The man, silver haired, aged whiskers on his skin. His name forgotten, skipped in the prelude, runs, it’s all he’s done. Time and time again, for years and years. He jumps over spikes and valleys, the sharp pin pricks of pain from his ancient legs, the thorns from bushes and brambles cut and tear at his skin as he flies past. Time and time again, as he continues, taking a moment to think about slicing through the sharp brambles with his dull sword, useless. He’s brought back to attention as the enraged screams and inhuman shrieks start up behind him. He runs, starting again, as he’s done for years.
His body screams at him to stop, but he can’t, at the risk of getting torn to shreds by the crowd behind him, does he even remember what he’s done this time? It seems not, as the story was… indubitably skipped along with his name. His wizened skin flapped in the wind as he ran and ran and ran. He was getting too old for this. Another jump, another duck, memorized, as he’s been doing it for years and years again. He remembered the first time, as a young man, running from the crowd, but years have passed, in his mind his body has aged, has grown to be the loose skin that he thinks he has now, but the inhuman programing doesn’t age, so he’s still that young man running from the crowd.
He doesn’t know why, he’s a puppet in the hands of that blasted controller. Shit, he thinks as a jump is missed and his body is brutally skewered on the rows of spikes on the ground, one slip up from his connected programming and the controller doesn’t press, but now, even as he sees his bloody and broken body he knows that the checkpoint wasn’t too far away, but this jump was missed for the past 2 hours. The spikes tainted with his blood and the crowd in hot pursuit fades away as the game restarts. CHECKPOINT 2, ATTEMPT 267, READY PLAYER, START. Well, the man, silver haired, thinks. At least I’m not in Red Dead Redemption. The Chase insignia shows up in front of his face as he starts attempt 267.