It was dark.
I wasn't in a forest at night, I wasn't in a dark room, I wasn't anywhere distinguishable at all. It was just pitch black. My entire body felt... How do you even describe feeling nothing? It was as if my body didn't even exist, I could only feel the ghost of it. A phantom feeling, if you will. I couldn't see, and I couldn't feel. I couldn't even hear anything! Did I die? What's the last thing I remember?
I was playing video games, of course. I didn't have much else to do at the time, so I was playing Garry's Mod, trying to fix a bug with a weapon I was working on. There weren't any script errors, but I still wanted to make it better. I was sitting at my computer, switching tabs between the game, Notepad, and the Garry's Mod Wiki. After that though, nothing. There was no memories between being at my computer, and being in this void. There had to be an explanation about what happened, and how I got here. Wherever here is.
I suppose I died somehow. That's really the only reason I could think of. I don't know how, or why, but I'm most likely dead. Why else would I not feel anything? I was nothing but a soul now. Nothing but my soul, everything that makes me who I am. No eyes to see with, no ears to hear with, and no body to feel with. Heh, nobody. I guess I could use this time to reflect on my life, the decisions I made that shaped others, and the experiences made that shaped me.
If I'm going to be honest with myself, I was kind of a jerk. I didn't do it on purpose, but that doesn't change anything. I tried to be nice to others, but most of the time I would end up saying something that would be considered rude without ever realizing it. I never really noticed I made anyone upset until they got mad enough to yell at me, and since I don't like being yelled at, I would usually just yell back. I wasn't perfect. I had anger issues, and I had trouble connecting with others on a normal level. Most of my friends were actually just people I met on Steam and occasionally played with.
I was a loser.
Nothing notably interesting about me. Yeah, I wanted friends, real friends that would have my back while I had their's, but I guess I never met anyone like that. Maybe I was setting my standards too high? I don't really know. I never really met anyone I truly liked enough to call a true friend, the closest I've ever got was those people you meet at school that you don't really hang out with but still talk to over lunch. I guess they could be considered friends, but it didn't really feel like it.
I don't want this to be the end. I tried to yell, scream, do something, anything! I couldn't move at all, because I had no body to move. It's still possible that I did have a body but just couldn't feel it. I was confused and scared and angry and I wanted to cry. I really wanted to cry. I tried to throw my phantom body around, but it had no effect. If I had a body, I couldn't tell if I had moved at all or back where it was. I couldn't distinguish anything from anything.
I just wish something would pop up!
A sound, not dissimilar to a quiet click, rang within my head, it wasn't loud, but compared to the quiet from before, it was deafening. That was a silly thought. It's the random sound from nothing that made me think I was going deaf. I tried to think of where the sound came from, but there wasn't really a point, since I had no sense of direction. I could be upside down for all I know. I could tell something was different now, but I couldn't place it. By instinct, I swerved my non existent head around, searching for the origin of the noise. And for the first time in ten minutes, I saw something.
A flat, white rectangle. A familiar one, that had words at the top. It said "Untitled - Notepad", right below that was "File, Edit, Format, View, Help" and below that was a small black blinking line. I cant even begin to describe how confused I was, so I'll leave it up to imagination. I slowly reached my imaginary hand out to it, and I felt it. I had the vaguest sense of touch, but I could tell it felt like ordinary printer paper. I put my other hand out and somehow pulled it closer to my sight.
I had no idea what to do next. I just have Notepad open, in a world where nothing exists. Who makes this stuff up? I didn't really have anything. Nothing but freaking NOTEPAD. I guess I could write something to pass the time? That sounded good. I needed to figure out how to write on it though. I decided to try typing with my phantom hands as if I had a keyboard. It didn't work and I felt silly. Then I remember that Notepad popped up when I wanted something to happen. Again, deciding it was worth a shot, I tried to type with nothing but my own will power, or I would have if I knew what to type. Thinking on it, I decided to just write a little 'hello world' script, as it was the first thing to come to mind.
print( "Hello world!" )
It was the dumbest thing I could think of but it put a smile on my face. I clicked 'save as' and hit save when a folder window popped up in front of Notepad. I simply named the file 'hello_world.lua'. When I hit save, another window popped up, this time completely black, with white text that said, you guessed it,
Hello world!
Stunned again, I quickly put my phantom fingers on top of the black paper thin box, and slid it to the side to see Notepad again. I quickly tried to think of what the code was. Do I have access to the wiki?
Another click sound.
I have access to the wiki. I look at the new box, and scroll through the site with my mind, looking for the code needed. Wait, there it is!
PrintTable( ents.FindInSphere( Vector( 0, 0, 0 ), 72 ) )
This code, in Garry's Mod, is supposed to look for every entity in a seventy-two unit radius of the center of the map. seventy-two units is also the height of the player's collision. I remember reading somewhere that if you measure the player with map units, they're only about four foot six, but with the actual human character model units you're supposed to measure them with, they're all six foot. I myself am only five foot nine, but now I'm just getting off topic. I saved the tiny script, and it ran through the console. What did it spit back out? I'll just show the important bit.
Entity [0][worldspawn]
Player [1][Mathew Heart]
That was me! I had just found myself using code! Who's awesome? I'm awesome! If I'm dead, I don't want to come back! Of course, I didn't really mean that, but it's not like I could revive myself. Wait. Hold up. I check notepad once more, tempted to try a command that had just popped up in my head.
Entity:Spawn( Entity( 1 ) )
I hesitated before saving it. If it really does work like Garry's Mod, then that means if I do this, I'll respawn. Did I really want to go back? What if I lose this cool new power? What if it doesn't even work? What if I come back a zombie? Obviously, I didn't receive an answer, and just because of that, I decided it was worth a shot. I wasn't going to spend the rest of eternity in an empty void.
I saved it.