“Take this vial of nanobots and snort them up through your nasal passageway.  Once they enter your brain the fun will begin.  Believe me, you’ll be seeing Aardwolf from a whole new perspective,” the man said, grinning evilly.

     With trepidation I gave him what should have been my rent money for the month and was bestowed with the enigmatic vial.  The man’s crusty laboratory was no place to dawdle, so I raced out of there as if I was escaping a nightmare.  I introduced myself to the nearest bus stop and took a drowning man’s last breath.  I snuffed the contents of my prize.  Immediately I felt dizzy, but this could have just been nerves.  I boarded the bus, showing my pass to the driver with a quavering hand.

     Once I had sequestered myself in a seat of preference, I felt more at ease.  I even whistled a jaunty tune when the bus and I parted ways.  I had been instructed to reboot my own systems ASAP, so I crashed on my timeworn couch.

     I awoke to luxurious darkness.  Darkness and an even humming that bolstered itself from the space between my ears.  A slice of Luna was projecting alluringly upon my computer’s screen.  Zombielike, I clambered over to the device and impatiently entered my password.

     When a familiar ASCII wolf predominated most of the screen, my head’s humming pulse increased in intensity and I felt a subsequent thrust of adrenaline.  But as I began to play, disappointment began to fester.  Nothing was different about the game.  The maps looked the same, and the words were still just words merrily blinking into existence upon the screen. 

     I was about to type ‘quit’, when I noticed a subtle hint of blurriness in the corner of my vision.  When I realized it could not be ridded through any amount of crazed nictitating, I felt the necessity to grab at that haze and pull it toward me.  When I attended to the fuzziness using this method, it entirely occluded my vision.

     Then everything came into razor-sharp focus. 

     It seemed that now the MUD was not only upon my computer’s screen, but that it also extended outward in every direction.  Wherever I turned my gaze, there was another piece of Aardwolf floating in front of me.  I now had access to every area mapped in entirety, chat logs from the beginning of history, lists upon lists of every item ever invented, and even every code ever entered.  Everything was drifting about my vision like a kaleidoscope of holographic transparencies and tickling my eyes with an endless stream of knowledge.  A person could get lost in this sea of knowledge, never to return to their own mediocre reality.  With a Cheshire grin, I welcomed the onslaught of information and eagerly surrendered my mind to unlocking its secrets.