They found him sitting beside the road. The squad leader radioed in and informed field HQ. The other squadies looked at him, with their guns pointing at his head and chest. He just sat there. He was one of theirs, the uniform made it quite obvious, but there was also something strange. His leg was shot up, and blood was caked all over his uniform. But still, it was as if he was glowing.

The squad leader walked back towards him and knelt down.�Soldier: name and rank!� The man kept quiet. �Name and rank!�

The man moved and looked up to the other squadies. �Its just a game isn�t it?�, he said faintly.

The squad leader spat at the ground �A game?��It�s a lot of things, but a game? That�s a first for me. Richard!��Yes, Sir!��Guard this guy until they pick him up!��Yes, Sir!�

Richard made himself comfortable on the embankment and looked on while his comrades walked into the distance.

The man vaguely smiled �Its all a game�

�Look son, I haven�t come here to listen to your problems, I have enough problems at home. I came here to get away from my problems, get it?�

The man turned his head and looked at Richard. There was something odd about his turning, as if he didn�t quite control his head. Richard still couldn�t get rid of the feeling that he was glowing in the sun.

�Where am I?�

�You�re here, and by God, you sure as hell wouldn�t wish you were here�.

�No, but where exactly? What map is this?�

�Well, to be honest, I don�t know, was only transported here yesterday�.

The man laughed, the only guy he could talk to didn�t even know himself where he was. It didn�t make sense at all.

�So what�s your story?� Richard looked the man over and then turned back to watching the landscape.

The man shrugged his shoulders. �I am Harald�

�Okay Harald, nice to meet you, I�m Richard.�

Richard looked at the enbankment, there were the bodies of four enemy patrols. �Must have been some tough fighting, you take em out yourself?�

Harald looked at the bodies, and smiled, �They didn�t even shoot back�. Richard looked at their faces, there was a strange mix of fear and disbelief on them. As if something scared them to death. Well, except for the bulletholes, which obviously proved otherwise.�So, what actually happened?��You really want to know?�

Harald was an inconspicuous guy, you wouldn�t notice him in the street. He led his life, was nice to his neighbours and fed the cat regularly. The plants in his appartment suffered though, he always sort of forgot them. That night he logged on to the game server. He had just bought a new game: TeamFortress 2010. His friend Bobby had told him it was fun.

So he spent an hour or so trying to figure out how to handle all weapons in the game, and then put his headset on to go in at the deep end. Bobby had told him to look for a full server.

A short search via the console had come up with a really weird server: 1944.

The strange about it was that apparently, if he was to believe the numbers, the grey team was playing with 57,000 against a green team of 116,000. He took out the box again. �64 players on each side!� it screamed in fluorescent letters. Must be a mistake then. There couldn�t even remotely be so many players on the server. It would die, wouldn�t it. Harald became intrigued: the map listing only stated �?�

After he clicked the connect-button, it had started to download a huge map, so Harald had taken of his headset and opened a coke. Once in a while he looked at it and the download progress. �if it starts like this every time, this game is going up in the bookcase very quickly�, he said threateningly to no one in particular.

The cat had found a place on the sofa and was purring loudly.

Download complete.

He put down his coke and turned on the headset again.

Entering theatre of operations�..

He materialised behind a tree. In his hands he found an old type of machine gun, He hadn�t noticed this one among the earlier weapons. However, it seemed easy enough, safety catch was of, and it was sort of easy to handle. He checked his holster and his belt: pistol, grenades, all complete. He checked his bullets: enough for a couple of rounds, but he�d have to get back to a supply point, if he could find one. Now, lets have a look where he was. Slowly he knelt down, and from the shadow of the tree he looked around. There were four men sitting with their backs toward him a few metres onward. They were manning a huge machine gun. Another surprise, this gun he was sure he hadn�t seen in the weapons listing.

It wasn�t until a few seconds later that he noticed the fifth man, he was standing only two metres away and was looking at him in horror.

Harald smiled apologetically �Hi, you�re the enemy, right?� The guy, as if glued to the spot nodded slowly. �Okay, then you die�. He pointed his machine gun, and shot the guy. The others turned around and where grabbing their guns, but for some reason, they seemed to be just looking at him. He raked them with a hail of bullets. What had they been looking at? Harald now looked at himself and at the area. Wow, this was beautifully made. He swore he could smell the scent of hay, and the rustling of the leaves made the perfect sound. He walked out toward the now dead enemies.

One of them was still breathing. �Hi, there, you okay?� The guy coughed up blood and whispered something. Harald sat down next to him and loaded his pistol. �why�why�are you�.glowing?�

�Don�t know buddy, but I gotta get my kills: new here, you see�. With that he put the gun to the head of the wounded soldier and shot. Brains, blood and bone scattered all over. Harald looked at his hands and arms. They were covered in braintissue and blood, a bone fragment with a peace of scalp attached still hung to his elbow. As he brushed it of he noticed how sticky and warm it was.

That was strange, he had never expected this level of reality. The sun shone brightly as he waited for more players to appear. He had grabbed the ammo, but it turned out to be too big for his gun. So he waited. The smell of grass and of the sewat of the four soldiers mystified him. How could he smell that. Maybe his brain was using the visual information to sort of add to his experience. He had heard something like that in a documentary or something. As he sat there he proceeded to touch the earth, and even stroked his uniform. The textures were marvellous. Still, the dead bodies where diquieting. They didn�t �zap� away or something, these guys were just lying there. They also started to attract flies, which was less funny. SO he moved away a couple of metres.

After about half an hour he grew tired of waiting and started walking on the road. At that moment an airplane appeared. It soared high in the air.

Harald stood there in the open and looked. This was not how it was supposed to be. Airplanes were not possible in this game. He looked at the colours, and how the sun shone on the wings. The realism was scary. Further away a bird sang, and on the other side of the field a cow looked up at the airplane, only to continue grazing a second later. In the meantime the pilot had apparently spotted him, as the plane made a turn downward and was now coming toward Harald. The soaring of the engine was becoming more high-pitched as it went into the dive. Harald waved at the pilot, but ducked for cover as the traces of bullets crept towards him. Some shard of stone flew up and hit him in the face. He felt it, and felt that blood came out. This was really amazing, the level of realism was incredible! The fighter now made a second turn and started towards him. Harald looked at it for just a second and felt a strange feeling in his stomach. Something was not right. The plane was getting nearer. Harald made a gut decision: he ran for the tree and bushes, but knew he wasn�t going to make it. The pilot started firing again. Little fountains of dust sprang up and bullets started to rip the earth where he had walked. The sound almost paralyzed him. At the last moment he ducked to the side, only to catch a bullet in his leg. He fell on his stomach and lay still. The pain was excruciating. He felt blood fill the space between his trouserleg and his skin. The roaring engine of the fighter came nearer again. Harald kept lying still. The pain was too much, and he passed out.The pilot convinced he had just shot a soldier in an otherwise quiet day, circled once more and reported back to HQ.

It was dark when he came to. The sound of an engine and a rumbling awoke him. As he opened his eyes the tracks of a tank drove over his helmet, which was only lying a couple of centimetres away. He wanted to scream and run, but for some reason he couldn�t move.

His leg was still hurting, but it was cold now. He could hear voices. They spoke English, but something was funny about them. As he very slowly turned his head he noticed the silhouettes of a number of soldiers walking towards him.

�Hey, so when is your leave up?�

�Leave? I just flew in!�

�yeah, well, you�re always the one getting the light work�

�What�s that supposed to mean!�

Another one of the men looked at them, �Guys, stop it, you�re supposed to be on the look out for any of these commando-guys�.

As they got closer Harald closed his eyes. This was madness. He was in a game. And here he was, hoping not to get shot! He was clinging on to life, in a situation where life was expendable, you would just reappear somewhere else on the playing field. He thought about opening his eyes and surrendering when he felt the cold steel of a gun barrel against his head.

�Hey, Chief! Got me one of them! There�s one of these commandoes. Our boys must have shot him up pretty bad. There�s blood everywhere�.

�Yeah well, he wouldn�t be working alone, now would he? I just wanna know what kinda friggin� weapon they used. Did you see the face of this one guy? Geez, it looked as if they had shown him hell or something�.

Harald didn�t here the rest of the conversation, all his attention went out to the gun barrel that was scraping his head. It moved down and hooked in his collar. It moved up again to the back of his neck.

�Hill, leave that corpse alone, you don�t wanna catch any funny diseases do you?�

�Yeah, guess you�re right�

�Now, according to this here map, we are to take up position only five miles from here. So, get moving so we still catch some sleep�.

As the squad walked away Harald was watching them go. After a while the noise of the armoured cars and tanks went silent. He listened very carefully for any evidence of other soldiers. Nothing. His hands held on to the grass as he tried to stand up. Dust glued with blood covered his uniform. The bullet had gone through, but he had bled terribly. His body was stiff, and besides the wound everything hurt like hell.

What was going on? What kinda sick game was this? As he shook his head, he walked back to the tree where he had entered the game and sat, waiting for the day to come.

In the morning he walked over to the corpses that had gone cold and stiff by now, and rummaged through their belongings. He found wallets, photos and letters. He started to read one letter and found it had come from a happy mother announcing the birth of a grandchild. What kind of sick game was this? He walked over to the tree again, and started to read the bloodstained letters. Slowly he was beginning to wonder whether this was a game at all. Then from the fields a squad had come, wearing the same uniform as he did.

Richard looked at Harald frowning.

�You are one crazy guy, you don�t expect me to believe that, do you?�

As Harald smiled and shook his head he began to fade into thin air. Richard jumped up and looked in amazement at the man disappearing. He called out to his captain, but they were too far away to hear him. This place was spooky, he decided. So he started running in the direction where his comrades had run to. Half a mile on he walked up a hill and expected to see his comrades soon. A shot fell, and Richard fell to the ground. He clutched the earth, and sighed as he died.

The cat was hungry. The cat had decided that something was not right if it didn�t get any food, so it had jumped on the headset, causing it to slide of.

Harald awoke as if from a dream. He looked at the computer and turned it off. On the floor was a box. �True to life� it said. This game was weird.

As he stood up, he noticed that something was wrong with his leg, as if he was hurt