Fuck!

  My eyes were closed with a slight pressure on them, my head spinning.

  What the hell just happened? Did someone hit me from behind?

  I'm on the ground, sprawled out face down. I don't remember falling. My head is pounding, my thoughts a jumbling mess. Blinking my eyes open, all I see is white.

  Wait.

  I can only see white.

  Panic begins to creep in. There's something wrong.

  I raise my hands to my face. Oh good, I can see my hands. That means I’m not blind, a small relief.

  But my hands are against the whiteness where the floor should be. I’m touching it. I press down—it’s cool to the touch, thin, smooth, like a cheap laminate countertop.

  Slowly, I look up, expecting to see a ceiling, walls, something to ground me. But there’s nothing. The white extends endlessly, blending seamlessly between the floor and…everything else. It’s like I’ve stepped into a void, some surreal limbo between reality and nothingness.

  It reminds me of the "construct" scene from The Matrix or the kind of blank, sterile environment used in commercials for heartburn medication. My thoughts barely have time to process the strangeness when—

  "CONGRATULATIONS, CONTESTANT!"

  FUCK!

  My head! What the hell was that?!

  A voice—no, an explosion of sound—rips through the empty space, sending a jolt of raw agony through my skull. It’s like someone is dragging a chainsaw across a chalkboard inside my brain. Its like the sound is everywhere, both verbally and inside me at the same time. My hands fly to my ears, but it does nothing to dull the pain.

  "YOU, OUT OF MANY, HAVE FOUND YOUR WORLD'S CURRENT ENTRY TO FORTUNE!!!"

  FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!

  A new spike of pain shreds through my head, so intensely I let out a strangled scream. I realized that I could feel my body vibrate with each word. I curled into a ball without even realizing it until after the fact, my entire world was reduced to this sheer, overwhelming wrongness.

  I have no idea what’s happening. The strangeness of the situation isn’t even registering anymore, only the pain.

  "YOU WILL NOW HAVE YOUR CLASS ROLLED!"

  Through the screaming chainsaw in my skull, words begin to slip through. The pain is still unbearable, but it's...fading? It’s no longer at 11, maybe down to an 8. Still excruciating, but at least I can think through it now.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Wait. Class?

  What kind of insanity is this? Am I in some kind of kid’s cartoon? A twisted game show?

  "BEHOLD THE WHEEL OF CLASSES!"

  Something massive pops into existence in front of me. No sound, no dramatic entrance, just a reality glitch, and suddenly, it’s there.

  I force myself to focus through the lingering pain, and holy shit, the thing is enormous—towering at least 60 feet above me. It’s like a giant game wheel, reminiscent of Wheel of Fortune or a cheesy car dealership prize wheel. The kind where you spin it and hope for a free oil change.

  Except this one looks important. And old. And wrong.

  The wheel hangs in the air without any visible support. Its massive sections are divided into bold, primary colors, with a tarnished metal bracket at the bottom marking the selected prize. But unlike typical game wheels, the pie-like sections aren’t equal. Some are huge, while others are so minuscule they appear as little more than slivers.

  My gaze locks onto the largest section, sitting near the top. It takes up maybe two-fifths of the wheel, covered in a dull mustard-yellow color. Squinting, I make out the word “WARRIOR” in blocky, oversized letters.

  To its right, a bright red section of about half the size reads “MAGE”.

  I scan the wheel, noting dozens of smaller and smaller sections until some are just thin lines of color, barely readable.

  Then, just as my brain starts to piece together what’s happening—

  "YOUR CLASS WILL NOW BE SELECTED. MAY YOUR LUCK GRANT YOU THE BEST OF THE BEST!"

  The wheel moves.

  From my spot on the floor, I watch as it begins a slow, deliberate spin. The tapping sound of an unseen mechanism clicks rhythmically, increasing in speed as the wheel picks up momentum. It spins faster and faster until the individual sections blur together in a chaotic whirl of color.

  Fifteen seconds pass before the speed finally stabilizes. The wheel continues to spin for nearly a full minute before gradually slowing.

  I watch, my body tense, as the final rotations begin. The wheel passes WARRIOR. Then MAGE. I catch a glimpse of PREIST in stark white on a small section as it flickers by the selector.

  The realization dawns that, despite my confusion, I had been wholly fixated on the wheel since it started spinning. My headache, while still present, has faded to a dull throb just like a bad hangover rather than pure torture.

  As the wheel slows, it enters an area filled with the tiny sliver sections. A pit of dread settles in my stomach. I remember watching Wheel of Fortune and seeing those small sections, the ones that either held the biggest prizes or the most punishing losses.

  Nothing about this experience tells me I should be excited to land in one of these.

  The final clicks echo through the void. The wheel slows… slows… and stops.

  A thin blue sliver—barely an inch wide.

  There’s text, but I can’t read it from here.

  Then, the voice returns.

  "CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR SELECTED CLASS IS — [BARD]!"

  Wait. A Bard?

  I freeze. In a fantasy setting, Bards are…what? Musicians? Storytellers? A support class? Back in college, when I played Dungeons & Dragons, Bards were typically used by players who didn’t take the game seriously.

  And the way the voice announced it sounded different. When it said the word Bard, it was like it had been cut in from another recording as if the person reading it had suddenly gotten a lot more serious.

  What is this?

  "Hey! Hello?" I call out, my voice echoing through the empty whiteness.

  No response.

  The wheel looms above me, silent and indifferent.

  "Whatever this is, I do not consent! Do you hear me?! I do not—"

  "YOU WILL NOW BE TRANSPORTED TO A STARTING LOCATION. LIKE MANY OTHERS, MAY YOU FIND YOUR FORTUNE ON FORTUNE!!!"

  Yeah, I am still very much not digging the sound of any of this.

  I open my mouth to shout again, but before I can say anything—

  Everything goes black again.