Prisoners of VR

"Tell me, now!" Karthik slammed his fist onto the bonnet of a car as he glared at the doctor.

"Get in, first." The doctor said and pointed at the driver's seat, "You'll be the one to drive."

Karthik frowned at the doctor, but in the end, he got in the driver's seat and noticed the key right before him. He started the vehicle and was stunned to see the doctor seated next to him. The door hadn't opened.

Normally, he would have questioned the phenomenon. But Karthik neither had the patience nor the presence of mind to do so. He was a dead man inside. Maybe revenge would ignite in him a will to live on.

The GPS fitted to the car switched on automatically and displayed a route. The doctor pointed at it and spoke with a mysterious smile, "At the destination lies your hope."

With that, he disappeared.

Karthik stared in silence at the empty car. There was none in his vicinity. The doctor couldn't have run away, not without opening the door, not without him noticing it, especially since his focus was entirely on the doctor.

"Hallucination...?" For a moment, the thought flashed through his mind. Moreover, he was in someone else's car. But it wasn't as if Karthik had anything to lose at this point.

Besides, for some reason, the doctor's final word resounded in his mind nonstop.

Hope!

The GPS showed a travel time of forty minutes. Karthik was pretty reckless in driving, reaching the destination in half the time. When he reached the destination, there were multiple bumps in the car.

It was a godown, currently empty. It seemed to have been a place used to store fabric, judging by the torn shreds strewn across the concrete floor.

Karthik entered the godown and noticed two chairs placed in the centre, ten metres away from one another. The chair closer to the entrance was empty, while the other one, situated at the farther end of the godown, masked by a shadow seemed occupied.

As there wasn't enough light inside, Karthik couldn't make out the face of the individual. But, the blue circuit lines of an uVR Earth shining dimly within the darkness indicated that someone was seated there.

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"Were you the one behind it?" Karthik asked as he walked towards the entity in darkness.

When he approached closer, the two blue circuit lines shone bright enough to dissipate the darkness, allowing the face of the person to come into view.

A seemingly unassuming youth in his early twenties, still in college. He had a plain face, common enough to be unidentifiable among a crowd. Neither the youth's expression nor his aura indicated that he had anything to do with Karthik.

But as the blue light shone on Karthik, a figure appeared beside him. Dark brown hair that reached his shoulder, a buff but streamlined body, the muscles toned through extensive practice of martial arts, but a face that was of an intellectual.

The figure's eyes shone with the intelligence of a scientist but the wisdom of an old man that had seen everything life had to offer. But in contrast, he was too enough to possess such a wealth of wisdom and experience.

At the sight of the figure, the seated youth got down on all fours and bowed. His head touched the ground in reverence as he maintained silence, not uttering any words of faith. He expressed his devotion in such a calm and collected manner as if he was trained to do so, professionally.

Following that, he got up and stood behind the chair while the figure took a seat. The seated figure motioned for Karthik to take a seat and spoke, "Since you came here of your own volition, I presume you are prepared to hear the truth?"

"Is it true that my family got murdered?" Karthik asked as he subconsciously took a seat.

"Yes," Saying so, the seated figure projected a screen on which a scene played through.

The point of view seemed to be from someone seated at a dining table, having just finished dinner. At the sight of the familiar dining table, Karthik muttered, "That's my house's dining table."

"That's what your son was looking at yesterday night." The seated figure spoke calmly as the scene continued forth.

"Rohit..." Karthik became emotional, but in the next second, intense rage filled his being.

"Eh? Who's there?" Rohit shouted as the silhouette of a shadow flashed behind him, four-legged in nature. It seemed to be that of a cat but was too big to be from one. But as it happened too fast, Rohit couldn't make out what it was.

His mind subconsciously assumed it to be something else as he calmed down. But suddenly, a cold breeze blew past his neck; Rohit felt the chills. He turned around in a fluster and stared at the cold, murderous pair of feline eyes. It was a Liger.

The Liger opened its mouth and clamped upon Rohit. The scene displayed the insides of the Liger's mouth for an instant before everything turned dark.

"My son...was killed by a Lion?" Karthik was stunned, shouting, "What the fuck? There were no injuries on his body..."

"I'm sorry to have frightened you, but I believe showing this would have made my explanation easier to understand."

"I'm the DOVA Agent ranked sixth in our country, titled the Liger. The reason is as you can see, I can manifest a realistic Liger. Facing it is no different from encountering one in reality."

"If it slaps you in the face, you'll feel the pain..."

Karthik stared at the next scene as his eyes widened. A couple of blood vessels in his eyes popped, turning them bloody. His body became so hot from the rage that vapours faintly streamed out of his eyes.

"I'm the DOVA Agent ranked sixth in our country, titled the Liger."

"I'm the DOVA Agent ranked sixth in our country..."

"DOVA Agent..."

"Liger..."

"Induced Reality!" Karthik finally realised what was up as his body lost all its strength. He muttered in disbelief, "Then...I begged someone that was the cause of my son's death."

'Well, Rohit wasn't killed like this. The video I showed is something I created. I made one for Anita too. But anyway, facts don't change.' The seated figure nodded, "Now you know."

The scene changed, showing from the perspective of a patient. The ward was familiar as Karthik screamed, "That's where Anita was admitted at..."

"No..." A faint squeal was all that leaked out of Anita as she stared at the Liger in fear. She was terrified to the extent she couldn't let out any screams. The Liger calmly bit on her leg.

Since the perspective was from Anita's sight, all that was shown on the scene was a pair of legs kicking around in pain and the rapid dance in line of sight. Anita was shaking her head in pain.

The Liger continued to bite her body, starting from the legs as it crept up. The pain was unimaginable. By the time the Liger bit on her stomach, Anita was unable to endure anymore.

While flailing around, she caught sight of a scalpel on a tray nearby. Her hand grabbed it in a hurry and without any hesitation, plunged it in her neck.

The doctors rushed into the ward in a hurry upon hearing the commotion. But while they were trying to save her, the figure of the Liger phased through their bodies and continued to bite Anita's body, proceeding further upwards. None of them could see or feel its presence.

Anita pushed aside the doctors, not intending to suffer any second longer. Until her last breath, Anita stared at the Liger's face which had almost reached her neck by now.

"Being bit by a feline creature causes unimaginable pain. Your wife was bitten forty times in total." The seated figure stated calmly, "Suicide was a less painful option. I'm afraid the pain was so much that your wife couldn't even spare a thought about leaving you behind, alone."

"Aargh!" Karthik screamed in rage, helplessness, and most of all, despair. His family was murdered in cold blood, and what did he do in the meantime? He begged the killer with all his might.

"Why? What did my family ever do to him?" Karthik sobbed, "We lived honest lives."

"Induced Reality," The seated figure stated solemnly, "A figment of imagination can kill people in reality. It's like a blade of death. But, a blade will become rusty if never used."

"Then..." Karthik spoke in utter disbelief, "My family was killed just because..."

"Yes, for practice." The seated figure nodded, "All DOVA Agents do this to polish their human-killing weapons. Extensive use of uVR Earth without rest indeed causes brain damage and possibly even death, but not as quickly as people assume. In truth, the cause is as you see in the video."

"Who are you?" Karthik shouted in denial, "How do you know about this? Does it make sense to extract memories from people? If you could do all this, why didn't you save my family?"

"Had your family prayed towards me, I would have saved them." The seated figure snapped his finger and caused the screen to display the slumped figure of Karthik seated on the flight of stairs at the entrance to the hospital, "One of the doctors is my believer. Upon staring at your pitiful self that lost everything, they prayed towards me and requested to grant you salvation."

"It was at their behest did I extract the final memories from your family."

"W-Who are you?" Karthik slumped on the chair, feeling a mental overload. It took him a couple of minutes to calm down as he stared at the seated figure and asked, "What should I do now?"

"Do you seek revenge?" The seated figure asked.

"Yes!" Karthik gritted desperately, but even he knew that Rahu wasn't someone he could touch, not to mention harm, "But how? Please help me!"

"I'll become your follower!"

"Then things are simple." The seated figure smiled as he snapped his finger. The youth standing behind him walked forward and extended a card towards Karthik, "Scan the QR Code."

The QR Code resembled the shape of a Spade used in a deck of cards. As Karthik scanned it, he was stunned to see a row of words form at the top of his Augmented Reality interface.

[You're now one of the Spades]

"See you inside." The seated figure vanished. Only then did the youth pocket the card and take a seat, sighing in exhaustion as he wiped the trail of blood leaking out of his nose.

He then stared at Karthik, "You should enter your Virtual Space now."

"The Cyber God will bask you with his presence."