The thing in front of me wasn't just a door. It was a gateway to hell—or heaven, depending on your RNG. A massive steel slab embedded in concrete, looking like it was hiding nuclear warheads or a captive alien.

  I stood before the entrance to the Project Artea bunker, craning my neck, still unable to believe this was actually happening. Igor Rudin. Twenty-eight years old. Just a regular guy from the outskirts whose life had dead-ended somewhere between a mortgage, lonely nights in front of a monitor, and vague dreams of something more. And now, burning a hole in my pocket, was a black metal card—my ticket to the dream.

  "Best job I ever had." That’s what the ad said.

  But standing here, under the unblinking gaze of security cameras, I didn't feel joy. I felt a weird knot of cold dread in my gut. This place didn’t look like a game dev studio. No glass facades, no smiling HR managers with oat milk lattes. It was a monolith. Silent, impregnable, and radiating a seriously creepy vibe.

  "Impressive, huh?" a raspy voice grated from my right.

  I turned. A withered old man stood there, wrapped in a coat like he was freezing despite the spring sun. But his eyes? They were burning with a strange, youthful manic energy.

  "Understatement of the year," I nodded. "Hope the decor's better inside."

  Three guys met us at the entrance. Tactical gear, no patches, zero sense of humor. These weren't your average mall cops lazily solving crosswords. They gave off serious "professional hitter" vibes.

  "We waiting for an invitation?" one of them barked, pointing at the scanner.

  I tapped the black card. With a heavy low-frequency hum and a hiss like a dying dragon, the steel slab slid into the wall.

  There were six of us, plus the chaperone. "Alpha Group," the acceptance letter called us. We exchanged awkward glances, like random strangers trapped in a broken elevator.

  Contrary to my expectations—and every bunker cliché in the book—it wasn't damp or gloomy inside. We were hit with sterile, cold light and the smell of bleach. White glossy walls, glass, chrome. The silence was unnatural, almost vacuum-like. Our footsteps sounded obscenely loud on the polished floor.

  They marched us toward an elevator.

  We went down. Deep. The high-speed lift hummed, ticking off subterranean levels. Minus five. Minus ten. My ears popped from the pressure change. Felt like we were drilling straight to the Earth's core.

  When the doors finally slid open, we faced a spacious hall. The sign read: Sector A. Briefing Center.

  "In you go," the guard ordered, staying planted by the elevator. "They're waiting."

  I stepped inside first, my heart hammering a techno beat in my throat. Point of no return.

  The briefing room looked like a medical amphitheater, but instead of med students, it was just us—six volunteers selling a year of our lives for a chance to touch the future and cash a fat check. The chairs were comfy but too deep, like they were trying to swallow you whole.

  The lights dimmed.

  A man walked onto the stage. I’d only ever seen him in niche tech articles. Georgy Ryabinsky. The project’s scientific director. In person, he looked taller and harder. White lab coat over a severe suit, thick-rimmed glasses, and the surgical gaze of a man about to perform a lobotomy.

  "Welcome to the Complex," his voice boomed, amplified by the mic. "Let’s get our priorities straight. Forget the word 'game'."

  He swept a heavy gaze over us, locking eyes with each person.

  "What we are doing here is an experiment in the long-term interaction of consciousness with a fully realized virtual environment. We haven’t created a simulation. We have created a world. Artea lives by its own laws, and your task is to become part of its society."

  We exchanged glances. The teenager’s dad frowned and whispered something to his kid, but Ryabinsky raised his voice, cutting off any chatter.

  "Warning number one: do not let the realism fool you. Your brain will receive signals identical to natural ones. Smell, taste, temperature. And, of course, pain."

  "Pain... will be real?" the old man piped up, nervously twisting a button on his coat.

  Ryabinsky looked at him with zero pity. Like a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis.

  "Safety protocols protect your mind from traumatic shock, and your physical body here, in the pod, will remain perfectly fine. Death in Artea does not equal death in reality—resurrection protocols are in place. But while your avatar is dying, you will feel the steel cutting your flesh. If you aren't ready for that—the door is still open."

  Nobody moved.

  I suppressed a smirk. Of course nobody moved. The money on the table was enough to anesthetize anything. Maybe not enough for a private island, but for the kid next to his dad? Enough to party for a few years straight.

  "Good," the scientist nodded, looking pleased with our greed. "You will spend exactly twelve months in isolation. You will live here, on the lower level. We've built an autonomous residential module, so claustrophobia won't be an issue. But there will be no connection to the surface."

  He paused, letting the scale of our "prison" sink in. Then, his tone softened just a fraction.

  "Organizational matters will be handled by my deputy. Anastasia, if you please."

  A side door slid open silently, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. The oppressive bunker vibes, Ryabinsky’s threats of pain and death—all of it vanished.

  She walked in.

  Her strict office suit didn't hide anything; if anything, it criminally emphasized a figure that would make any red-blooded male's mouth go dry. High chest, narrow waist, hips swaying with confident, rhythmic clicks of her heels. She adjusted her glasses with an elegant motion and smiled—professional, cold, but it still made something skip in my chest.

  "Good afternoon, candidates," her voice was velvet. "I'll be distributing your contracts now."

  She moved down the rows. When she leaned over me to hand me a tablet, I got a hit of expensive perfume that felt like a scent from another universe down here. I caught myself staring like a horny high schooler.

  Get a grip, Rudin, I scolded myself. This is a scientific expedition, not a rom-com with the hot secretary.

  The bureaucracy took ten minutes, tops. Like everyone else, I scribbled my signature on the digital contract, barely skimming the clauses about "health risks" and "non-disclosure." When the payout has that many zeros, who reads the fine print?

  Anastasia collected the tablets, maintaining that perfect, plastic smile.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Welcome to the team. Follow me."

  We passed through another airlock and entered the residential sector. It looked like an elite dorm or a spaceship cabin from a sci-fi flick. Common area with soft sofas, kitchenette, gym. And six numbered doors.

  Walking down the hall, I finally got a good look at my "cellmates." We’d made awkward small talk on the way down.

  The kid—Kostya, right?—was swivel-heading like he was on a field trip. Seventeen, maybe? Clearly didn't grasp the reality of the situation. His dad, Vladimir, was the opposite—tense, coiled, expecting an ambush. The old man, Sergey Konstantinovich, walked with a straight back, surprisingly spry for a pensioner. Tatyana Alexandrovna, a plump, motherly woman, looked like she was heading to her dacha to bake pies, not diving into VR. And the girl with glasses—Maria—was trying her best to be invisible, hiding behind everyone else.

  "You each have a private room," Anastasia announced. "Shower, change of clothes, and, naturally, your synchronization module. You have thirty minutes to prep. System launch is automatic. Good luck."

  She turned on her heel and left, leaving behind a trail of perfume and a mental image that was definitely going to feature in my dreams.

  I entered Room 4.

  Spartan, but expensive. Nothing to distract the brain. But my eyes were glued to the center of the room.

  The Capsule. Or, as the docs called it, the VMC—Virtual Modeling Capsule.

  It wasn’t a gaming chair or a VR headset. It was a massive, streamlined sarcophagus of dark plastic and chrome, dominating the space. Through the semi-transparent lid, I could see the soft gel lining of the cradle and... needles? No, sensors. Hundreds of them.

  It didn't look like entertainment. It looked like high-end life support.

  I stripped down, folded my clothes neatly on the chair, and climbed in. The cradle was unexpectedly warm; the material instantly molded to my body, hugging me without squeezing.

  "User detected: Igor Rudin," a speaker inside crackled to life. The voice was mechanical, flat. "Initiating connection sequence. Please relax and remain still."

  The lid hissed shut, sealing me off from the world. Darkness swallowed me.

  "Neuro-interface activation."

  I felt a sharp pinch in my neck, then a wave of absolute zero washed over the back of my skull, like someone injected liquid nitrogen into my spine. My body jerked, then went limp. I couldn't move. Panic, sticky and primal, spiked in my chest—but it was too late.

  "Synchronization: 10%... 40%..."

  A hum built in my ears, rising to the scream of a jet turbine. The darkness began to pulse, fracturing into fractal patterns. I lost the sensation of weight. Up, down—it all dissolved.

  "Synchronization complete. Welcome to the Project."

  Reality blinked. And vanished.

  "Greetings from the biometric calibration assistant," a female voice echoed.

  Even, sterile, definitely AI-generated. It had that robotic flatness that screamed "tech support bot from 2025." Except... I wasn't hearing it through headphones. It was vibrating directly inside my skull.

  I blinked—and the darkness shattered.

  Instead of the cramped pod and the pinch of sensors, I was standing in absolute nothingness. The Void. No walls, no floor, just soft, diffused light. And in front of me hung a giant mirror panel.

  Reflecting me.

  Naked. Completely. Every mole, every scar—copied with terrifying fidelity.

  "Uh..." I muttered, reflexively covering my junk. "Is the full frontal necessary?"

  Before I could process the weirdness, the voice resonated in my head again.

  "Consciousness fully integrated with the virtual matrix. Biological body is in stasis. Welcome to the Host Adaptation Phase. Please create your digital avatar."

  Okay. So I'm "in." The transition was so smooth I missed the cutoff. No loading screens, no tunnel of light. Just a blink, and I'm in limbo.

  "What races are on the menu?" I asked, testing the boundaries. Every RPG has a character creator.

  "Current neuro-synchronization stage supports only morphotype 'Human'. Integration into other biological species may cause irreversible cognitive failure and consciousness rejection." The voice was as exciting as a microwave manual.

  "Cognitive failure." Serious business. And here I was hoping to be an Orc, or at least a cool Elf. Guess the human psyche is too fragile for green skin.

  "Fine... can I tweak the stats? Buff up a bit?"

  The second I said it, my reflection shifted. Chest expanded, shoulders broadened, arms knotted with definition. Abs... sweet Jesus, I had abs. Eight of them, sharp enough to grate cheese.

  "Man, if we had this tech in real life," I muttered, flexing. "People would kill for this. No keto, no gym—just think it, and boom, you're Apollo."

  I spent a few minutes admiring the upgrades. Then, like any guy with a pulse and a God-mode editor, a stray thought crossed my mind.

  "Hey, can I... uh, change gender? You know, theoretically."

  "Denied. Psychological adaptation to opposite biological sex may cause severe identity dysphoria. Subject consciousness is unprepared for full gender reassignment in full-dive simulation."

  "Worth a shot. Would've been interesting to see how the other half lives."

  I went back to the allowed tweaks. Sharpened the jawline to "action hero" levels, added some designer stubble. Kept the hair short—didn't need virtual bangs blinding me in a sword fight. Height? Left it at 1.90m. I was good with being tall.

  And yeah, I... well, let’s just say I adjusted the slider on the other hardware too. Sue me. You would’ve done the same.

  "Anthropometric corrections accepted," the system droned.

  "What about specs? Classes? Skills?" I asked, waiting for the stat sheet.

  "Project 'Artea' does not utilize rigid development scripts. Abilities form based on actions, decisions, and psychotype. The environment is adaptive. Evolution depends solely on the Host."

  Nice. Total sandbox. No rails, no "Warrior/Mage/Thief" presets.

  "Finalize avatar calibration? Structural modifications will be locked after confirmation."

  I took one last look in the mirror. Was I a different person? No. Just... Version 2.0. The guy I wanted to be but was too lazy or scared to become. Stronger. Harder. Ready.

  "Confirm," I said, straightening my back.

  "Calibration complete. Initiating basic linguistic package and geographic data download. Welcome to Artea."