A bell chimed, signaling the entrance of the first customer in what felt like several hours. I put down the bag of chips I had been stocking onto the shelf and made my way towards the register. I didn’t mind slow days at all: in fact I embraced them.

Cleaning up and restocking the shelves had to be done before I could leave anyway. Getting those jobs done early was the best scenario for me, as I could call it a night sooner. My head turned to eye the customer who just entered—a regular.

“How’s it going Rick?” I asked with a smile. I moved to behind the register, which was located behind bullet proof glass. I worked in a gas station on an off road;usually I took the late shift and I had twice had to deal with attempted robberies.

“Not bad, yourself?” Rick asked in return. “Carton of Marlboro and two scratch-offs.” He tossed a wad of cash into the metal tin that was sunk just below the bullet proof glass.

“Ten-dollar ones? With the ladies on ‘em?” I asked.

“Those are the ones,” he laughed, “you know me pretty well Mike.”

“Well, I’ve been working here five years and you’ve been coming here even longer than that. I’ve only ever seen you try those,” I said while turning away with a plastic key in my hand.

The cigarettes were locked away and needed to be removed with a key I had tightly wrapped around my wrist. I grabbed a carton and then removed two of Rick’s choice of scratch offs. “Maybe this is the day you’ll win something,” I said with a smile.

My comment got a self-deprecating smile out of him. “It’s not about winning anymore. You know it’s personal now.”

I understood him. He’d developed a habit and while I approved of determination, Rick’s bull-headedness here was misplaced. Effectively, Rick was taxing himself at least twenty-dollars a week. He looked around the store and then back into the empty parking lot. “Slow day today?” he asked.

I scanned the carton and then the two scratch offs before picking up the wad of cash and unfolding it. “Very slow day, you’re the first customer all afternoon.” I counted out the cash. “You’re a bit over. You want dollar bills or a five?” I asked.

“Give me the dollars, I’ll use ‘em for tolls. You haven’t been watching the news have you then?” He looked at me curiously.

“Boss won’t give me a TV to watch even if he knew we wouldn’t have customers. He wants me on my feet, working all damn day.”

“Well, some weird shit has been happening since this morning, probably why you got no customers.”

I finished putting the money into the register and counted out five one-dollar bills, “Like what? Nothing crazy happens here except the occasional robbery or bit of vandalism.”

“Well, according to the news, people have been getting attacked like crazy lately.” He looked at me intently, “Animals coming out of the woods and mauling people to death. Weird shit.”

“Like what? Wolves? Bears?” I asked. This was interesting, but no doubt the news was exaggerating whatever incidents had happened to make a good story.

“Yeah, wolves, bears, dogs, birds. News was showing some shit I’d never seen before, too. Saying they were mutated animals, that it was a virus—trying to keep everyone in doors.”

Rick was a sensible man, his beliefs about scratch cards might not be the most rational, but when it came to animals and everyday practicalities, he was no fool. “What do you think about it?” I asked him.“Anything in the stories?”

“I’ve not seen anything yet, and it’s hard for me to believe something like that if I didn’t see with my own eyes. But what I can see with my own eyes is that the streets are empty and no one is around.”

I was slipping the money under the glass when the bell chimed again. It rattled every time someone opened the door. My boss had put it on to make sure we never kept a customer waiting. Although the door had opened, I didn’t see anyone come in. The shelves created a blind spot, despite a mirror, where I could only see people from the waist up. Parents would sometimes come with their rowdy children and I could never keep track of the small ones as they ran in search of some sort of sugary candy.

“My advice to you, Mike,” Rick leaned in close while grabbing his money, “call it an early night tonight. Not worth the risk, you know?”

“True. In any case, I’ll be done early tonight with all this free time. Have a good one.”

Rick turned away towards the door, and something pierced his chest.

His body froze in shock as his hand grasped and scraped at a wooden pole piercing his abdomen. His head moved in slow-motion as he tilted it lower to glance at a strange figure before him. A midget-like person with a disgusting green skin covered all over with wrinkles, warts and blisters stood in front of him.

“Wh-wh-what… the fuck… is this?” Rick asked in horror. He tried to turn his head to look at me, but the wooden pole dug deep into his gut was pulled out with a vicious tear. Blood spurted from his chest as his body collapsed with a thump to the floor.

The weapon was a wooden spear about four or five feet long now caked in a thick layer of blood. The creature holding it, however, was nothing of this world. This… this is a goblin? A small orc? My mind raced as fear overtook me. This was something out of fantasy.

The figure stared at me through the glass barrier and a menacing cackle come from deep within its throat: a grating sound that brought a chill to the nape of my neck. My hands were shaking at my side as I tried to make sense of the situation.

Was this even reality? Did I actually wake up this morning? That thought held me still, until the blood-caked spear was stabbed through the small gap between the counter and the glass barrier. I dived backwards and off to the side to avoid being impaled.

The spear flailed and shook but could not bend nor reach me. I scurried across the floor to the only doorway into the cubicle and double checked it was locked. The cackling didn’t stop and the spear continued to flail around seeking for me.

Eventually the weapon was pulled out and the cackling stopped. The silence gave me a moment to think rationally. I pulled my phone out and dialed 911. It rang and rang, and then eventually it ended with a dial tone. I called again, and then again. Then I tried a few friends and family members. I couldn’t get through to anyone. I was on my own.

There was dead silence in the store besides the sound of my heavy breathing. Was the murderous creature waiting for me to think it had left? The front door bell had not rang; it was definitely still in the store with me. I scanned the area around me for a weapon, but there was nothing.

On several occasions my boss had urged me to get a permit for a gun, so that in the worst case I could defend myself. I was kicking myself right now for not following his advice. The thought of having to shoot another person over money had never sat well with me, and so I always brushed off the suggestion.

I stood up carefully and peeked over the glass barrier, rising sufficiently to see Rick’s lifeless body. I couldn’t see the goblin anywhere. My eyes scanned the store but came up empty. There was no way it had disappeared, I knew it was waiting for me.

My only chance was to make it to the office. There were some items I could use as a weapon there: golf clubs; an umbrella; there was also the mop. The mop was wooden and I’d be able to snap it and make my own makeshift spear.

I didn’t know how fast the monster was, nor how agile. Making a run for the office though was absolute stupidity and I couldn’t risk it, not until I knew where it was. Just as I had that thought, a car pulled up outside. My heart was stuck in my throat while I waited for whoever it was to appear outside the door.

A man stepped up and was about to open the door when he saw Rick’s lifeless corpse lying in the aisle, in front of the register. His hand reached for the door slowly as he stared directly at me. My hands waved back and forth trying to signal danger, urging him to not open the door.

Nevertheless, it opened with a click, and the bell chimed. He leaned through an opening he’d made just big enough for his head, “What’s going on? Does he need help?”

“No! There’s a killer in the store. Stay out!” I urged him forcibly.

The man’s eyes began to scan the store for any signs of life and he looked around for over thirty seconds without moving, before the door opened a tad wider and his foot entered. He slipped his entire body inside and then closed the door carefully behind him.

He stayed low to the ground and then looked around carefully again. I was also looking around frantically for any sign of the creature. It was hard to believe, but maybe the creature really had disappeared. None of this was making sense.

“It looks clear,” the man whispered while making his way closer to Rick’s corpse.

I nodded reluctantly and then moved to the doorway and unlocked it carefully. The handle turned with a click and I stepped out. A weight had been removed from my shoulders. The man stood up as well, and seemed to breathe the first breath of air since he entered the store.

It was then that the nightmare began again. That blood-caked spear rocketed through the air and slammed home directly through the side of his neck. Blood spurted from the wound and splattered as high as the glass barrier.

The man didn’t even have time to react at all. His body slumped to the floor like a lifeless doll. The cackling started again, and my mind raced a million miles a minute. The opportunity was there for me to make it to the office…

But then what? The creature could toss the spear like an Olympic javelin athlete. Even if I improvised a weapon with a range advantage, it could pin me to the wall with a single throw of his spear. Right now though, the monster’s weapon was currently out of its reach—out of its hands.

I had a crazy, barbaric idea, but I wanted to live. I was in shock, high on adrenaline—I needed to survive. My feet moved on their own as I ran past the now collapsed man and confronted the green little monster in the isle.

The look on its face was menacing, and a row of sharp and disgusting yellow teeth appeared as his mouth widened as if to welcome me. A cackle that sent me into pure fear assaulted my ears. “AHHHHH!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and rushed it like a wild animal.

The monster was smaller than me, and so I kicked it as hard as I could. My foot collided with its body and something gave with a crack as it tumbled several feet backward. There was no room for error, no room for hesitation.

I was on top of it within a second. The full weight of my body pinning it down as my hands came down like sledgehammers on its skull. Over and over I pummeled it with all the rage and anger I could muster.

That hard skull became soft as it cracked under my blows. The struggling I felt below me slowly ceased until the monster was lifeless. I had killed it with my bare hands, hands that were still shaking, and now covered in blood—some of the monsters and some my own.

Congratulations, you have reached level 1!

A line of text flashed over my vision and a message spoke directly into my brain. These were phenomena I couldn’t explain—a brief visual alert and a voice in my head that was so neutral that I couldn’t tell if it were male or female, young or old.

The monster’s corpse disappeared and a bandage floated there above where its corpse once was. I reached out with bloodied hands and picked it up.

You have received Bandage.

Heals a small amount of HP as well as removes the bleeding effect.

An item? What was happening? I had leveled up and obtained an item. My mind was telling me this was a dream… but the pain in my hands, the sweat covering my forehead, the chill in my bones… was telling me this wasn’t a dream.

The item vanished from my hands like it never existed, even though I had felt its weight, felt the reality of it in my hands. I sat in confusion for a moment longer before embracing the insanity. Leveling and monsters were features of an RPG. If this were one, then the bandages had gone to a character inventory. Finding them would be a good test of my theory. I tried patting the back of my neck and shoulders, hoping that would trigger the opening of an imaginary pack. I tried all sorts of hand motions and gestures and mimes.

Only when I concentrated on the word Inventory did I get a result. A menu appeared in front of me and it was an inventory: a grid with hundreds of empty boxes and all of them empty except a small version of the bandages in the top left corner. I imagined removing them from their storage place, and instantly they appeared in my hands. It was true then! Whatever was going on obeyed the rules of an RPG.

My shaky hands grasped the bandage tightly and I started to wrap up my sore palms and fingers.

What happened next again told me that the normal laws of science had been altered to allow for RPG-like rules. Instead of having to wait days for my hands to recover under the protection of the bandage, the material quickly vanished into thin air. The wounds and lacerations on my fist flowed away, healing at a rate I could watch.

The cuts healed closed, and their color changed as well. It was as if two weeks of time had passed in just that moment. The wounds were covered in hard scabs, and if I had shown them to anyone, no one would have believed I had received them just moments earlier.

My aching hands no longer ached, and the pain was no longer there—just light scabbed lacerations that were a bit off color. I shifted my attention to the next pressing issue: my level.

I was not unfamiliar with RPG’s or video games in general. In fact, I was overly familiar. The reason why I worked at a gas station, why I didn’t have a job or promising future, was because I was addicted to video games.

Through high school and college, I put more time and effort into games than my own studies. This lack of discipline came back to bite me in the ass when I flunked out of college. My performance was so terrible that I couldn’t even appeal and go on a probation period.

I started to think through the words and phrases that might be used to open your character sheet, and eventually I found it. Character prompted a menu that showed me all of my stats.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: None Level: 1 EXP: 7%

HP: 55/55 MP: 15/15

STR: 1

AGI: 1

DEX: 1

VIT: 1

WIS: 1

Available: 3

Skills: None

All of my stats were at 1. A pathetically low amount no doubt. What that did mean, however, was that the gains from early levels were incredibly potent for increasing your ability. With three points to assign, I would transform any stat I invested them in. I needed to weigh my options carefully.

These early levels would determine if I lived or died, and judging by my lack of any other options, I would most likely be fighting in melee combat. I glanced over at the spear lodged deep into my last customer’s neck and decided it was likely to be my main weapon.

The stats on my character sheet were standard RPG ones and made sense to me when I looked at their abbreviations, Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Vitality, and Wisdom. I was not unfamiliar with their uses, at least if this new world would follow conventional RPG’s.

Adding to STR was a no brainer, as I would be using a melee weapon that would require me to overpower my enemy. Increasing my striking power was vitally important to kill enemies and do so quickly.

AGI was also a no brainer, as I needed to be swift to avoid being attacked, and it would also increase the speed at which I would be able to land attacks on my enemies. Being faster would also lend me the ability to flee in case I was in a bad situation.

It was which of the remainder of the stats to boost that was causing me pause. DEX would probably increase the nimbleness of my hands, which would increase my accuracy with thrown weapons and probably my spell casting speed. For now though, I didn’t think it would be hard to hit enemies with a spear, nor did I have any spells to cast. I disregarded DEX for now.

VIT would increase my life, which from the looks of it, I only had one of. Rick and the other man hadn’t despawned after dying. Had they done so, it might have been possible that the laws of physics were so changed that people simply re-incarnated from a kind of ‘saved’ point. I told myself it was best to assume I had only one life. The two human bodies suggested that whatever the new rules, they did not include the option for people to re-enter the world after death.

Attractive as it was to put the point into VIT and increase my chances of taking a blow and living, I would have liked to have known about that stat a lot more. Did it affect more than just my HP total? Maybe my recovery speed? Was there going to be some kind of endurance system coming into play?

If VIT did have these extra benefits, then it would be incredibly valuable for healing minor wounds and staying in a healthy shape more generally. The problem was that I had to have a means of defeating whatever monsters and challenges came my way over the early levels. I doubted that even with additional VIT I could survive a spear to the chest. It was therefore off the menu for now.

Finally, there was WIS. Putting a point in wisdom was highly likely to increase my MP and have some positive benefits on spell casting. But currently I had no spells. So WIS was definitely not on my list of required stats for now.

In the end, I decided to put two points into STR and one point into AGI. My stats were now STR 3; AGI 2; DEX 1; VIT 1; WIS 1.

Seeing that I had no skills, the fact they were mentioned in the menu made me question how I could obtain them. There were many possibilities, some systems gave you a start in a skill only after you’d managed to perform a related action successfully, like managing a climb to trigger the climbing skill, other systems showed skills only after you unlocked them by levelling. In others they were dropped from monsters. I didn’t have a class either, the choice for which would probably come with more levels as well.

There seemed to be nothing more I could do with my character sheet at this time, so I stood up and rushed to the store entrance and locked the door before flipping the sign to ‘CLOSED’ out of habit. This was no longer the world I knew, shit had hit the fan. I pulled my phone from my pocket and rang all my family members again, but the call always ended in a dial tone without ever connecting.

Web pages wouldn’t load either. It seemed the internet was down, and my ability to gather information was gone completely. For now, I could only depend on myself.

I opted to send a few texts hoping they might become marked with ‘Read’ instead of ‘Sent’. The question now was what should I do? Was sitting still my best option or should I move? I just didn’t know enough about what had happened to the world.