Chapter Text
Virtual reality refers to computer-generated environments or realities that are designed to simulate a person's physical presence in a specific environment that is designed to feel real.
The purpose of VR is to allow a person to experience and manipulate the environment as if it were the real world.
As his entire body jolted when he woke up, he yelped more out of surprise than fear or pain and his eye sockets opened wide. For a very split second, it almost seemed like he had been floating in the air, with nothing below him and nothing above but a light blue emptiness.
That quickly flashed away and a new world built up around him. He was left standing? Yes. He was left firmly standing on what looked like a white tiled floor. The tile had specks of silver running through it, but it also looked well worn, like it was the entrance of some old building. He bent down to look at it closer to see there were footprints over it.
Briefly he wondered if it was someone’s job to clean the tile in a virtual world or if it was just meant to look like that? It did add to the realism of it. That and the long hotel-esque hallway that stretched before him but ended just behind him. He looked behind to see white walls and a white ceiling. It felt rather clinical… he didn’t like it.
Something moved out of the corner of his eye and he turned back around and gasped, falling back against the cold wall behind him. (Gods, this was realistic, wasn’t it?)
A vaguely human-shaped figure stood before him. It was featureless, a simple grey with no face and a basic grey hospital gown. It swayed where it stood, just a slight sway, as a menu popped up above and around it.
Standing and taking a deep breath, he steadied himself and looked over the menus.
‘Human’ or ‘Monster’ buttons were above it.
“m-monster, please!”
The monster button glowed blue and the human button turned grey. Another menu appeared below listing various types of monsters, in alphabetical order.
He didn’t bother reading it, he knew what he wanted.
“skeleton.”
The menu disappeared and another popped up.
‘Skeleton v. 1’ and ‘Skeleton v. 2’
The first version was simple. A completely naked skeleton in the shape of a human. It looked a bit like himself. A little like his brothers and nothing like what he had hoped for. It also swayed a bit where it stood, expression neutral. It looked every bit the machine he knew it to be.
Maybe they allowed you to edit their looks a little further?
“version two?”
The second one popped up and his soul pulsed.
Oh.
Version two was smaller and looked much more like a monster and less like a reanimated human. It seemed to be smiling up at him, simple white eye lights focused upwards to meet his gaze.
Rounder head with a big smiling mouth. This one was clothed, a blue hoodie and black shorts and… pink slippers?
It blinked at him, expression unchanging.
“yes, this one.”
The button flashed and he was brought to a much more complicated customization screen.
There were so many choices when you had the money to spend and
well
he had the money to spend.
Starting with the top. The gender was locked under ‘male’, unchangeable. The face itself was perfect, round and friendly as it was. It looked up at him as he changed the size of its eye sockets, just a bit wider. Its eye lights were pinpricks now, making it look shocked or mildly frightened. It contrasted with the large smile pointed his way. It made Stretch… uneasy. Taking away the eye lights only made it worse.
He increased the size of the eye lights and suddenly that large smile looked almost doting. It was so close to perfect, so close.
Its magic had a base-color of blue. The box was highlighted, he could change it but…
but.
Blue complimented his own orange magic and the thought of it thrilled him enough that he changed the color of the eye lights to a bright cerulean. Now, big blue eyes stared at him through adorable wide sockets and that smile! That smile…
It blinked at him, as though to say ‘This is good! I like this.’
Add a bandana, make it a little more ‘fit’, wider in the shoulders and slimmer in the waist, but just by a bit. From the moment he and his brothers had been saved, monsters in uniform had been a fantasy of his, so he changed the informal comfy clothes to the outfit of the guards around the King’s Palace. Long sleeves tucked into gloves and long pants tucked into calf-high workers boots. All tinted a monochrome of the same blue of the skeleton’s eyes and greys for the base fabric. It still smiled, eyes following him as he manually pressed the buttons, reaching out around the creature and getting full view of its body.
His body?
The realism of it all was shocking. Logically, he knew he was in a too-big-for-his-apartment fish tank, sleeping and floating at the same time. But this world, as empty as it was so far, was so convincing, too convincing.
He reached his hands around the back of the small skeleton’s body and turned the bandana around, so the knot was in the back, ends sticking out to look almost like a bow. The skeleton watched his hands, blinked and looked back up into his eyes, eye lights moving from one to the other.
It felt so real, so alive. Already ready to speak. Its own being.
Stretch chuckled. “what do you think? too blue?”
It blinked once, twice, before another option popped up.
The top of the menu said ‘Comic Sans’, and it was greyed out, locked in as the font.
Fair enough, he couldn’t expect them to make a ton of options for a monster that few were likely to pick.
The drop-down menu gave him pause.
‘lower case – Less Energetic’
‘UPPER CASE – More Energetic’
They… knew enough to know that about his kin though. Strange there was no mid-range available to him, but he probably wouldn’t have chosen it to begin with. None of his family fell into the midrange category, he’d probably feel distanced from it.
So which would he prefer his adorable little friend to have? A lower caser would be nice to relax with, watch movies with. An upper caser would…
It blinked a couple of times rapidly and swayed again. Stretch lost his train of thought as he noticed the creature seem to shift impatiently, waiting for him to choose so it could speak.
It was an upper caser. It looked like one, too. Those beautiful, shining eye lights.
Stretch selected ‘UPPER CASE’ and it jumped a little, as though ready to get started, but was stopped once again. Once more, it shifted on its feet.
The eagerness made Stretch’s soul warm and without looking at the pop up, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching down and tracing his fingers down around the creature’s jawline. It blinked again.
When he was finally able to draw himself from those eye lights, he looked up to find
‘Name: ……..’ with a keyboard appearing just under it.
‘Name: Blueberry’
It was a bit silly, but he couldn’t think of anything better and didn’t want to just name it ‘Sans’. That was too boring. He hit enter and all the menus disappeared, and a sign popped up above their heads.
‘Preview Amatori’
“HELLO!”
Stretch jolted and gasped at the booming voice, deep but exactly as energetic as they’d promised. Blueberry grabbed his arm and steadied him. He let out a rumbling chuckle.
“woah…”
“YOU’RE FALLING FOR ME ALREADY, AREN’T YOU?” Blueberry winked at him and let go of his arm. Stretch backed up half a pace and looked him over once more.
“uh…”
Blueberry tilted his head a little. “NOT A FAN OF PUNS, FRIEND?”
“heh, no, that’s fine, it’s just…”
“OH, I’M SORRY, DO YOU NOT LIKE TO BE TOUCHED? I JUST DIDN’T WANT YOU TO FALL! THOUGH YOU WOULDN’T BE HURT, I PROMISE! NOTHING CAN REALLY HURT A USER, UNLESS THEY CHOOSE TO FEEL PAIN FOR GRATIFICATION PURPOSES! I CAN READ YOU ALL ABOUT IT, IF YOU WOULD LIKE.” Stretch just stood in awe for a moment. Blueberry didn’t pause long. “I PROMISE I WON’T TOUCH YOU AGAIN, IF YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO! I HAVE A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT YOU! I HOPE YOU’LL GIVE ME THE TIME TO DO SO. DON’T GIVE UP ON OUR FRIENDSHIP! USUALLY YOU GET TO GO THROUGH A PERSONALITY TRAIT SELECTION, BUT IT’S LIMITED FOR CERTAIN MONSTER SELECTIONS. I AM NOT QUITE SURE WHY, BUT WE DO ADAPT AND CHANGE AS YOU TELL US HOW TO FE-”
Unsure of what to do, Stretch held his pointer finger over Blueberry’s mouth. Though even in the real world, it would have done nothing to muffle the loud babbling, it immediately quieted him down. “i just uh… i know i said i wanted an upper caser but d-… uh…”
The excitement in Blueberry’s eyes had drained down to what looked like a desperate sadness, his hands coming into little fists at his side, though no tension seemed to be held in them.
“i mean, i do want an uppercaser but uh… just…” The upturned brows and downturned smile sent a pang of guilt through his soul. It reminded him of his brothers so much. He sighed and moved his finger back down Blueberry’s cheek. “my anxiety, buddy. keep the energy, but talk a little quieter, okay? is that uh possible?”
“Do you mean like this?” He could still sense the power of that booming voice, but the volume and speed were considerably cut down.
Stretch smiled a little. “much better.”
Blueberry’s smile returned and his eyes sparkled.
“so uh… why are the personality traits locked?”
“I’m not sure! The information is locked to me, but if you really hate something about me, I can ask permission to change it!”
He looked around at the greyed-out boxes surrounding them, tall enough that Blueberry wouldn’t be able to reach them if he jumped. So much went into these, but he supposed the more nuanced a character is, the more believable they are. It unnerved him a little to think that he was in the middle of a conversation with a machine.
Spending a couple of moments looking over the chosen personality traits helped to distract him.
Energetic, doting, chef, tenacious, loyal, distractible, considerate, tidy…
“what does it mean that you’re tidy?” He looked down to the AI before him and it just shrugged back.
“I guess we’ll find out. Unless you want me to fill out a request form now?”
This was it then. The way Blueberry was speaking made it sound final, an important piece of who they would be. He needed to decide if he wanted to create his amatori to be exactly perfect or if…
If he’d prefer a more uncontrolled realistic approach. One where he didn’t control the personality of the person who he’d be spending time with.
Just as he’d been unable to control his brothers as they left him, one by one, to find their way in the world alone. But an amatori couldn’t leave him, no matter their differences. Did he want to lose himself in the illusion of the computer-generated creature before him? He closed his eyes tight and tilted his head away from the avatar.
When he opened his eye sockets again, one word stood out against the others, a few inches from his face.
Complex.
0
In the end, he had been unable to request changes. If he was going to do this, he was going to dive in feet first and let himself be entirely consumed. What did he have to lose at this point? A social life? A job?
He had nothing.
Blueberry had seemed relieved at his decision and when he finalized the design, the AI held his hand and led him down the hallway without another word.
Glass doors lead into a small white room with what looked like the front door of a house at the other end of it. When he looked back, the door they had just come through had disappeared. Blueberry slid his hand out of Stretch’s and stood in front of him. The room was bright, but not painfully so, with no light source.
Another thing that took away the immersion, it was the little things that threw him. So realistic, yet…
Blueberry noticed his apprehension and was quick to speak to him. “This our main HUB, where the basis of any activity starts for you. It’s a private area for you to load in. You can also customize and change it to fit your preferences and needs!”
Stretch took a look around him and sighed. White walls, white ceiling, no light source and that same grungy tile floor from before.
“We can make it our home!” There was another slight pause and when Stretch still hadn’t replied, Blueberry continued. “A home away from home for you, I suppose.”
Stretch blinked. “i’m guessing that’ll cost more money, right?”
“Well… not all of it. There are some simple modifications that can be made without payment.”
“show me.”
Another short pause and another menu popped up, flashing more choices in front of him. He shook his head. “no, no, blueberry. show me.”
Blueberry’s brows pressed together and his smile twitched. “You want to allow me to make non-monetary changes to your HUB. This is correct?”
“uh… yes.”
He received a great big grin in response.
“CONFIRMED!” Blueberry cleared his throat, speaking softer as he continued. “Sorry. Confirmed, though! Close your eyes, graphics changing has been known to cause headaches when viewed so directly.”
Stretch did so, lowering his head and closing eyes. The sound of static surrounded him, like rain against cement. He felt Blueberry’s warm bones slide into his hand again. They held hands as he kept his eyes closed.
“can i call you blue?”
“I would love that!”
It was only when he felt the Amatori’s head rest against his shoulder that full scope of what he had just done hit him.