The clock ticked down like it was a time bomb. The message sat on the center of his screen as he read it over and over. ‘I've done it, I've finally lost my mind.’ He said to himself as he pulled his knees up and placed his head between them hyperventilating.

  He thought he finally snapped, that he spiraled out of control and this is what he was left with. A hallucination, a weird mentally unstable snap in his brain. He started hitting his head with both palms gripping his eyes closed. “Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!” He shouted over and over.

  But there was nothing to wake up from, when his eyes opened the floating words in a small blue box hovered in front of him. A little X off to the side like an RPG notification. He closed his eyes for a few seconds taking one long breath before looking at the X. “CLICK.” He shouted, but it was nothing in response. “PRESS BUTTON!” He screamed again, still it didn’t respond.

  Head going back in his knees he groaned, he wished the page would close. BING. A noise echoed in his head causing him to lift his head back up. He saw that the page had closed just like he wanted. He narrowed his eyes, and thought about the menu, slowly a new page opened up.

  The small little panel hovering in front of him offered him a few different options. He had stats, Quests, and two greyed out buttons for skills and classes. They were definitely locked, he didn’t have to click on them to recognize basic gaming functions.

  Opening his stats his eyes widened. “WHAT!”

  Xp: 0

  Str: 2

  Chr: 2

  Int: 5

  Wis: 6

  Dex: 3

  Con: 2

  Morale: 0

  “I'M THE WORST CHARACTER OF ALL TIME!” He stood up and crossed his arms, “hey system this isn’t funny! Why are my stats so low!” He stood waiting for an answer, but nothing came through. “I SAID HELLO! IS THERE NO AI, NO TALKING PERSONA?” Again, just silence filled his bedroom.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Damien stormed back and forth grumbling to himself, to have high intelligence and wisdom yet be lower end in everything else was confusing. Damien hadn’t thought of himself as wise or intelligent, so why was it showing up that he was?

  Tapping his foot he was annoyed, he heard the vibration of his phone. He figured it was Hatchet again trying too get ahold of him. He wasn’t used to being ignored for this long, not by Damien at least. Approaching the phone he lifted it up only to see Lucy’s name on it.

  Contact Scanned.

  “What? Hey wait!”

  Lucy Vandin

  17

  Hobbies: Unknown

  “Stop it! Quit that!”

  Interests: Unknown

  Relationship: Strained

  “Knock it off!” He shouted, waving his hand at the panel and phasing through it. ‘God for high intelligence I'm a moron.’ he told himself as he paced the room back and forth. “It's just basic information I already know, why not try that with a hatchet smart guy!” The idea suddenly struck him. Why not try that with Hatchet?

  Pulling out his phone he looked at the contact, a small information panel popped up connecting itself to the name.

  Hatchet O’Rylie

  19

  Ohio

  Hobbies: Gaming, Sports (MLG)

  Interests: Anime, Games, Women

  Relationships: Best friends (Brotherly Bond)

  Damien stared at it for a moment. “Why…does it have all this information?” Damien knew Hatchet well, but what stood out to him was the name O’Rylie. What was that name from? Hatchet’s real name wasn’t O’Rylie was it? Damien stared for a few minutes before sitting down at his computer.

  Opening up facebook he typed in the name, Hatchet O’Rylie. There it was. Hatchet, his black hair tied in a ponytail, his goatee, he was a little bit on the medium side almost looking like he worked out. Damien looked at the contact page and back at the facebook page. “He uses his real name for his profile?”

  He couldn’t fully believe what he was seeing, there was no reason to have known this information. ‘He had to have told me his name before? Maybe over chat, text, somewhere right?’ Damien held his face again leaning on his desk. He needed one more test. Something that was impossible for him to know.

  Standing up he raced outside.

  Moving slowly through the streets he passed some people walking. His eyes focused on each and every one of them.

  Michelle

  58

  Jimmy

  53

  Haylee

  30i

  James

  49

  He saw them all, first names, last names, but they were all question marks under hobbies and interests. Status for them all was, ‘Stranger.’ Damien quickly made his way back towards his house and slammed the door shut. Shifting back to his room he paced it and sat down at his computer.

  He began the internet searching for anything he could grasp at. ‘Seeing life as a video game after strokes, seizures, stress, insanity-’ anything that he felt could fit the bill for what he was seeing but it was all coming up empty. Most of the responses was considered dissociation, but susan from california wasn’t seeing floating panels and a leveling system like he was.

  He started deleting everything and stopped before slamming his head down on the desk. His mouth was dry,his heart wouldn’t slow down, it felt like he was stuck in a panic attack and at this point he wondered if this was just his life. Constant pain and fear flooded through his body. Damien was under one solid conclusion.

  This system was real, and he was seeing the world in an entirely new light.