The world is a total mess: dying, overpopulated, full of crime, poverty and debt. Everything was falling apart and no one was doing anything to fix it. Instead, they escaped to a world of pixels, zeroes and ones; The OASIS.

OASIS is the largest virtual reality server to exist where you could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. And by being anyone, they really meant anyone. You could be tall, short, opposite sex, realistic, cartoon. You could be anyone from any game, movie, anything! As long as you don’t die in the game… cause if you do, you lose all your coin and all your customizations and upgrades and have to start over from Level 1.

It was the perfect getaway, and it was accessible to almost anyone and everyone, where you could play any game from any time or go wherever you wanted. Besides sleeping, eating, and bathroom breaks, everyone practically lived in OASIS, which meant that’s where everyone met each other. Although, no one really knows each other’s real identities.

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You lived in a place called Trailer City, which was just a bunch of old trailers and vehicles piled one on top of the other. The only way to travel through your district is through poles, pulley systems, and fire escapes. But in OASIS, you were free.

Your best friend in OASIS went by the gamer tag “Balladeer”, though you just called him “Scaramouche”. He’s one of the top gamers in the charts, not to mention he’s great at coding and modding. Only thing, he doesn’t know your real name, and you don’t know his.

You were meeting him online again, as you usually did. You were wandering the main hub that connected to various other games through sets of portals, calling him up on your internal navigator.

“Yo! What’s up?” he responded, his avatar’s face popping up in a little sidebar. There were the sounds of gunshots in the back, meaning he was probably killing it on Planet Doom again, dominating all other players and making tons of coin.