He sped along the countryside, gaze trailing twin spears of headlights cutting through rain. Worn wipers scraped the windshield in lazy arcs while pistons hummed a sleepy lullaby beneath the hood. Ahead, a familiar road stretched into miles of slick asphalt smothered in gloom. Above, slivers of moonlight crept through bruise-purple clouds.

  Just another Sunday pickup from Grandma’s. Junior was out cold in the backseat, a gremlin of drool and dreams. Good. If he hurried home, he could still salvage a few hours of game time.

  Carry the boy to bed, shock my system awake with a cold shower, press continue.

  'Yaaawn'

  40+ hours sunk into the latest “AAA” title. Almost done. Almost worth it.

  And after I beat it.. NG+? Nah.

  He had given the game a fair shake pushing for the end credit roll. Maybe calling off the grind early wasn’t a bad idea..

  “LOOK OUT!”

  The warning exploded inside the cabin. Two blinding cones of light lunged from the murk. Steering wheel jerked right, tires screamed.

  'IMPACT.'

  His tiny snippet of reality spun into chaos. Steel crumpled with a tortured shriek; glass shattered in diamond hail. Vision collapsed entirely.

  ..

  Initializing..

  The real journey began in darkness. Not the kind you blink away or flip off with a light-switch. This was an all-swallowing void. A place where everything eventually dissolved into nothing. Somehow he existed in it, suspended and weightless. There was no up, left, down, right, W, A, S or D. Ears did not register breath and fingers could not press against a tangible body. He wasn’t sure if he had a brain. Yet the mind churned on, attempting to organize a mess of faltering memories into something less raw.

  Where.. ? Who.. ?

  Fragments of the man he once was resided deep within. They were cramped between a mass of instinctual knowledge, fine tuned through decades of dedication to beating videogames. And nestled between it all, a feeling reverberated. It tugged at fears of inadequacy hardcoded into mankind itself.

  Did I not do enough?

  The question took form and rooted heavily in his gut, twisting and stretching until it gave birth to acceptance.

  Yeah, I failed again, didn’t I?

  Details were impossible to recall but he knew the scope of his baggage. A comprehensive list of bridges burned, relationships withered and promises left to rot. Most of it his fault. But placing blame now? The weight of his tally pressed hard either way.

  ‘Flicker’.

  An azure-blue rectangle outlined by a whitish frame cut through the void. Not a sterile modern eye-catcher or sleek sci-fi minimalism, but something classic. It was an old-school interface he hadn’t seen in years. The text within glowed in distinct soft-luminous white, slightly bluish in tint - style mimicking the burn of older CRT monitors. Nostalgia hit him hard. He could almost hear the 8-bit battle-themes of games long turned collectables. This shit came from a time where every death was a lesson; Any button-press skipped a missed opportunity.

  Cool.

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  [System] What is your name?

  ‘Bob.’ It spilled without hesitation, a confirmation solidified by mere thought. No need to overthink it either. Yeah, I’m just Bob. Simple, functional and always there, even when the rest of him wasn’t. The textbox changed.

  [System] Which beginning do you choose? Warrior. Rogue. Mage. Healer. True Soul.

  He would have frowned if he could. Five choices presented to him, most of them generic. To Bob, playing a roguish archetype was nearly a given. Evasion, speed and skill expression, he always leaned into that playstyle as if addicted. Warriors' prowess in the field of weaponry had merit. But he wasn’t into brute force blow-trading and mandatory poise-pumping. Pass. Mages were usually late-game powerhouses, but came with flow-halting dependency on resources. Juices would run dry during key moments, no doubt, at least until a build got up and running. And healers? Yeah, that’s just not gonna happen.

  Then there was ‘true soul’. That one was definitely new. His phantom-fingers hesitated over the choice as if nagged by an itch at the edge of recognition. Don’t click just yet. On the surface it gave off gimmick class-vibes. Probably a bad pick. Like really, really, really bad. One of those experimental designs that promised depth in dev-talks but got dumpstered by the community upon actual release. His instincts screamed: Always check the hidden stats. Always read the fine print. But then there was..

  .. You.

  A small force in the back of his thought-trail, edging him into new territory.

  ‘Click’.

  [System] Beginning chosen: True Soul. No Gear. No Coin. No Skills. No restrictions. A blank canvas. Congratulations on creating your character.

  The confirmation window was instant, as if set to automatically boast about his high-stakes gamble in ‘world chat’

  Starting without stuff and skills basicly meant walking in naked. Gone was the safety-net found within class specific starter-packs, brimming with tools of trade. Instead, he was set up to be a weak-ass toon slapping like wet noodles. This would turn into a hobby of catching arrows to the knee. Okay, calm down.

  Bob had played similar scenarios before. Hardcore modes and no-hit challenges. The kind of brutal difficulty settings designed to weed out the impatient and unprepared. He had always respected those experiences. Thrived in them, even. They came with defined rules and boundaries, which meant everything could be studied, adapted to and mastered. Yet, this time, it wasn’t just a save-game on the line. It was him, was it not?

  No restrictions. The phrase rolled in his mind, over and over. It could mean anything, from no limits to minimal guardrails. Was that the same as freedom? Nah. It was a responsibility to one-self. Any blank canvas had to perform better, live harder and be determined to not waste precious opportunity. Then again;

  He had nothing but player-skill to fall back on, right?

  There would be no forums, no tutorial-vids or wiki-pages hand-holding him toward an optimized build. Maybe this could deliver what no game in recent years had truly done: a real, god damned breath of discovery.

  See, Bob was knee-deep in digital gaming. Always had been. But times were changing fast. Everything he had known since childhood was forcefully jammed into the crucible of progress. He found himself mindlessly adjusting to the era of streamers, build-guide-creators and big-money-pleasing game-producers. Now, the seemingly impossible had happened: he was presented with something unspoiled. It lay right there at his finger-tips, taunting the long tamed childlike wonder within. All of the outside clutter, gone. Just him and a whole new world waiting to be explored down to the last potion-bearing nook and secret-infested cranny.

  He was beyond ready to truely play. Had been for a long time. Without further ado, he bellowed without lungs:

  Let’s fucking go!

  The void stretched as if cued by his emotion, swallowing everything that wasn’t there. With a wallop, it took him too.