10. The most popular MMORPG in the Milky Way
A buzz shuddered my eardrums. Vesper was on the other side of the line.
“Yeah, what’s up?” came his bright cheery voice like cupid shooting arrows irresponsibly.
“Wanna go sky surfing?” I asked, sharp as a bell.
There was a gaggling noise, which followed with crackles, as if he were whipping demonic minnows before he finally answered, “Sure. Meet you at Tower 1?”
“Ok. See you there.”
Hell is a ball of blue energy the size of a Cadillac. A pimp machine. It is also the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) in the Milky Way. To think that Syurga was built on the foundation of a game is almost blasphemous, but sacrilegious as it sounds, this hedonistic truth rings clear like a clock tower chiming twelve.
Electric currents are abuzz with perpetual motion, the result of a gazillion gamers logging on simultaneously at any one time. Hell was developed outside this universe, but its popularity caught on with such a gust that real economies started emerging beyond its virtual walls. Players making money in the game began setting up offices in proximity. Soon the space and air around its hosting site, which initially was just a satellite orbiting a lonely path in the galactic highway became crowded. Buildings environed it, trapping cosmic particles; more structures erected above previously raised constructions. People migrated, aliens descended, new industries growing and feeding off each other like a giant flesh-eating plant engorging an entire planet.
And Syurga was born; an artificial landscape destined to be the capital of the galaxy. It was ugly…a metal ball sticking out of the universe; it was beautiful…a metal ball sticking out of the universe.
It was glorious, deformed, angelic and demonic; unreal, a melting pot of influences left to pulsate and organically expand, likened to a narcissistic monster addicted to its own vanity. Syurga was a cauldron of madness, madness of the gods. Syurga was Babylon in front of the enchanted and magical mirror; she was the Whore, and we all committed adultery with her.