An in-built ma.s.sage system in the chair sensed his weight and scanned his body, determining which muscles were tightest and in need of most relief. A compress patch on his knee applied pain relief for a nasty wound he had suffered in combat many years ago.

Nothingness came to Li in gradual waves. He imagined it was like the seaside waves he had seen in historical videos. The waves in them flowed gradually towards sh.o.r.e, covering it bit by bit until finally, there was just water, settled and gentle.

Li sighed as the pain in his knee faded and the tightness in his muscles dispersed. Nothingness came to him easier now. Thinking of nothing made him calm, and calm was something this world sorely needed.

2100 had just started a month ago, and at first, people were hopeful. The start of a new century. Maybe there would be change. Fewer proxy wars between superpowers in the East and West. Fewer natural disasters from a climate that stood at the brink of destruction.

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Well, none of that happened. The world was still in the same chaos it had been in for the past 50 years. The sun still never shone, covered as it was under thick smog that was black as tar and reached deep into the lungs like poisonous tendrils, spreading a rattling cough among all those too poor to afford a proper mask.

Li, though, was fine. As far as material need went, he didn't want for anything. Working as a gene engineer for Sino Biocultures, the largest company in China for genetically modified crops, his salary was nothing to scoff at. It let him dive deep into the materialistic, consumerist culture of the world, letting him buy a large apartment in the richest complexes where electrified, sentry-guarded gates warded off the poor.

But material wants never satisfied Li. His parents had been in the last generation to grow up in the green age, when the birds still sang, and the forests were still tall. They had been farmers who had moved to the cities for better jobs.

In coming to the cities penniless but filled with drive for a better future for themselves, they sacrificed their time and health toiling away as delivery drivers, cas.h.i.+ers, and whatever odd job they could sc.r.a.p up. But what they didn't sacrifice were their memories of a world far quieter, bluer, and greener than the sooty dim of the city.

When they had Li, they had given him these memories. He grew up with stories of great and green forests where his father had played. Streams gurgling and blue that were clear like crystal and fresher than any bottled, treated water.

Flowers of all colors that bloomed across rolling hillsides. Little animals that scurried across the ground and chatty birds that streaked through skies blue and filled with the warmth and light of a golden-yellow sun.

Li had fallen in love with these stories and when he was little, had said he wanted to be a farmer just like his parents once were. A ridiculous dream. His parents had laughed at him just as they would if he had said he wanted to rule the world: both dreams were equally impossible.

They told him how n.o.body worked the fields anymore, that big, loud machines had cleared down the forests. The birds had choked on the smog. The oceans were empty and bustling with great barges of plastic as large as islands. The only crops were now grown in labs, engineered to perfection.

As Li grew up, he fell in line with the rest of the world but never truly gave up his childish dreams. He studied hard and well and excelled, getting into a top university. There, he studied plant science and horticulture, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could innovate a way to bring back those green forests and those colorful flowers he had always heard of but never seen.

Granted, he did avidly watch and research them through videos that detailed the past, but he would ultimately never see them with his own two eyes.

But reality was a harsh teacher. After graduating, Li had been drafted into a war. He fought for two years before a bomb that nearly blew apart his left leg sent him out of commission. Then his parents' health began failing.

They had started coughing - the city smog had caught up to them. He went back to university and changed his studies to something more profitable – gene engineering. He gained a job at Sino Biocultures and provided for his parents until they pa.s.sed.

And then, Li had nothing he truly valued. He had money and prestige and all the benefits that came with it. An expensive car, tailored clothes, nice home, and more women than he could count, but none of it had any value, any substance.

It was empty.

He could never make his dreams come true. He could never hold a rabbit in his hands or watch a flower grow from seed to bloom. He could never walk by groves of trees towering and full of green, bushy leaves. He could never swim in oceans vast and blue, teeming with fish.

Instead of falling into hopelessness, Li turned to virtual reality. Elden World, the top VRMMORPG of the video game industry, let him sink his teeth into a world that was not his, where he could make the impossible possible. Where the gra.s.ses were still green and the skies still blue. He threw all his free time, money, and pa.s.sion into it.

Li pushed his rolling ma.s.sage chair up to his desk. He reached forwards and put on his VR headset. The sleek design of the visor nestled snugly around his head. He heard a click as the headset synced its electrical signals with his nervous system, allowing him to truly experience an entirely different reality through not just through sight and sound but also smell, taste, and feeling. He gave a mental command for his computer to boot up and start Elden World.

This was when he felt most alive.