[Monday, September 7]

Zachary stood in the air lock to his high school reading a book. School had been out for a while already, but his mom usually got done with work after everyone else had already left.

Bored, he closed the book and returned it to his backpack. Then he looked out at the grass football field. Fully padded jocks ran wind sprints, did jumping jacks, and stood in various lines across the field. A coach’s whistle screeched at regular intervals, prompting pairs of them to clash heads, reset, and then clash again.

Zachary had mixed feelings about sports. He enjoyed them when he was playing them, but he also wouldn’t care if he never saw a game ever again.

On one hand, he longed to play football with the rest of the guys. It was always desirable to become a part of something larger, to fit in with a group of like minded people. He was naturally athletic too. He knew how to move his own body. But the football program wanted him to be larger and dumber.

The former was something he couldn’t do, no matter how much he trained and ate, and the latter was something he refused to be. That was just the nature of things.

Zachary considered himself smart, so playing sports like football was just an easy matter of memorizing the plays and positions. The only hard part was gaining the necessary muscle and staying in shape. Although, maybe that was just him being naive, as his mother told him he usually was.

He sighed.

‘If I cloned myself ten times, I might enjoy being on a team like that,’ he mused inwardly.

He imagined a football team of identical hims, all in perfect sync with each other.

Laughter broke out behind him, interrupting his daydream like someone popping a bubble. The airlock door opened. Three boys in full pads, slightly taller than him but with almost a hundred pounds more bulk, entered the airlock. They stopped to put on their cleats.

The tallest of the three, Jacob Langer, gave him a nod. "Hey, Zach. I see you’re still here."

Zachary glanced to the side, avoiding eye contact.

"Yeah," was all he said in reply.

As if noticing him for the first time, the other two beside Jacob, who he recognised as Frank and Michael from his English classes, nudged each other before seemingly coming to an agreement.

"Maybe this shrimp can join the football team since he has so much free time." Michael said in a mocking tone of voice. "He might make E team!"

"We don't have an E team." Frank joked. He strode over to Zachary, who now felt thoroughly uncomfortable, and pretended to tackle him. "This is what would happen if we did."

He ruffled Zachary's hair and pushed him with one arm roughly, but not too much to leave a bruise, into the wall. Had anyone been looking, they could just claim it was friendly banter.

Since his eyes were downcast, Zachary didn’t notice the frown on Jacob’s face.

“C’mon guys.” Jacob said, making for the exit. “We’re late for practice.”

Frank and Michael chuckled, congratulating each other on the wordplay, then left the airlock towards the field. Zachary rubbed a sore shoulder.

As soon as he finished eating dinner, Zachary locked himself in his room and plopped himself down on his favorite gaming chair.

The package he had been waiting for had finally arrived in mail that morning. Had he not had school, he would have sat down to open it right away.

Now the brown package lay on his lap, mysterious and tempting. A standard white label indicated the delivery was from the game store. Using his pocket knife, the last gift he ever received from his father, he cut the packaging and brought it out.

There was a light knock on the door. It was his mother again.

“Zachary, don’t forget I’m leaving in the morning to visit Grandma,” she said through the closed door.

Zachary looked up. But didn’t even bother opening it for her.

“Yeah. Okay. Have a good time.”

“I’ll be gone for a week, so I’ve asked Mrs. Heizel next door to bring you food. You’re on your own for breakfast, but if you ask her, she might even cook you dinner.”

“Thanks. I’ll be sure to do that.”

“Also, since I’ll be gone, you’ll have to wake up early enough to bike to school. I know it's a long way, so set your alarm before you forget.”

Then he heard the sound of his mother’s retreating footsteps.

He knew he was being rude, but his mom could be a little overbearing sometimes. A highschool freshman could have a little freedom from time to time. Besides, they would see each other again in a week.

With a sigh, he returned his attention to the new game in his hands.

“Dungeons and Towers two. Snovideniye. Extended edition,” he read aloud.

He made a puzzled face. He didn’t remember ordering the extended edition.

He shrugged, then opened the container, entranced with the violet and blue disc.

Supposedly, Dungeons and Towers II, written with the Roman numeral for two, was as good as, if not better, than the recent Elder Scrolls game that had come out a few years previously. It was one of the pioneers in modern gaming, exploring new game mechanics and alternatives to random encounters. You could see the monsters, choose whether or not you wanted to engage them, and then fight the way you wanted.

Also, it was supposed to be huge. Not including the procedurally generated parts, the map size was bigger than any other game before it.

Zachary inserted the disc into the player, then grabbed his controller and fired up the television. His excitement swelled as he waited thirty seconds for the machinery to catch up. Finally, the screen displayed itself. He hit a few buttons and let the opening play through.

[In a world of magic, one hero is chosen to rise up against the tides of darkness and threatens to consume all in his path.]

A moment later, a prompt read [create your character].

A pixelated character dressed in a white shirt and tan shorts filled the screen. Zachary attempted to make the character look as much like himself as possible. He made himself tall and slim, gave himself dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. His skin in real life was pale so he made his new character's pale as well.

But unlike in real life, he made his character as tall as possible. By game standards, his character would be 6'3 rather than his real life height of 5'10. He also made his character slightly more muscular as befitting of the fantasy genre.

When he was satisfied, he named his character simply [Zach]. Then clicked submit. The narration for his new adventure began.

[The path to strength is long, but with time and luck, you will achieve greatness. The world is yours for the taking - ]

Suddenly, after the first sentence of the intro, the tv turned off and the lights in his room also turned off.

‘What! Noooooo!’ he cried inwardly.

The power had gone out right after he had spent an entire hour on his character creation. He didn’t even know if it was saved.

He pulled back his curtains and looked out the window. The neighbors' houses seemed to be experiencing a blackout. No light came from any of the numerous windows.

‘Of all the times to have a power outage.’

With nothing else to do, Zachary hopped in bed, waiting for the power to turn back on. He could hear his mom now, probably digging through the fridge, trying to salvage some leftovers for him tomorrow and make sure everything stayed cold.

Too tired from the long day to help her, or to do homework, Zachary just waited.

Sure, he had a project due in English, but he hadn’t planned on doing it in the first place. He had set aside his whole evening only for bad luck to ruin it. He checked the date on his clock and let his mind wander.

Finally, as the hours continued to tick by without electricity, he succumbed to sleep.

Zach shifted at the sound of a loud goose honking. He pulled his arm over his face to block the bright light. A chilling breeze washed over him, making him shiver. Wondering who opened his window, he cracked open his eyes.

Instead of the familiar protection of his bedroom ceiling, he was greeted by the clear blue of open sky. He sat up abruptly, his arms brushed against grass and his hands dug into soil.

Zach found himself in the middle of a field. Tall grass surrounded him except where he sat, which was matted down.

‘Great. I've been abducted by aliens and left in the middle of nowhere.’

A goose propped its head above the waist high grass and voiced its displeasure at seeing him. More geese flew in formation overhead and toward a treeline in the distance. Mountains lay all around him and the sun was directly overhead, making him feel like a fish in a bowl. Storm clouds hovered low to the ground and another gust of cool breeze ruffled his hair.

Before he could start panicking, he calmly considered his circumstances and concluded that he must be dreaming. It was a cliche conclusion, so he decided to try another cliche to test his hypothesis.

He pinched himself, but the accommodating pain did not come. He tilted his head, slightly confused. He pinched harder only to realize he didn't feel that either.

His body didn't feel numb either. He lightly brushed his hand against his arm. Every sensitive detail of his nails could be felt just fine, if not better than usual.

That's when he noticed his clothes. A white tunic with similar likeness to a t-shirt and a tanned pair of trousers was all he wore.

‘Why don't I even have shoes?’ He questioned.

He made to stand up when the stupid goose in front of him made another noise. Zach looked at the goose, wondering if he should scare it away, or if he should just watch it.

Deciding to do the latter, he examined the goose in front of him, slowly standing so as not to frighten the creature. He inspected the goose starting with its black head. He looked down at its grey body, noting the sheer size of it. He glanced at its webbed feet with green tips on its toes, or talons, he guessed, since it was a bird. That's when it happened.

[Goose (level 3)]

A voice made him jump. His PE teacher would’ve been proud.

‘What the…’

He spun around looking for the source of the voice. The motion caused a certain bird to fly off. There was in fact, no one around.

‘Am I hearing things? No, wait.’

A small white text remained in the corner of his vision. He rubbed his eyes, but when the text failed to disappear he attempted to see it a little better. The text ballooned up to fill his central vision. Startling him again.

[Zach: Level 1]

[Health: 50/50 Stamina: 9/10 Mana: 10/10]

[Classes: {Dreamer}, {empty}]

[Titles: none]

[Stats:]

- {Litheness: 10}

- {Constitution: 10}

- {Power: 10}

- {Will: 10}

- {Intelligence: 10}

- {Consumption: 11}

[Abilities: {?????}]

[Skills: none]

After collecting himself with a few deep breaths, he looked at the display window in front of him.

Curiously, as he turned his eyes, the text followed. So it was technically inside of him, not in front. While he did so, the text did nothing to cloud his vision of the plains around him. He could ‘see’ both simultaneously.

The voice must also be inside his head as it echoed all around him yet didn’t obstruct his hearing whatsoever.

He returned his thoughts to information itself thinking, ‘this has got to be a dream.’

[Zach: Level 1]

This was his information for stats all about himself. It was like a videogame.

Several things started to click into place at this point. The clothes he wore were reminiscent of starter gear in a video game. The status window also reminded him of something found in video games.

He grinned. Though, he quickly wiped the smirk off his face. If this was a dream, then this elaborate recreation was probably a sign that he should stop playing them so often.

[Health: 50/50 Stamina: 10/10 Mana: 10/10]

He looked over the stats and connected what he knew in video games to his current situation of being in one. Health would be how much damage he could take before he… died. Stamina probably signified the amount of physical energy he had. He probably couldn’t run far since jumping had exerted an entire point of it, although he had recovered quite quickly. And Mana must be his magical energy. ‘Cool!’

[Classes: {Dreamer}, {empty}]

This had to mean he was really dreaming. And his subconscious was probably playing a big prank on him right now.

He quickly dismissed this line of thinking. Looking too far into things when he didn’t have anything to go off of wouldn’t help his situation, dream or not.

He continued looking over his information.

Each statistic was at ten. A good round level for a noob like him.

He could guess at what each statistic meant, though, there was no way to know what the differences between [Constitution] and [Power] were without proper testing.

He was slightly offended that [Consumption] had one extra point than the rest of his stats.

‘Ha ha. Very funny subconscious.’

Focussing back on the ‘window’, as he started mentally calling it, he glanced curriously over the [Abilities] category. The question marks in place of the ability name puzzled him, but not nearly as much as the [Stats] category had. He continued to the bottom and discovered that he also had no [Skills].

‘Ha ha.’

As he stood there, something fell on his head. He heard a slight click noise and flinched when something stick-like rebounded off his skull. The ‘window’ had instantly disappeared when he looked up, trying to find where the pen had suddenly appeared from. He looked down at the stensil between his bare toes.

[Pen: Rarity E]

‘Holy!’

He jumped for a second time as an inaudible voice echoed and a string of text identified the instrument. He rubbed his neck and rolled his right shoulder, thankful that no one was around to see him.

He picked up the pen, rolling it across his palms a few times, then pinching it between his fingers. He realised the window had got a part of information about the pen wrong, or at least, partially correct. He clicked the pen open, then closed again. What he was holding was a ballpoint pen. Not just a pen.

[Ballpoint Pen: Rarity E]

[New Skill: Observation (level 1)]

As if to amend for its past mistakes, the window about the ballpoint pen updated and presented him with his first skill. Now his new window displayed:

[Zach: Level 1]

[Health: 50/50 Stamina: 10/10 Mana: 10/10]

[Classes: {Dreamer}, {empty}]

[Titles: none]

[Stats:]

- {Litheness: 10}

- {Constitution: 10}

- {Power: 10}

- {Will: 10}

- {Intelligence: 11}

- {Consumption: 11}

[Abilities: {?????}]

[Skills: Observation (level 1)]

He had to stop himself from geeking out over his stats. He had better face reality, or perhaps the dream reality, now. He was still stuck in the middle of nowhere and the dream didn’t seem to be changing to a more interesting, more populated scenery. On top of that, his stomach started to grumble. Apparently that extra [Consumption] point kicked in.

Well. He had better just put one bare foot in front of the other. Zach set his sights for the nearest patch of trees and started walking. A black ballpoint pen rested in the grass behind him.

A single police car pulled up to a construction site north of Burlington, Colorado. Its lights were on, the blue and red casting shadows on the skeletal frames of the buildings. The sun had just gone down and light was barely visible behind the cloud covered mountains, slowly fading away. The construction manager stood by the curb and greeted the two officers that exited the car.

“Hello, Tim.” The older officer nodded to the manager. They were childhood friends and were familiar with each other on a personal level.

“Thanks for coming, Johnny.” Timmothy used the nickname he had always used for his friend, even in front of his friend's trainee. “Now if you would follow me. I think you need to see it to believe it.”

The three descended some stairs, sidestepped some scaffolding, and finally walked to a concrete wall. The sky was open above since this section of the building hadn’t had a roof built yet. A tarp flapped in the wind somewhere. The construction manager pointed at the wall. It was laced with fractures, totally unbecoming of a new building, and dust was scattered in rings around it.

In the center of the room was a suspended black orb as if God decided to punch a hole in reality itself.

Officer John narrowed his eyes upon seeing it. At first glance, it was as if someone hung a golf ball by a string and left it in the room. But there were several problems with the aesthetics: the orb had no luster, no sheen, and no definition. It absorbed all the light around it. And it was perfectly still. The wind did not make it sway, leading to the conclusion that there was no string. The officer rubbed his eyes, the resemblance to an optical illusion one would see online was uncanny. His trainee let out a small gasp.

The construction manager stood back and let the two men do their jobs.

Together the officers shone their flashlights on the orb (to no difference in apparent illumination) and walked slowly around it. Something about the object tripped their internal alarms, telling them of certain danger, though indescribable.

Being in tune with his instincts was what made the head officer such an excellent recruit and a phenomenal policeman. Even with a dozen years in the police force and his experience with criminals, heinous acts of crime, and death, something about this orb made him sweat despite the cool evening air.

“I found it when I was doing the nightly checks,” the manager began. “You know, like looking for vandalism and lost equipment, or just locking up for the day. I get it done every night so my employees can start right away in the mornings. But tonight I found this thing. I thought it looked like a balloon at first, until it ate my pen.”

“Your pen?”

“Yeah,” the manager rubbed his head sheepishly. “I poked it and it got sucked in. I was shocked of course. After that I thought it was best to call you.”

“Good thing you did. Though, I would’ve liked it to be a restaurant or a pub,” the officer joked, but no one smiled. “I should call this in to the captain. We are going to need the big guns to come in and take a look at this. Probably a physicist or something, too.”

“Wait, is that really necessary?” The manager raised his hands in defense, this was technically his construction site and he had bills to pay.

“Save it. This thing isn’t giving me a good feeling.” The officer stepped out to call backup.

The construction manager shut his lips but kept his scowl. He knew John. The man’s intuition had saved his life once, so there was no reason to doubt his friend.

Instead he asked the trainee, “So what do you think it is? Some kind of black hole?”

“No, black holes are invisible, not black. I don’t know what this is.”

“Well, do you think we can get our names in Science Illustrated or some other magazine?”

“No, I doubt info on this will get that far.” The trainee furrowed his brows. “I’ll bet in no time, the military is gonna make this their business. This could be some hostile tech after all, so it’s probably better to be safe than to be sorry.”

[End Chapter 1]