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By William L. Truax III

Trapped inside a VR game called The New World, Lyre must find a way to escape and save everyone from living their lives inside this Hellhole, and never seeing the daylight of the REAL world ever again. Lyre at 15, must make the hard choices, whether to follow his heart or to obey another. He joins forces with an underground militia in hopes of stopping The New World from ruining their lives and return the players back to their regular lives. Years pass and no luck but now home with a girl he fell in love with, could this be the end of it all? Has Lyre given up on the idea of FREEDOM? Lyre and this mysterious young lady set out on adventures and wind up finding themselves in certain peril, knowing that this world is fraught with dangers around every corner and that everything there is out to get them, can Lyre and this young lady survive until FREEDOM COMES?Can the DEATH OF OTHERS that looms over their heads keep Lyre on his path and free them all from this accursed game once and for all?Find out more inside and follow along with Lyre's adventures and hope that he escapes with everyone that's close to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Truax
• Release date: Jun 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393616559

William L. Truax III

William L. Truax III is a disabled veteran; father and author. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

He was about 15 years old when he received his first VR headset and he was very excited about it. He placed his phone inside the case and placed the headset on his head and experienced a game called the New World. He found the world very appealing, the organizations, the societies, the order that the game had all appealed to him.

In real life he was wheelchair bound due to complications at birth, but in the New World he was able to walk and do things that he could not do in real life and in this world, he was becoming someone special.

One day, after he got up, his mother was already in the room pulling out clothes to wear for the day. He turned and looked at her and asked about getting a better computer for the game. He told his mother that he heard the game was now on the computer and he was eager to try it with the mouse and keyboard. His mother looked at him and she nodded her head and with a smile she said,

Not a problem baby.

The boy looked at his mother a little more closely. He noticed the shirt that she wore with the white floral dress she had on was in her favorite shade of baby blue. He also noticed that her hair was different and looked like she may have had it cut recently.  She had it pulled it up in a tight pony tail, so it was difficult for him to be sure. His eyes then skimmed over his mother’s exposed skin and rested on the white splotches that dotted her arms. He followed the trail they took up her arms and neck. It was a rare occurrence for him to see his mother this way. She normally wore turtleneck sweaters, even in the heat of summer, so others would not see and stare. He could only imagine how she suffered on those hot days with the sun beating on the dark portions of her skin and those thick sweaters, but she always pushed through.

And then he looked over his own skin. He didn’t notice any discoloration, but he still wondered about the genetics, if he too would develop a trail of splotches and become even more self-conscious.  Or would it completely skip him, and his skin would remain the same his entire life?

His mother pulled out a pair of blue jeans, socks, underwear, and a dark blue T-shirt. She walked over to him and started the process of getting him dressed. Like normal he did not struggle, he did not fight. He tried to convince his mother to let him do most of it and she would not allow it.

(He was always told [as he was growing up] of an accident that had occurred close to the time of his birth that made him this way in the womb. Then when he was between the ages of 3 and 5 his parents paid for therapy on his legs and he tried walking in water and that was successful, but when it went to land...his legs buckled underneath of him and he fell smacking his head into the metal rails and onto the floor. His mother fell that day with him and from then on, she nor his father allowed him to do anything on his own.)

She helped him into his chair, and he wheeled himself over in front of his computer and he described to her the type of computer that he needed to play the game.

He also told his mother as per the website, that you needed a full-body VR headset for the computer to play the game properly and his mother had no problem agreeing to his request after she looked at it. A couple weeks went by and the boy was getting anxious about his new computer and on a Friday afternoon the doorbell rang. His mom went to the door and picked up the package. She brought it to the table, opened it up in front of him and began to help him set up the computer and laid out the full-body suit on the bed and began placing him in it.

Once everything was said and done, he was in his room at the ready, with his mom, the computer and the game the New World.

Once the application was open on his desktop it gave a warning: This game is not for the faint of heart. It operates just like real life, it has rules and regulations. Abide by them or you will be banned. His mom clicked okay and then she told him to pop on his headset and when he did, he was sucked into the game and it was an experience he would never forget.

It was a blue screen that he saw first with white lightning strikes going around the sides and a box appeared in the center. User registration, it said, login or sign up. He clicked on login and he entered in his user information from his cell phone. Once that was accepted, he was thrown into a vast world full of twirling sounds and his head started spinning from the sights and sounds.  The blue and the white started to blend together and then he appeared in the center of the city. He looked in the top left-hand corner on the heads-up display, or HUD, menu to see where he was, and it said Beta Long Iron.

He looked around for a moment and tried to get his bearings. He immediately thought to himself that he’d been here before. The buildings looked familiar. They were tall and gray with blacked out windows all around them, some with little flowerpots sticking out on the side. In the center where he stood there was a pad, and on that pad, there was a yellow spinning circular object. It was yellow and blue and white, and he remembered from playing on his cell phone that it was a teleport. He looked back at his HUD menu and noticed that his level was not where he left off, but it was back at level one.

He was not able to zoom out to look at himself, though he tried. So, he started walking and to his amazement he could feel every step! He felt like superman and that he could do anything and the look that was on his face said it all, it was surprised and excited and shocked all rolled into one and somehow, he knew that he’d never fall here. So, he headed towards the shops where he thought he remembered where they were. He checked his inventory on the way and noted that all his inventory from his cell phone playing days was correct, so he wondered about his level not being right. On his cell phone he was at level fifteen but here as he checked again, he was still at level one.

As he walked, he heard his armor crunching on the ground. He looked down and noticed that the ground looked more like dirt and stone mixed together and it was very lifelike. He continued his way towards the shops and when he got there, he paid closer attention to how they looked as well. The shops looked nothing like how they did on the cell phone, they look more rustic here. One guy, who appeared to be a non-playable character, was