Sam collapsed back into her cosy bean bag chair that had become heavily indented from years of sitting against it, yawning, stretching and then jumping up to her feet. The girl had died against a particularly hard boss in the game she was currently trying to beat before her casual gamer friend Tyra, even though she was leagues ahead of her bestie she felt great shame at being bested yet again by the seemingly insurmountable foe she was faced with. The guy had four health bars and could wipe her in a matter of seconds if she dropped focus.

"Ahhhh I caaaaan't!" She whined, dropping her controller and stepping over her messy bedroom floor to retrieve a can of her favourite energy drink, Blissfuel Juiced. It tasted terrible but Sam drank it simply for the energy, having never heard of a healthy sleep cycle or coffee. Cracking open the can, the girl took a hearty swig to drown her sorrows and dropped herself back into a cross-legged sitting position on the beanbag. The girl needed a break from this tough as nails boss, knowing she had absolutely no need to worry about Tyra passing her in the game anyway. "Hrmmmm." She looked over her shelf which was packed with an assortment of video game boxes, but all of them felt like too much of a commitment or hassle to play right now, she needed something to help her unwind. Oh wait!

Sam was reminded of the current Blissfuel Juiced promotion going on right now. 'Buy a four pack of the 500ml cans and get an exclusive demo disc in the pack, only from select game stores.' The girl did buy the cans from the nearest game store when she went to collect her and Tyra's pre-orders, the place was in the neighbouring city an hour away on train as the town she lived in was backwater to the nth degree. Curious, Sam took out the last remaining can and saw the small disc box at the base of the pack, taking it out and opening it up. There was the demo disc, no print besides the Blissfuel logo and the word DEMO in a rectangle. The box stated the console that the disc played on and Sam saw that she could pop it into the console she had plugged in, but then wondered if she should. After all, she knew that whatever this demo was it would likely have overt product placement, this was just some marketing stunt to branch out to gamers after all. Either way, the nondescript packaging and minimalist print on the disc had Sam wondering what could possibly be on it, so she shrugged and exchanged it with the disc that was in the tray already.

Sam dimmed her lights and placed herself back down on the trusty beanbag, crossing her legs and picking up her controller, hovering over the new game icon slowly rotating on the console's home screen. The girl smiled a little as she noticed that the game did have a name other than just DEMO, reading the title given on the home screen: 'Bliss Simulator.'

The name felt a little weird to her, but it was a spin on the company name after all, maybe it was a tycoon style game where you run a Blissfuel factory or something, that sounded like a pretty good idea for a marketing scheme in Sam's head.

Sam pressed the A button to select and start Bliss Simulator, causing the screen to go black for a moment as the game began to boot up. The sudden darkness enveloped Sam, who breathed out coolly and waited for a splash screen or whatever.

A white dot appeared on the screen, returning a small amount of light to the room. The dot grew and pulsed across the screen until the entire room was lit in white, with black text forming in the centre of the screen reading 'Focuspoint Games'.

Next, the text became blurry until it was no longer legible, shifting and then sharpening again to read 'Welcome to the Bliss Simulator.'

The background was bright and a little hard to look at before the girl's eyes could adjust, it seemed to pulse between solid white and a complicated pattern she was struggling to make out clearly, as it flashed by so quickly. Text appeared telling Sam that the game was best experienced with headphones, so she quickly connected her headset and slipped it on.

The game text continued. 'Before starting the game, please take a moment to ask a few questions.'

Sam had two options.

OK           NO THANKS

The girl shrugged and selected no thanks, being too lazy to go through a questionnaire when she just wanted to play some stupid corporate game demo. A loud buzzer noise sounded through the headset, shrill and unpleasant, causing Sam's shoulders to retract suddenly and making her almost drop the controller in her hands. "Jesus fucking christ..." She spluttered. The game text informed her that she cannot continue without answering some initial questions, so she selected OK when prompted a second time.

'How many cans of Blissfuel Juiced have you consumed within the last 48 hours?' Read the next, bizarre question, is this trying to gather data on consumers or something? Is it connected to the internet? The game gave a number pad to enter the answer and Sam typed the number 3. This time the headset gave out a pleasant ding, not too loud, Sam wondered what the criteria was for that noise to play. Would she have buzzed if she put zero? The thought amused her. On the screen, a scan line seeming to be part of the game moved up and down the screen, momentarily blurring the text when it passed through the words. A couple of times, Sam almost thought she could read words under the text when it happened, but it hurt her eyes too much to move closer and squint at the screen so she ignored it.

'How old are you?'

Again Sam was given a number pad and she entered 19, causing the game to give another pleasant ding and Sam to sigh in relief that she had once again avoided the dreaded buzz. Now the girl began to notice small noises that played in the background as she answered questions, simple beats like in a techno song, making her ears lightly vibrate.

'Are you a girl or a boy?'

Sam laughed at the question, what the heck is all of this? Feeling like messing this up in case it was trying to steal her identity or something, the tomboy decided to answer wrong on purpose.

BOY           GIRL

'Are you sure? The signed in profile is registered as female.'

This was beginning to get a little too weird for Sam, who just stared at the screen in shock, what was the point of this weirdly intrusive survey? She was beginning to think that there may not even be any demo attached to the thing. She selected boy again and the shrill buzzer played over the headphones, making her jump in shock once again.

Two more options are given on screen.

'Connect camera?'

YES           NO

This sent a chill down Sam's spine, it was just too creepy. She immediately held down the power button on her console and tore off her headset, going to bed.

The night was especially hot, Sam feeling like she was melting under the summer heat even at 1:00am. Tossing and turning in bed was driving her crazy and she tore off her sheets, chest rising and falling heavily while beads of sweat rolled down her cleavage and onto her collarbone. Something just felt so strange inside of her, she felt like she was going to have a migraine and writhed uncomfortably on the bed for another hour before she could no longer take it. Quickly jumping out of bed, she went into her bathroom and turned on the light. "Fuck!" She quickly pulled the cord to turn it off, the sudden light had sent her head swimming, it was just so bright that it made her dizzy and nauseous.

After washing her face and brushing her teeth, the girl emerged from her bathroom and walked across her bedroom, noticing that her games console was turned on. "Huh? Coulda swore tht'I..." The sleepy girl mumbled, collapsing down onto her bean bag and turning the TV on to check if the console had some sort of system message about the power or if it had some strange auto-updating schedule she needed to turn off.

To Sam's surprise, when the screen flickered on she was not met with the sign in page nor the home screen, but the Blissfuel Demo disc had started and white text on the screen read 'Do you struggle with getting to sleep?'

YES           NO

Sam chortled, the seemingly coincidental nature of the question catching her entirely off guard and making her momentarily forget about the strangeness of the situation of how intrusive the game had been. She selected yes, honestly, as she tugged at the loose T-shirt she wore.

She heard the ding from her headset and made a sluggish move to pick it up and slide it over her ears.

The throbbing noise was pulsing through the headset, which made Sam blink hard and notice how tired she was, why was she playing a game when she needed to sleep?

'Would you like help getting to sleep?' Read the text on the screen, which pulsed in time with the audio, seeming to suck her in.

YES           NO

With a shrug the girl selected YES while yawning, being treated to another pleasant ding that seemed to clear her head a little. She felt so strange, hot and tingly, had the energy drinks caused her to feel so off?

'Are you comfortable?' Asked the bliss simulator.

YES           NO

Sam instinctively selected NO, but to her surprise the pleasant ding sounded through the headset which made her grin a little to herself.

'Please get comfortable.'

The girl started removing her shirt, before stopping herself and checking the camera. Seeing that it was still off, she peeled off the shirt and threw it down onto the floor along with other discarded shirts, leaving her topless, she got away without needing bras. She rubbed her thighs together and felt them slide against each other, squirming and pulling down her sweatpants, kicking one foot out of them and then the other. Now that was more comfortable she thought, her slick body naked besides her boxer shorts.

She selected to proceed and was greeted with three pleasant dings, making her smile widen. She was doing well.

'Would you like to connect your camera?' Asked the game again, making Sam frown slightly... she had just took off most of her clothes after all.

YES           NO

Once again, to her dismay, Sam was met with the sound of failure. The loud buzz shocked her and she bit her lip in annoyance, feeling herself getting lightheaded. The buzzing noise played again before any more text even appeared and she felt even more confused. She began to pant, her head spinning as the buzzing noise played again and made her feel worse.

FOCUS was the only word on the screen, causing Sam to look up at it in confusion, but with focus. The white text then became obscured as it began to swirl and the noise from the headphones changed to a high pitch static hum, barely audible to a girl with hearing as damaged as Sam... she always played music way too loud. The swirl consumed the screen and the white changed into a mixture of harsh colours from all over the spectrum, like a rainbow that was collapsing in on itself. Despite the array of colours it was anything but pretty, actually it was quite the opposite, there was no real shape or reason to it and the colours had no particular pattern to them. Sam could not help but stare at the swirl, which was pulling her into the screen, the longer she stared the more inadequacies she could pick up on. As unpleasant as the screen was to look at, she could not peel her gaze away from it. The girl figured that if she looked at it for long enough she would get used to it, or it would make more sense, both turned out to be correct. The longer she looked at the swirl the less harsh it became, smoothing out and becoming prettier and prettier to her fogging brain. Her head hurt, she felt as though the spiral pattern was boring into her, pulling out her thoughts. She blinked a few times and shook her head, trying to think more clearly. What the hell was she doing? Sam looked back at the screen and the swirl was ugly again, a mismatch of random colour and jagged curves that were too sudden or too late to form a satisfying curve. The more she resisted being drawn in to it the more unpleasant the sight became, but the more she slipped into it, the prettier it was.

Sam struggled, mentally and physically, feeling damp against the beanbag. Her head rocked back and forth and she groaned, almost slipping into the spiral more before clenching her eyes shut tight. The swirl barely even seemed to care that her eyes had shut, spinning on the insides of her eyelids and pulling her deeper into it, much to her panicked frame of mind.

"H-what do I do...?"

For whatever reason, in her state, Sam thought that the screen may have words to answer her question, opening her eyes to see the perfect spiral fill her vision and a word in the centre of the screen.

SLEEP

Sam's jaw went slack and her harsh gaze softened, eyes becoming glassy. Her shoulders slumped as she shifted her weight onto the beanbag, dropping into an unwilling trance helplessly, all her panic dissolving into sleep.

'Good girl' Read the text on the screen, which Sam read through half open eyes. Three pleasant dings sounded through her headset and her lips curled into a dazed smile. She was a good girl.

'Please connect your camera.' The text then read.

"Mmhk." The sleepy girl reached out and almost fell over, pressing the button on her camera before slumping back into her beanbag. She had completely forgotten that she was basically naked, too deep to think. The camera light turned on Sam was now being recorded.

'Good girl' Read the screen again, the headset rewarding Sam with more pleasant dings which seemed to melt her mind, eyes rolling back with each one before falling back down to the screen.

'What is your name?' Asked the program. Sam answered mechanically, obediently.

'You are very pretty Sam, aren't you?'

YES           NO

Sam thought for a second and frowned slightly, as much as the sleepy muscles on her face allowed her to, as she selected NO.

She was met with an array of loud buzzing noises.

'You are very pretty Sam.'

She was very pretty.

'Tell the camera how pretty you are.'

Sam looked up into the lens of the camera attached to her games console and said with a ditsy smile "I'mmm verrry preeetty."

'Good pretty girl' More dings, making Sam giggle to herself.

'You are obedient to the words on the screen.' Another ding, making it the right answer in her head. It was the truth.

She was obedient to the words on the screen.

'You're so very obedient, aren't you dear?'

YES MISTRESS

There was only option for her to click, but she only needed one to obey. Sam pressed the A button and waited for the dings, but none came. Then, desperately, she said "Yes Missstress!" Sluggishly but with needy enthusiasm. Finally, she received the soundbites and seemed to shudder in pleasure, staring at the screen for more words from mistress.

'You're such a girly girl, Sam. A pretty girl's girl. Why are you playing on a games console, you don't even know which buttons to press, silly.'

Sam's eyes fluttered as they scanned the words repeatedly, they seemed wrong to her and she tried to think. The dings accompanied the words, though, meaning they have to be the truth. Sam considered herself a tomboy and a gamer, but now she felt like she was being silly, she was confused.

'You're so girly and blissful Sam, say it.'

"I'm... so... girly and blissful." Sam said apprehensively, being assaulted with affirming dings after she had said it. After saying it once, it seemed a little less unbelievable to her, as though it had imprinted better.

'You're just a simple blonde girl.'

"I'm... just a simple blonde girl!" Sam repeated with growing enthusiasm, feeling like a weight was being lifted off her chest, the unease and nausea lifting with each word and each affirming ding flooding her ears.

The conditioning continued, programming Sam into a girl fit to be a 'Blissfuel Girl.' Sam woke up completely naked, the front of her body slick with a sheen of sweat and covered in lines of drool and feeling...... totally amazing!

She jumped up and hopped into the shower, ready to face the day, ready to go to work.

A few days later, Tyra was procrastinating. Not from doing anything productive, but from playing that game she told Sam she would beat before her. It was an ambitious challenge to take on, especially when she never felt motivated to play a game. There the girl sat, completely able to pick up a controller and boot up the game, but instead she sat watching YouTube. It was just so easy and stress free, who could blame her? Absent-mindedly she clicked onto another video and groaned as an ad began to play, seeing it was an unskippable one at that.

"Hey there! Did you hear about the new Blissfuel Juiced Pink?" A girl giggled and took a sip from the promotional bottle, pulling a face that Tyra could only describe as borderline ahegao. The girl looked familiar, but with so much make-up who could say?

"Pfft." Tyra chuckled, idly checking her phone. "What an airhead."