Esse Est Percipi

Players flock to games chasing adventure and chaos. Here they shed their everyday identities like skins. A plumber becomes a swordsman. A news executive becomes a walking fortress with ammo strapped across his chest. A prosecutor becomes a medic, patching wounds and keeping a team alive.

A man steps out of his black Lamborghini with unhurried ease. He rises to his full six foot five, a body built from layers of muscle. Dressed in black, a cigar pressed between his teeth, his tailored coat announces his wealth and status. Around him the forest is still rendering. Pixels shimmer, gathering into bare trees streaked with snow, bark gleaming with a hardened sap. The ground lies beneath a thick frozen sheet.

Why would such a man, with every luxury at his fingertips, step into this desolate place? The scenery is both beautiful and barren, white forest stretching endlessly in all directions. His shining car sits absurdly in the snow, a target for branches, for animals, for anything this wilderness might produce. Logic suggests he should leave and never return. There are no players anywhere nearby, only the forest itself, the flicker of squirrels, and the simulated wind that makes his character shiver.

Yet he lingers. He seems perfectly at home, a force standing proud against a dead wilderness. He sets his cigar on the hood of the Lamborghini, the fire searing the paint, realistic damage spreading across the surface. The game will not let such a choice go without consequence. The man appears unconcerned.

One by one he strips away his possessions. His coat. His boots. His tie. His vest. His shirt. His character trembles in the cold, health dropping with each discarded layer. Every item in this world represents hours of work, but he lets them fall as if they mean nothing.

I lower my rifle. Curiosity replaces the bounty flashing in the corner of my vision. I no longer care about his money, his things, or the reward pinned to his head. I watch as he strips to his pants and belt, his enormous character shivering like a mountain caught in a storm.

Then he begins to walk.

It is madness to venture deeper at this hour. Evening is closing in, the sun slipping fast behind the trees, the cold ready to bite down harder. Barefoot, he crushes twigs and branches beneath him, moving forward with no regard for danger.

Against my better judgment, I follow. I crawl out of my hollow trunk, scope in hand, pack and rifle left behind without thought. I creep low through the snow, careful not to break a branch beneath me. If he spots me, I am finished without my gear. Not that he seems interested. His wealth makes my tiny bounty meaningless.

He quickens his pace, a storm of muscle and will. I keep to his trail, certain that stealth will protect me. Then he starts to run.

No character survives unclothed in this cold. I barely manage with my equipment. Yet he crashes forward, unstoppable, tearing through branches and logs, hurling himself over trunks. His strength must be near maxed. Countless hours of grinding are being thrown into the abyss. He splashes across icy streams, claws at tree bark, and propels himself further.

It makes no sense. He has lost all reason. I feel like an insect chasing a hurricane.

Eventually, his stamina fades. He leaps from one last trunk, crashes into the ground, and rolls through fallen logs before coming to rest. His body curls into itself. The rendering of the forest struggles to keep up, pixels flickering as if the world cannot believe what it is seeing.

I remain hidden, watching from a rise. His chest heaves, breath ragged. The scene looks almost heroic, as if a warrior has slain a beast but fallen to his wounds. Yet he has fought only the wind. His injuries come not from battle but from the cold.

Slowly, I move closer. Even fallen, a man like this is dangerous. I keep low, silent, every instinct warning me not to get too close.

Then a voice breaks the forest.

“Hello.”

My heart slams against my ribs. His deep tone echoes through the trees. My stealth is maxed, and brute characters are infamous for their poor perception. He should not be able to see me.

I do not answer.

“I’m not going to harm you,” he says. “If I wanted that, it would have been done the second I pulled into the parking lot.”

I finally speak. “You can see me?”

“Of course,” he replies. “I heard about the madman who stalks players up here.”

That is me.

“Why didn’t you take me out when you first saw me?” he asks.

“Curiosity,” I admit.

“What did you find so interesting?”

I hesitate. Something about him kept me from pulling the trigger. Something instinctive. “You acted like the moment called for sacrifice,” I finally say. “Like it meant something to let go, to do what others would call irrational.”

Silence stretches. Then his voice returns, strained.

“I’m dying.”

“Yeah,” I answer, trying for humor. “The cold will do that.”

He chuckles weakly. “Not just here. Pancreatic cancer.”

The game does not model cancer. Which means it is real.

“Oh,” I breathe.

He lies unmoving in the snow. “I will last as long as my character does. Fewer people talk to me out there than in here. I thought this place would be poetic.”

My gut twists. I had considered killing him for bounty money. Now guilt eats at me.

“Take it,” he says.

“Take what?”

“My bounty.” He coughs, harsh, the sound splitting my ears through the headset.

Revulsion rises in me. “I can’t do that.”

“So you will let the forest have it? It will not grow any greener,” he jokes, though the coughing nearly drowns him.

“You worked hard for this,” I reply. “I don’t want to take that from you.”

“Suit yourself.” His body trembles with another fit. The sound is so violent I rip the earbuds out. When I replace them, silence follows.

“Is there anyone you can call?” I ask, running forward at last. His avatar still breathes, faintly. Before he can answer, a tone slices into my ears. A hospital monitor. Voices shout in the background. Then nothing.

I freeze, horror twisting through me. I was the last voice he heard. I listened to him die.

When I finally move, my hands are shaking. His character is still alive, barely clinging to existence. Time ticks away on the bounty. I hesitate, then do what I swore I would not. I end his avatar and collect the reward.

I exit the game immediately and respawn in the city. Millions of credits heavy, I buy the tallest structure. At its center I raise a statue, massive and unyielding, carved in the shape of the man’s hulking form, reaching toward the sunrise.

At the base I place a plaque with his character’s name.

To my greatest friend, met in his final moments. A man of poetry, wisdom, and generosity. I consecrate this memorial to him, so all who pass here will know that a great man once walked these worlds. He fought the hardest battle, the greatest fight. May those who play remember to play well, and to play fair, in honor of those who came before.

Esse est percipi: To be is to be perceived.