What a weird world.

Gizmos and Gadgets

You were tired.

Your back hurt, your neck hurt, and it was only the first week of university.

The people in your dorm were assholes, never cleaning dishes and leaving pokemon card collection scattered across the floor, watching embarrassing anime dubs at a volume far too high for how weird they were.

Or, in other words, you really got the short end of the stick.

After only an hour of studying, you felt like all of the middle-aged, constantly complaining of joint pain, your brain turned to mush as you wondered why being so smart left you so stupid when it came to how to study.

So, you did what you always did when you need some alone-time in a room full of idiots.

You went exploring.

The attic was dusty and horrid from years of neglect, each floor-board creaking loudly underneath your foot, deafening in the eerily thick silence, a single shiver running down your spine being quickly suppressed by the need to cough.

Jesus Christ did this place need windows!

You walked slowly across the rather empty attic, ignoring the sense of dread that overcame you as you walked.

And that was when you tripped over.

You fell over with an embarrassingly loud thud, flat on your face. You got back onto your knees, ready to stand and praying that none of your sucky dorm-mates decided to look for the noise and see you in such an embarrassing state. You looked at the culprit of your embarrassing fall, glaring at the small box. It was a simple, cardboard box that simply read "TADC VR Gaming Headset" down the side in big, bold and blocky letters.

Curious, you opened it to see what was inside, as an empty box would have tipped over itself when you tripped.

To your amazement, there was a headset in there! Undamaged, and rather interesting-looking.

Having never seen any form of gadget or gizmo so interesting in your life, you stared at it in amazement. It even looked comfortable, with a series of buttons down the side and an in-built mic.

You paused, holding the headset in your hands.

It felt oddly heavy to you, but it could've just been your confused, scared brain playing tricks on you.

Surely just putting it on wouldn't hurt?

You pushed back your non-sensical fear, lifting the headset up and slipping it onto your head.

At first, you saw the classic mesh-ground, with a white background. The one that was displayed when the headset was on, but not yet running.

The moment you realised the headset was on, was the moment the mesh 'ground' was gone.

Substituted by a crisp, untouched sea of white, and the loss of feeling trickling through your body like a feeling of far-too-late dread.

A loss of being that you would never get back.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Just a little pre-digital circus to get it started.

This will probably be edited at some point, if we ever find out how the characters ended up in the digital circus, but for the moment, this (Along with a lot of things) will have to be a hc.