Infinity – Chapter 4

Sitting at my desk writing the final entries into my guide, I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. My mind blurring over what sort of reason people might have for knocking on our door, after all it was only Ethan and I that lived here, we didn’t have any friends outside of the games we played and nobody really knew where we lived.

Stepping, dread soon began to fill my heart as through the various windows the blue flashing lights of police cars filled Ethan’s bedroom along with the hallway.

“Mr Joel Cunnings?” A woman asked firmly one I had opened the door fully to reveal the two officers in my doorway.

“That’s me, can I help you?” I asked curiously

“I’m afraid that your brother Ethan has been in an accident, can we come in” The woman asked though I was stunned. This never happened before, Ethan was never in an accident in my previous life, why was in an accident this time. Though the more I questioned it the more I realised just how much I had deviated from the previous path we walked, I had pushed him to train harder, to have a competition between us, both of us were far different to our past selves and now it seems I’m paying the price for my interference.

“What happened?” I asked firmly, tears beginning to roll down my cheeks but I wasn’t sad or grieving, I was angry. This was my fault, my interference.

“Officers were in pursuit of a stolen vehicle. The thief went the wrong way down a one way system and after going round a sharp bend, ended up in a head on collision with your brother’s car. Paramedics did their best and Ethan certainly was a fighter but unfortunately he succumb to his injuries on route to hospital”

“Right… I… errr… What do I do now?” I asked her, not even sure what his next step should be.

“This must be a lot to take in, we do need you to come to the hospital to verify the identity of your brother, we’ve found his wallet and numerous letters in his car which led us here”.

“Of course… Can I ask what happened to the other driver… The thief?” I asked curiously.

“He was badly injured during the collision, he was also taken to hospital but I don’t currently know his condition” She said though a rather horrifying thought burst into my mind as I remembered one of the updates Infinity went through.

Around 6 months after Infinity’s launch, the world was quickly realising the benefit of having 48 hours sleep, the work of countless real world companies turned digital and as such many people were put to work. In the past, many super guilds, backed by governments and major corporations had personal legions of criminal players, their affinity to violence and fighting made them excellent Combat Experts and they often struck terror in game as these people would terrorise normal players at the bidding of the super guilds.

*What if this thief gets to play Infinity… How dare the world let such a person play and refuse to let my brother live*

There were still a few days before Infinity’s release and both gaming headsets were already delivered but as I now left with the police officers to go to the Hospital, all I could think about was how my plan would change. Although I had no intention of ever telling Ethan this, I had already from day 1 decided that I would let him win to become Guild Leader. After all, I had to save humanity, I needed to dedicate my time to empowering my character and whilst running a guild would be interesting, it would slow me down. Too much paperwork and bureaucracy. As a Vice-Guild Leader, I could run around collecting items and materials as I went to help promote the guild without taking too much responsibility. But now, with no Ethan, I thought about whether I should build my own guild, following in his footsteps.

Sitting in the back of the police car, my thoughts ran away with me, distracting me from the painful reality as I thought about players that were famous in my previous life, people who he could potentially recruit into his new guild if he chose to make one. Infinity, however, wasn’t a simple game. Combat was difficult, challenging but still fell victim to the laws of the system. In real life, one person couldn’t fight off thousands, but in a game one person could defeat millions, it was all a matter of strength. Higher levels, better weapons, better techniques and skills. The stronger you were the less impact weaker players had, at level 50 you could be considered immortal to an army of level 1’s everything was relative and with his guide he could leap ahead of the bumbling population who had no insight into what Infinity had to offer.