They were letting me go. Madam Havasu’s House of Hope had diagnosed me and they were done with me. My mother had been called.

If you would like to leave a message, please do so after the beep, The machine had said in a robotic voice.

My mother worked two jobs. Her combined efforts afforded us a one-bedroom apartment and 3 meals a day with perhaps a few dollars to spare. I never met my father. Mom tried to raise me on her own.

According to my chart, I now had a new diagnosis. I already had ADHD and Dyslexia accredited to my name. Now I was on some sort of spectrum. When they could not get ahold of my mom, my high school had me placed under a temporary hold at the hospital after an unfortunate incident involving a bully.

I still couldn’t understand why the school would prosecute the victim and let the bully off scott free. I tried my best to follow the chain of command. The teacher explained to me in no uncertain terms that his job was to teach. Dealing with student drama was not part of his job. He suggested that I see my counselor. The counselor had a similar solution to my problem. She informed me that until an actual crime was committed that they couldn't very well punish anyone for something that hasn't happened yet.

I had no proof of the bully's activities up until that point. The counselor laughed and suggested, "Why don't you go home and watch one of those court shows on TV? Get me some evidence. Or a witness. If you do that I will be more than happy to help you."

Bullies tend to have a special talent where they leave no evidence. When it came to witnesses, the other students never wanted to be a snitch even if it was the right thing to do.

The next step up had been the principal. I didn't know why students typically feared this person. He was a very important person, responsible for the health and well-being of every student in the school. I was a 4.0 student too. Well, 4.0 if you didn't count P.E.. Something about physical education just didn't resonate with me. I think it was the physical part. Anyways, when the principal began echoing the guidance counselor, I sort of lost it. I asked him, "Isn't it your job to ensure my safety? I don't feel safe when there's a bully walking these halls."

He sat back in his big leather chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He carefully chose his words when he said, "Can you bring me some proof, anything, that proves what you are accusing this student of? The way I see it, he has a spotless record and has been an overall exemplary student in the four years he has been in my school. You just got here and already have a track record of talking back to teachers and causing problems around campus."

I started to raise my voice, "Those problems around campus were a direct result of the bully, Tim Sumpter. I was running away from him. And you really don't think I decided to throw myself in that trash can do you? How stupid can you be?"

"Excuse me?", the principal scolded, "I am going to forget you just said that. What about talking back to your teachers? There is a list of quite a few..."

I sighed heavily, "I can't help it if you hire idiots..."

And thus I was referred to a specialist to see if anything could be done about me.

I sat impatiently in the lobby while the receptionist muttered, “We aren’t a hotel. That mother of yours needs to pick up the phone or I will make you sit in this lobby all night.”

I silently looked at a crumpled piece of paper that sat idly on the floor next to the trash can. My experience told me that any answer would just get me in trouble.

The portly woman’s attention was soon occupied as her phone rang, “Hello, You have reached Triple H incorporated. How may I help you?”

There it was again. I briefly caught a flash of yellow in the corner of my vision. It danced out of my field of vision when I tried to focus on it.

This was different than those light worms that I could occasionally see swimming around in my eyeball if I focused hard enough. This was a solid yellow object, and it did not want to be seen. It was up there, but when I looked for it, it would suddenly fly upwards, just out of my line of sight. When I looked up, it was nowhere to be seen. It reminded me of the menu bar on a windows computer that would hide when you moved your mouse. Only this menu bar refused to come back no matter what I did.

I decided this was as good of a time as any for a showoff from this anomaly in my vision. I pretended to be very interested in the crumpled ball of paper, trying to trick my eyeball into thinking I didn’t care about the yellow blob in the corner of my vision.

Without moving my eye, I focused my attention on the yellow object. It looked like an icon from a computer. I latched onto it mentally trying to get more information from this anomaly. Suddenly, it obeyed my mental command and appeared in front of me.

Debuff

Description

Duration

Grand Illusion

Block World Magic

Infinite

The receptionist gave me the evil eye as I waved my arms frantically trying to interact with what I was seeing, “I don’t care how much you fake it, I ain’t admittin you!”

I immediately froze mid-wave, not wanting to aggravate the temperamental woman, “Sorry ma’am. I’ll settle down.”

I knew exactly what I had to say to people like this nurse to get them to leave me alone. I tried to focus my mind on the menu and will it to go away.

Attempt to dispel debuff: Successful

That was odd. The menu and the yellow icon in my field of vision both vanished. My eyes flashed red as the text faded from my vision and disappeared. Not only was the text box gone, but I couldn’t get the yellow anomaly to return to the corner of my vision no matter what I did. It had been there for as long as I could remember.

While looking around trying to find my missing icon my attention was drawn to a sudden movement by the receptionist. She looked different than she had just a few moments before. When I tried to figure out what the difference was, another menu popped up.

Name

Sha’Rika Jones

Class

Registered Nurse

Level

1

Affection Level

Overworked Indifference

I looked carefully at what I was seeing. I recognized the menu format from video games, but could not understand why I was seeing them in the real world. I wasn’t sure that I wanted any type of affection from this particular nurse, but the indifferent part made sense.

I tried to focus on other objects in the lobby but had no luck interacting with anything. Nurse Jones threw a pen at me to get my attention, “Ahem, kid. I have been trying to get your attention. Your mother is on her way. Get your stuff together.”

I nodded dumbly and collected my belongings. This included my school bag, pillow, and my favorite blanket. My mother had brought them to me because I couldn’t sleep without them. I was expected to do homework while incarcerated, but I had finished it all in school like usual.

When my mother arrived, she was very tired. She had just worked a double shift then had to come collect me at nearly midnight. Still, she smiled warmly at me and held out a bag from McDonald’s, “They were the only place still open. I got you some Nuggets.”

I hugged my mother and returned the smile. She signed me out with Nurse Jones and we were on our way home. In the car, I focused on my mother to see if she also had a status window. Sure enough, one popped up.

Name

Samantha Kaiser

Class

Retail Clerk

Level

1

Affection Level

Family Love Max

I noticed that, like Nurse Jones, my mother was level 1. Was this normal for a 35-year-old woman to be level 1? It gave me a warm toasty feeling inside to know that she max loved me.

Whatever system was controlling these menus had reverted her to her maiden name, even though she legally kept my father's last name. He had disappeared years ago without a word.

I pulled down the visor which had a tiny mirror. I was hoping that if I could look myself in the eye that I could pull up my own menu. My reflection showed me one of the many reasons I was bullied. I had mismatched eyes. One was a bluish-green color, but the other was a piercing crimson. I was unsure if it was seeing things, but the red one appeared to be emitting a deep glow.

I wasn't an ugly kid, but I also wasn't the adonis that some of the kids in my high school were. At 15 years old, I was the tall lanky kid, coming in at just under six feet tall. Even though I appeared to be malnourished, my weight always surprised doctors at 200 pounds. This did not help me in physical education. I always struggled to keep up with the more athletic kids. One good thing about my weight was that I could always win a prize at carnivals playing the guess your weight game. They always guessed I weighed 150. To go with my eyes, I had a mop of constantly disheveled sandy blond hair on my head. No matter what hairstyle I chose or how well I combed it, it always seemed to have a life of its own and wanted to stick up.

Name

Melvin Murphy

Class

Student (Unlocked)

Level

1

Hitpoints

100

Mana

100

Stamina

100

Strength

25

Dexterity

25

Agility

25

Constitution

50

Intelligence

85

Wisdom

30

Charisma

10

Luck

20

What the hell was this?

Why was my character sheet so much more complex than everybody else's? I didn’t just have a class, I had stats. Not only that but my class was unlocked, whatever that meant.

Now I knew enough to assume that every human had a character sheet. I had no clue why this existed or what it had to do it. For all I knew, it could be a symptom of some crazy mental illness brought about by playing too many video games.

We went straight to sleep when we got home. Mom slept on the couch so that I could have privacy in our apartment’s only bedroom. When I woke the next morning she was already gone. She woke up on 4 hours of sleep to deliver a paper route before the sun came up.

I forced myself out of bed in the early morning chill. Heat was one of the luxuries that we could not afford. Mom only authorized the furnace if it was snowing, and in Southern California, that never happened.

I lived just far enough from my high school to have to take the bus. Normally, I would wake up extra early and walk to avoid the bus. I did this because Tim Sumpter took the bus. He was my least favorite person in the world. Unfortunately, with the drama at the hospital the night before, I had overslept.

I dragged my feet as I trudged through my apartment complex. The bus stop was about a mile away. The school district had placed it closer to the newer housing on the block. Closer to Tim. Missing the bus would make me late for school, but I almost justified missing my entire first class just to avoid the inevitable conflict. Unfortunately, the bus was late.

It had just pulled up when I arrived at the bus stop. A malicious smirk lit up Tim’s face as he watched me slowly make my way to the waiting bus. Having no choice but to proceed, I trudged past him and onto the bus. He slapped my back hard and announced, “It is so good to see you, smelly bastard. Let’s sit together.”

The bus driver hunched over the steering wheel as she did everything in her power to ignore both of us. This was how bullying survived in modern society. Everyone who had the power to do something about it turned the other way and pretended that it didn’t exist. I knew half of the other kids waiting to get on the bus. They were good kids. They just didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t blame them. I was one of them. I wasn’t sure I would get involved if I was a spectator. I was part of the problem. I was a coward.

Would you like to change your class to [Coward]?

No! Why was that even an option? Was it because I was thinking about it? Could these menus read my mind? What were the other choices? It felt like I had chosen the Coward option when I sat down next to Tim. It wasn’t like I had a choice. If I failed to do as he said things he would just get violent. He had done so in the past.

The ride to school was the same as all of the other days. I tried my best to imagine myself being somewhere else while Tim did his best to make my life hell. He wrapped his arm around my neck and squeezed. He gave me a noogie. When that failed to amuse him he pulled my hair. Fortunately, he was alone today. His friends weren’t with him this time. Tim attracted the worst possible people as his cronies. Other kids that were too scared to bully on their own, but loved to watch or instigate. Tim fed off of their enthusiasm and it was typically much worse when he had a willing audience.

As it stood today, everyone else on the bus was ignoring us, and I was just convincing enough to satisfy him. While he didn’t leave me alone or even take his arm from around my neck, he stopped looking for ways to physically hurt me and just started going off about how pathetic I was and laughing at his own jokes. I took the reprieve as a chance to examine the bully.

Name

Tim Sumpter

Class

Deviant

Level

1

Affection Level

Bully Indifferent

Again with the level 1. Was everyone on the planet level 1? I chuckled a bit when I read [Deviant] as Tim’s class. This earned me a few hard punches to the arm. I yowled and winced appropriately, knowing he would just hit me again if I failed to react.

Mercifully, the bus ride to school didn’t last too long I retreated to my sanctuary: [The Library]. While Tim did use me as a punching bag to pass the time, he also had better things to do than following me around all morning. He also knew that Mrs. Hodgin, the Librarian, was one of the few people that would stand up to him. That woman was my hero.

She glanced up at me with a smile as I entered the library. I returned the smile and didn’t notice the change in her expression as I made my way to my office. My office was a table hidden in the back behind rows of books. It was tiny with perhaps enough room for two people to read a book or do homework together. Mrs. Hodgin had put it there just for me. This way I could read in peace without being disrupted by any of the other students as they came and went.

I sat down to think. Under normal circumstances, I would have sought out a book or had a project in mind before I sat down, but today I had a single objective. I needed to think.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that chance to think. My one ally broke an unspoken rule and sat down across from me. I looked at her in confusion. She had never done this before. She smiled warmly, “Good morning Mel. How are you feeling today?”

I gaped at her. This was not a typical interaction with the librarian. While we had spoken before, it was usually along the lines of asking how my lessons were going or what types of books I enjoyed. We did briefly speak about my bullies and what they had done to me. This resulted in Tim getting banned for an unrelated reason. Mrs. Hodgins had gone out of her way to make sure that this place would be safe for me and that her actions couldn’t result in further bullying.

We had never sat together. Also, I felt like she was probing me for something with the way she asked me how I was doing.

I rummaged through my bag to avoid making eye contact with her. I habitually did things like this when awkward situations made me nervous. I mumbled, “I am about as good as usual.”

Finding nothing of interest in my bag, I was forced to look up at the librarian which caused it to happen again.

Name

Vanessa Hodgins

Class

Scholar

Level

2

Affection Level

Ally Friendly

I managed to look through the menu to find Mrs. Hodgin’s eyes. She was regarding me with curiosity. I had a strange feeling by the expression on her face that she knew what I was seeing so I asked her, “How did you reach level 2?”

She grinned at my question, “I knew it. You can see the menu. Congratulations on waking up.”