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Caria's Hideout-- a run-down, two-room apartment complex

Her fingers hit the keypad at lightening-fast speed. The computer that she had built from old, abandoned parts was whirring and buzzing; signs that it was running smoothly. The program that she had opened was working nicely. She now had full-on access to the Internet. Clever hacking skills can take you far, indeed.

She pressed a few keys, entered some codes, and closed the program. "Caria, girl, you ARE a genius." she smiled to herself. She had escaped from that dreadful asylum. She wasn't crazy at all; just a bit on the rebellious side. Anyway, now that she was 18, they couldn't hold her against her will any longer. "I'm free." A wide grin spread across her face. "And my first act as a free person will be... to logg on."

She strapped her headset on; the one thing she had managed to take from out of the hospital. It was a second-hand virtual reality helmet. She had made a few adjustments to it, and now... now, it served as a bit of a teleporter. With the new and improved helmet, she could feel, taste, smell, do everything in The World as if she were actually there. And, in a way, she was.

She grinned as the opening sequence flashed across the screen. She logged on as TomCat, her old alais in The World. Virtually nobody knew who she was, and she had still somehow gotten a record. She liked that. As she opened her eyes, her brain registered that she was actually IN the World. Her hair was silver, and she had on a cutesy corset-type dress with frilly bows and boots. Two daggers were in each hand. "THIS is more like it!" she proclaimed, stepping out of the Chaos Gate and into Carmina Gadelica.

((I'll probably continue this in the Carmina Gadelica town thread))

Mirage was next to follow suit, nodding silently to Hana as she left. She hadn't wanted to give in so easily to the idea that there was nothing she could do. She felt so defeated, so drained that all she wanted to do was scream her head off for about the next 50 years or so just to get it out of her system. Why? Why had it had to end this way? She slammed her hand on the desk, biting back the scream that came with it, and it wasn't until she tasted blood that she started to calm down.

Looking at the others, she made some mumbled excuse for needing a walk, and headed outside. She didn't know where she was going, nor for the moment did she care. She only needed to walk around to realize that though life in one World was no longer as she once knew it to be, that this one still existed. It may still have its problems and troubles, but she needed to connect to that to feel alive again. But could she ever connect to this one again, and forget the one that she was still as much connected to that was/had fallen apart?

The eventual answer she found after about two weeks or so (she could no longer remember how long it'd been since she'd logged off for the last time) was no...she belonged to both, and yearned most for the other. People had told her to get her head out of the clouds and into the real world, but that concept for her had changed drastically, as each world was as real to her as the other...how could she deny one that now made her half of who she was?

It was with a trembling hand that she turned her computer back on one day, her email inbox beeping to let her know it was full. She opened it, intending to only glance at it when one in particular caught her attention. It was from CCorp! Half in fear, and half in nervous excitement, she clicked on it and her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes were glued to one line:

"Mirage! You are hearby invited, as an honorary V.I.P. Guest of CCorp, to join NEW-WORLD beta...."

She would have been sitting there for quite a while before he moved so much as a muscle. But at last, he groaned, almost too soft to be heard, and brought a hand to his forehead. he muttered something under his breath, then started to sit up like he normally did when he woke up. Though that didn't go so well, and he immediately fell back against the bed, wincing in pain.

"Right....that's a bad idea..." He begant o move his arms up to rub his face, then noticed that his other hand was being held, and glanced up at the one holding it. It took him several moments, but he finally figured out who it was, and he smiled a little. She was asleep, and looking out the window, rightfully so. The sun had to have gone down a while ago, and sitting there with nothing to do would be boring indeed.

He clenched his teeth and forced himself to sit up, leaning toward her ear and speaking into it at a slightly higher than normal volume, though his voice was cracked and hoarse. "Hana, it's time to log out now...." He immediately regretted moving, and he drew a sharp breath inward, subconsciously tightening his hand around hers. "Great, I wake up, and she's the one in the coma..." Never failed, his twisted sense of humor.

He scarcely had time to argue as Hana jumped up on the bed, eyes widening in surprise to the kiss. He simply looked at her, the expression on his face was hard to put a finger on,, though he appeared as if he wated to say something.

But instead of words, the only thing that came from him were small squeaks, not at all what one would have expected from him. He swallowed a couple times, definitely trying to say something, and making several failed attempts at it, no less. Finally he gave up trying, just smiling weakly to her, though it looked.... strained. She had certainly caught him off guard with the enthusiasm of seeing him again, scarcely able to stay sitting up, though he managed it somehow.

An unfamiliar view met the man that opened his eyes. It worried him, this unfamiliarity. He reached out with his right hand for his sword-

Or rather, he would have if it moved at his request. Or if the sword was even there, for that matter. Damien’s head lulled down to look at more of his surroundings. Gray-green tiling on the walls, tiled floors, white beds...

Could it be? Was he really back after all this time? These questions and more flew through his head as he tried to get up out of bed. He had to know for certain which world he was in.

But something was wrong...he couldn’t move his limbs how he wanted to; his arms wouldn’t come up to brace his weight, his legs wouldn’t swing out of bed nor would they walk him out the door of this room. It took all his strength to swivel his head about worriedly until a nurse passed by his room.

“Doctor,” she yelled out, “Doctor, we’ve got another one!”

’Another what?’ Damien thought to himself.

~ About Two Weeks Later ~

Apparently, Damien hadn’t been the only comatose patient to wake up that day. After a surprisingly short recuperation time he was sent home. (They told him that it was almost as though he was using his muscles, though only slightly, while he was in his coma, as impossible as it seemed.)

Damien Redmond stood – or rather, sat – in his new, ground-floor apartment at the Gaiden Apartment Complex. The reason for the move into the new apartment was twofold: firstly, the smaller apartment cost less to rent than his previous housing, and the injury pay wasn’t quite as good as his working pay. The main reason, however, was because the owner of the apartments wanted to avoid any legal hassles behind not having adequate handicapable above-ground rooms and would rather give Damien a ground-floor room than pay to build ramps or elevators.

Damien wheeled himself over to his computer. The chair was automated, but he felt that if he didn’t use his arms they’d never get better. He felt the same way about his legs, but at the moment he would fall if he tried to walk, with or without crutches. After wandering the internet for a few minutes and poring briefly over the local news, he finally went about checking his e-mail.

”Spam...spam...spam...wait, what’s this?” He had come across an e-mail from CC Corp. with the subject ‘Important!’


Damien growled. ”A death in the family and a coma from the same game, and they want me to keep playing? They’re crazy...” Still, he found that he couldn’t delete the e-mail.

”Oh, what the hell. I’ve got more than enough free time, and if the original games’ servers really were shut down, then all the dangers should be gone.

Right?”

((Let me know if anything's very, very out of place, mmkay? ~A.Xevious))

Hana once he said that, epped and then moved and removed herself from the bed. She had a feeling that didn't feel so good. "Oh, I'm soo sorry Nick..." she started to pout a bit. She didn't mean to hurt him his first time back. "I .... uhm, did I hurt you real bad." Great going there Hana, his first moments back and you cause him excruciating pain. Some girlfriend you are going to be. Hoping he wouldn't stay made at her.

She then sighs and looks towards the nurses station. "You know I'll need to call them to let them know you are awake.... Your parents need to be told too." Changing the subject, having a feeling though that this one wasn't much better than the pain he was feeling.

"You should know from the first time I talked to you that I get overly excited. Now is there a way for me to join you on that bed without giving you extreme amounts of pain." Hana smiled to him, now this was the guy she remembered. the sarcastic son of a b***h you couldn't help but love for some reason.

Hoping not to get him into too much trouble with the nurses or his folks. "Have I said that I'm glad that you are awake dear?"