The flute-like voice that had welcomed him murmured:

  ? Exit game

  ? Returning to reality

  Darkness.

  He took off his helmet: the game had thrown him out just when it was getting good.

  He looked around. The crowd that had surrounded him until a moment ago had disappeared. He blinked, but only shadows remained imprinted on his retina: dark spots that refused to fade.

  He put it back on.

  A flash.

  A countdown appeared in the center of his field of vision, on a milky horizon:

  11:59:01... 11:59:00... 11:58:59...

  He took off the visor again and placed it on the desk.

  For a moment, he didn't understand where he was. Everything seemed too close and too far away at the same time. The silence of the evening, broken only by the hum of a few televisions in the distance, had been replaced by car horns and the confused buzz of the street beyond the courtyard. Even the light was different: the room was flooded with daylight.

  He grabbed his cell phone. 8:07 a.m.

  His body protested with a twinge of pain. He had been sitting up all night, twelve hours of connection. He did a quick calculation: every real hour corresponded to four, maybe five, in the game.

  Perhaps Kiah was right—the system had expelled them to decompress the data. Or, more likely, to prevent the simulation from blurring the line between virtual and real.

  Yet, part of him would have gladly remained there.

  The game was... incredible.

  The phone rang. It was Mario, a schoolmate. He wondered what he wanted, but his brain didn't respond.

  Mario was one of the few nice kids at that school. He suffered from pathological shyness and was a perennial target of bullies. It was something they had in common. They were acquaintances but had never hung out outside of school.

  "Hello."

  "Oh, but... but where are you?"

  "At home, why?"

  "It's the oral exam, Duro. It's your turn in a few minutes!"

  Nico jumped to his feet, but his leg betrayed him. Reality hit him like a truck in full force. He fell back into a sitting position.

  He remained silent, the phone still pressed to his ear.

  "Okay. Thank you, I'll be right there."

  He grabbed the hated cane and pulled himself up. He was wearing the same clothes as the night before and didn't smell very good.

  He took off his shirt, put on another one, and grabbed his backpack.

  "Grandma, I'm leaving," he shouted, closing the door behind him.

  His grandmother's croak was a distant echo behind him.

  He trudged along, dragging his leg in a hurry to get to school on time. He was frustrated to feel his leg weighing him down more than usual. It was different than usual. Before, he lived with his disability with daily resignation; now it was worse, he knew that elsewhere that weight was a distant echo, a memory of another self.

  "Hey, limp leg. What's up? Did you get your leg caught in the sheet?"

  With his head down, he walked past Bruno, the half-smiles, the amused shouts. Nothing would change, not here but elsewhere...

  He greeted his friend with a pat on the shoulder: "Hey, Mario."

  "Hey…"

  Mario was a stocky guy, his neck sunk into his shoulders and a look of perpetual terror in his small, deep-set eyes.

  "Thanks for calling. I owe you one."

  Mario laughed awkwardly. "Don't worry! It's thanks to you that I passed math this year."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Nico smiled dreamily. His mind was elsewhere, in Taynor. He saw again the cold gaze of the man in the red cloak. He had an authority born of strength, but behind that gaze was the warmth of someone who loves what he does. Perhaps one day he too would wear that pin. In a few hours, he would present his summons to the King and set off with Kiah and Leo on who knows what adventure. And once he returned as the savior of Taynor, perhaps he too would wear the ash brooch.

  "It's lucky I was here today, otherwise..."

  "Otherwise what?" asked Nico, bewildered.

  Mario looked at him with eyes as big as saucers.

  "Sorry, I wasn't listening."

  Mario stiffened for a moment but quickly recovered. "When Gambardella didn't see you, he said that if you didn't show up by nine o'clock, he would do everything he could to fail you."

  And confirming Mario's words, he saw the unhappy frown of Professor Gambardella who, crossing the classroom, pinned him there beyond the edge of the door.

  He had never understood why, but that woman hated him.

  Nico looked back at Mario. He was crazy about video games, augmented reality, VR, simulators... he even had a HaptiSuit at home. That level of tactile simulation cost around two or three thousand euros per unit. Not even Bruno had one. Although his father had promised him one if his middle school grades were above average.

  "Um, Mario, you know everything about video games and stuff like that... do you happen to know I & M s.r.l.?"

  "Who?"

  "No, I think it's a new video game company... something that just came out, you know."

  "No." Mario's face crumpled into a questioning expression. "Who did you hear that from?"

  "I read it," he hesitated, "in a magazine, I think."

  "Which magazine? NextQuest, Virtual Weekly, High Score..."

  Nico's eyes widened, he didn't know what to say. he had made up that story about the article, of course. He was curious to know who I & M s.r.l. was, but he didn't want Mario to find out about the viewer. He wanted it to be his secret.

  Mario ran his hands through his greasy hair, his eyes wide. "Oh my God, don't tell me it's on GameFrame. My mom canceled my subscription to that. She read in some Catholic magazine that they publish articles about Satan and now she won't let me read it anymore. Oh holy peace, oh holy peace, now what am I going to do?"

  "Calm down, Mario," said Nico, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder, who was clearly panicking. "I think I'm wrong, you know. I think I heard something on the news."

  D'Angelo, a snooty blonde girl with a piggy nose, got up from her chair and thanked the committee with a barrage of useless pleasantries, raising her voice to shrill levels.

  "Tough."

  "Sorry Mario, I'm going. We'll talk about it later."

  He entered the classroom. Three desks were arranged in a horseshoe shape. The commission, the riflemen, on one side, and him, the condemned man, on the other.

  "It was about time," Gambardella croaked irritably, staring at him with disgust.

  "Excuse me, Professor," he said, sitting down. "I apologize to the entire commission for the slight delay."

  The technology teacher, a short man with a bushy moustache, waved his hand. "Come on, Duro, you haven't killed anyone. If we were to condemn everyone who is late..." squeaked Professor Casale, "I would be the first to be shot."

  Gambardella stiffened.

  "Then rather," he continued, "where is your little head?"

  Nico turned pale. He could clearly see the essay on his desk, next to the viewer. In a desperate act, he searched his bag and, in his agitation, dropped his cane on the floor.

  When he looked up, mortified, he saw Gambardella's smug smile.

  "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I think I left it at home."

  Professor Casale looked at him disappointedly. "That's not good, Duro. Know that we will take this into account."

  He nodded.

  They didn't let him present his thesis. He answered the questions.

  When the exam was over, he left the school as if from a vanished dream.

  Mario followed him down the street. "Hey, Duro..."

  He turned and waited for Mario to catch his breath. "How did it go?"

  "Great," he muttered, rolling his eyes.

  Mario looked at him, raising his eyebrows.

  "Don't worry. Nothing," he said, waving his hands. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

  "Oh, yes. I looked for that I & M. Nothing, it doesn't exist. You must have heard wrong."

  At home, the viewer was waiting for him, silent.

  He turned it over in his hands, observing the faint blue glow of the stylized eye. Mario had said that I & M didn't exist. So if it wasn't a video game company, who had sent him that wonderful piece of technology?

  The rest of the day passed in an exhausting and tiring wait.

  At 6:30 p.m., he asked his grandmother to have dinner, using a severe headache as an excuse.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, he fantasized about what would happen in the game.

  The TV blared: "And now let's move on to foreign policy. Serious diplomatic tensions are emerging after a leak of confidential information involving communications between NATO and non-NATO members. The leaked documents concern military strategies, arms supplies, and confidential assessments of intelligence operations in various countries. Concerns are growing about the global geopolitical balance and possible diplomatic retaliation."

  "Damn poverty," croaked his grandmother, snapping him out of his reverie. "Look at what those scoundrels are doing. I told you so: another nice war is about to break out here, and then it'll be goodnight." She sighed: "My generation fought in the war. We suffered hunger, cold... You are incapable of suffering. Everything is too comfortable."

  She snorted.

  He ate quickly, locked himself in his room, and waited.

  At 7:58 p.m., he put on his headset.