Felicia finished washing her hands and grabbed a paper towel to dry them. Faintly she could hear people singing in the background.

“—When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,

It is well, with my soul,

It is well, it is well, with my soul—”

She wasn’t a regular church goer but she enjoyed classical hymns when she heard them. Particularly when a congregation was singing them, there was something really sincere about how they sounded.

Opening the door, she was faced with a long hallway, that cornered in an L. To her left was the main sanctuary and to the right were smaller rooms used for children’s Sunday school and… other… things... Honestly, she wasn’t all that familiar with what churches did with their many spare rooms.

To get to the sanctuary she’d need to go down and take a left. She turned a corner and saw something strange. There was a man there and he was wearing what looked like a black vest. She had a split second of confusion until he shifted his stance and she saw a gun.

It didn’t happen often but occasionally there were church shootings on the news. Over the last 10 years, there had been more and more such shootings. Some churches had gotten into the habit of having congregation members come in armed or having a police officer stand near the entrance. But this church she was attending today did not, as far as she knew, have any of those safety measures.

The people who were usually at the door weren’t there right now. The door had been left unlocked. Basically, they were the perfect targets for someone with an axe to grind.

Adrenaline rushed through her, fear and anger colliding inside her in a mess of emotions.

Just because she didn’t attend this church didn’t mean she didn’t know people in it. Her friend was here. Her friend’s family was here, including her new born baby brother. There were also lots of nice people she barely knew. And this guy was just going to…. Shoot them dead?

Just like that?

Like hell!

Her feet moved before the sensible portion of her mind could catch up. Though she was no athlete, she was light on her feet and barely made any sound as she practically flew across the hallway. The man had just enough time to hear someone coming and turn slightly before she tackled him, going straight for his knees. He didn’t quite fall but he did stumble.

Wasting no time at all, Felicia began screaming out for help while mixing in a liberal amount of profanities. She couldn’t let this guy shoot anyone and she began frantically kicking, punching and grappling whatever body part she could grab hold of. She even bit into his hand. Those sitting near the back of the sanctuary heard a ruckus and paused in their singing.

The man was struggling to disentangle himself from the surprise assault. Though Felicia was seriously having a go at him, she wasn’t a large girl to begin with, and this guy was quite a bit bigger than her. After recovering from getting hit in the knees, bitten, and kicked, he swung his gun and shot.

This all happened in a few seconds.

The shot rang out very clearly.

Felicia felt a stabbing pain and then cold, falling backward heavily from the bullet’s impact. She couldn’t breathe and felt like she was suffocating. As things grew dark around her, she could hear the door swing open and a surge of voices, screaming.

Vaguely, a caring but unfamiliar voice spoke to her, their words seemingly tearfilled, “Hold on girly, hold on. The ambulance is coming, hold on—”

And then… nothing.

..

…

….

“You swear you’ll take good care of her?”

“How many times must I tell you I will?”

“If I didn’t owe you a favor I’d never let you have her… my poor little child...”

“Everyone owes me a favor— Ugh, stop crying! You’re acting like I’m dragging her down to hell or something.”

“But—but— you’re like a walking disaster… that’s its own kind of hell, you know? I’m giving her to a walking disaster… she’s going to suffer, I just know it… my baby, I’m sooooooorrrrryyyyyy—!”

“You’re really rude, you know that?”

..

…

….

“This is the one?”

“Yes. What do you think? Picked a good one, didn’t I?”

“...what a ‘good one’? I don’t need any help…”

“We both know you failed miserably last time.”

“No, I completed my task!”

“You’re so stubborn… Tsk, you completed it the worst way possible, I already explained.”

“You didn’t specify in the guidelines that—”

“Ah, let’s not argue about this again. I’ve already got her, so there’s no going back. Unless YOU want to deal with that sobbing mess instead?”

“...”

“That’s what I thought. And anyway, it might be fun to have a companion...”

..

…

….

Companion?

Who was going to be a companion? Her?

Wait, before that, who’d been talking? There were three voices total but she didn’t recognize them…

Oh, she felt warm again. Until she felt it, she’d forgotten she’d lost feeling after being shot.

Shot? She’d been shot? She was thinking, so she survived right?

Move some limbs to test things out first.

Oh, fingers movable. Check. Toes seem good. Double check.

She opened her eyes and found herself staring at a white ceiling. It was flat and seamless, the paint so even there wasn’t a single brush stroke anywhere to be seen.

Lifting her arm, she saw it was intact. She felt around where she thought she’d been shot and was relieved to feel smooth skin, like always.

Huh? That wasn’t right. She had been shot. There should be a scar at least!

She sat up suddenly at this thought and looked down at herself. She seemed to be wearing a simple cotton dress that went to her knees. Vaguely she felt underwear, but realized there was no bra. These weren’t her clothes, but they also weren’t a hospital gown either.

Looking around she found herself in a room with perfectly white walls.

Hm?

Where is the light coming from? There’s no light fixtures, no windows, no doors—

No doors?!

She stood up and immediately turned around to double check. When she didn’t see anything, she began feeling the walls. After careful examination, it really did seem like there were no doors. Not only that, there was absolute silence in the room. Not even the whir of an AC or ventilation system. It was like the room was cut off from everything, even moving air.

A prickle of fear began making it’s way down her spine. Where was she? Why was she here? What had happened after she got shot?

“Greetings.”

Felicia let out a high pitched squeal of fright and jumped away from the voice that had sounded to her left. Hands gripping her chest, she looked over and…

...was stumped.

It was a circle with a strong glowing circumference and it was floating in the air right beside her.

Yes, it was just floating there. In. The. Air.

“Greetings.”

When it spoke, the circumference dimmed and glowed along with it’s vocal candace. Its voice sounded like an advanced male text-to-speech program. There was also, she noted, three dots in the center of the circle.

She stared at it and it… appeared to stare back. Though it was hard to say since it had no eyes.

Finally, a pixelated question mark appeared on its… well, she supposed it was a kind of face so… its face.

“Does the user hear this system?”

“What are you?”

“The Dimensional Automated Repair System. Also referred to as DARS.”

“But… what are you?”

Several ??? appeared on its face, showing it was confused by her question.

Thinking a bit, she rephrased her question, “Why are you here?”

“This system is here to guide you.”

“Guide me? Guide me to do what?”

“This system was designed to help the user complete missions.”

As it spoke, the dots appeared again.

“Missions…?”

“Missions may be thought of as corrupted timelines that need to be corrected.”

“...timelines, what..?”

“The user will enter the timeline and, with this system’s assistant, correct the error in the timeline.”

“Uh, and why would I do that?”

The question marks appeared on its face again.

“This system does not understand the question?”

“The last I remember I was shot.”

“Correct.”

“So… uh… where I am?”

“This is the user’s room.”

“...my room?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, but I was shot—”

“Correct.”

“-why don’t I have any injuries?”

“The user suffered fatal injuries.”

“F—fatal?! You mean, like, death fatal?”

“Correct.”

“Uh… but I’m… alive… here… talking to… whatever you are…”

“Incorrect. The user died and is, therefore, dead.”

“No, but, right now I’m obviously alive.”

“Incorrect. The user has died.”

“But then, how can my body—”

“The body user had in EARTHPLAIN033 is dead. The body the user currently inhabits is a replacement.”

“WHAT?!”

“Human souls don’t function properly without a body, thus a body was provided.”

Felicia sat down with a thump, grabbing her hair on either side of her head, feeling immensely confused. How could this body be a replacement? It felt exactly like her old body.

Was she hallucinating? Was this some kind of weird lucid dream?

“The user is perfectly sane and awake.”

She gave him a piercing glare. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

“This system guessed.”

“You… you guessed? You didn’t read my mind?”

“This system does not have the ability to read the user’s mind. However, this system is a guide and understands basic human psychology. The user would understandably be confused and upset to find herself in a new location without any warning.”

“This isn’t real... I just… just need to wake up or something…”

“User, this is real.”

“Yeah? Well, prove it!”

“In what manner could this system prove the user is experiencing reality?”

“Take me home.”

“This location is the user’s home.”

She bristled, “No it’s not! This is… I don’t know what this is… take me to my home, to… 146 Hollydale Dr!”

“User wants to return to EARTHPLAIN033 home location?”

“Yes!”

“Sending Request…. Request received.”

“What are you doing?”

“User requested to return to EARTHPLAIN033 home location. This system does not have the necessary power to complete the request. Therefore this system sent the request to the appropriate authority.”

“Appropriate… are you working for someone?”

“That information is restricted.”

“Why is it restricted?”

“This system is designed to help the user. Information that will not currently help the user, is restricted.”

“Why would knowing your boss not help me?”

DARS’ circumference pulsed for a moment and then he said in his computer-generated voice, “This system does not know.”

Felicia pursed her lips in annoyance.

“Ding! Reply to request has been received. It reads: ‘To [Felicia Li Yun], Those fated to die, stay dead. Unless you want to terrorize your family as a zombie, you can’t go back. I advise you to accept your new life and stop dwelling on the past. You’ll be happier that way. Truly, [Redacted]’.”

“...I take it back, I don’t want to know this arshole boss of yours.”

“Since this system can not send you back to EARTHPLAIN033 home location, how else might this system prove your current situation is real?”

Felicia went silent. Exactly how could this System thing prove to her this was reality? After all, it was possible to dream of waking up, only to still be in a dream. It was possible to believe something to be sincerely real while under the effects of a drug. Only by truly waking, truly detoxifying, does a person realize they’d been in a dream or under the influence.

But that was the crux of the problem.

To prove it was real, she needed to be “woken up”. She defined “waking up” as being home, in her bed, or even in a hospital bed with a grizzly wound. But if she really had been “fated to die” and couldn’t go back, what other method was there to convince her?

When Felicia didn’t reply, the strange circular object asked, “User?”

“I… maybe pain?”

“Could the user elaborate?”

“Maybe if I feel pain I can tell if this place is real?”

“Common opinion in EARTHPLAIN033 is that there are 10 levels of pain. This system is restricted from applying levels 7-10 on the user. Between levels 1-6, which level of pain would the user like this system to apply?”

“...I feel really weird applying pain levels to myself but… er…. level 5?”

“Where would the user like the pain to be applied?”

“Uh… here… I guess?” She pointed at a random part of her hand.

The circle suddenly got closer, causing her to tense. A small electrical current appeared out of it and hit the exact place she’d pointed at.

“Ow, oooooooooooooooow!!” She howled in surprise and, obviously, pain. “It frickin’ hurts!”

“As requested.”

The pain rotated from throbbing to piercing. She shook her hands but it continued.

“Why isn’t it going away?!?!!??”

“Would the user like the pain to stop?”

“FRICK YES!”

Immediately the pain stopped, causing her body to slump.

She would never underestimate pain levels again!

“Is the user now convinced?”

Felicia blinked, the pain having momentarily caused her to forget her goal. She stared at the spot that had hurt, which felt fine now, and bit her lower lip.

That pain had felt extremely real.

Usually people pinched themselves to tell if they were dreaming or not but… suddenly, she wasn’t too sure that was a valid way to prove anything…

“Not really.” She admitted. There was no reason to lie at this point. Feeling helpless, she asked without expecting anything, “Do you have any ideas?”

DARS light throbbed. “Hold your nose until it’s shut.”

“Eh?”

“The user asked, the system is attempting to help.”

“Oh.”

“Hold your nose until it’s shut.”

“Uh, ok…” She grabbed her own nose and squeezed it until it was shut. With a slightly nasally sound, she asked, “Now what?”

“Close your mouth and try to breathe through your nose.”

“But—”

“User, do not argue with the system while the system is trying to help you.”

“Well… ok…..”

“Do not open your mouth or let go of your nose until this system says you can.”

She shrugged and closed her mouth. Though she knew it wasn’t possible, she tried to breath through her nose. Naturally, with her mouth closed and her nose clamped, she couldn’t breath. Though she waited, DARS didn’t give her any kind of signal. After a while, her lungs started to burn and she instinctively let go of her nose and opened her mouth, gasping and glaring at the circle angrily.

“Why didn’t you let me breath?!”

“Breathing is a basic body function. If a person forcefully stops oneself from breathing in a dream, while still trying to breath, two things will happen. 1) The person will continue breathing despite the fact they should not be able to, contradicting human biology or 2) The person will naturally wake up because they’ve caused their real body to stop breathing. The body will forcefully jolt the person awake as a means to start the breathing process again.”

“Neither of those things happened though...

“Correct, because this is not a dream. You responded the way a wakeful person would, which is to release yourself and breathe normally rather than suffocate. Though this is by no means a conclusive method, it is a method to determine dreams from reality.”

“...”

“Has this system helped assure the user?”

“Maybe I’m hallucinating then?”

“...”

“What? We haven’t covered hallucinating yet!”

“Correct.” The circle bobbed in the air and finally said, “Please take hold of this system.”

This time Felicia didn’t argue and immediately grabbed DARS. She blinked in surprise.

“Please describe the feeling of this system in your hands.”

“Uh… you’re surprisingly round.”

“Continue.”

“How are you letting off that weird glow around your edges if you’re round like this? I thought you were some kind of weird flat circle with a glowing circumference…”

“This system was designed to look this way and had no control over it.”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense…” She held him further away from herself and tilted her head. “You’re smooth but not slippery. No matter which way I turn you, those three dots are always facing me… weird, really weird. You feel round but you look flat.”

“Sniff this system.”

“...wut?”

“Remember the goal, User.”

“Right uh…” She brought it close and sniffed it cautiously. She was a little surprised to smell something resembling cleaning chemicals. “You… smell clean.”

“This system always maintains a high level of cleanliness.” He immediately followed with, “Lick this system.”

“Aw hell no!” She practically threw it away from her. Instead of falling, it floated back up into the air.

“You pervert circle!” She pointed at it accusingly.

The circle in question showed a series of !!!! on its blank face.

“This system is not a pervert.”

“Who but a pervert asks to be licked?”

The exclamations vanished to be replaced with three dots again. “...typically hallucinations depend on one or two of the human senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, etc. A way to tell a hallucination apart from reality is to experience the possible hallucination with all physical senses. That is, if a person can see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, and even taste it, then it can be safely categorized as ‘real’.”

“Really?”

“Correct.”

“REALLY?”

“This system has no sexual interest in the user, rest assured.”

She squinted at it and muttered, “...somehow, I feel like I just got insulted…”

“Has the system proved to the user that what she is experiencing is real?”

Felicia frowned. She could keep asking for more tests but… exactly how many more could be done before she was satisfied? That pain felt extremely real. The sense of suffocating and then breathing also felt real. DARS, a thing that shouldn’t exist, also felt real. He even smelled clean.

“Am I…. really dead?”

“Correct.”

“What about my parents? My family?”

“The user was dearly loved and so will be dearly missed.” DARS tone was flat as he spoke, as if her death and her family’s sorrow meant nothing to him.

Probably because it didn’t.

She didn’t move for several moments and then began to sniffle, a sense of overwhelming loneliness and despair engulfing her. DARS floated down and placed itself on her shoulder, bouncing up and down ever so slightly, as if attempting to comfort her. This only made her feel worse and she burst out into tears.

“I didn’t want to die!”

“Yes.”

“I just didn’t want everyone else to die!”

“Yes.”

“Should I have just hid in the bathroom and let everyone get shot?”

“User was fated to die.”

“You said that before. That’s a terrible way to comfort a person.” She glared at him, wiping her tear eyes.

DARS stopped his light bouncing, the dots scrolling endlessly across his strange face, apparently thinking. Finally he said, “All people have a fate, a destiny. User was fated to die in that church. However, though the user was fated to die, she had control over how it happened. Based on the user’s personality, if she was fated to die regardless of what she did, then wouldn’t it be better to go down helping save others?”

She sniffed loudly several times before nodding slowly. If she was going to die no matter what, going down in a blaze of glory was definitely preferable. When she thought how people would always remember her trying to save others in her last moment, a sense of relief washed over.

Maybe she was weird for thinking this way, but dying with meaning was better than living to the ripe old age of 100 without accomplishing anything.

“Though the user has died, because the user has a strong sense of justice, she was selected.”

“Selected?”

“To complete missions.”

“Oh yeah… missions… you… you mentioned that before too…”

“Yes.”

“What was a mission again?”

“Missions may be thought of as corrupted timelines that need to be corrected.”

“Corrupted timelines….” Felicia muttered.

“Correct.”

“How do I correct them?”

“You will be given a series of goals for each timeline. You will be sent to take over the body of someone who is close to the corrupted parts of the timeline—”

“Woah, I’m taking over a body?!”

“Correct.”

“Like some kind of body-snatching alien?!”

“It is better than the entire timeline collapsing.”

“Eh? Collapsing?”

“Corruption… you might also think of it as errors or bugs… left unchecked will cause the entire timeline to self-destruct.”

“When… when you say timeline… you mean… like… a world with people in it? A whole world?”

“Technically, a timeline includes the entire universe as well.”

“You mean if I fail a whole, like, universe will get destroyed?!”

“No. If you fail, you will simply repeat the mission from the starting point until you succeed.”

“...thank God! If I had to get it right the first time I might die from stress before doing anything.” She sighed in relief and then paused, “Wait, won’t I get stuck in a never ending time loop?!”

“Why does the user assume she will fail before even trying? Regardless, the user does not need to worry. Missions are divided into difficulty levels. The user will start at level 1, the easiest level. This system will also be there to help as a guide.”

“Still though… why me? I only just graduated from high school… other than being good at studying and... uh… having a strong sense of justice I guess, how am I qualified to save a universe?”

“This system was not privy to all the qualifications required for user selection. However, the user should be rest assured that she was not selected at random. Whatever strengths and weaknesses the user has are perfectly suited for the tasks asked of her.”

“Even my weaknesses?”

“Correct.”

“Huh.” She went silent in surprise. “Wait, why do you keep calling me “user”?”

“The user is the user.”

“But I’ve got a name.”

“Correct.”

“So why not use it?”

DARS’ outline flashed a bright red and then several dots rapidly scrolled across its face.

“This system… does not want to.”

“...what?”

“This system denies the user name change request.”

“...what the frick… why?”

“The user name change request is denied.”

“...”

“...”

“Are you picking a fight with me?”

“This system can not fight the user.”

“You sure? You sound like you want to.”

“Mission Level 1 will now begin.”

“Seriously? You’re really just going to pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Would User like to Review the Mission?”

“Oy, oy— you round little punk—”

“The users selected [yes] to Review the Mission…”

“Hey!”

“Displaying Review now…”