Harry let out a soft whimper of pain, lying all alone in the darkness of his cupboard. His uncle had just finished the daily beating, and he was in so much agony...

Then, he flinched when he heard his aunt and uncle's voices.

"Vernon, this machine is far too dangerous for our precious Dudders!"

"You're worrying too much, dear. I'm sure it's perfectly safe."

"But-"

"I know! If it will make you feel better, we'll make the freak test it."

Harry shielded his eyes as the cupboard door threw open.

Before Harry knew it, he was being grabbed by the collar of his oversized shirt and yanked out of the cupboard, hitting his head on the door frame on the way out. Harry winced in pain as he was dragged upstairs and into the living room by Vernon.

Once inside, Vernon threw Harry onto a the floor and sneered at him as he got up. "Time for you to pull your weight around her you little, useless, freak!" Vernon told him.

Harry whimpered, and then grunted in pain as his uncle roughly slammed an odd headgear onto his cranium, causing him to fall flat on his back. The obese man proceeded to grab his nephew off the floor and slam him as hard as he could against the living room table, causing an audible crunching noise to sound from Harry's body.

Harry had to stop himself from crying in pain. If he cried his uncle would hurt him even more. Vernon approached him to inspect whether or not the Nerve Gear was working. When it looked like it didn't, Vernon glared and slapped Harry.

"TURN IT ON, FREAK!" Vernon boomed.

"I...I don't know how..." Harry whimpered.

"Try pressing the Power button, Vernon." Petunia suggested. Vernon blinked, and did so.

Harry's eyes widened as a series of bright lights shot out in front of his eyes...

Harry started shaking while Vernon and Petunia looked on with confusion. "Now what? Is it working?" Vernon asked. Petunia picked up the instruction manual and leafed through it. Her confused expression changed to one of understanding when she found what she was looking for.

"It says here that after the power button has been pushed and you have found a comfortable position to station your body, you need to says "Link Start" to enter the game." Petunia recited as Vernon nodded in understanding and stormed over to Harry threateningly.

"Say "link start", boy."

"L-Link start..." Harry whimpered.

The lights grew even brighter, and Harry suddenly found himself standing in a blank void.

"Please create your character." A female robotic voice sounded throughout the void. Harry staggered back nervously as a menu appeared in front of him.

"W-Where am I?" Harry asked nervously, hoping that he would get an answer. Unfortunately for Harry, the character customization program didn't respond by answering his question, but by repeating what it said earlier. "Please create your character."

The little boy nervously approached the menu, and tentatively reached out to touch it. He jumped back when it opened up a new menu. It was asking him what kind of warrior he wanted to be. Swordsman, gunman, mage...

Harry was confused and scared, so he just rushed through all of the menu screens, not even knowing what he was doing. Another flash of light...

Another flash of light engulfed the room, blinding Harry and forcing him to cover his eyes with his arms. The last thing he heard before the light vanished was, "Now loading...Good Luck."

When Harry opened his eyes, he found himself in a small town. A small town full of people! Oh no! Nobody was supposed to see him! If he was seen, Uncle Vernon would kill him!

Without a word to anyone, he ran away from the scene as fast as he could before someone saw him.

But despite not wanting to be spotted by anyone, some people noticed him and saw that he was running towards the exit of the town.

"WAIT KID, DON'T GO THAT WAY ALONE! IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE!" One random person yelled, attracting a lot of attention from everyone else in the immediate facility.

Hearing someone calling out to him, Harry freaked out and pushed himself to go faster until he went through the gate and out to the plains that surrounded the town.

After he was sure he'd gotten away from the people in the town, Harry allowed himself to rest his hands on his knees. He began panting heavily for ten minutes. Then, he rose to his feet and looked around, unnerved by how vast the field he stood in was. 'Now what am I gonna do?' He thought nervously. He looked around...and his eyes widened when he saw another person, a woman with light brown hair fighting a boar. The woman finished off her enemy, then turned to see Harry looking at her. The two's eyes met...and then Harry turned and ran.

The young woman just looked at his rapidly retreating figure in confusion for a moment before shrugging. "Well that was something. I'm sure he's with a group..." Asuna said before looking around for the next boar to slay for leveling up.

A few hours later, Harry was hiding in a hole at the bottom of a tree, terrified beyond all belief. "I-I don't want to be here anymore." Harry said softly as he started shaking. "I want to go back to my cupboard." Harry was then startled when a faraway bell rang loudly. "Wh-what was-" Harry tried to say but was interrupted when he was immediately covered in light and teleported back into the town he first arrived at.

Harry's eyes widened as he realized he had been forced back into the town. And there were people EVERYWHERE. With a soft whimper, he ran to hide behind a nearby barrel, not wanting to be seen. He heard a voice, and looked up to see a hologram of a man in the sky...

"Attention, players. Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world." The red cloaked figure introduced himself. The booming of his voiced caused Harry to whimper in fright as he wished he was anywhere else. He ended up missing some of the stuff that Kayaba said until he got to a specific point in his speech.

"You cannot log out of Sword Art Online yourselves. And no one on the outside can shutdown or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying you brain and ending your life." Kayaba explained, causing everyone to go into an uproar.

Harry's heart stopped beating for a second. 'I can die in here?!' Harry thought in fear. His fear was confirmed when he heard a black haired teen talking about how Kayaba was right and if the safety of the transmitters were turned off, then it could fry their brains.

Meanwhile...

Vernon and Petunia sat watching the news in front of the TV, and their eyes widened in horror when they heard the news of the NerveGear's true functions. Petunia turned to Vernon.

"I told you that thing was too dangerous for our Dudders! You're lucky the freak put it on instead!"

Vernon grinned evilly. "If we take the helmet off, we can be rid of the freak once and for all!" Petunia frowned.

"VERY tempting...Unfortunately, the rest of his freaky kind won't like that..." Vernon looked down in disappointment.

"...I can still beat him, right?" Petunia smirked.

"Well of course."

Vernon turned to look at Harry's basically comatose body with malicious intent as he walked towards him.

Back in SAO...

Harry was curled up in a ball in fear during the rest of Kayaba's explanation and didn't really hear that much else due to his terrified stat but did hear that around 213 players were already died because someone already took the NerveGears off their head. 'What if Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia find out?! They'll take the helmet off and I'll die!' Harry thought to himself, feeling very depressed by the fact that he could literally die at any moment because of his cruel relatives.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted as a sharp pain shot through his stomach. His entire body was feeling extremely sore for some reason...Was Uncle Vernon still beating him?

He immediately forgot the pain when Kayaba disappeared, leaving everyone screaming and panicking, running around like headless chickens.

Harry couldn't take it. It was too loud. He curled up as tightly as he could, and let out a soft whimper of fear.

After awhile, the noise started to die down as everyone began to leave the town center. Eventually everyone left, leaving Harry all alone. Harry started to whimper again as he let a few tears fall from his eyes.

"Why do bad things always happen to me? Why am I a freak? Why am I not lovable?" Harry mumbled in depression as he started to shake.

Asuna was just close enough to hear what vaguely sounded like soft whimpering. She turned around in confusion at the noise, then shrugged it off.

"It must be my imagination..." She mused. Without a word, she turned and walked in the opposite direction of the noise.

Harry climbed to his feet, and began to sadly start walking, not caring where he was going.