I was with a friend at a game store. We were browsing around, looking at the different kinds of games. There were board games, dice games, card games, video games… every conceivable kind of game. My friend was looking at a strange game. It projected holograms of lights. Touching the holograms created a response. The light you touched would toggle on or off, as would all the lights in that row or column. It was a simplistic but challenging puzzle game made in 3D holographic form. It was interesting, but not for the $100 they were charging!
My friend and I moved on to the next display and started playing an action game. There was a character climbing the buildings of an abandoned city using parkour. He was jumping impossibly high, grabbing onto impossibly tiny ledges, and maneuvering around the city as easily as most people maneuver around their own house. Easier, even. I decided to try the game. As I played it I felt my awareness shift into the game. I was not playing from outside the console, I was now inside the game itself. Awesome!
I was climbing the buildings of the city, which had been evacuated of all civilians due to a shadow demon invasion. I was looking for the shadow demon. I wasn't wearing a flashy costume, but I knew I was the closest thing to a super hero this city and this world was going to get. And I wasn't going to let them down!
I got to the top of a building and looked over the cityscape. I saw the target. He was towering over the buildings like a giant. He was slamming his fists into one of the buildings until nothing but rubble remained. He moved on to the next building. Apparently he just liked smashing stuff… I fired a blast of light energy at him. It hit him and got his attention. He came immediately after me.
I now spent quite a bit of time running around, ducking behind, and climbing over the buildings as I dodged dark energy blasts from the shadow demon and avoided getting physically crushed under his giant fists when he brought them down like a huge hammer. It wasn't having a lot of apparent effect, but I knew instinctively that it was gradually weakening him. I just had to keep my own energy up long enough to beat him. He was hard to follow sometimes. He would turn completely into a shadow and then fly around to a position behind me.
I had been evading and attacking for a while when the shadow demon did just that. He turned to a shadow and appeared right behind me, next to the building I was on. He raised his two clenched fists and brought them down on the roof of the building… almost crushing me. I rolled out of the way at the last minute. The building didn't fare so well. It collapsed, and I fell down with it into the rubble. I wasn't hurt by the fall, but it was clear to me that I couldn't fight this giant from street level. I had to get back up a building and fast. I ran at and jumped up at one of the buildings, scaling the side of it as fast as I could. I got to the top and looked for the giant.
He was right on top of me! His fists were coming down at me again! I ran and jumped to a neighboring building. I jumped backwards and fired blasts of light energy as I flew. Surprisingly my attacks still hit their target… of course I had a huge target to aim at! I landed on my ass, but I did a backwards summersault and got up immediately. I continued firing energy blasts at the shadow demon. I had the idea it was getting close. I almost expected to see a life bar appear above the thing's head indicating it was almost dead. That didn't happen. What did happen is the thing tried to block me from hitting it in the head, and then it turned into a shadow. I kept firing at the faster moving shadow until I hit it in the center. The hit to the center of the shadow caused it to turn into a vortex. The shadow demon collapsed into itself and was completely gone.
I stood on top of the building where I had been attacking from. I had stopped the shadow demon. I looked around at the destroyed buildings. They couldn't blame me for that, could they? The shadow demon had done that… I had stopped it from destroying everything! I wasn't sure what kind of a response I would get when the people started coming back. I didn't really care. I was thinking I might just turn and be gone before anyone showed up. I didn't want ridicule, and I didn't care to be celebrated and honored. I turned around and looked where the sun was setting. I ran towards the end of the building and jumped off of it to a neighboring building, then to another, and the last time I jumped everything faded to black and I woke. But as I was waking up I heard a voice in my head saying,
"That game was made by Outer Realms Software, you know," a woman said, "Awesome!"
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