and began tearing into his avatar. He took his katana from his belt and stabbed at it, but the blade bounced off the hard skin, jarring out of his hold.
He swore again and again, reminding himself it wasn’t real and the pain was surrogate only, but he was so mentally connected to his avatar that he felt it happening as if to his real body. He was screaming as if it was real. The syphon creature chomped into Musashi, slicing through his armour and pulping the flesh beneath.
With the last of his control Zach threw every flag and tag at the thing that he could, but they dissolved. No one was coming to help him. He heard a soft laugh as his head was engulfed in the main maw.
‘Now you will feel the wrath of Dungeon.’
Zach watched as his stream was dissected, his past and connections severed, his recorded life macerated before his eyes. The damage clawed up to his head. He saw a smile of fangs in the dark, then another set and another until the blackness was nearly defeated by bloodstained teeth. All at once the smiles took bites at him and his visual stream went haywire. He no longer saw what was there. He saw what the hakka wanted him to see.
It was a nightmare of black and red; subliminal flashes of horror, death, torture, rape, the distinct degradation of distortion on flesh; and the screams, the shouts, the dark voices that moaned, cawed and crazed over the top of the graphic horror. The nightmare changed, human bodies exploding, the pains of horses and animals being slaughtered; high-pitched ear-splitting whistles as emaciated and diseased faces lost their flesh and were defiled before his eyes.
Even when he went catatonic, the assault didn’t stop.
~ * ~
He woke on a street. A pattern of tiles was under his face. His avatar had been reconstituted into a chewed-up mess whose only possible movement was to ooze. The rear end of the beast pushed foul excrement upon him before flying up into the sky.
Zach pulled his viewpoint away from his avatar, now floating a few feet above his body. He looked at himself. Musashi, dead. He’d died in games before, but not like this. His mind could still see the sensory torture; recalling the visions made him want to vomit. His avatar bubbled. He couldn’t think and lay as a pile of blood and filth.
His stream was gone. All his memories, his recordings and history were twisted or deleted. He didn’t recognise himself or where he was.
The eject still wasn’t working. Maybe the hakka had put a scramble into his helmet somehow. Something that interfered with his control. He focused on the load space: if he could just imagine the endless grey and start a reset...
In a blink, Musashi was standing again. His helmet had reset and his last backup was restored. Everything was in place as it should be. As he had been before he took Bron in. Where was she? How long had he been immersed? Surely she should have alerted somebody by now. He should have been pulled out ages ago.
He felt sick. That was his first experience with a real hakka. As much as he had heard there were dangers on the Weave, he’d never thought of them seriously. He had always thought he could just eject from trouble, but Dungeon had held onto him, taken his sensory input and ...
Zach looked over Musashi, his proud petulant stance, his sword that outshone all lights. He didn’t deserve that sword, or that armour. He was just a pathetic boy who had been chewed up and spat out by the first hakka he had come across.
He stripped his avatar of its gauntlets and breastplates, the leg guards and weapons dropping to the ground. Let somebody else have them. They were no use to him. Musashi was just a boy. A weak boy standing in his underwear. Alone. Alone. Alone. You are worthless, Musashi.
He imagined another him circling Musashi with a rod, beating him with words and a stick until the welts started to break open. Zach lifted his arm and pushed the beaten
He swore again and again, reminding himself it wasn’t real and the pain was surrogate only, but he was so mentally connected to his avatar that he felt it happening as if to his real body. He was screaming as if it was real. The syphon creature chomped into Musashi, slicing through his armour and pulping the flesh beneath.
With the last of his control Zach threw every flag and tag at the thing that he could, but they dissolved. No one was coming to help him. He heard a soft laugh as his head was engulfed in the main maw.
‘Now you will feel the wrath of Dungeon.’
Zach watched as his stream was dissected, his past and connections severed, his recorded life macerated before his eyes. The damage clawed up to his head. He saw a smile of fangs in the dark, then another set and another until the blackness was nearly defeated by bloodstained teeth. All at once the smiles took bites at him and his visual stream went haywire. He no longer saw what was there. He saw what the hakka wanted him to see.
It was a nightmare of black and red; subliminal flashes of horror, death, torture, rape, the distinct degradation of distortion on flesh; and the screams, the shouts, the dark voices that moaned, cawed and crazed over the top of the graphic horror. The nightmare changed, human bodies exploding, the pains of horses and animals being slaughtered; high-pitched ear-splitting whistles as emaciated and diseased faces lost their flesh and were defiled before his eyes.
Even when he went catatonic, the assault didn’t stop.
~ * ~
He woke on a street. A pattern of tiles was under his face. His avatar had been reconstituted into a chewed-up mess whose only possible movement was to ooze. The rear end of the beast pushed foul excrement upon him before flying up into the sky.
Zach pulled his viewpoint away from his avatar, now floating a few feet above his body. He looked at himself. Musashi, dead. He’d died in games before, but not like this. His mind could still see the sensory torture; recalling the visions made him want to vomit. His avatar bubbled. He couldn’t think and lay as a pile of blood and filth.
His stream was gone. All his memories, his recordings and history were twisted or deleted. He didn’t recognise himself or where he was.
The eject still wasn’t working. Maybe the hakka had put a scramble into his helmet somehow. Something that interfered with his control. He focused on the load space: if he could just imagine the endless grey and start a reset...
In a blink, Musashi was standing again. His helmet had reset and his last backup was restored. Everything was in place as it should be. As he had been before he took Bron in. Where was she? How long had he been immersed? Surely she should have alerted somebody by now. He should have been pulled out ages ago.
He felt sick. That was his first experience with a real hakka. As much as he had heard there were dangers on the Weave, he’d never thought of them seriously. He had always thought he could just eject from trouble, but Dungeon had held onto him, taken his sensory input and ...
Zach looked over Musashi, his proud petulant stance, his sword that outshone all lights. He didn’t deserve that sword, or that armour. He was just a pathetic boy who had been chewed up and spat out by the first hakka he had come across.
He stripped his avatar of its gauntlets and breastplates, the leg guards and weapons dropping to the ground. Let somebody else have them. They were no use to him. Musashi was just a boy. A weak boy standing in his underwear. Alone. Alone. Alone. You are worthless, Musashi.
He imagined another him circling Musashi with a rod, beating him with words and a stick until the welts started to break open. Zach lifted his arm and pushed the beaten
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