I can feel the cool air-conditioned wind on the back of my neck as I try to get comfy in the capsule, there are numerous screens facing me, telling me my body’s core temperature, my heart rate, blood pressure, lung speed cycle, state of sleep and many more that I suspect a doctor would have a wet dream over.

Then slowly from a passage from above the seat, a helmet came down, it was half face, covering everything but my mouth and nose. I put it on and I feel the gel fit snugly to the base of my neck and all the way around. I could see a black light in my obscured vision, it must have got some VR properties, it slowly boots up not becoming too bright for my eyes before three-dimensionally showing the menu and the loading screen.

Start

Options

Quit

It had only those three selections, reminding myself that I’m not holding any interactive equipment I say it aloud. “Start.” My vision tunnels as if I’m racing through a pitch-black slide before jolting still. I take a look around and at myself, I’m wearing exactly what I was wearing when I entered the pod to the exact detail of the dirt under my nails.

“Welcome to Vigil Until Dawn, I’ll be guiding you to help you create….” I zone out effectively jamming what she had to say to me as I swiped around my hands to play with the options. As soon as I changed something by a minor degree another me appeared, completely naked apart from what looked like skin tight speedos.

Looking at the menus there is a lot of creation choice, I can even change species to alien races. Or I can play as a human with a wide array of genetic, cybernetic, and even neural modifications. It does say that some options are only available while is character customization but most can be bought for using in-game credits in various places.

“Pardon, however you may want to listen to what I am saying.”

My eyes race around the neverending whiteness of the character creation room before locking eyes with the what I thought was just a dumb NPC.

“Excuse me?”

“You may want to listen to what I have to say, it may contain information about the game you wish to play.”

I examined what I believed before to be a non-sentient existence, what was shown to me was a female avatar dressed formally for business, long brown hair, and glasses.

“Sorry…?” It was more of a question than a statement.

“I am an Artificial Intelligence tasked with helping players create their characters for maximum customer satisfaction.”

“Okay, I’m Eric.” I raised my hand to offer a handshake, she did the same offering a more dejected hand with confusion etched on her avatar’s face. “Grasp the hand like this” I hold her hand and shake it.

“What is that?”

“A handshake, but grasp more firmly next time.”

“Stored to memory banks.” We continue staring at each other, perhaps trying to assert dominance over who is the smarter person here. Obviously I am not, however, I can put in a complaint and get her memory wiped. “Is there something wrong?” She asks, staring at my face.

“Nope!”

“You can change your character into several different kinds of biological races and three types of machine type, would you like to choose any?”

“No, just leave me human.”

“You appear to have a physical disability and looking at medical records, a mental one as well. This gives you access to several types of modifications to humans, ranging from; genetic, cybernetic, neural, and general body enhancements. Would you like to receive any changes?”

“You have access to my health records?!”

“It’s in the terms and conditions you agree to by playing the game.”

“Oh.” I scratched the back of my head. “Anything for a better memory?”

“Memory neural implant is chosen, you have two points remaining.”

“What can I get with that?”

“Nothing.”

“Wow,” I replied flatly.

“Would you like to change your character appearance?”

I give my avatar body one last look over, it is the spitting image of me. The pod must provide a full body scan and et cetera to allow for this amount of detail, I don’t particularly think I’m bad looking, but I’m not Tom Cruise.

“Call me vanilla but I don’t want to change anything.”

“Vanilla there are several dozen spawn points ranging from easy to hard, would you like to select one?”

“That was a joke, don’t call me that. What’s the difference between them?”

“Easy spawns usually spawn you in a wide safe area such as a colony or ship to be woken from cryogenic sleep. Medium spawns put you in an area that has conflict over territory through rampant native beasts or war. Hard spawns put you in an environment where your only objective is to survive, and perhaps even thrive. The system is modular and adaptive, if circumstances change the system will adjust to make things easier, or harder for you.”

“Okay… What’s the benefit of going for harder spawns then?”

“By selecting a harder spawn area there is a significantly higher chance of acquiring rare and unique items both in the area you spawn in… And permanently in the Galaxy. To make this balanced, however, all characters can only experience one life in the Galaxy and upon death, you will have to recreate a character. This bonus is the only character bound and not account bound.”

“Let’s do hard mode then if I die I can just respawn and keep trying again.” I grin.

“Death penalty is one full day until you can respawn again, thank you for selecting your spawn mode, I shall select your spawn randomly.”

“FU-!”

                                                                                              ⚶

“-CK!”

‘Damn fucking computer.’ I cursed in my head.

I’m back in the pod, all the screens are exactly the way they were before but something feels off, like a subtle stillness that quiets everything around it then I come to realize I’m not wearing my clothes. It feels like a sort of soft gel around my entire body, looking at it from the outside I’m wearing a luminescent orange spacesuit and what else feels like multiple layers in between. I blink a couple of times and realize I’m wearing some sort of mask as well, not like the helmet in the real pod but a completely different one altogether.

Systems booting up…

Those words appear on the lower view of my vision.

Initialising…

Then my previously darkened vision explodes with colors and status updates, it has taken a compressed version of all the screens around me and connected them to my vision, I look around with the HUD enhanced vision to see I’m in a pod that is a replica of the one I needed to start the game.

“Audio log detected on station mainframe. Playing...” A dehumanized voice plays in my ears, I’m unable to discern of it's male or female.

Gunfire erupts in my ears, screams, and shouts everywhere. “Shit! Get down!” An even larger explosion creates static over the tape. “We are activating-” Another deafening boom destroys the audio “Get to any pods, T-minus.” The next explosion cuts all audio and the tape ends.

“What the fuck?” I question, I look around and try the best I can to gain information from my surroundings and take stock of items I have.

A digital map (Most of which has corrupted)

Body condition, it shows my entire body with my heart rate behind it, it glows green. (sitting at 57BPM)

Fuel/Power which is already dropping into the orange at around 75%.

O2 is currently resting at 99%.

Oh, oh fuck. That’s an O2 meter, I’m on a sealed oxygen supply which could possibly mean outside this door is a fucking void. I feel a cold rise over me, isn’t this opening too hard for me? This game needs to be balanced more! I feel around the pod for anything else and I grip a hold of a large pistol. It’s a space survival pistol, or so I’m told by my database. Not directly designed for combat because the trigger guard is so large to accommodate a space suit, holding six rounds if one is in the chamber. Most likely to be used to commit suicide if you get spaced without a way back to the station. I have nothing to keep it on me so I keep it in my left hand. Is there a way to… Save the oxygen in this capsule? My helmet flashing and drags my attention to a button next to the capsule door, I hit it with a fist.

“Draining Oxygen... Equalizing pressure.” I hear soon after that, a low hiss starts but then fades to inaudibility. I scan around my seat some more and click a red button that is highlighted to exit the pod. The pod slowly slides open and in front of me is a dark hallway, but intact. ‘This doesn’t look so bad…’ I think to myself as my suit helmet light flickers to life automatically.

I grab hold of the edge and slowly pull myself out of the pod, getting adjusted to the free range of movement that is Zero Gravity. Looking right I see a pitch-black corridor with more pods within my immediate distance and then I look left. The station ends abruptly around fifteen meters down that way, torn from whatever location anchored it into position. I watch the stars spin as the station flies rotates freely around in space. I turn around and face inwards to where I was seated, hoping for anything else that would make it easier. My eyes glance under the seat and I spot a bag, reaching underneath I find a rope, batteries, a knife, water, and food.

I secure it to my back and throw myself to the next pod, empty and has no power so I can’t access that one’s survival kit yet. I follow down the hallway drifted silent, I wait until I can’t see anymore and then turn on the flashlight. There’s so much to do and I have no idea how to do it.

“Menu.”

Two options appear, one to close the menu the other to logout. I press logout.

Warning!!! You must be in a safe, habitable area to logout!

I frown at the notification, close the menu, and make my way back to the pod.

“Hey, Dom…?” I call out to be met with nothing, I that would be too easy. “Emergency Boot? Activate survival? Oh god, I’m going to fucking die?”

“Distress detected, emergency Gamma level AI coming online.” The genderless monotone voice speaks again.

“Oh neat,” I reply dryly.

“I am your suits Survival Guide, you can activate me by saying ‘Survival Guide’ or from the Options menu in your suit. I am activating suit and station files to estimate a survival rate this may take some time, in this time it would be prudent to ask you what kind of survival situation you’re in. If you are on a Terran world, please say ‘One’.”

“Oh God, it’s an answerphone, I’m fucking dead.” Rather than relying fully on an automated phone operator. I decided that exploration would be crucial here.

I believe the two key things going to keep me alive in space is going to be, 1. Battery power. 2. Water.

I say power over water because it’s likely there is no water and I’ll have to harvest ice in some manner and heat it in a pressurized environment that takes power. I stare at the pod to see if it has a survival kit and I luck out.

Tape.

Rope

Medkit

Spare O2

Spare batteries

With this, I should survive the next six or so hours if I don’t meet any sort of alien predator that wants to lay babies in my chest cavity

“If you are lost at space it is recommended you find a cryogenic pod to freeze yourself until you wait for resuscitation. However in emergencies when power is low the cryogenic pods will resuscitate you when main battery power is depleted to ensure your survival.” Survival Guide’s voice continues on.

I don’t know if I'm orbiting a star but it wouldn’t hurt to check if there are any solar panels on the outside of the station. Yeah, I’ve got a plan coming together now, see if there are any working solar panels, find a room and pressurize that one room to start with, and even if there aren’t any solar panels I’ll be able to check out the layout of the station and see how much ground I have to cover.

Rather than searching through the entire station for a storage room that may or may not have spare solar panels, I decided to tie my rope against the capsule and throw myself out into the massive tear on the left of the corridor to give myself an outside view of what I’m working with. I make sure to tie my rope extra securely because I don’t want to waste the limited fuel I have in my EVA suit which could be necessary to kick start a different engine if I need to cannibalize it.

I slowly drift out and away from the station. I have around fifty meters of rope to work with. It's kinda hard to see everything but I appear to be in deep space. The solar system is shagged, no planetary bodies or other things, currently in an empty void of space. No sun, Just the station and I, me, myself and the station and holy shit.

That’s a lot of station.