Chapter 1 Rewrite

Chapter 1

Awareness crept upon Drew Wright as an uncomfortable pressure rose to prominence. The serene comfort of unconsciousness swiftly evaporated as an urgent need came to the forefront of his mind. He had to pee. He grumbled and cracked open his eyes to see that it was still pitch black in the room. He heard the light breathing of his wife, Amber, next to him.

At least her allergies hadn’t been too terrible recently. Being the kind and thoughtful husband he was, he gently removed the covers from himself to shuffle out of bed, as not to wake her. Urging his feet forward in a quiet-like manner, he made his way toward the bathroom to relieve himself.

*THUD!*

"Son of a bitch!" he whispered to himself.

He had run into the damn door. Who in their right mind would close the bathroom door when it's attached to your bedroom as a married couple!? A light rasping of breath from the bed continued while he was busy holding his head.

She must have closed the bathroom door on accident. He wasn’t sure why he bothered to be quiet when she could sleep through a tornado blowing by, or her dumbass husband running into the door face first because he wasn't smart enough to check that it was open in the first place.

He sighed internally.

He finally made it to the toilet. It was time to do his business so he could crawl back into bed and get back to that dream with Amber and her sister. No, no he shouldn’t think about that or he’d have a catastrophe on his hands. He leaned his head against the overhung cabinet to balance himself as he felt a bit woozy after knocking his head. He started to see floaters and fuzzy lights in his eyes. It was bad enough that he was groggy as hell, better stay balanced.

"Ahhhhhh, that's the stuff." he sighed in relief.

*DING!*

A sudden and abrupt sound similar to an easy bake oven or an elevator popped into existence between his ears, it was extremely jarring.

"Ahhhhhh!!!! Jesus Christ..." he screamed.

Talk about a jump scare! Oh no, he was totally unbalanced from the shock of the sound. He tried to remember his lessons in gymnastics as a child, arms out to the side, maintain balance… maintain balance. He was not maintaining anything. He began to fall backwards, dick out, mid-stream and the pressure set to eleven. Funny thing about physics and liquids and movement. He didn’t know a damn thing about them, but he was pretty sure that piss was heading straight towards him. Time seemed to slow, as his adrenaline was pumping.

*System initiation of the Sol System confirmed. 1,000 Human progenitors randomly chosen confirmed. Tutorial introduction commencing...*

He hadn’t landed yet. No, he was still in slow-mo. Blackness began to overtake his vision as a strange window with words hovered in his perspective. He had a concussion. No doubt about it. He was dizzy, unsteady, and kept hearing strange sounds, and now weird windows like a game popped up. He didn't think that he had bumped his head that har...

He blacked out.

*DING!*

*Welcome to the Tutorial introduction Human Drew Wright*

It was cold. He was cold. He tried to find his covers, but he must have gotten hot and thrown them off. His hand felt around and only found a cold, hard surface. That wasn’t right, he should have felt the warm comfort of his bed.

He was laying flat in a bright white room. Like really bright. It was eerily silent as he could hear his own breathing and the pounding of his heartbeat. It smelt like...piss? Did someone put him in a damn nursing home?

He wasn’t that old yet, only 31 this year. He used his arms to push himself up into a seated position. He was wearing cotton heart boxers and a white t-shirt that seemed to be stained with... *sniff* ...piss. Why was he covered in pee?

The last thing he could remember... he had hit his head, then he was peeing, and then a random strange sound and a window? Was it a concussion of some kind? Did someone just toss him into some strange hospital room?

He glanced around the room. It was white. It was bright. The walls seemed off somehow, oh there was no trim from wall to floor. The wall simply became the floor seamlessly. That was pretty neat. There was a desk of some kind, it looked to be an ultra-modern style, with a monitor or all in one computer on it? Then there was an empty chair behind it. He turned his head to survey the rest of the room and he could feel his heartbeat accelerating. There were no windows, there were no doors. He found himself in a strange white cube and the only thing there was, was the desk. He couldn’t even tell where all the darn light was coming from, as there were no lightbulbs or anything.

"Welcome Human, Drew Wright,” said a voice.

Drew jumped for the second time. He threw his head around to find out who had spoken to him. There was a man blocking his view of the desk now. He had brown hair, a bit of a beard, a black t-shirt with some writing on it, jeans, and crocs?

Huh, it was similar to how Drew dressed on most days. Well except this exact moment, where he was wearing heart boxers and a white t-shirt like some moron. Talk about embarrassing. The only thing that would make this situation worse was if he had some really demeaning feminine pet with him, like a fluffy cat.

He leaned over slightly and used his knees and hands to push himself upright into a standing position like a somewhat normal human being. As he stood there, he started to walk over towards the man.

"Uh, Hi? Who are you?” Drew inquired.

"I am your guide for this basic introduction and tutorial of The System, you may call me Spock." The man said.

"Did you say your name is Spock?"

"Correct"

"Cool freaking name, your parents must be awesome."

"I don't have any parental figures." Spock said.

"Oh, well now I feel awful, I'm sorry dude. Any chance you can tell me where I am, and what I'm doing here?"

It was a cool name, and Drew was sad to hear about his folks, something must have happened. Drunk drivers or something. But he needed to know where the heck he was.

"Absolutely, please take a seat at my desk." Spock said.

There were two chairs at the desk suddenly. Drew could have sworn there was only the one chair only moments prior. Actually, sitting down would probably be a good idea. The two men sat down in the chairs and had a wonderful time enjoying an awkward silence. The good news was even though the chair looked like it belonged in some fancy tech place in Cali, it was actually fairly comfortable.

"Drew Wright, in regards to your question, would you prefer the explanation to be fast and easy, or something more in depth?" Spock queried.

"Fast and easy please. I'm pretty worried about what's going on, sooooo yeah."

*DING!*

"The hell is that nois..."

*You have chosen the "Fast and easy Option"

*Zzzzappp!*

His body seized up, while a shooting pain ran up and down it. He fell out of the chair and hit his head. He couldn’t move, all he could feel was pain, like his nerves were on fire.  Awesome. Right in front of poor Spock too.

His body was trembling and all he could do was lay there while his body burned. The only sense that seemed to function was smell, and the only thing that sense told him was that he was in the presence of burnt hair and piss, maybe a fair amount of shame as well.

The whole time while he laid there, there was a window with text floating ahead of him. With nothing else to do he read those eight words. Once, and then twice. The box was still there, like a popup advertisement from the internet. Just like the popups online, it wouldn’t go away. It was irritating as hell, and he wanted it TO. GO. AWAY.

It suddenly minimized and was gone from his sight. Okay, what was going on, is this is like a damn game? Minus all the pain and pee. As soon as he thought about it, the pain stopped, and he could move again. Oh joy, now he was just sore and everything ached.

"SPOCK! What the hell did you do to me!?!"

To his credit, he stood up and came around the desk and offered a hand to help Drew get up.

He was seriously irritated, and even a bit angry, but he honestly didn’t know if he could function enough to stand up on his own. Reluctantly, he grabbed the outstretched hand as Spock helped him off the ground and into a sitting position in the chair.

Spock walked back around to his side of the desk and sat back down. All the while Drew was trying to get his breathing under control. Whatever had hurt him… well it hurt like hell. It felt like he had gotten his finger stuck in an electrical outlet.

"Drew Wright, you chose the fast and easy way. That is to say, you're unlikely to believe your circumstances and situation without being made aware that everything in front of you, is in fact real. As you experienced both severe pain, as well as soiling yourself, and thus are experiencing the aroma of urine, this helps you cope with everything being real…”

“Additionally, as you're likely already well aware, in dreams you cannot smell anything, nor feel any pain, thus proving my words as factual. The pain wouldn't cease until you figured out how to close The System’s notification window that popped up in your vision. Please take a moment to center yourself and take slow, deep breaths. I will answer everything to the best of my ability then."

Uh. What? No, no he was right. Drew needed to calm down and breathe. He needed to think about what just happened. A window had popped up, for the second time today and that noise kept happening. Spock was right, Drew definitely couldn’t smell or feel any pain in his dreams, even in his nightmares or his fantasy's involving getting locked in a bakery overnight and overindulging on everything there.

Smell simply didn’t exist in dreams. Although, it didn’t rule out a concussion or a coma, as he’d never had either of those, he couldn’t be certain. Drew was beginning to lean towards this improbable situation being possible. He continued to take deep and slow breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. Everything was going to be okay.

"Alright Spock, what's going on?" Drew demanded.

"Short and easy answer: Life as you know it will end in seven days."

"Huh? Come again?"

"Humanity, or rather the Humans on the planet Earth are doomed to extinction shortly. There are many reasons for this, but some of the simpler ones that most people can understand is as follows: Your planet was running out of resources, as your society promotes rapid consumption of material goods. Such resources were constantly extracted non-stop and thus increased what you know as global warming…”

“The governments and leaders of your society, rather than working together for the betterment of your species, promoted strife, arms races, corruption, and greed. Both amongst themselves and many of their people. Those resources were dwindling and due to global warming, and your species was on a serious time crunch…” he continued.

“Most civilizations eventually progress past such selfish and corrupt ideologies if they even had them to begin with. For sapient species to flourish, they must expand beyond their home world. Put simply, Earth no longer has enough resources to further grow in science and manufacture large permanent dwellings on other habitable worlds, not to mention travel there, before your global warming ended in the extinction of all life on Earth." Spock finished.

"Oh fuck. So, are you saying you're some kind of alien and you're here to save our collective asses from ourselves?" Drew inquired.

"Incorrect. I am human. However, I was not born on the planet Earth. In simple terms, I was manufactured and engineered, designed specifically so that you, Drew Wright, were comfortable in my presence and receptive to my words. I was given knowledge of your world, your situation, and language to help assist you…”

“While there are many races in the multiverse, that is not what's happening here. The System, something you can think of as a program of massive scope, size and power has instead intervened on behalf of your species. You do not need to know too many specifics of The System, nor do I have many answers…” Spock continued.

“However, the two most common ways that civilizations integrate with the system are as follows: One, A civilization of specific technological understanding and success as well as a specific number of inhabited worlds will either come across the system themselves, or will become integrated. Two, and the most common, a civilization with good qualities and characteristics will have either inadvertently doomed themselves, or are doomed by forces outside their control. In which case The System will enact emergency protocols to attempt to save said species. In your case, Humanity on the planet Earth." Spock finished.

"That's good news, right? If this System or whatever is coming to save our bacon then everything is good. But why am I here, I'm not exactly a leader of the government? I live in rural, BFE Oklahoma and I'm a farmer." Drew was a bit confused.

"Yes, well that's where the bad news comes in, I'm afraid. In order to give your species a chance, major changes are coming. Specifically, most of your technology will cease to function. Weapons known as firearms, as well as more dangerous variants like missiles and bombs, planes, etc. will also cease functioning…”

“Basically, if it was invented in the last one hundred and twenty years and it's a weapon or electronic device, it simply won't work. Some older firearms may still work, but that's about it. Additionally, your civilization will be facing dangerous beasts and monsters as they will begin to spawn as your world is enriched with what you'd know as mana...”

“From the information provided to me from The System about your society and culture, you can basically think of the environment as a hybrid between a fantasy world and something post-apocalyptic. In short, many people are unfortunately going to die." Spock finished his lengthy explanation.

"Okay, I'm starting to lean back into the 'This is probably a dream scenario' but please don't do the pain thing again. Spock, dude, you have to understand the things you're saying... it's like something out of a video game or a table top rpg. I don't know how many people will believe you even if you explain it nicely." Drew said.

"There will be no explanations. You, along with the 999 other humans of Earth are the only ones receiving this tutorial introduction. Well, you and your token holders, but that comes later.”

“All other human beings will be on their own, they will receive some System Prompts upon the descent of The System. While The System is vast and far ranging, there are resource limitations that prevent every individual from receiving the same tutorial introduction that you’re in...”

“Ultimately it is your decision what you do with it, however the goal of this tutorial introduction is to hopefully have some small groups of humans collaborate and strive towards survival. Also, for your reference, yes, it is very much like you would see in Earth video games and other mediums. Races have stats, classes, professions, and many other aspects. Many humans will likely benefit from this as it's not outside their knowledge bases."

"Wait, if you're not giving this rundown to everyone... What about my family, what about my friends? Also why am I not more freaked out about this?"

"Your body has already begun integration with The System while we've been here. Between this room and The System, they will help ease your mind as to prevent panic so that you can understand your situation more efficiently. On that note, we have limited time here Drew Wright, and our time is nearly up. I will answer your question regarding your relatives and friends; however, we must progress after that…”

“After this introduction you will be given five tokens, these tokens may be given to any sapient lifeform you desire. The recipients of these tokens will undergo the remaining parts of the tutorial introduction, the portions you're about to begin…”

“It will be entirely in your hands to convince these other people that you choose, of the knowledge you've been given during this session. They must accept your words as truth for the tokens to function, then they may begin the process and be given a greater chance at survival…”

“As you will soon begin, they will choose a starting class, and should they choose, a race. They will be given basic information on how to interact with system notifications and windows, as well as basic class functionality. Again, it is up to you to convince the people you desire to join you…”

“While every human will have the option to acquire classes, and some may be offered new races, only the one thousand progenitors like yourself, and up to their maximum of 5 token holders will have the chance to do so before the integration truly begins. Lastly, the 1,000 progenitors and their 5 token holders will gain additional boons that will increase their chances of survival. This is all the time I can spare on this section as we must move on quickly or we will run out of time. Are you ready to begin character creation Drew Wright?" Spock asked.

"Character creation? Hell yeah, that's my favorite part!"

*DING!*

*Character Creation sequence commencing*