Chapter Text
It was 8 am, and I was already having one hell of a day. I had slept through my morning alarms, causing me to be late to school, on top of my migraine from the night before not going away like I had hoped it would. Adding to the mix the fact that I was going through some kind of hallucination, it was shaping up to be quite the mess.
…At least, I hoped I was just hallucinating. Because how else would I explain the slightly transparent, gently shimmering box that followed me everywhere I went? If it wasn’t a hallucination caused by either my sleep or my headache, then… Well, I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t like it on principle. I detested pretty much any major change to my established routine, and this thing was pretty much as far off routine as I could imagine. Plus, I had the feeling that this thing was only the start— like the smell of ozone in the air before a storm, I could tell that whatever this box was, it was only the herald for something much bigger.
Clutching my throbbing head and blinking the sleep from my eyes, my brain sluggishly tried to rationalize the existence of the shimmering box. Maybe it’s just a weird trick of the lights, or maybe… Maybe I’m still dreaming? I thought. I refused to acknowledge the obvious text spread across the surface of the pale blue box. It may have sounded stupid, but to my confused and disoriented mind, reading the text would make this whole thing seem more real than I was altogether comfortable with. I would deal with it later. Assuming it didn't just go away in a moment, when I was more awake, though I had a strange and kind of alarming feeling that this particular dream would be sticking with me for a while.
I shook my head to clear away the thought, and pushed down the existential dread it brought with it. I would handle all this like I handled most of my problems; ignoring them until they buzzed off on their own. For now, I had to handle a more pressing concern; I was still very much late. Squaring my shoulders and gathering up my strength to face the day, I stood up and did my best to ignore the fact that the box had seemed to move with me. Way too weird… Just ignore it, I told myself as I hurriedly got ready.
Stepping out into the hallway of the house that me and my mother shared, I bustled to the kitchen and found my mother sitting at the table already, lost in a book. We were both avid readers, but she took it to a whole other level. I swung past her, planting a quick kiss on the top of her head as I grabbed my backpack and raced out the door, throwing it shut with a hurried “Late, bye Mom!” as I steered myself towards school.
It only took about a minute of running before I realized what a terrible idea that was, with my entire body giving me very painful reminders that I was not an athlete, and for good reason. I turned right back around, not trusting myself to make even the 15-minute walk to school before lunchtime. A moment later I burst back in the door, weak lungs heaving for air and legs shaky from exertion. “Uh...will you...drive me over…?” I breathlessly asked my mom, still sitting at the kitchen table, eyes already directed at me like she had been expecting me back. Which was fair, but ouch .
My mother shot me a fond but exasperated glance as she collected her keys. “Of course, I was going to offer but you took off,” she said, shaking her head in that slow and motherly way she always had. I breathed heavily for a few more gasps before my lungs decided to start working normally again, and leaned heavily on the front door of our small house.
“My bad…” I replied. A small motion caught my eye as a tiny box, just like the bigger one I was presently ignoring, appeared to my side. The suddenness of the box appearing made me glance over and read the box out of reflex, after which it disappeared.
Mother: +1 Bond
...Yeah, I was going to have to start considering that medication those dumb TV commercials mentioned. I was wide awake now, so there was no way I should be hallucinating this bad if I was right in the head. And yet, now that I had read one box and not gone into a full mental meltdown, I couldn’t deny that I was curious about the bigger box that had plagued me since I woke up. My eyes, unbidden, slowly drew to the side to look at the text on the box…
Status
Name: Oliver Latrium
Class: The Gamer
Level: 1
Hit Points: 30/30
Mana Points: 60/60
Strength: 3
Vitality: 3
Dexterity: 3
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 6
Luck: 1
POINTS: 0
MONEY: 0
Well that was… not what I was expecting. Now, I had played way more than my fair share of video games, them being something of an addiction of mine, so of course I knew what this was. It just didn’t make any sense. Why was this…?
The voice of my mother cut through my thoughts. “Olie, hun, you alright? You’re already late, but we can get you to school in time for your third period, at least.”
Looking over, I saw that she was ready to go and waiting for me. I smiled at her, trying to project positivity I didn’t really feel. “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine, just spaced out. Let’s go?”
Internally, I sighed. Today was going to be one hell of a day.
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I did my best to sneak into the back door of my classroom. Keeping my head down and my footsteps quiet, I slid into my seat at the back row and prayed that my entry had gone at least mostly unnoticed. After a moment of only hearing the teacher's monotonous droning and the scratching of pencils, I chanced a glance around. Seeing that nobody had reacted in the slightest, I breathed a silent sigh of relief and reached into my bag for my supplies.
-DING-
I recoiled as another window appeared next to me, catching me thoroughly off guard. In my shock, I flinched my hands to the side, scattering the contents of my bag and, naturally, drawing the eyes of the entire classroom. I scrambled to gather my things as my face caught fire.
"U-uh, sorry!" I muttered to the class, keeping my eyes squarely on my desk as I put everything back in order in my bag, internally screaming all the while. The teacher, a condescending old man named Harrison, gave a sharp "Harrumph!" to really drive home his condescension. After a few scattered snickers, the rest of the class turned towards the board again, and my mishap was forgotten, at least for the moment.
Satisfied with my reorganization, and suspecting that I would be getting jokes about this for weeks, I snapped my attention to the offending box with a hateful glare.
A new skill has been created through a special action!
Going undetected has created the “Sneak” skill.
Hilarious, I thought spitefully, looking between the new window and the "Status" window that still lingered. First the Status thing, and now this. Why is all of this game-y shit appearing suddenly? Am I actually going crazy? I wish these screens would go away!
And with that, both windows instantly vanished.
…Okay, thanks , I thought, unsure of who or what I was thanking in the first place. I tried to settle my suddenly-thudding heart, but I couldn't. The windows had responded to my thoughts, of all things. My thoughts! After only a moment's hesitation, my growing curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to experiment a bit.
There's no way this is really happening. Um...Open status…?
When the window materialized in front of me, I felt my earlier frustration fall away. Slowly, from deep within me, I felt something altogether different grow in its place— excitement, though it was tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism.
This can't be real. But just in case it is…
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The rest of my school day flew by in a blur of mostly-ignored classes. After my discovery in third period, the mysterious allure of the text windows was far too great to ignore. Fundamentally, I understood what they were; they were the menus just like you would find in a video game, specifically an RPG. My question wasn't what they were, but why they were. I nervously asked my few friends if they could see anything weird about me, and their mix of confusion and lighthearted joking was a relief. At least nobody else could see the screens, as I had taken to thinking of them, which meant I was free to mess around with them as I half-heartedly took the bare minimum of notes in my classes.
By the time school let out and I hurried home, I had discovered a few things, which I carefully recorded in a blank notebook that I dutifully labeled “The Gamer”.
- Only I could see my menus, or screens, or whatever they’re called.
- I could touch them, but they didn't really have a texture, and that fact alone freaked me out enough that I resolved to just use my eyes mostly. Which leads to...
- I could operate the menus with my eyes or thoughts, somehow, despite them having no obvious camera or sensor. Maybe they didn't need them, but that was something that could be investigated further in the future.
- Something about me had changed. I didn't know how or why, but I had been fully integrated into this "game character" role that I was supposed to play now.
It was the last point that would be the hardest pill to swallow. If I told a well-timed joke, people didn't just "like'' me more, my Bond with them increased. If I stubbed my foot running in the hallway, I didn't "get hurt" in the normal way, I just took a few points of HP damage and moved on. It still hurt, but the pain was fleeting, it didn't stick like it should. Not that I wanted it to, but that’s kind of a huge change to adjust to. But assuming this wasn't all a long, drawn out hallucination like I initially thought, this was what my reality was like now.
The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying, mostly the latter.