[Initializing..]

  It all started in darkness. Not the kind you blink away or the simple absence of light. It was a deep, swallowing void where even thoughts soon dissolved into nothing. Somehow he existed in it, suspended and weightless. There was no up, left, down, right, W, A, S or D. Ears did not register breath and fingers could not press against a tangible body. He wasn’t even sure if he had a brain. Yet the mind churned on, attempting to organize a mess of faltering fragments into something less raw. Then, the ghost of a sigh escaped upon an awareness of release emanating from where lungs should have been.

  There’s nothing here..

  Well, that was almost true. A single feeling reverberated deep inside his being. Like a silent whisper of remembrance tugging at the fears of inadequacy hardcoded into mankind itself.

  Did I not do enough? As the question took form it rooted heavily in his gut, twisting and stretching.

  Yeah, I failed again, didn’t I?

  It wasn’t the realization of any specific failure. Even if details were impossible to recall, he knew the scope of his baggage. A comprehensive list of fuckupperies boasting bridges burned, relationships withered, promises left to rot and what-not else. Some of it was without doubt his own fault, some less so. But placing blame now? Too late for that. The weight of all he couldn’t quite name pressed hard either way. Or.. maybe.. Just maybe, this was all about someone else. All about..

  .. you.

  ‘Flicker’. An azure-blue rectangle outlined by a whitish frame cut through the void. Not a sterile modern eye-catcher, not sleek sci-fi minimalism, but something classic. Ancient, even, in today's world. It was reminiscent of old-school interfaces, he hadn’t seen in years. The text within glowed in distinct soft-luminous white, slightly bluish in tint. Whoever designed it, was going for maximum readability against dark backgrounds, mimicking the burn you’d get on older CRT monitors. Nostalgia hit his unformed being hard. He could almost hear the 8-bit battle-themes of games long turned collectables. This textbox before him, it came from a time where every death was a lesson and any button-press skipped was a missed opportunity. Cool.

  [System] What is your name?

  ‘Bob.’ It came without hesitation, a confirmation solidified by mere thought. No need to overthink it either. Yeah, I’m just Bob. Simple, functional and always there, even when the rest of him wasn’t. The textbox changed.

  [System] Which beginning do you choose? Warrior. Rogue. Mage. Healer. True Soul.

  He would have frowned if he could. Five choices presented to him, most of them generic as fuck. To Bob, playing a roguish archetype was nearly a given. Evasion, speed and skill expression, he always leaned into that shit as if addicted. Warriors' prowess in the field of weapons had some merit. But he wasn’t into brute force blow-trading and mandatory poise-pumping. Pass. Mages were usually late-game powerhouses, but came with flow-halting dependency on resources. Juices would run dry during key moments, no doubt, at least until a build got up and running. And healers? Yeah, that’s just not gonna happen.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Then there was ‘true soul’. That one was definitely new. His phantom-fingers hesitated over the choice as if nagged by an itch at the edge of recognition. Don’t click just yet. On the surface it sounded like a gimmick class. Probably a bad one. Like really, really, really bad. One of those experimental designs that promised depth in dev-talks but got dumpster-fucked by the community upon actual release. His instincts screamed: Always check the hidden stats. Always read the fine print. But then there was..

  .. you. That small force, always present in the back of his thought-trail, edging him into new territory. ‘Click’.

  [System] Beginning chosen: True Soul. No Gear. No Coin. No Skills. No restrictions. A blank canvas. Congratulations on creating your character.

  The confirmation window was too instant: like a gatcha’-mechanic boasting the outcome of his high-stakes gamble in ‘world chat’. Hah! Really?

  Starting without any stuff and skills meant he was walking in naked. Gone was the safety-net usually found within a class specific starter-pack, brimming with tools of trade. Instead, he was set up to be a weakass, useless toon, slapping like wet noodles. Like, if his sole hobby was taking arrows to the knee. Okay, calm down.

  Bob had played scenarios like this before. Hardcore modes and no-hit challenges. The kind of brutal difficulty settings designed to weed out the impatient and unprepared. He had always respected those experiences. Thrived in them, even. They came with defined rules and boundaries, which meant everything could be studied, adapted to and mastered. Yet, this time, it wasn’t just a save-game on the line. It was him, was it not?

  No restrictions. The phrase rolled in his mind, over and over. It could mean anything, from no limits to minimal guardrails. Was that the same as freedom? Nah. It was a responsibility to one-self. Any blank canvas had to perform better, live harder and be determined to not waste precious opportunity.. Then his hands started to tremble with sheer, electric weight of realization. He had nothing but player-skill to fall back on, right? There would be no forums, no tutorial-vids or wiki-pages hand-holding him toward an optimized build. Maybe this could deliver what no game in recent years had truly done: a real, god damned breath of discovery.

  See, like you probably are, Bob too was knee-deep in the gaming-culture of today. He had been witnessing it being re-forged in a melting pot of streamers, build-guide-creators and big-money-pleasing game-producers. Strangers, all of them. Yet every single one harboured a deep personal stake in how gamers decided to actually play and have fun. But now, the seemingly impossible had happened: he was presented with something unspoiled. It lay right there at his finger-tips, taunting the long tamed childlike wonder within. All of the outside clutter, gone. Just him and a whole new world waiting to be explored down to the last potion-bearing nook and secret-infested cranny. And so he bellowed without lungs:

  Fuck yeah! Let’s fucking go!

  He was ready. Had been for a long, long time. The void stretched as if queued by his emotion, swallowing everything that wasn’t there. Then, with a wallop, it took him too.