let him die, there was too much money involved, too much legal liability.
While Damien wallowed in despair, pushing away every doctor and psychiatrist they sent, Kayla was the only person who managed to reach him. Unlike the other medical staff who treated him as just another patient or pitied him from a distance, she actually talked to him like a person. She didn't offer empty platitudes or clinical sympathy.
Instead, she brought him a gaming console one day, her own, she said, from when she was younger.
"If you're going to be stuck here, you might as well have something to do besides feeling sorry for yourself," she'd said bluntly. "Trust me, games helped me through some dark times too."
That simple act changed everything.
Games became his lifeline. His escape. His reason to wake up each day.
In virtual worlds, he wasn't bound to a hospital bed. He could run, fight, explore, fly. He could be someone strong, someone capable, someone who mattered. He could be Hades, feared and respected, a legend whispered about in game forums.
But reality always dragged him back to this bed, to these useless legs, to this half-life.
---
Damien was about to put on his neuro-gear again, thinking maybe he'd watch his death replay to see what went wrong in that dungeon, when something strange happened.
A holographic screen suddenly materialized in front of him, hovering in mid-air about two feet from his face. He blinked, thinking it was a glitch from the neuro-gear or maybe his console acting up, but both devices were sitting on the desk, powered off.
The screen pulsed with an eerie crimson glow, its edges crackling with what looked like digital static.
[GLOBAL NOTIFICATION: SYSTEM INTEGRATION COMMENCING]
[All players of Blood Online will merge with their in-game characters in: 00:23:47]
[Non-players will be assigned classes based on compatibility]
Damien stared at the message, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. His hands gripped the bed sheets as he read it again, then again.
"What... what the hell is this?"