Birth Of Cosmos Online

"And that's how I woke up screaming my lungs out before being sedated by the nurse... So doctor, what's your opinion?" Soren asked, as he finished his reminiscence of the events that transpired.

*sigh* "Honestly... I don't even know where to begin with Soren. The city or whatever that place is and the shadowy creatures, those are things I've known for quite some time already, but the woman... That's certainly a first even for me, and I've known these kind of stuff for months." Morgan explained thoughtfully, he turned his attention towards Soren's next question. "Doctor, what do you know about all this? You must know something about this, since you just said as such, so please tell me."

"What do I know...?" Morgan stated slowly, while his eyes slowly moved towards the ceiling, as he reminiscing about the many events connected to Soren's predicament, before speaking in a calm manner. "There's many thing that I both know and don't know about this. Let's start with the city, or rather the place which resembles a city. For all intents and purposes, that place is no city and is more akin to a labyrinth of some kind, although there have been sightings of proper modern residential buildings, just like ours. As for what that place actually is, we currently do not know. We only know it's a stored world somewhere in Aion's code, but we haven't been able to pinpoint its location. For all we could know, it could be stored in an floppy disk or a private server fifty kilometers beneath the surface."

"Aren't floppy disks capable of storing a few megabytes at most though?"

"That's not the point Soren. The point is that we do not know its physical or digital location and that's been giving us a lot of stress. Especially for our testers, since they have to constantly operate on full realism settings on a daily basis and possibility of having to dive in an unregistered world without any sort of warning is an extremely nerve-racking experience. Putting aside the location of the city in our world for a minute, we do know about the weird statues and the creatures as well. The statues are probably depictions of the city's gods or deities, although those could also depict strong creatures that act as the leading forces of that place. As for the creatures... We can't say anything else about them. For the most part, the characteristics you described about the creatures are all we know about them, although those things could be intelligent as well, it's just that we don't know it yet."

"You're joking doc, aren't you?"

"Naturally. All jokes aside, your description of the creature is the same as everyone else's description, so I don't have much else to add. Now, the woman and that last sequence of events. The woman's probably a resident of the world and might have been aware of the fact that you weren't a native of her world, so she kept the contact with you to an absolute minimum, before kicking you out of the world. We've had quite a few similar sightings before of the world's people kicking our people out, but those were mostly on their first visit and not on the second visit. As for the last events... We're not sure what's causing this, but our best theory about it is an in-between state between our reality and the virtual reality, kind of like a transition between the two. Thankfully, it has only happened once to all of our testers who managed to get into the city more than once, so don't worry about it happening again." The moment Soren heard that last sentence, he let out a sigh or relief, as he was worried that he might have repeating nightmares.

"At least I don't have to worry about losing my sleep over it... So what do we do now doc? Now I know what happened, but we still don't know what caused this in the first place. Do you have any idea what might have caused this?" Soren inquired, as he didn't want to become involved with the city ever again.

"Unfortunately, I do not know anything about this. I'm a psychiatrist, not an overseer. The only reason I even know about all this is because I've had to give countless counseling sessions with many of the testers who had come into contact with this, as well as a minimal amount of information from the company and the occasional tidbits I would pick up during my breaks. On this front, this is about as much as I can help really." Morgan explained helplessly, as he gave a shrug.

"I see... So what do we do now?" Soren asked with a downtrodden expression, as he was worried about the changes that will occur in the future.

"Honestly, I highly doubt the higher ups would ignore this anymore. By now, they should have already been notified about another diver who entered the city multiple times, especially within the span of less than a week. If I had to actually give my two cents about this... best case scenario is being put under heavy surveillance with the same arrangements as before, just at a different location with more space for the necessary facilities, or in the worst case scenario, you'll be forcefully recruited to AionTech as a full time tester, where you'll be forced to work for months without a hint of freedom. There's also the option to silence you, but I've never heard of them using such an option in the first place, so I wouldn't worry about it." Morgan explained in a calm manner, as Soren's expression was turning paler and more nervous by the second.

"Is there anything positive about this mess? Anything at all doc?"

"Well... I guess the pay will be better... Maybe that's a silver lining?"

'I think that's f*cking barely a silver lining... More like a gray thread that's definitely not going to strangle me on my bed...' Soren thought inwardly, as he was cursing the current situation, before both his and Morgan's attention was grabbed by another person, who just entered his hospital room.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry I'm late... The morning traffic is one hell of an experience to go through and... Oh, you already woke up, didn't you Soren? Did you already have a talk with the kind doctor?" Harold asked in a energetic manner, despite looking somewhat disheveled, since he was on a rush.

"Um... Yeah... So..." 'What do we do now?' Soren asked inwardly, as he couldn't bring himself to ask this question, since he was extremely nervous about his future.

"Don't worry much about it. Dr. Morgan, how have you been?"

"I've been fine Mr.Harold. Still got thirty years of youthful energy inside me." Morgan responded nonchalantly to Harold, as he was in no mood to try and match his energy.

"Well, I don't see those thirty years being put to use."

"I'm saving them for another day."

"I hope that day come soon, so you can put them to use. Anyways, I believe we have an important topic in our hands. Soren, could you please fill me in on your 'excursion'?" Harold asked in a serious manner, as he turned his attention towards Soren, whose expression had turned pale.