A World That Never Was

To be honest, Eddie thought he was dead. He still couldn't feel his body but he could still see a very bright light shining. Oddly enough, this was how he imagined death being. Him staring off into a illuminated void for a time before being greeted by god or somebody. Eddie had mixed religious views, he didn't know what to really believe in.

He couldn't believe it, he had been killed by a video game, a cool video game that he never even got to play. Whoever came to talk to him would get a few words about this. Eddie was just running through his mind how he had never gotten to defeat Ricky Mane or ever completely figure out Skyy when he started to feel again.

Pain shot through him. It started at his head and then worked down his body as the light began to dim slowly and he began to see again. Apparently he wasn't dead after all.

"How the hell did he get in here?" A voice came to him.

"Server must be acting up. Looks like a noob."

"Definitely a noob. Looks to be dead..."

"Can't be dead already. He just logged on. Though, why he popped up in the middle of our base is beyond me..."

Eddie groaned lightly. He figured he must have been in the game judging by the talk of the people around him but he must have appeared outside of the normal spot for new characters. Eddie tried to sit up but he stopped as he felt cold steel against his neck. He opened his eyes and witnessed a hooded figure standing over him and holding a sword at his neck. He couldn't see his face due to the shadow that was cast on it.

"Unless you want your first experience of this game to be death you might want to sit still there, baldy."

"Baldy? Are you serious! Even in the game?!" Eddie screamed in his mind but dared not to speak out.

He didn't know how death in the game would feel but if it felt anything like real death then he didn't want to experience it. Two more men, dressed in the same dark robes, made their way over to Eddie before yanking him to his feet and then pulling what looked like a potato sack over his head.

Eddie was lead for a long while before he felt the ground below him change from concrete to dirt and then he was lead still further. He began to hear the sound of birds and other animals around him and he could tell they had entered a forest.

Eddie was just beginning to think that he would never log on to this game again when he heard a short, sharp cry from one of the three men around him and he was forced to the ground.

"What the hell was that?!"

Eddie could hear swords being drawn from their sheaths.

"I don't know. It was a b..."

Another sharp cry came. This time it was from the man that was standing directly over Eddie and he could feel as the man's body was snatched from the ground he stood on. Eddie took that moment to pull the sack from over his head just in time to see the last man practically just disappear from where he stood. Eddie scrambled to his feet and looked around nervously before checking his person for weapons. He had nothing, no sword, not even a dagger or a bow.

Just when he thought things couldn't get much worse he also came to the realization that he was being held hostage by a person behind him and again a knife was to his throat.

"You look a little fresh to be hanging around here by yourself." It was a female voice; it held a certain hit of aggression and animal tone to it.

Truth be told, Eddie was getting fed up with these continuous threats and blades being held to his throat. He hadn't even been given a tutorial or anything just thrown into a crowd of bad people.

"Look, if you're going to kill me then do it. Death can't be as bad as this. Hurry up about it." He said and a growl came from his throat.

The female behind him growled as well before lowering the knife from his throat and allowing him to move. Eddie turned around quickly in case she were going to attack him or something and he threw his hands up in front of him seeing as he had no weapons at all. That was until her laid eyes upon her and his fists lowered.

"Whoa...she can take hostage of me again now...." Eddie thought.

The woman did indeed have a bit of animal look about her as she sported a pair of wolf like ears that sprouted from her head of short silvery hair and a long furry tail swayed behind her. When she spoke you could see canine like fangs and she possessed a pair of deep purple eyes. She wore very light armor, nothing but a solid breastplate and a pair of shin guards as armor protection; everything else on her was cloth. The woman looked at Eddie oddly before snarling as she noticed he was staring at her.

"Got a problem there, short stuff?" She asked.

Indeed she was taller than he, probably nearly six feet compared to his solid five foot, five inches. Eddie gathered himself and shook his head lightly.

"Sorry. New to the game, never seen a person with..well, animal traits before." He tried to cover up why he was really staring.

"Get used to it. I'm a wolf demon; you'll be seeing quite a few of us around. Not as common as you general demons though." He said as she sheathed her dagger in the sheath that lined her lower back horizontally.

Eddie tilted his head at her. He didn't know what she was talking about and wondered what she had meant by that last statement.

"Keep looking at me funny, little man, and I'll gouge your eyes out." She said aggressively.

Eddie had to check himself yet again as he had begun to stare at her. He wondered what the hell was with him, he had never actually stared at a girl, woman actually, like that before. Maybe he had snuck a few secret glances but never out rightly stared. He closed his eyes for a moment and got his mind straight before looking at her with what he hoped was a normal look.

The woman, whose name turned out to be Natasha, or so she told him, went on to question Eddie about why he was in these parts of the forest and why he was captured by those men. After telling her how he really had no clue as to how he had ended up there she told him that he was lucky they did not just decide to kill him, for death, like he had thought, was horribly uncomfortable and after death one was sent to the Undying Planes where they had to complete a number of challenging quests to regain their ability to play their character in the main world server.

Apparently the men who Eddie was so unfortunate to happen upon were an assassin’s clan that had recently been causing a lot of trouble lately in Chasm. They acted just like normal assassins and took jobs from whoever would pay to kill other characters on the server. Natasha informed him that she would likely be put on a personal hit list since she hadn't killed the men but even if she had they would just tell their buddies anyway through clan chatter. She said that the only reason she had bothered to help Eddie was because that the assassins were a close level to her and she thought there was something to be gained from it. Natasha had really been hoping to loot Eddie as well as the assassins but he had nothing of any worth.

As they walked on through the forest, heading for the main city where Eddie should have spawned up at, Natasha told him a little bit about the game because he wouldn't be getting the tutorial now. Apparently the game had been out for quite some time in other counties except the U.S. and the only reason he could understand her was because of the translator that was input into the game for all languages, or at least most of them.

Eddie was a Brawler Demon, that's why he had no weapons; his class fought with their hands and feet. The reason she could tell he was a demon was because he possessed yellow glowing eyes, a pair of fangs, claws, he had growled at her; which was very inhumane, and he smelled like a demon apparently.

Moments came and went and Eddie and Natasha talked more on the rules of the game and how the Chasm world functioned. They finally came to the heart of Chasm, the golden city of Lykeria. Lykeria was vast old kingdom style city surrounded by a massive stone wall. At the center of the city sat a castle and that was surrounded by another wall and was protected by soldiers. This city was where new characters started and it seemed where most of the character spent their time anyway.

"You'll be able to find anything you need here, kay?"

"Um...I was going to sign on with two of my friends through my computer. Where do I find them?" Eddie questioned.

"Two? Only two people can sign in using one computer."

"Oh, well where would I find them anyway?"

Natasha signaled Eddie to follow her and they walked through the city. It impressed Eddie how many people could actually fit on one server like this, half the world’s population had to be playing this game at this very instant. The city was flooded with people; it was like half of the States' largest cities all in one. Demons, dwarves, elves, orcs, humans, half-lings, so many different humanoid races scoured the streets of Lykeria.

You could tell the highest level characters from the rest, some wore extraordinary armor or wielded extraordinary weapons. Some didn't even walk; they just glided over the earth or rode beasts.

Eddie and Natasha came to this building; it looked something like a temple, like the ones you would see in those movies about monks or something. In the center stood what Natasha told him was an NPC character, a none player character, that introduced you to the game and then teleported you to an alternate dimension where you were to be given a tutorial for your specific class and some gear to start you off. There were tons of new characters inside.

"Your friend should be in here somewhere if they got in normally unlike you."

Eddie frowned. Maybe there was something wrong with his connection or his computer that caused him to appear in the wrong area and if that was true then that meant Aliyah would have popped up somewhere else as well.

Eddie began to walk around and look for her but he didn't know if he'd be able to tell who she was because she might be a different race and could appear looking like anything. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as he turned around and was just about to give up and just log out before he was smacked right in the middle of his face by a wooden staff. Eddie growled and his hands flew to his nose.

"Look here! I'm damn tired of all this..."

That was when he pulled his hands down and noticed someone who looked fairly similar to Aliyah. It was an elven character, pointed ears, fair skin and very light golden brown hair. She looked rightly pissed.

"How could you just leave me like that? I thought maybe you didn't get through or something. God. I thought you might be dead!"

"Dead? Why?" Eddie looked at her curiously as he rubbed his nose. He noticed that she was taller than he was now.

Aliyah sighed and shook her head "Nothing." She must have caught site of Natasha at this point that was standing right next to Eddie and looking at Aliyah a little strange. "Who's this?"

"Natasha. She helped me to get here. I didn't leave you."

Eddie explained the whole deal to Aliyah and how Natasha saved him from the assassins along with the fact that Mark wouldn't be able to log into the game from Eddie's computer. Aliyah told him that he hadn't really missed much in the tutorial and really he hadn't as Natasha had probably told him just about anything he needed to know and a little bit more so.

The trio left the Beginners Temple and headed out onto the streets of Lykeria again. It turned out that Aliyah was a Battle Mage Elf, a class that wasn't as strong with magic as a mage but they could handle weapons better and weren’t complete weaklings when it came to close range combat. Aliyah was equipped with the starter clothing for a battle mage, extremely light armoring, a staff, and a short sword at her waist. Natasha told them that she was a Theif; a stealthy class.

It had been decided that Eddie would have to go out to the shops and buy his own equipment to use but Natasha said she was not going to help buy it because she had no reason to and that was not helping her. Aliyah agreed to help but she had very little money, 50 gold to be exact, and Natasha said that was enough to get her food at a stall but certainly not enough for equipment.

At that, Eddie and Aliyah decided to log off of the game until tomorrow, Saturday, when they could spend the day trying to figure out the game more. They added Natasha to their in game friends list and then logged off of the server.

Signing out was a lot more pleasant for Eddie than signing in was and it happened instantly. He pulled off his helmet and the first thing he heard was Mark's voice.
"So? How was it?!"