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MidReal Story
An immersive game , created by a reclusive designer Simon
Anonymous
Jun 18
Scenario:An immersive game, created by a reclusive designer Simon, blurs reality and fiction. Players start disappearing in real life, leading to a desperate race to uncover the sinister truth behind the game.
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And he had vanished right along with it.
The game was one of a kind; that’s why it had been so popular with the elite group of players who’d been lucky enough to get their hands on it.
It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, and the technology behind it was light-years ahead of anything else on the market.
But now it was gone, just like my brother… or at least I thought he was gone.
A week had passed since anyone had seen him, and no one knew what had happened to him.
But whatever it was, I knew it had something to do with his game.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow it was all my fault.
I stood up from my computer desk and began pacing around my bedroom, trying in vain to stop thinking about everything that had happened over the past week.
It was no use; I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I couldn’t stop worrying about him.
He’d just disappeared off the face of the earth without a trace, and I felt completely powerless to do anything about it.
What if he was hurt or sick?
Or worse… ?
What if he were dead?
All of these thoughts raced through my mind as I paced back and forth across my bedroom floor, and I knew that there was only one thing I could think of to distract myself from the horrible images in my mind:
Tapping out a message on my phone, I began texting Mark Jensen, who happened to be one of my best friends as well as one of Simon’s best friends as well:
EmilyC: Hey Mark, are you busy?
MarkJ: Not really.
What’s up?
EmilyC: I was wondering if you wanted to play some games or something later?
MarkJ: Sure thing.
What do you want to play?
EmilyC: How about we play one of Simon’s old games together? It might be fun.
A long pause followed as Mark thought about my suggestion
Finally, he responded:
MarkJ: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
I miss playing games with Simon too.
We could use some cheering up right now anyway
EmilyC: That sounds great!
I’ll let you know when I’m ready
Thanks Mark!
MarkJ: No problem Emily
We’re going to get through this together
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to cry as I spoke.
"I think we might be in over our heads."
The words hung heavy in the air between us for a moment before Mark responded.
"I know you're worried about him," he said gently.
"But we're going to find him. We're going to figure this out together. Okay?"
I forced a smile and nodded even though I wasn't sure I believed it myself.
"Okay," I agreed quietly.
"We'll find him. We have to."
I sat back down at my computer desk and wiped away the tears that had begun to fall from my eyes as I thought about the chaos that Simon's disappearance had caused this past week.
My hair fell into my eyes, but I didn't bother moving it out of the way.
It had been brushed earlier in the day, but by now it was already a mess from where I'd been running my hands through it over and over again as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened.
Dark circles hung under my bloodshot eyes from not getting enough sleep, even though I'd tried to get as much sleep as possible during the past week.
I knew I probably looked like a mess, but I didn't care.
I just couldn't believe that my brother might really be gone.
I mean, he was brilliant.
He was one of the smartest and most creative people I'd ever met, and everyone who knew him loved him.
So how could he have just disappeared like this?
It didn't make any sense.
And his game… well, it had been his masterpiece.
He'd spent years designing it from the ground up and building it into something amazing.
It wasn't like any other game on the market; in fact, it wasn't really a game at all.
It was more like a virtual world where players could take on roles and complete quests while interacting with other players and exploring new areas.
It had been revolutionary when he'd released it last year and had quickly become popular with a small group of elite players who were lucky enough to get their hands on it before it sold out completely.
Only about fifty people in the entire world were playing it at any given time.
Mark and I were two of them, which is why we felt so connected to this whole crisis even though we lived hundreds of miles away from Simon's home town.
Simon was not only my brother; he was also one of my personal heroes.
I shook my head, pulling my thoughts away from the past and back to the present where I was sitting at my desk with Mark looking back at me from the computer screen.
"He hasn't sent any messages," I told him.
"The last time I heard from him was in that email conversation we had. We exchanged a few messages over a couple of days, but I haven't heard anything since then. I've tried calling him and sending video calls, too, but he hasn't responded."
The fact that Simon would only respond through email when he was always available for a chat or video call made me more nervous than ever.
"He could have just needed some time away from technology," Mark suggested again, echoing what he'd said before.
"But even if that's true, it doesn't explain why no one has seen or heard from him all week."
He paused for a moment before continuing.
"I've been trying to reach him, too, with no luck."
I frowned, thinking about our previous email conversation as I spoke quietly.
"The last thing I said to him was an email asking if he was okay and if we could talk."
"And what did he say?"
Mark asked.
I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to remember his exact words.
"He said he was fine," I replied.
"But then he said that he was working on something important and that we might not be able to talk for awhile. When I tried asking more questions, he didn't respond." "You know how Simon is," Mark told me.
"He can be a bit of a recluse sometimes and doesn't like being bothered."
I nodded in agreement, but it didn't make me feel any better.
I knew what Mark was saying was true; Simon had always been a bit of an introvert and wasn't very social.
Most of the time, he preferred spending his days alone in his apartment working on new projects rather than hanging out with friends or going out in public.
But still, it wasn't like him to just cut off all contact with us without any explanation or warning.
And the fact that no one had seen or heard from him in over a week made me even more worried than before.
"I'm sure there's nothing either of us can do about this until Simon decides to show up again," Mark continued as he gave me a sympathetic look.
"You're probably right," I agreed reluctantly, although I didn't want to admit it.
I bit my lip, feeling the panic rising inside me.
As much as I wanted to believe that everything would be okay, I couldn't shake the feeling that something really bad had happened to Simon.
I felt like we had no choice but to take matters into our own hands and investigate this ourselves; otherwise, we might never know what happened to him.
"We can't just sit around doing nothing," I said firmly as l looked back at Mark in determination.
"I'm not going to give up until we find out where he is and if he's safe."
"But what if he's deliberately trying to hide from us?"
Mark suggested.
"What if he doesn't want us to find him for some reason? What are you going to do then?"
"Simon isn't like that," I told him without hesitating.
"He wouldn't just disappear on us without telling anyone or cut off all contact with the world like this. And after that last email he sent me…"
I trailed off, my mind wandering back to his mysterious final message.
Something about it seemed off to me now, like it wasn't really from Simon at all.
No, that was impossible; it had been sent from his personal email account and contained all his usual writing quirks and mannerisms, so it had to be from him.
But the more I thought about it, the more I suspected that he'd written that email in such a vague and confusing way on purpose because he knew we might try prying into his life if we were worried about him.
And it worked; at first, I hadn't thought much of it and assumed that he was just busy with work or something else going on in his life.
But then when a few days went by and he still hadn't responded to any of my messages or calls, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
"We can analyze the game's code," Mark repeated as though trying to convince both of us what our next course of action should be.
"If there are any hidden messages or patterns in there somewhere, they could help point us in the right direction."
"You're the tech expert here," I reminded him.
"Can you hack into Simon's servers and get access to the game's code without his permission?"
I knew that doing something like that would be illegal, not to mention a complete breach of privacy and ethics.
But as desperate as I was to find out what happened to Simon, a small part of me was willing to do whatever it took to track him down again.
Mark hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.
"As much as I'd love to help you out with this, hacking into someone's servers is definitely not on my list of things that are legal or ethical."
I frowned in disappointment, knowing that Mark wasn't one to break the rules or take risks for any reason.
"But I can still help you out with whatever you need within the limits of the law," he added in quickly when he saw my expression.
I rolled my eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.
"Mark, we've already tried that and it didn't work. And besides, what if he's using some kind of proxy or VPN to hide his real location? Then we'd be right back where we started."
I hesitated for a moment before adding in a more serious tone, "I have no idea where else to look at this point. I've already contacted every friend and coworker I could think of and none of them have seen or heard from Simon in weeks. And after all this time…"
I trailed off, not wanting to say the words out loud.
"Emily," Mark said gently as he put a hand on my shoulder.
"I know how much your brother means to you. But hacking into someone's servers without their permission is still illegal and very risky. Not to mention it's completely unethical."
"I don't care about any of that," I interrupted him with a shake of my head.
"I'm going to find Simon no matter what it takes. If that means breaking the law or doing something unethical along the way, then so be it."
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves before continuing on.
"Please Mark," I begged him.
"Will you at least help me out with this? Just tell me what I need to do in order to hack into his servers and get access to the game's code. That's all I'm asking for."
Mark was silent for several long moments as he considered my request.
When he finally spoke up again, his voice was laced with concern.
"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea Emily. Hacking into someone's servers can land you in a lot of trouble if you're caught. And on top of that, people have actually gone missing while playing Simon's game. Who knows what kind of danger you might be getting yourself into if you start digging around in there""I don't care about any of that," I interrupted him with a shake of my head.
Despite his words, Mark eventually agrees to help Emily access the server hosting the game designed by her brother Simon Carter.Emily
"You're right," I reluctantly agreed.
I know there's a lot of risk involved in this, but I need to know what happened to my brother. If there's a chance that we can find him by checking out his servers, then it'll all be worth it.
"Ok," Mark finally agreed."But you're the one who's going to have to do most of the work here. The IP address I provided should take you directly to the server hosting the game."
He paused for a moment before continuing.
"And don't worry about trying to login into any of Simon's accounts. He used some pretty weak passwords back in college when he created this game, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to guess them."
After getting the information from Mark, I opened up an application on my computer that would allow me access the server using the IP address.
To my surprise, it only took me a few minutes to successfully log in without any issues.
As soon as I was granted access, I started exploring through all of the different directories in search of anything related to Simon or his game.
It had been quite some time since I last logged into one of his servers.
The last time was probably sometime during my freshman year of college when he first showed me a prototype of the game and asked for my feedback.
As soon as I saw what he had created, I knew that he had something special on his hands.
It was unlike anything else I had seen before, and it was clear that Simon was going to make a lot of money from this.
I also knew that my brother would probably be too busy to spend any time with me once the game was released, so I savored those moments as much as possible.
The new version of the game looked significantly different than what I remembered.
The original prototype of the game took place in a generic medieval world filled with castles, dragons, and knights.
But now it appeared to be some kind of dark forest at nighttime.
I quickly navigated through the server directories until I found a copy of the game's executable file so that I could run it on my computer and see exactly what Simon had been working on.
As soon as the application finished loading up, Mark and I both gasped in surprise when we saw just how realistic everything looked.
If there were any differences between reality and this virtual world, they were indistinguishable to our eyes.
It was like looking at a photograph of a real forest at nighttime.
"Wow, this looks amazing," Mark commented."I can't believe how far Simon has come with this."
I nodded in agreement, still in awe of what we were seeing.
We continued through the forest together, walking side by side as we tried to find our way out.
For something that was designed to be a video game level, it looked much larger than any other level that I had ever seen in a video game before.
There didn't seem to be any kind of barriers or walls preventing us from reaching the edge of the map, but no matter how long we traveled in one direction, we never seemed to reach an end point.
