Virtual Reality - User Error

Simon slipped the headset on, feeling it come in tight around his head. The cushioned cups pressed around his eyes and he fastened the strap, taking a deep breath. He had never tried virtual reality before and had often dismissed it as a gimmick. But, the chance had come to get a headset cheaply, and Simon thought that he would at least give it a shot. He had heard stories of people wearing them for days and becoming so immersed that they lost themselves, but he had quickly dismissed them as nothing more than rumours, fabricated to sell more headsets. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the button on the top of the device.

A white light filled his vision, as though someone had just switched on a bright lamp in the middle of a dark room. He closed his eyes to try and block it out, but it shone through his eyelids. Eventually, his eyes focused, the light fading as it was replaced by a darker blue. From the light, shapes started to form, gradually building and forming into three dimensional objects. Slowly, a world was being built around him. In Simon’s ears he could hear the bassy thumps of far-off thunder and a soft electronic beat that was gradually increasing in tempo. Looking down, Simon saw that he could see his body, perfectly recreated inside the virtual reality. He was shocked – did the device have some way of tracking his appearance? He brought his virtual hands closer to his face, unable to find any trace of pixels or jagged edges. It was far more impressive than a mere simulation, it looked as though his body had been completely transported into another world. As he moved his hands back down, his fingertips brushed against the headset, reassuring him that he was still tethered to the real world, no matter how real this one felt.

Looking around, Simon could see the simulation being finished. At the periphery of his vision, he could still spot shapes gradually growing clearer, as if trying to render without him spotting them. He was standing on an immense grid, blue lines stretching out equidistant all the way to the horizon. Far away, he could see a dark tower, the blue light shining up through the centre of it.

Words began to flash in front of his vision. “Profile not recognised”, in bright blue capitals. They were locked to his vision, impossible to avoid no matter where he looked. Slowly, the words faded away, only to be replaced by a single word. “Reformatting”.

With a flash, the words faded once more. Nervous, Simon took a few steps, hearing his feet echo against the ground. Everything had substance, a sense of presence. As much he kept internally reminding himself that he was really at home wearing a headset, if he didn’t focus, it was very easy to accept what he was experiencing as the real thing. Far away, Simon could see another light, slowly growing brighter. Something was speeding towards him, coming from the direction of the tower that reached up into the thundercloud above the flat world he was immersed in. As it got closer, Simon could see that it was some sort of vehicle, its rider almost horizontal as they sped along the gridlines, hurtling towards him at great speed. He could hear a high mechanical whining as its engine grew louder. Was this part of whatever game he had just loaded up, unthinkingly?

The vehicle moved in front of him, moving with unnatural speed as it suddenly stopped, impossibly fast. It was some kind of bike, its wheels glowing with the same light that was spread everywhere he looked. Its rider dismounted and began to walk towards him. Her thin, lithe body suggested femininity, but her face was obscured by a slick glossy helmet, no eyes visible. She was dressed in a tight bodysuit, the black material covering all of her, except for the shoulders where a flash of pale skin was the only hint that the figure was human. Slowly, she walked towards Simon, her heeled boots clicking on the ground, echoing endlessly off into the distance. Simon was frozen in place. This felt far more real than any game he had played. Somehow, he knew that if the figure were to reach and strike him, he would feel the impact fully.

She moved one glove hand to the back of her helmet, and it slid away, folding as if by magic into the neck of her suit. A young, beautiful woman stared at him; her eyes ringed with heavy mascara. Her hair, jet black, twitched at her ears as she smiled, looking him over. “Welcome!” she said, her voice clear and strong. Simon felt his mouth go dry. Was this part of the game? Was he meant to say something in return? Before he could answer, the woman spoke again.

“We’ll get started soon. First, we’ll need to make some adjustments before we can truly begin”, she continued, pointing at him.

Simon gasped as his body was somehow obscured, triggered by the woman’s gesture. The whole surface of it was pixelated, as if his identity was being hidden. It was still the colours that he expected, but covered by jagged edges, slowly loading like the rest of the simulation had done when he first put on the headset. He could still feel the weight of it on his head but was too scared to reach for it. The air felt like it was being forced out of his lungs, yet when he tried to breathe he found he was unable to. Strangely, the panic subsided, finding it weird comfortable to exist in this artificial, breathless state.

The man could feel something changing in his feet, the texture beneath the pixels flickering and reforming. Soon, it settled on a darker colour, a rich black. Beneath the effect, Simon’s feet felt as though they were compressing, the bones painlessly cracking and healing into something new. He stumbled on his feet as they changed, his balance being lost momentarily before coming back, better than before. He could feel himself growing taller, but not through his body changing. Pressing down with his feet, Simon could feel a solid, raised heel beneath them, forcing his feet into an almost tip-toe position. Gradually, the pixels grew smaller and smaller, until Simon couldn’t see them at all. They moved up his leg in a wave, finishing just below his knee which now looked massive in comparison to his newly thin feet. He wanted to reach down and touch them, to prove that what he was seeing was more real than any simulation, but his arms were rooted to the spot. He found that he was able to flex his feet a little, and could see a black, supple leather moving as he stretched and strained against it. He was wearing a pair of long heeled boots, tight and enclosing around his nimble feet.

The pixels crept slowly upwards, as if he was being slowly scanned into the machine. As they moved up his legs, Simon felt the flesh beneath reforming. They grew smaller but stronger, dense muscles gently covered by a thin layer of fat. As the pixels solidified, Simon could see tight black leggings, seamlessly emerging from the boots and crawling up his legs like a shimmering black oil, the flesh beneath covered. Slowly, it rose higher with a rubbery squeak.

When it reached his rear, Simon gasped in shock. The reforming of his legs had felt odd, but the sudden burst of fat in his behind was utterly pleasurable. He found that he was finally able to move his hand, and soon sunk his fingers deep into the sculpted flesh, squeezing and stroking his new body, surrounded by the tight leather of the leggings. He watched as the pixels buzzed around his groin, and the pleasure grew even more intense. Underneath the pixels, he could feel the blood rushing to his member. Across the rest of his body, the pixels had felt little more than a dull tingle as they reformatted him. Now, they were simulating all sorts of sensations. Something was slowly pumping his shaft, a warm, wet touch that swirled around it. Simon barely caught a glimpse of the smirk on the face of the mysterious rider in front of him before his eyes shut in bliss. Before long, he came, yet the pixels continued their work. Something was changing deeper within him, and Simon tried to soothe away the panic he felt as his manhood vanished by reminding himself it was only a game, and that nothing he was experiencing was truly real. The pixels shifted elsewhere, and Simon felt the leather leggings sealing tight around his waist. The expected bulge in the front of them had gone, and Simon could see the slightest of camel toes in the front of the strange fabric. There was an emptiness between his legs. He knew that if he were to peel back the tight leather, another organ would be where his penis had been only moments before. Simon knew that this was feeling far too real to just be another game and that the wisest thing to do would be to tear the headset off and try and pull himself away from it, but the pleasure was undeniable, teasing him onwards. The glossy shapes in front of him seemed all the more enticing by the second.

The pixels swarmed around Simon’s fingertips, and soon they spread higher up his arms. As they moved, he watched curiously as his fingers were shrunken down, growing thinner and more dexterous. Soon, he couldn’t see his pale flesh beneath them anymore, his hands now wrapped tightly in the same supple leather as the rest of his body. Smooth and hairless, Simon’s arms felt powerful yet elegant, able to be unleashed at a moment’s notice. The gloves finished extending just as they reached his shoulders, a patch of skin still on show.

Quickly, the pixels built across Simon’s chest, now strangely out of proportion with his longer, thinner limbs. Unthinkingly, he found that hanging from his waist was suddenly the hem of a short skirt. Despite wearing his new gloves, he could sense the soft material perfectly through them. He could feel it barely covering his new pert behind. The pixels warped and shifted across his torso, and Simon moaned pleasurably as it was compressed down. This might just have been a game, but it felt like it was real. While most of his torso was being reduced in size, in two spots it was being forced to grow. The pixels swirled around his nipples, and Simon could feel them grow hard and erect, pressing up against whatever strange clothing was still covered by the pixelation. The fat beneath them grew, bursting into two small perky breasts, encased in a tight bodysuit that squeezed Simon’s neck. The material felt harder than the leggings, strong but still flexible. Simon could barely keep his hands away from it, losing himself more and more to the simulation.

His vision blurred as the pixels squeezed and adjusted at his face, his moans growing steadily higher in pitch as they did so. His whole body felt electrified, pleasure coursing through his sprouting nerves, begging for more sensation in the strange world they were now exploring. Something tickled at Simon’s ear, and he knew it was the same jet black hair to match the figure still standing amused in front of him. He reached up to feel it, his hands passing through where his mind knew the headset truly was. He pulled softly at the strands, feeling a strange satisfaction as his scalp responded in kind, reminding him that this was more real than ever. He opened his mouth, the pixels swarming in and around him, restructuring him entirely. His face was now the perfect model of femininity, with soft pink lips and smoky eyeshadow standing in sharp contrast to his sharp jawline.

A part of Simon wanted to panic, wanted to exit the game through whatever means he could. He had fallen too deeply into it, almost consumed. A strange desire was building deep within him that wrestled with this panic, forcing it into submission. He wanted this, more than ever. There was a sense of interconnectedness in everything he touched that he was only just beginning to understand. He felt connected to the woman in front of him that he was now an almost perfect clone of. He knew that in the distance there were many more of them, an intimately connected network of an untold number of users. He wanted to be a part of this great intelligence, far more powerful than anything he could ever imagine. Simon let go, his old form little more than discarded data.

The lights across her body lit up, the same neon blue as the grid which she knew was her home. The woman opposite her didn’t even need to speak – they understood each other far more than words could express. A new bike materialised beside her, and the latest user touched at her neck, her helmet forming around her head and sealing her inside. The other woman sped off into the distance and she followed after her, a smile growing on her face as the delights of this new life slowly became apparent.

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A short story for PowerRangerPink! Obviously this is inspired by but not true to Tron, a film I still haven't gotten round to seeing. This will be my last story this side of Christmas - I've been writing a commission almost every week for the past few months and I'll be spending a little time off to make sure I don't get burnt out! Plenty of stories to come.

Thank you for subscribing to my Patreon, it really means a lot. I know as much as anyone how tight finances can be this time of year, so please don't feel bad if you need to cancel your membership for the month. My stories will be here as long as I can still write them, and I'd hate to know that someone has gone without something essential to send me a few dollars. Look after yourselves!