After about an hour he had resorted to pulling his tablet from the side table where it typically lived, charging with his phone, earbuds and ebook. It was his little digital haven of modern distraction, his one tangible connection to others and the world outside his mundane, ordinary, repetitive life.
With the screen's brightness dimmed down as much as possible, he lay there on his side and doom-scrolled through one social media app after another for another hour or two.
He had been at it so long one app refused to show him anything more from the people he followed. It insisted he use the ‘for you’ page because there was nothing more to see from who he chose to follow and the ‘following’ feed. He tried to ingnore the fact that that wasn’t remotely possible. He followed about a thousand active people or as they liked to call themselves content creators; there was no way he had seen as the app insisted he had. To prove his point he refreshed his feed finding new content the app pretended didn't exist just moments ago.
after a time he got tired of fighting with an inanimate object, the app increasing its attempts to get him to do something eles, he took it as a sign to try and get some sleep again.
So he plugged his tablet back in to charge and rolled over, switching to the cool side of the pillow as he went.
But more time passed, and sleep still avoided him.
Something just felt off. Different than normal. Being unable to get to sleep was unfortunately a common occurrence for him. But he wasn’t struggling with one of those bouts of existential dread his depression could bring to bed from time to time. Nor did his mind race with thoughts he couldn’t quiet or anxiety he couldn’t quite resolve.
Admitably, he had been feeling low lately. But not so low that it was near the level he considered bothering anyone with it.
When he thought back on his day he decided it had actually been a good one.
He had made a point of not giving in to himself and taking a long nap halfway into the day and that had allowed him to do more than he usually did with all the extra time. He managed to be productive for once. He had sorted out the dirty dishes and gotten some laundry done. That is to say, he had filled the dishwasher but not emptied it while also putting some clothes through the washing machine and dryer but not folding them or putting them away. Why use drawers when a clean laundry basket would suffice for all your clean clothing needs?
It was the small victories that could keep you going. So he didn’t worry about doing less than most people would consider normal and and tried being happy about it.
so laying there in bed he wondered why, after a relativly full, napless day like he had had, the usual lethargy that typically came over him hadn’t made itself known to help carry him off to dreamland for the night.
No... for some annoying reason, he was wide awake, and something felt off.
It was frustrating.
In his opinion, sleep was the fastest way to get from one life event to another without facing any of what lay between.
He knew if he didn’t get to it anytime soon, he would mess up his sleep pattern again. Sleeping all day and tiptoeing about at night as he tried not to disturb the next-door neighbours wasen't exactly healthy.
He wondered if finding something to read might help.
Deciding it couldn’t hurt, he rolled back over to get his ebook from the side table and paused as he noticed something odd.
A weird flicker had swept from one side of the room to the other as he rolled over.
Sitting up he tried to get a good look at whatever it was he had seen. Te hadn't imagined it, there was something in the corner of his eye, as he moved it moved and then just as he was begining to get a good look at it, it was just gone. Well, that’s weird, he thought. Almost as if…
Just as he tried to process what he had seen, it was back again. This time however it was slightly larger than before and much easier to pick out in the gloom of his unlit room.
Whatever It was floated in the space before him, just within his reach, moving as he moved his head. Somehow fixed within a specific spot that seemed to be relative to the position of his head but not his vision. Meaning he could look about, and so long as he didn’t move his head, it stayed where it was.
Doing what almost everyone would do when noticing an odd visual bug, he blinked a few times and rubbed at his eyes to see if it would do anything to clear the hallucination.
A few seconds of exaggerated blinking and vigourous rubbing passed, but nothing changed. He still saw the damn thing when he closed his eyes tight and pretended he was not seeing things.
As it seemed to refuse to leave him alone he gave it a good long look, something dawned on him as he had a moment of clarity.
“What the-“ he said to no one, he’d be damned if that wasn’t a loading bar symbol. Icon?
It was a little white circle that pulsed gently as its outer edge slowly filled up. Possitioned exactly where he would put a loading symbol he wanted to be visible yet also out of the way if he was designing a heads-up display for a game or…
A seed of hope blossemed within him and he grinned, something new and life-changing had just appeared out of nowhere.
If he hadn’t played hours of virtual reality games, he might have found the little visual disturbance more disconcerting. Worse, if he hadn’t read hours of admittedly unrealistic but still entertaining LitRPGs stories, he would probably be freaking out right about now.
Although, now that he was thinking about it, he could have finally gone mad. That was a possibility. A possibility best ignored.
All but jumping out of bed, he decided to get ready for he hoped was coming. He wasn’t going to face his potential madness in just a pair of boxers.
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Thanks to the fresh laundry basket tucked out of sight, out of mind, in the corner of his room, it wasn't long before he was dressed in a clean pair of jeans and wearing a plain black t-shirt. He had even thrown a few serviceable pairs of socks and some extra underwear into a backpack that had been tucked away in his closet.
If what he thought was happening was in fact happening her reaosoned that the next thing he needed was some serviceable footwear.
He made for the door of his room to go get his walking boots from downstairs.
It was then that his plans to go around his place collecting things that might be useful came to an abrupt end.
The door wouldn’t budge; he couldn’t even get the handle to turn.
Taking a glance at the little circle and giving the door one last tug, he groaned. “ already?” He asked no one, “It’s not even halfway done doing whatever this thing is doing, and I’m hit with fuckery.”
It was then that it occurred to him that this might not just be happening to him.
Dashing back over to his side table, he picked up his phone and said, “Yup, of course, it is.”
He checked everything: his phone, tablet and even the ebook for some strange reason. No matter what he tried, they just would not turn on. Didn’t even pop up that they were charging when he messed with their cables a bit.
This was definitely some kind of system fuckery because despite his collection of mobile devices refusing to be useful, the lights in his room still worked.
His old, rarely used desktop computer also refused to do anything, the power button mocking him as it just clicked at him when he pressed it. Unlike the other stuff that had batteries, his computer was technically connected to the same source of power as the lights so if they worked, it should work, right? but no, it wouldn't turn on.
, he thought to himself.
It was a little amusing; in his mind it confirmed something was actually happening and he hadn’t just lost it. It might still be wishful thinking at this point, considering madness as the alternative; he held onto what he could. Reasoning that there was no real point in worrying about things now.
Sure he couldn’t contact any family members, but they lived close by. So he assured himself that once this was over, he would do everything possible to contact them… if he managed to survive, or wasn’t mad, and things happened to play out as he was hoping they might... there were a alot of possibilities considering all he had to go on.
Putting his thoughts on hold, he sat down on the end of his bed and put on his Crocs as he lamented his walking boots being stuck downstairs.
At least they were all-terrain Crocs, with the reinforced rubber covering the foam soles. Sure they didn’t have the famous sports mode strap, but this design cupped the back of his heels anyway, so technically they were always in sports mode. More expensive than the typical Crocs, and even better, he had got them on sale. They were a tight fit with his socks still on, but he would worry about fashion when he had a better idea about what was actually happening.
He checked on the progress the odd little pulsing circle had made. It was painfully slow, but there wasn’t much more he could do but wait for it to do its thing. Especially with him being stuck in his bedroom as he was.
Too much time and an idle mind had him thinking maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to have a zombie survival go bag after all… too late to do anything about it now.
Lost for something to do, he got up and pulled the curtains aside to take a look outside. Something about the street outside felt off but he couldn't put his finger on what. It was late, or early depending on how you looked at it. At around two a.m. in the morning, none of the neighbours had their lights on, and at first glance, everything looked normal. But he couldn’t shake that feeling that something was off as he looked up and down the street as best he could.
He had half expected to see other people peering out of their windows. Maybe somone trying to get other people's attention or even outright panicking as they too were stuck in their rooms. But It was actually peaceful. Thinking once more that he might be stuck in a padded room he rationalised, if he could hallucinate his room, he could also hallucinate the rest of the house. that would atleast allow him to get his damn boots, that and some other stuff, rope? Who was kidding? No, he had no rope in the house. Would twine or string be useful? he thought. There were probably a hundred things he might find useful, but he had no way of getting to any of them.
As he tried to squash the pointless thoughts racing through his mind, he finally realised what was wrong with the street outside.
Just up the road was a black cat that was hard to see in the low light. The interesting thing about the cat was that it was frozen in place, not just sitting still as it minded its own business or skulking from one spot to another as it went about it's nightly prowl. No, this cat was stuck in the air. The feline must have been jumping down from the neighbour's fence and been cought in time when the fuckery started.
Seeing the frozen cat he now noted nothing outside was actually moving, not even swaying in the breeze. It went beyond the calm stillness of a windless night. it exsplained why his first thought was everything was peacefull.
That’s it; he might need to give the possibility that he had gone absolutely mad some serious consideration.
In that moment, much to his relief, the painfully slow loading circle did that thing all loading bars and loading symbols have done since their first conception. It pulsed bright, and the last quarter completed all at once.
Welcome to the multiverse!
Compatible Sapience Found.
A light blue box filled with white text appeared.
The message floated out in front of him as he ungracefully fell back, trying to avoid it, only for it to follow his retreat to where he now found himself sprawled back over the end of his bed.
He sat there looking up, reading the message in front of him, fresh lines of text populating the blue window just as he finished the last line of what was displayed.
Planetary analysis complete.
?Results below minimum system standards:
?Planet grade: F-
F-? Well, that’s harsh. atleast he thought it was. But not knowing what this system actually considers standard, he knew he couldn't comment, for all he knew F was at the top end of the scale, just right below the minimum.
Eather levels below minimum requirements for immediate integration process.
Eather investment required…
Requesting Eather…
All requests denied.
Again that was harsh, he didn’t even know what this ‘Eather’ was, but it must be important if it was one of the first things it checked for.
And apparently no one wanted to help out with an investment.
Initialising Rift Protocols.
Assessing Sapient Life:
Sapient life below minimum system standards.
Assessing Dominant Civilisation:
Dominant Civilisation below Minimum System Standards.
He was beginning to sense a pattern here, and he didn't like it.
Life Expectancy of Dominant Sapient Civilisation:
1.23%
That’s- that’s bad, very bad!
Time until Life Expectancy Meets Minimum System Standards:
?
?Extinction / Total Collapse of Civilisation Exceeds Requirements.
He shrugged; he couldn’t argue with that.
Everything seemed to be on a tipping point; with the way things were going, he was actually surprised something hadn’t happened already. But then again, Joe Public seemed to me more apathetic than they had ever been, allowing history to repeat itself with modern twist.
Re-Requesting Eather Investment…
All requests denied.
Offering Rewards…
All requests denied.
. But could he really blame whoever it was for not investing in a grade F world that was already on the edge of total collapse? Not worth the investment or rewards, apparently.
Assessment:
Tutorial required.
Tutorial? Finally! This was what he had been waiting for, what he had been hoping for, what he had anticipated.
It was only fair to get a tutorial; that’s how the books typically did it anyway, that and computer games. No, he shouldn’t think like that. If the stories agreed on anything, it was that people who treat this situation as a game usually died fast... or became really, really overpowered.
Standard System Integration Tutorial Survival Rate Below Minimum System Standards.
“Shit!” At this point it was beginning to look like system integration was going to kill all life on the planet or leave humanity to wipe itself out in the aftermath of whatever it ended up doing.
Assessment: Tutorial Calibration Required.
“Oh, thank God… Wait. Thank System?!?” he said, with no clue what that last message actually meant.