About a week ago, I received an IM from a stranger while I was in Second Life. Or so I thought. As it turns out, one of my friends’ account had been hacked and not only had the hacker stolen money from her, he had also sent strange messages to her friends and deleted all of her groups and names from her contact list. She got a text from a recipient of one of these strange messages, and since she was on her way to work at the time, had to try to deal with Linden Labs on her mobile while trying to get there on time. They froze her account and opened an investigation.

When she returned home, she used an alternate account to log in and start the process of rebuilding her friends’ list and re-establishing herself as KC. She has tried to create this avatar as closely as possible to the original. KC is fiery, outspoken, funny, irreverent, fiercely loyal and a bit hard-edged in her appearance most of the time. But she’s also a DJ, and part-time fairy. We tease her when she actually wears a dress, but when she does, she’s feminine and you see the softer side of KC.

During the weekend, KC IM’d me and said, “Peep! I need a profile pic!” Unfortunately, I was in the middle of shooting my wifey’s wedding and couldn’t do it at the time. But tonight I logged on to find KC there and asked if she would like me to do her profile pics. She said yes, but not very enthusiastically. It seems that today she received word that her account had been re-established and the money stolen from her would be reimbursed. She was thrilled until she logged in, only to find that her entire inventory – four years worth of high-quality items – was gone. Deleted. All she had, literally, was her shape and the skin on her back.

She was obviously devastated by this news. To find out her main account was back, only to have her returned to the status of a noobie all in one fell swoop was depressing. So she did the only thing she could – she decided to start building her alt back into a semblance of KC, but with a personality of her own. The two are similar, but not identical.

While I would be crushed if this happened to me, I am looking at the silver lining for KC. She has the opportunity to reinvent herself, starting fresh, and proving to the malicious person who thought they had destroyed who she was, that she has the strength and determination that will allow KC to rise, slowly but surely, above his petty attempt at harm.

Here’s to you, KC…and your new beginning. ♥