Milo awoke in a small sphere of normalcy. Said sphere was approximately two and a quarter meters in diameter, but he didn’t know that yet. His laptop computer lay next to him, still quietly playing reruns of The Office. The catchy theme song that ran at the start of each new episode was playing as Milo abruptly awoke, though the music was quickly drowned out by agonized, bewildered screaming as his wrist fountained blood.

He bolted upright, clutching at the stump of his left arm with his right hand. Completely dumbfounded, Milo stared at the place where his left hand was supposed to be in rapidly mounting horror.

-

Congratulations! You have survived dimensional displacement mostly unscathed. Welcome to Altabar! System interface granted.

-

System interface…? Stunned, Milo stared, panting, at the words scrolling across his vision. Then again at his wrist, steadily pumping blood out onto his sleeping bag and all over the carpet. Then, with wide eyes, at the temperate, night-shrouded forest he suddenly found himself surrounded by. He was silent for a long moment. The Office paused, buffering the very best it could.

His mind raced, connecting dots that shouldn’t…shouldn’t be.

But, despite the disorientation and the excruciating pain, Milo had read certain stories, seen certain shows. He was familiar with a particular genre. He had a pretty darn good idea what those impossible words in his vision meant.

There was a part of him that dared to feel a measure of excitement as possibilities blossomed in his mind. Adventure. Superhuman abilities. Magic. Also, had he been living in a simulation? Or was he now…or both…?

Blood. His thoughts ground to a halt.

As much as the part of him that was excited wanted to continue wandering down that rabbit hole, there was another part of him that was missing entirely, and that was taking rather a lot of his headspace for the time being. Dark, wet blood squirted in time with his rapidly beating heart. He resumed screaming.

-

You are bleeding profusely. Sufficient blood loss will result in unconsciousness followed by death.

-

Thanks, impossible message in my vision, so helpful, Milo thought, already feeling lightheaded. Whether it was from the blood loss or just the sheer overwhelmingness of the situation, he didn't know.

Actually, the message was helpful in a way. His automatic snark helped center him a bit, snapping him out of his panic and instead to relevant memories from Boy Scouts he never thought he’d need. A tourniquet is for when it’s life or limb.

The limb was pretty well done for. Now, he needed to save his life. Although, wasn’t an amputated limb supposed to stop bleeding on its own…something about the muscles contracting…? Whatever, he couldn’t risk it. With rapid, shaky breaths, he cast around for something to use, doing his best not to focus on his missing fucking hand. What had even happened?

If some animal chomped it off while I was sleeping, I guess it was only in the mood for a light snack because it left the rest of me. Milo shook his head. He couldn't be thinking about animals. The main danger right now was blood loss. He had to stop it. Focus.

His eyes caught on his computer’s charging cable, visible from the light emanating from his computer screen. It was severed as cleanly as his hand, the charge adapter vanished away along with the outlet, the wall, and his entire life on Earth.

Oh, was my hand just…outside whatever range this thing had? He had a habit of flailing limbs around in his sleep, a habit that apparently hadn’t been accounted for by whatever was responsible for his teleportation.

Focus, Milo. Stop bleeding.

His computer cord would do; its charging days were over anyway. He let go of his wrist to grab it, his bloody stump spurting gleefully at the sudden removal of the hand’s constricting presence. Hurriedly, Milo wrapped the cord around his wrist several times as tightly as he could, fingers trembling. He had to hold down one end of it with his knee as he pulled it tight and finished with a knot.

The wire’s stiffness made it difficult to tighten fully. The bleeding had lessened now, but he needed some kind of rod to cinch it down all the way. Luckily, he had been transported to a forest…at night…probably teeming with dangerous monsters…hm. Deal with that later. For now, stick.

He was able to locate a suitable stick pretty quickly, easily within arm’s reach. It was too long, but he snapped it down to size and worked it under the knot in the wire before giving it a twist or so, taking up every bit of slack in the cord wrapped around his wrist. He winced at the added pain of vice-like pressure in his wrist, but was relieved at the results.

Instantly, the flow of blood had dropped to almost nothing. It still dripped steadily for the moment, but he was out of immediate risk of bleeding out. He carefully secured the stick in its current position with another knot before flopping down on his bedroll, clutching his arm with his remaining hand and cradling it close to his chest.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Then, after a pause, “Shit.” He sat up.

Milo looked around. His wrist throbbed painfully, but he was able to largely ignore it thanks to all the adrenaline his body was currently supplying him with. Need something to cover it with, he’d realized. He couldn’t risk infection. Well, he had to at least try to minimize the risk of infection. His first thought was his pillowcase, but then he wondered if it was full of germs. Something sterile…ish. His eyes fell on a couple empty plastic shopping bags that had held some new clothes he’d bought a few days ago.

Jackpot?

It would have to do. It was a far cry from a nice roll of clean, white gauze, but it would probably do the best job of keeping dirt and germs out of his wound. He grabbed one and secured it using the trailing end of the power cord left over from his wrist, then wrapped another bag around that one for some added protection. He used the string from the waist of his pajama shorts to snug it tightly to his arm. He admired his handiwork.

...Good. Hopefully it would be enough.

Milo’s gut told him it would be. This wasn’t because he had a tremendous amount of faith in his first aid abilities, but rather due to how many stories he’d read where the hero had initially faced a devastating setback, only to emerge victorious, stronger from the experience. His rational side knew that that was probably bunk and there was a decent chance he’d be dead in a few days from gangrene, or maybe some predator would smell all the blood and eat him fifteen minutes from now, but he chose to remain optimistic.

-

Congratulations! By successfully demonstrating knowledge of emergency medicine techniques, you have gained access to the basic class, Emergency Medic.

-

Oh yeah. I’m in a video game now. Or something. Too amped to freak out any more than he already had, he examined the message.

He’d been awarded with a class. That was a good sign, right? He doubted the system would have rewarded him for doing a poor job of taking care of his wrist. Still, he frowned, looking at the message.

Milo had to admit, getting a healing class was probably a great thing. Healing was extremely high up on his list of desired super abilities; he had quite a few lingering aches and pains from twenty years of recreational sports. That said, “Emergency Medic” was a far cry from Deadpool. Having an option to pick and choose classes rather than just take whatever fell into his lap would definitely have been his preference. Although, it did sound like that was maybe still possible? The message did say “access to” and not “obtained”. He needed more information.

“System?” he spoke aloud, feeling a little ridiculous. Nothing. “Status.” Hm. He tried them both again, this time silently in his head. Nope.

Stats. Milo Jemison. Milo Bartholomew Jemison. Stats. My stats. My status. M—Aha!

A screen popped up in his field of view. Weird that it has me specify. Who else’s status would it be? Still, he was extremely glad to have access to system guidance, even if it wound up being sparse. Hopefully now he could get some answers. He read the screen:

-

Name: Milo Jemison

Species: Homo Sapiens

Class: None

Level: N/A

Cap: 0

-

Constitution: Unmodified, (-)Crippled, (-)Wounded, (-)Blood Loss

Strength: Unmodified

Health Regen: Unmodified

Perception: Unmodified

Mana Reservoir: Untapped

Mana Regen: N/A

-

Skills( ): None

Basic Class Pool (1): Emergency Medic

Class Fusion Points: 1

-

Cap 0!? What is this? How am I supposed to get anywhere if I can’t even reach level 1? And why are there no numbers? Huh…and no dexterity or intelligence…

This was very different from what he’d expected.

The words “Emergency Medic” felt special to him somehow, and he gave them a mental nudge. He was surprised when the system immediately responded. Intuitive. Nice.

-

Emergency Medic: No potions? No magic? No problem! It might not be pretty, but an Emergency Medic is there for when there are no pretty options. Or more effective ones.

-Gain knowledge and skills to render rapid aid in dire medical situations. No class fusions currently available.

Make Emergency Medic your class? This choice is permanent. If chosen, all future fusions for your class must include this class (or its future variants).

-

Well that’s…underwhelming. And odd. Why can I take a class if my cap is 0? Maybe when I take the class my cap will increase? Milo definitely didn’t want to test it yet, not with this class. It seemed like an Emergency Medic was lowest of the low when it came to healing classes. Also, why did the system seem to have a sense of humor? And what was this business about fusion?

He examined his screen. There was evidently nothing he could do about it now, but it seemed like once he got more classes he could…smash them together? Huh. That could be neat. He wondered how he could earn more fusion points. It would be nice to be able to experiment with that.

Sighing at the lack of anything immediately useful, he closed the screens and looked around. His wrist hurt. A lot. He had to ignore it though for now, lacking a pharmacy. Oh, wait a second…

His eyes found a dark lump on the carpet next to his bedroll. When he got closer, it resolved itself into his small day hiking backpack. Grinning, he opened the front top zipper and reached inside for the small bottle of ibuprofen he kept there. Ignoring the label’s recommendations, he took a sip from his water bottle, also conveniently nearby, and downed four of them. They obviously wouldn’t erase the pain, but they could take the edge off, at least.

Pausing, Milo looked at the bottle of pills in his hand. Then he took in his backpack, and all of his various belongings surrounding him. This is…kinda great, actually. Not his wrist, obviously, but the fact he had more than the clothes on his back. As a stranded interdimensional traveler, he was really doing rather well.

The sphere. Bubble. Whatever. He could tell by now that that’s what it was. He, along with a good number of his possessions, was on a perfectly disc-shaped piece of flooring cut out of his sister’s basement. There was a smooth, convex chunk carved out of the back of a small dresser near his bed, same as with a desk cluttered with his desktop computer and various random items. He assumed that, for a few feet down, there was genuine Earth earth beneath him. Maybe the last he’d ever know.

It suddenly occurred to him that the world he found himself in had probably lost an equal portion of Alta…barian?…soil to his sister’s basement—along with his left hand. Yikes. Sorry Kelsie!

Actually, how did that work? He’d never heard of random bubbles taking people on Earth. Either he was the first, or the government was keeping it quiet. But that seemed really unlikely, for him never to hear even a whisper. He’d actually worked for the government once upon a time, and they’d never seemed particularly amazing at keeping secrets in his view.

So, was it a swap, or had he simply…been copied? It was a weird thought, but honestly it wasn’t any crazier of an explanation than teleportation. He had zero evidence other than his own wild hypothesizing, but the more he thought about it, the more he was starting to think he’d been copied and...pasted here, like an ill-fitting string of text. Copied and pasted to a strange planet.

After letting the idea stew for a second, he realized it was actually more comforting to think he was a clone than that his whole family on Earth was suddenly thrown into turmoil at his disappearance. Though, he did get a chuckle from imagining his sister’s face on finding a random chunk of forest loam replacing part of her basement.

Yup. Milo had decided: he was a clone now. Kind of freeing, in a way. He could remake himself if he wanted.

Anyway—putting aside the general insanity of his situation for the time being, he looked around and was, for the first time, extremely happy with how small the bedroom his sister had provided him was. That, and the fact he’d procrastinated organizing and putting away everything he’d brought with him when he moved in. In his little teleported sphere he had clothes, shoes, bags to travel with, quite a few stacked boxes of liquid meal replacement, a sleeping bag and sleeping mat, blankets, a freaking toolbox tucked under his desk…actually, he should really take stock. He had way more things than he could reasonably take with him to wherever he went, and he needed to prioritize.

Well, he should do that or try to get some more sleep, but he knew he was way too wide awake for that by now. It was hopefully getting close to morning anyway. Already it seemed lighter out to him than when he had first woken up, though it could have just been his eyes adjusting.

Turning up the brightness on his computer screen for some added illumination and clumsily cracking open a bottle of Soylent one-handed, Milo got to work.