She sat on the ground staring in front of her. It rained. Cold big droplets of water were falling on her naked body. Everything around her was in shades of grey. The streets were grey, the cars that passed her by on the right were black, making noise and puffing out fumes. The pedestrians were all dressed in long black raincoats and black umbrella's. She had been sitting here for thirty minutes now; cold to the bone; shivering. Her brown hair draped on her face while her blue eyes had another kind of chill in them. She knew where she was; she had seen the little girl in the yellow raincoat stand in front of her, being her. Now she had seen the scenario unfold from the outside, like she had lived it a hundred times before.

She kept sitting, not feeling her legs anymore from the cold. Her heart drummed in her ears. Rage, sadness and a deep seeded panic that threatened to take over if she gave away an inch whirled inside. She kept sitting. This wasn't real. just like the dreams were not real. She could fight the feeling to stand up and run away, or run towards the little girl and hold her. The rage inside of her swelled with every passing pedestrian doing nothing. The sadness she felt seeing her parents as she only saw them in the dream.

They were holding the little girl now. A happy family for a few seconds. Knowing it wouldn't last. Thunder sounded in the air, and time stopped. Rain drops stopped in the middle of the air. Now was the time to act.

She stood as the pedestrian came out of the crowd. Making her feet move over the cold cement. She passed her family and the little girl in their Yellow raincoats being happy. The drops of water that hang in the air landed on her anyway, leaving a corridor of dryness behind. The pedestrian lifted his umbrella to show a faceless head.

It was all the same, but yet extremely different. She could do something now, it empowered her, gave her strength. Gave her the boldness to stand up to the nightmare that had been haunting her for the past 14 years. The pedestrian took another step into the direction of the happy couple and their little girl, the girl curiously poking the rain drops around her not yet aware of the coming danger. As always.

She stood in front of them as the pedestrian turned its umbrella up. Hearing her younger self ask in a confused yet curious tone "Why are you naked miss?" It was different, blissfully different. She turned her head a little and smiled "Don't worry little one everything will be fine." Turning back towards the faceless man, she felt something in her hand and looked down. It was a gun, cold and heavy. She brought it up for a better look, a desert eagle, the same gun used by the faceless man.

She turned her gaze back towards the faceless man. He in turn had stopped walking. Pointing his gun at her "Get out of my way," he spoke. She didn't move or say anything, she just stood there. She knew what the right decision was. It was not this faceless man she needed to worry about. He had always asked permission from the crowd. They had always given it to him. So what if she used the gun? Another of the crowd would stand up, it would not stop them. So, she would stand in front of the people she loved more than life and be their shield.

The faceless man was no killer, he would commit suicide once he had killed. She knew this and thus she would stand there. Be the sacrifice they needed. She felt the rage, screaming to kill the man to rip him to shreds. She felt the panic telling her to run. Ignoring them, she stood her ground. The man aimed and fired. As she felt the bullet enter above her heart, she fell to the ground. A girl in a little yellow raincoat, gasping. Asking the faceless man what he had done. She heard the faceless man whisper "What have I done?" Another shot. Then quiet.

The world came back to life, and she was bleeding on the streets. A face came in her field of vision. Her face. Puffy cheeks red from the crying. "Are you alright miss?" The little girl asked. She tried to lift her arm to touch the face of the little girl, her face. She couldn't. Behind the little girl she saw her parents looking around confused. She smiled and said "I am now, little girl." A tear of joy dropped onto the wet and stained red concrete. Before blackness took her once more.

The environment changed again. Laying on the cold black glass. Compared to the previous temperatures it felt warm to the touch. She slowly sat up, regaining her bearings. She was back on the endless glass plain, the stars were shining down on her. A few moments passed before a black mass of shadows came to life in front of her. "You have done exceptionally well in this part of the test. Aptitude test ten, eleven and twelve completed. With that, so is the assessment of your aptitudes. For your information the last tests were mental fortitude, empathy and persistence." She nodded too tired from all the emotions running through her a few seconds ago to react to the statements the formless shadow was making. He on the other hand seemed to wait for something. After a while she sighed and said "I confirm I have understood. What is next?"

He nodded and said "Good, then that concludes this test. You can now go over your character appearance, setting a character name and setting a difficulty of your starting location. I can also give you a list of your aptitudes that can be used in job solicitation if you found there to be a need for it. Would you like to see your aptitude list now? This can be done at any moment within the game. Further information about aptitudes can also be found within the game."

She listened to his rattling before responding with "I think I have to take a break so I can tend to my real world needs. Can I continue the process of character creation after that or do I need to start over if I leave at this stage of the process?" The shadow was quiet for a moment before saying "It is not important that you finish the character creation right now. Its length is significant, breaks are expected. However, keep in mind that the process has to be completed twenty-four hours after it is started. You have twenty more hours to complete character creation, approximate time of completion is fifteen minutes." She nodded her head, saying "Then I will see you in an hour. System log off."

As she said the phrase, the starry sky and black glass floor faded out of view. The ceiling of the entertainment room came back into view, the wooden beams supporting the pointy roof. As she logged off the lid on the coffin automatically slid open. In slow motions she got out of the pod. Strangely none of the liquid stuck to her, and she got out just as dry as he got in. She looked around, finding the room to be empty. Then walked towards the table, taking a seat, placing her elbows on the hard wood, laying her forehead into her outstretched palms. She rubbed her eyes a little before moving her head slightly towards the giant window. It was still raining. She seemed to mind it less than she did four hours ago.

She turned back to staring at the hard wood top of the table before laughing a little, then a lot, a small trickle of tears covering her cheeks. A game had confronted her with her worse nightmare just to test her aptitude. And actually helped her find some kind of closure. Not that she was over the fact that her parents had been gunned down in front of her. She just felt less helpless. Suddenly, the laughing stopped. A burning sensation in the back of her throat. She puked, got of the chair and got a mop to clean it up.

Ten minutes later, she had cleaned the place up and pressed another intercom, saying "Frank if you have time could you come to the entertainment room with a light lunch, a bathrobe and some time to talk about my vitals during the game?" After a characteristic small pause the crackling sounded and Frank spoke in the confirmative. Another five minutes and Frank came strolling into the room with the requested. A BLT sandwich and her bathrobe. She smiled at him saying "Thanks Frank, I have been feeling like a nudist the last couple of hours. The outfit you wear before entering, is your outfit during quite the lengthy character creation." Frank nodded his head in understanding before saying "I have monitored your vitals every hour as requested, all were within normal parameters".

She nodded, "That's good to know, thanks. Oh could you check the Terms and Condition for any non-legal blabbering? Use the normal parameters we have spoken about for previous ToC's. I don't wish to be legally owned by Nsquared." She said to Frank after she put on the bathrobe, putting the plate with food on the table top.

There had actually been cases of people going into semi-slavery because of accepting a very shady ToC. The government had found out and locked the writers of that ToC away. But that was because of what they had them do, rather than why they had them do it. Frank nodded his head again and said "Certainly Miss, right away." He walked to the pod. Hooking himself up again. This time it was far faster than the previous time. He came back with the not surprising conclusion that even though there were some very shady, almost borderline criminal statements, in there. Non would hold up in court. "Alright, accept it if you can".

"I did Miss, is there anything else? Do not forget you have another three hours of studying." She groaned. Sh had totally forgotten. "No, I remember but thank you for the reminder. Actually, could you prepare information on the game? I think once in a while study time should be used for something I actually enjoy don't you think?"

Frank scrutinized her with his gaze for a while, then surprising her with a nod of his head stating he agreed before leaving. She ate her sandwich After all the necessities were taken care of she went back to the pod and climbed in. The feeling of scraping sand had lessened. It seemed she was getting used to it. As she repositioned herself she told the pod to close. Everything faded to the now much to familiar cold black glass and starry sky. The shadow seemed to have stayed as well. she looked down, still naked. Her theory was right.

"Alright, I'm back and ready to roll" She said to the shadow. "Certainly. First order of business. What would you like to be your IGN also known as in game name? Names do not have to be original." She had already thought about this before even deciding to buy the game. She always used the same name, her original name. It was looked down upon by the community but she had her reasons. Most of them had to do with the fact her parents had given it. And who bothered pleasing a community of adolescent men, who played games all day anyway right? She cleared her throat and then said "S - o - p - h - i - e, Sophie".

After a slight pause the shadow continued "Great choice, now would you like to adjust your outer appearance? It is recommended to not adjust more than 20% away from the original as that might affect movement in game." Again this was a no brainer. She thought of herself as very much decent enough to attract enough attention, and she was not inclined to attract more attention to herself then she already did. As it went for fitness and body shape. She worked hard for what she got. She didn't want to soil all that effort by tweaking stuff just to look an extra 1% hotter in tight leather pants. "I wish to enter as is".

Again, the shadow was fast to respond "As you wish. Now last on the list. What kind of starting zone would you like to begin. There are three options. Option one, low risk, low reward. Option two, normal risk, normal reward. Option three, high risk, high reward. Based on your aptitudes I would suggest the latter of the three options but the choice is yours." This got her thinking, she liked a challenge, but she also liked to be good at what she did. High risk high reward smelled like a lot of deaths and destruction before tasting sweet success.

Hmm, what were her aptitudes anyway? "Could you show me my aptitudes and explain why they are important?" She asked the shadow. "Of course Sophie, right away" Some lights in the sky came down, and they formed a list.

Sophie Physical: Practical: Speed 3.7 Pilot 2.1 Strength 2.9 Engineer 3.7 Agility 3.9 Spatial awareness 2.2 Mental: Intellectual: Mental Fortitude 4.9 Intelligence 3.1 Persistence 3.9 Numeric 3.7 Empathy 4.2 Linguistic 3.4

"As you can see, the aptitudes you tested for are those that you will take with you into the game. They are not only a mirror for what you are now but also a prediction of what you can achieve. One of its functions is to be, in a way, a multiplier for your skills. The rest you will have to find out yourself. The maximum score for any aptitude is a score of five. Rarely, if ever, seen in a human being. As an example, a savant specialized in math like the character in the Hollywood blockbuster Rain man would probably score a 5.0 on aptitude in numeric. the fact you scored a 4.9 on mental fortitude is the highest score we have seen in our universe."

She let him talk while staring at her aptitudes. It surprised her to see her strength being one of her lower scores, even though she always considered herself to be trained and fit. Piloting was not a surprise. She figured it could have been worse if she had ruined the landing as well. But what was good and bad, anyway? She wouldn't know until she knew the average, so she asked "Say, Marv, what is the average aptitude, and how is it graded? Linear? On a curve?"

She was hesitant to ask. Not wanting to ruin the good feeling she got when she saw all those high scores. The shadow was silent for a while. Answering in its melancholy filled, low voice "The original tests should average at 2.5, but after a series of especially incapable personnel threatening to sue the company because they had bought a game that would have been almost unplayable for them. The creators eased the test, towards an average aptitude score of 3.0. A minimum aptitude of 1.5 that was given to any player score lower than that."

Hmmm so she was below average in strength, that was major bullshit... "Are you allowed to explain, or give me my test results in comparison with others? For certain aptitudes. I do not agree with the result in strength." She asked in a irritated manner. She had trained hard, how was she below average? The shadow responded in a quick and concise manner. Going back to his old habits of sounding extremely bored. She only noticed now but the machine-like talk of the shadow had changed into something more human over the course of their interactions. Now it had reverted "Correspondence about aptitude calculation is not allowed. If you do not agree with the score, you can re-test it for the fee of 100 dollars. Please confirm if you understand."

She sighed both at the change in speech of the weird shadow as for its answer. There must be hundreds of butt hurt people out there not agreeing with their aptitude scores. She was about to say confirm and be done with it, when the shadow leaned in, whispering "But keep in mind Miss Sophie that the aptitude scores of men and woman are calculated as if they are the same. Which skew's results slightly in the favor of men for strength, my apologies." She was shocked for a moment. Gone was the melancholy, the machine talk and the low voice. It sounded like another being, human... "T-thank Marv… I Confirm..." She stuttered a little, caught of guard by the sudden change.

The shadow stayed quiet. Waiting for her to ask another question or decide on her starting location. She had a choice to make. If she was honest with herself it wasn't really a choice. She enjoyed an easy path like any other, but if she took the normal route right now or the easy route, she would get bored. She would not enjoy her achievements as much when she knew she had taken the easy way out.

So even though she wanted to be good at the game she had to take the hard route just so she could enjoy her achievements, goddamn brain. She sighed, noting she sounded more like Marv the depressed robot then the shadow and said "I will go with high risk high reward, option 3, as my starting zone." The shadow seemed to nod in approval of her decision before saying "Very well, then the procedure of character creation is over, would you like to ask something before I sent you on your way?"

She thought for a moment, then smirked, asking in a dramatic voice "Will I ever see you again Marv?" The Shadow had a very uncharacteristic laugh at that. Shocking her for the second time in minutes. Then spoke one last time "I certainly hope not miss Sophie, as either my starship might not survive or we would share a hard drive. Goodbye." As she was still processing what had happened after she tried to crack a joke at an AI. The glass floor turned liquid, and she splashed into darkness, in the middle of her reply "Sharing a hard drive?"

She slowly opened her eyes. Hearing the blearing noise of an alarm going off. It felt distant, like it was inside another room. A room she wasn't in at the moment, but was close by. Still loud enough to irritate the crap out of her. She felt groggy, like she had slept too long or had just fainted. A red haze surrounding her and she could hear her own breathing. See it, slightly condensing against whatever glass window her head was leaning against.

She tried to move but her arms were heavy, trapped in some kind of clothing. At least she wasn't naked anymore. With the greatest of efforts, she brought her hand towards her face. As she tried to touch it, the hand tapped the glass her head was leaning on. What the hell? She looked at the hand. It was wrapped in a white glove, she wiggled her fingers and the fingers in front of her moved. It really was her hand. What the hell was going on? She looked the other way seeing a white floor, filled with debris. Not recognizing any of it as it was moving erratically across the floor.

Trying to sit up, her body felt ten times heavier than usual. Groaning she pushed with her hand on the floor. Slowly she went up, and at that moment a shock went through where ever she was. Slamming her head against the floor again. A small trail of blood ran passed the glass now where she hit her head. The glass had not shattered. Now groggy and in pain she pushed herself up again, groaning even louder she sat on all fours for a while trying to get her head straight. Trying to control the slight vertigo that was rampaging in her head.

The next step would involve looking around but she was not sure if she was ready to see the challenge laying in front of her. Tilting her head to the side in a slow motion, she looked at what was a white room. Cylinder shaped, not very big, it was only three meters deep and around one meters wide. The object at the end of the room looked like a chair and in front of the chair was a panel. It looked a lot like the insides of the starship in the pilot aptitude test.

The room was littered with debris. Big, small, steel and plastic all rolling around the floor. As for the alarm she was hearing, it definitely came from this room. A red police like light was showering the room in red every five seconds. She tried to focus on what the speakers were putting out but at this point she could only hear her own heavy breathing combined with the sharp tones of the alarm.

She tried to stand up. Putting her right foot underneath her, then the other. She slowly rose into a vertical position. Once standing, she looked down at herself. She finally realized that she was wearing a space suit. Not a high tech one so it seemed as it looked exactly like the ones they were wearing twenty years ago when they first tried going to Mars. Completely white, except for some metal looking parts. She felt like a bloated version of herself.

Her head clearing she remembered she was in the game, she had chosen the hard way, thank god she did that! Right! Fuck! Calm down, assesses the situation, and then go into action mode. What was happening? It seemed she was crashing. She tried to walk towards the pilot seat. All the trash on the ground in combination with another shock wave through the vessel, landed her flat on her glass visor again. This time she caught herself a little so no new head injuries. She did come to the decision not to walk in the rodeo mode she was in at the moment.

Going back to all fours, she shuffled her way through the mess on the floor. As she finally arrived she climbed into it, quickly searching for some seatbelts and putting them on. Alright next up, shutting that damn alarm off! It was driving her nuts. She looked at the panel and wanted to scream again. None of the buttons had any indication what they were for.

Never mind about the alarm she thought, looking outside through the cabin windows. In front of her the starry sky turned into the massive outline of a grey planet with several craters on it. It seemed her vessel was attempting to hit the planet at point blank range. With no intention of slowing down. Staring at the buttons in front of her she tried to remember where the buttons in the landing sequences were placed. Deciding on a button she crossed her fingers and pressed it. As she did a system message came into view on her visor.

Your piloting aptitude has not evolved to generation 2, thus you cannot use this button at this point in time.

Staring at the message for a couple of seconds she ignored it and press another button, just to get the same system message as before. God dammit! at this point she started feeling the adrenaline kicking her fight-or-flight response into gear she felt a slight panic rising in the back of her throat. Pressing three more buttons at random until she finally pressed a button that did something. As she was pressed into her chair by the acceleration force, she immediately regretted ever touching the button.

"God dammit!!!! How the hell am I supposed to survive this!" Shouting into her helmet only made her visor foggier. She slammed her hand against her head to calm down. Think, think, think, she kept looking towards the buttons, now also noticing the small output screens that were giving her a variety of numbers. She had no clue what they told her, but one of them was flashing red, going down at an alarming rate.

Looking through the glass again she saw the surface of the planet coming closer and closer. The fact that there wasn't any resistance as she was making her way towards the surface made her think it was a planet without an atmosphere. Thus, a planet without oxygen. "Just keeps getting better..." She kept staring at the buttons. She had to remember which one was the kill switch, which one was the landing thrusters...

As time passed, the alarm upped its game as well. She could now hear its output just fine. Sadly it only contributed towards putting more pressure on her then she already was on. As it drove away the final bit of insecurity, she would definitely crash if there was not something done

"

As she was celebrating, she grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, pulling it towards her. She was too close to the surface to avoid the crash but maybe she could still make it a rough sliding landing instead of creating another crater. After five seconds, the screen that seemed to give her the exact distance slowed its descend a little. The alarm changing its tune to, please prepare for collision, activate thrusters and kill engine. Except she still couldn't remember what buttons were responsible for those two.

There were only a dozen seconds left. She could already see the surface from the window, it was now or never. She thought the two buttons on the far left were the kill switch and the thrusters but she wasn't sure. There was no more time, she had to take the chance. As the surface came closer and closer, the alarm became louder, more urgent. She pressed the first button, it killed the engine.

"Finally!" She screamed into her helmet fogging it again. Finally, some luck. Slowing down a little she pressed the second button and got the system message. It was too late to do anything more. the vessel, or escape pod as the alarm had called it, crashed into the surface at an awkward angle.

The shock whip lashed her head forward, then snapped it back. For the first time she noticed her health bar in the left corner of her vision flashing bright red before 25 percent left the bar, fading into nothing. Once first contact was made, the pod didn't slow down and went head over heels before slamming its rear into the hard surface. The force lifting it back into the low-atmosphere space that surrounded the planet. Ten to fifteen rotations later it crashed its nose back into solid ground.

Inertia gone, the pod didn't move anymore and stood there, buried in the ground of the strange planet. The force of the impact had made her go unconscious again. Waking up to a similar scene she had already experienced once. The blearing alarm, the floor in one half of her vision, the rest of the pod in the other. She was facing away from the panel, or more accurate she was laying against the panel. She tried to get up but noticed that she was still attached to the seat. The chair had broken off during collision. Even though it had been secured by four large bolts to the floor. It had smacked her around the pod while she was still in the chair, probably hitting her unconscious.

Trying to get the seatbelts off, she slowly felt around finding the old-school clicking device that was holding her in place. She removed the seatbelts trying to get up to look around. She couldn't stand on the floor as it was in a 60-degree angle upwards. She looked back and all the stuff on the floor previously, had now made its way behind the panel, the lowest part of the pod. Another thing she noticed was the crack in her visor... Not something she was happy about. Not fond of finding out what space felt like on the bare skin. Her newly discovered health bar was now down to thirty percent health. She felt like shit.

It was like she had gone out for a heavy night of drinking. Then falling asleep on a cold bench in the middle of winter. Her head hurt, her neck hurt, she felt like her brain was only working on half the capacity she expected it to work. She slowly tried to climb up the floor. She reached the other end where there was a round hatch. It looked like a vault door, including a wheel shaped turning mechanism you had to turn before it opened. As she turned the wheel until it couldn't move any more, a light next to the door turned green, before the hatch opened outward.

As the hatch opened everything, including her was shot out as the pod decompressed. She half expected it to be like this but she was still a little surprised. Not in the least because the second she opened the latch a small meter underneath her health started a countdown. Next to it the ominous word Oxygen. Great, now I have to find a source of oxygen in the next… they weren't kidding when they said hard... Freaking 3 hours to find Oxygen... On an empty planet without an atmosphere… high rewards Sophie, high rewards…

She floated for a little before landing on the surface. Her surroundings were pitch black. It seemed she was on the part of the planet that was enjoying the sunless part of the universe. That there was a sun she was sure of as she could see the surface just fine when she was in out of space. Right now she could barely see her own fingers. That she could do that much was mostly the pod giving off light through the window in the front that was barely sticking out of the ground. The rest was pitch black only to be interrupted by a spectacular sky full of twinkling stars. It felt a little like she was back in the place where she had taken the aptitude test. Only now not butt naked. "I should have some kind of torch or flashlight on this suit right?" She talked out loud. When she said the word flashlight, the area on top of her head shone a cone of light in the direction she was looking. Handy.

It was rock she thought as she landed. Dust seemed to get up, floating around her. She looked at it as she slowly moved her hand through the stone dust. It slightly twirled around her hand. Everything she was experiencing was like when she had bound weighs around her ankles and went for a walk on the bottom of her pool. She tried to take a step forward. It felt like she jumped into the air. She came loose at least two meters high before slowly getting down, touching solid ground again. Looking behind her the heavily damaged escape pod was standing around 3 meters further away than it had a second ago. "Cool..." She whispered to herself before making another jump, this time with the same result as the last. This would be fun! Finally! Until she suffocated... She whispered again "Out of my way woman on a mission coming through," leaping another step into the dark.