“Customize your character” I heard a loud booming voice announce, “Female”. Where am I? Who was that? Is this a dream? No, it can’t be! I thought. I was spinning around in circles but had no ground to stand on. Where is my mom? Dad? Sister? To one side of me was a bunch of faces in 2D squares. Every spin or so I would change outfits, hairstyles, and even faces. “Selected” The voice said again. I was wearing a purple hoodie with jeans and headphones on while the words “Loading...” appeared in front of my face, but backwards. “What is going on? Is this some sort of video game? It must be, but what kind” I thought panicked. I was burning up with fear but couldn’t feel any sweat. The scene started to change, into some sort of deserted town. There were buildings everywhere, but none of them were fully in tact. Glass and bricks were all over the ground, while the source of all this chaos was unknown. This was all happening too fast, why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I talk? I must be having some sort of really complex dream or something. Oh! I know! I’ll write down everything that happens so I can remember if this is or isn’t a dream.” I thought excitedly, but then I realized, “Oh wait, I can’t move”. I stood there, panicked, frightened, my heart was beating a million miles per second. Is anyone else experiencing this? I felt the cold wind against my hands, and soon realized this couldn’t be a dream.

I peered at a shard of broken glass from an old building to see what was behind me, I saw that “Tutorial” was written in bold text. I stood there, wondering what kind of video game this could possibly be as zombie fell in front of me, it didn’t move or try to attack, it just stood there making growling sounds and breathing heavily. I wanted to scream and run away but I couldn’t, I just had to stand there while the zombie stood there staring at me. My legs started to move, in a very mechanical sense, but towards the zombie! But then I held my hands up, ready to punch, protecting myself. My right hand flung forward and hit the zombie in it’s face. The zombie fell to the floor and slowly disappeared.
“Nice work, soldier” I heard a deep voice say, but not the same as the other voice, less monotone this time. I heard a helicopter come up from behind me, the sound pierced my eardrums. I saw it’s leading skids out of the corner of my eye, I heard the sound get closer and found myself standing in front of a helicopter, with a man holding his hand out for me. I reached to his hand and he pulled me in. Even though I was surrounded by others, I've never felt so alone, so helpless. The helicopter just kept going, seemly to no destination.

“Pause” I heard the first voice say. Now I spinning in a circle once again. To one side of me there was an option menu with “Quit and Save”, “New Game”, and “View Screenshots”. I couldn’t tell what side of me the words were on, at one point it would be to my left, another to my right, and other times I was facing it. The words “Quit and Save” lit up and the loud voice boomed “Saving”. All of a sudden the whole world went blank.
My stomach turned and my head spinned. Then, I was back in my room. I shot up from my blue race car bed and ran to my sisters room. “Andrea!” I screamed, not realizing I was crying.
“What’s wrong Alice?” She exclaimed. That's when I realized there was no hope in telling her anything, she would never believe it was real. I was as alone as I was before. I looked at her and just smiled, enjoying that my life was back to normal. I was back again, with my family.

Her hand held my knee and her gentle voice assured me “it'll be alright, what's wrong, bad dream?”.
“I guess so” I replied. Her eyes shot me a terrified look. I got worried starting panicking. Is something wrong with me? Is it bad for me to have dreams? “Is that okay?” I asked her worried.
“Was it about a video game? Were you in it?” She asked back, trembling in every word she spoke.
“Actually, yes,” I replied back, nervous. She tried to hold back the tears but she couldn’t she shoved her pillow into her face and started bawling. Why is she crying? It was just a dream right? Unless it wasn’t. How would she know all about it. Has this happened to her before? I put my hand on her shoulder and calmingly asked, “did this happen to you?”
She got up and wiped the tears off her cheek, then said “Yes, and you have to listen to me. You have a tough choice ahead of you, I am so glad you came to me. You were sent off into a video game consul, I don’t know whose, I don’t know how, but you did. After the first night and the controller starts getting to the real levels, and your character starts dying you feel as much pain as you would if that happened in real life. I would know. But you have the choice to pass it on to someone else, you don’t know who it is though, and that’s how it came to you. I’m so sorry.”
“So I have to choose between me or someone else experiencing what death feels like? I have to go myself, I have to. What if it went to someone who didn't have someone like you to tell them what to do?” I replied back, sure of my decision. So I went back to sleep and starting my new life.