Ugh. My head. Again.

  Waking up, I found myself, for the second time today, sprawled out on the ground with a pounding headache.

  Blinking what felt like five pounds of sleep from my eyes, I took in my surroundings. At least I wasn’t still in the white void room. That was… something.

  The first thing I felt was the overgrown grass beneath me, the sharp edges of the blades prickling against my exposed skin. As I shifted slightly, the scent of chlorophyll flooded my nose—fresh, earthy, and strong. My body moving against the grass stirred the scent even more.

  As I pushed myself up into a seated position, my vision gradually came into focus. I was in what looked like a meadow, encircled by a treeline that started a couple dozen feet away. Beyond that, small mountains rose several miles in the distance.

  Turning my head, I saw the trees continued around in a rough circular pattern, enclosing an area about the size of about eight to ten football fields. The meadow was thick with overgrown vegetation, a mix of wildflowers and bushes scattered in its center. Nestled within that greenery, I caught a glimpse of water—a medium-sized pond reflecting the sky, its banks tangled with reeds and brush.

  I was in a valley.

  And I was alone.

  Slowly standing, I rolled my shoulders, stretching cautiously. My muscles were stiff, my body sluggish—like I’d been lying in a crumpled heap for far too long.

  Alright. Breathe.

  A lot had just happened. Too much, too fast. I was confused, probably in some low-level state of shock.

  I needed to take this one step at a time. If I tried to absorb everything at once, I’d mentally choke on the sheer wrongness of it all.

  As a decent hiker, I’ve heard enough stories from other hikers and seen enough YouTube videos that in emergencies that you need to try not to panic. You need to take a deep breath and walk through whatever’s going on with baby steps to see what you need to do.

  Priority One: Am I in immediate danger?

  I glanced around again. Nothing moved in the meadow. The only sounds were the rustling of grass as a light breeze passed through, mingling with the distant chirping of songbirds in the forest. No immediate threats.

  Okay. Step one: done.

  Then—

  BLUE!

  Panic surged through me as something massive appeared out of nowhere. My heart nearly exploded from my chest as I scrambled backward, my body moving before my brain could process what I was seeing.

  I fell, hard, gasping for breath, adrenaline tearing through my veins.

  It’s after me! It’s chasing me!

  Somehow, despite my mad crawl backward, it stayed right in front of me, unmoving. I let out a strangled yelp, flinging an arm in front of my face in defense as it leapt toward me—

  Wait.

  It didn’t leap.

  It… wasn’t moving?

  Forcing my breath to slow, I blinked, trying to focus on the thing that had scared the hell out of me. It was a blue box, roughly four feet by three feet, floating in mid-air with nothing holding it up.

  Even weirder, there were words inside it.

  What the absolute hell?

  Did I just get… gamified?

  Reaching up, I ran my hands over my face, searching for any sign of VR goggles or some kind of headset. Nothing. My fingers combed through my hair, brushing against my scalp—just skin, no wires, no tech.

  I turned my head side to side. The blue box moved with me, staying fixed in my field of vision like some kind of persistent heads-up display. It reminded me of those old-school PC games where an annoying system message would pop up, refusing to be minimized while the game continued running behind it.

  I needed to test something.

  I closed my eyes.

  ...Still there.

  Okay. This had officially entered an entirely new level of unsettling.

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself into a sitting position and reread the floating text. The words carried an almost cheerful tone, like some kind of overenthusiastic RPG tutorial.

  Beneath the surface, though, the implications were… terrifying.

  I closed my eyes again, taking another deep breath.

  Time to get my thoughts in order.

  First step, I guess I have to acknowledge the impossible.

  On the surface, it appeared that I had been magically transported somewhere and was now seeing game-like UI pop-ups. That alone was so far outside the realm of normal that my brain wanted to reject it outright.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  But refusing to accept reality wouldn’t help me survive it.

  Was I dreaming? That seemed unlikely. Dreams had shifting logic, locations changed without reason, physics warped, and narratives jumped unpredictably. Everything here had been too consistent. My headache alone felt too real for this to be a dream.

  Could this be some kind of concussion-induced hallucination? It was possible, but doubtful. Hallucinations tended to be erratic, but everything about this felt structured. My senses were all firing correctly, and if I had suffered a brain injury severe enough to cause vivid hallucinations, I would probably be dealing with other symptoms—nausea, balance issues, or memory loss. None of which were present.

  Maybe it was an elaborate prank? That did not seem to fit either. This wasn’t some over-the-top YouTube stunt. The technology required to physically to do whatever this is science fiction stuff. And even if it did, what would be the point? There was no hidden camera crew waiting to jump out and yell “Gotcha!”

  That left one final option—some kind of simulation. As much as I wanted to dismiss the idea outright, it wasn’t entirely impossible. If I had somehow been plugged into a virtual reality system, it could explain the UI elements. But the problem was, I felt too present for it to be a simulation. My body hurt. My mouth was dry. The wind brushing against my skin was unmistakably real.

  That left me with one conclusion:

  This is happening. For real.

  I exhaled sharply, the weight of that realization settling over me.

  Fine. I could sit here debating reality all day, or I could adapt.

  And if this world wanted me to play by RPG rules, then fine. I’d play.

  "Go away!" I said, looking directly at the floating blue box.

  Instantly, it vanished.

  I sagged in relief. Finally, some control over something.

  Glancing around, I knew the next logical step was to take stock of my surroundings. Maybe head toward the pond, check for drinkable water—

  BLUE!

  Another notification slammed into existence in my vision.

  I read over the text from my new spot on the ground, where I had landed after yet another startled reaction to an unexpected floating box. I mentally dismissed the box, which I was surprised worked. A new box popped up as soon as the other disappeared.

  This is a lot to take in. The previous message had been vague, but this one was far more detailed, giving me actual information about my situation and sounding like the actual details that someone needs..

  I closed my eyes again, exhaling slowly. Even with my eyes shut, the damn thing was still there, hovering in my mind like a neon warning sign.

  Alright. One thing at a time. This was too much to process all at once, so I needed to break it down into manageable pieces. Small, bite-sized chunks. Otherwise, my brain was going to short-circuit.

  First, the phrase "Complimentary first notification page opening" stood out. That implied there would be more notifications in the future. I’d played enough MMOs in my life to know that in-game messages usually popped up when something important happened. The fact that this was happening in real life was unsettling. If I were stuck in a world running on game mechanics, then it stood to reason that I’d get notifications whenever I did something significant.

  The bigger concern, though, was whether I had any control over them. If these blue boxes kept popping up at random, I could easily get distracted at a critical moment—like in the middle of being attacked. Or hell, even something mundane like taking a piss.

  Moving on.

  I was now a [Bard].

  The word alone made me groan. Back in college when I played D&D, there was a guy who picked Bard in every campaign. He fit the stereotype perfectly—flirting with every NPC, constantly rolling to seduce people, and causing general chaos with his charisma.

  But as much as he had annoyed me, I had to admit—he had been useful. Bards were support-based characters, using their abilities to manipulate situations in the party’s favor.

  That was both a blessing and a curse for me. On the one hand, it meant I’d probably be valuable to a group. On the other hand… I didn’t have a group. And if this world worked anything like an RPG, Bards weren’t exactly known for their solo survivability.

  That was bad.

  If this were in a national park somewhere in the middle of the United States, I was reasonably confident in my ability to survive for enough time to make it to a roadway or something. I was getting less and less confident, though I was somewhere recognizable as I glanced at my surroundings. Around the corner of the box in my vision, I was able to see the trees surrounding the meadow and I realized that I did not recognize the species.

  When I had glanced around earlier I had taken them as a type of pine tree, but now I realized that their bark coloring was much too white and the needles looked more flattened with a feathery quality. Additionally, now that I had calmed down some and wasn't scrambling away from floating magic information boxes, I recognized the smell of the wilderness was off. I had done a decent amount of traveling and had come to learn the smells of nature, that basic smell of fresh air mixed with subtle hints of the environment be it forest, desert, or swamp. This place smelt like it was trying to be a temperate forest but had just missed the mark, and had ended up smelling slightly chemical.

  Then there were my new abilities. "Musical Resonant Frequency" seemed to imply that I could instinctively understand music and sound, which would have been great—except I had never played an instrument in my life. Maybe that didn’t matter now? Maybe I just knew how to play something?

  And then there was "Adonis Quintessence."

  I didn’t even know where to begin with that one. It seemed to be tied to sexual magnetism and knowing what to do in bed, which…was completely useless to me. I’d never had anything close to a romantic feeling much less a libido, so I had no idea how that was supposed to work. Worse, it also made me more susceptible to being influenced by others.

  Whatever that meant.

  The next ability seemed to be randomly selected based on the first level I was likely at. The other two abilities did not have the notification like that making me think that those two were the base class abilities.

  I suspected that if I came across anyone else with a [Bard] class they have those abilities too at least. The fact that I received an ability randomly much like my class was worrying as it spoke to a system built on chance. Would any future abilities gained also be at random?

  My random pick of chance skill "Magic Mouth" seemed on the surface more straightforward than the others. It seemed designed for someone who would be using wind instruments like the flute. I had seen singers and even rappers doing exercises before shows and I'm assuming that this would bring someone's mouth capabilities up to a professional musician's level without practicing.

  Being able to have a greater lung capacity seems like it would be helpful to anyone musically, not needing to take breaks in singing or blowing to interrupt the music. I don't think I quite understand this bit about making the mouth have damage resistance though, maybe musicians commonly damage their lips and teeth? That doesn't explain the...blunt...damage...

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  I started to laugh.

  Then I started to cry.

  I thought I was handling this well. I really did.

  And then I realized I had been transported to a magical fantasy world and given a superpower for oral sex.