A musky smell filled the air in the darkness as the hero walked deeper into the cave. The sound of his footsteps reverberated against the walls and into the unknown. Stopping every now and then to hold his breath, listen for the slightest noise and peer deeply into the shadows.

The torch dimmed as if the flame itself was trying to flee the ominous space. As if to signal the torch was correct, the hero heard a sound slowly coming towards him from the unknown.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

The sound of 2 hooves on stone, but with an unmistakable deadly purpose. He didn't know what the sound was, but he knew it was not what he came here for. It was something much worse, and much larger.

Slowly he stepped back until the sound of numerous tiny clicks moved in from behind him. Something he imagined to be little claws opening and closing around knee height if his ears were any judge. How many? 10? 20? How did they get behind him? A side entrance he missed?

Too late now. He pulled the sword free from its hilt. If he died here, then it meant he was never going to succeed in the first place. He put the cold steel against his forehead and said his usual prayer. “Ormak, Please give me the strength to bring light to the darkness”. He turned and-

“Billy! Take out the goddamn recycling. That's two fucking times I've asked you to do it”.

I put down my book. Why is she always yelling at me to do something when I'm at the best parts?

Getting off the bed, I went to the kitchen to grab the recycling.

“While you're up, take this and grab me another bottle from the fridge.” She muttered.

Looking at the recycling, filled with my dad's empty beer cans and my mom's empty wine bottles, I tried to think of when I became resigned to this situation.

I put her bottle with the rest and opened the fridge filled with alcohol, ketchup and three kinds of left over fast food, and handed my mother another bottle.

She faced away from me and towards the TV to complain about whatever the hell some reality show personality was doing to my older sister.

She was on her phone doing her best to ignore everything going on around her, and mostly succeeding. It would almost be forgivable if it was just an escape mechanism of some kind. The truth is, she was a self centered cunt.

Then again, I was a bit of one too. She only had more years of practice than me.

It would've been nice to have a supportive sibling with the pair of parents we had. I wondered if they were living proof that a couple that never fought wasn't a good thing. In the end, they agreed on all the important issues.

Alcohol good, democrats bad. As for my opinion on those things; sometimes, and don't talk about politics so freaking much. It gets annoying.

I took out the recycling because, god forbid, anyone else do it. I needed to get back to my book. It was just getting to the really good part.

Thankfully I was able to get in my room and lock the door before dear old dad came home. He never hit us, well just me the once, but his drunken tantrums weren't fun either.

I went back to my reading. With the momentum of the suspense disturbed it felt almost like a chore now to read about an exhilarating battle.

I found myself being more absorbed by all the things that didn't make sense. Why go in alone? In a world of magic, why is your sword the only weapon you have to fight off 20 monsters? Why the hell would crabs click their claws and give away their position?

And the most important question of all... why haven't you hit that hot elven ass yet?

As I was pondering these and other deep thoughts, a curious static electricity filled my room. It seemed like the source originated from my far wall. I saw a tiny black dot appear out of thin air.

It opened wide into a blinding white light in the shape of a doorway. I put my hands in front of my eyes. I probably should've screamed. But screaming is something you do only when you see something you understand perhaps.

This situation clearly called for a shocked silence. A form walked through the light and in a flash the light shrank back into a black dot and faded into nothingness behind the shape.

It wasn't so much the light that made me think I was crazy. It wasn't so much the form walking through the light that made me think I was crazy. It was seeing myself standing before me in typical middle age clothing that made me think I was crazy.

“Hello, I know this seems very strange, but please don't scream and hear me out.”

It never occurred to me to scream. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I knew my parents would love putting me in the nuthouse. 1 less mouth to feed and they could probably get more government assistance.

I tried to ignore 'myself' and grabbed my phone. I needed.... Well I don't know what I needed. I suppose I needed to see a psychologist and get the best anti-crazy pills money can buy.

“Hey, don't ignore me. We have to seriously talk about something and we don't have all day. What the hell is that thing anyway?”He grabbed my phone from me and looked at it like a chimp trying to understand a rubix cube.

“Hey, don't steal my phone!”

“Phone? Is that what this is? What does it do?”

“It let's you talk to people.”

“You seem to talk just find without it.”

Arguing with yourself. We've all been there. I honestly could do without being on my phone so much. I took it back from him, or me, none the less.

“You're not real. I shouldn't talk to you”.

“The last me I talked to said that. This seemed to help him.” He smacked me across the face.

“Hey, what the fuck?”

“If I wasn't real, could I hit you?”

“Maybe I'm hitting myself, like in fight club”.

“I didn't know any guilds were here. I also don't know of any sparring technique where you hit yourself; but maybe it's to level up damage resistance, if you get the skill that is”.

“It's not a guild, it's... never mind.”

In the end, I was forced to face the facts. Either I was crazy and so far gone I was slapping myself. Or I was sane and this was real. In any case there was no harm talking to him.

“So, are you really me?”

“Well, I guess it depends on what you mean. Yes and no. We are still individuals who have some differences but in the end; yes we are the same person that has lived two different lives.”

I sat back in my bed. Maybe it was the shock, but I felt an odd sense of calm. It was probably a bad sign I wasn't panicking as much as I should be.

I went back to something he said before and he seemed happy to answer my questions. I think he saw it was calming me down. “S-so, you said the other me you talked to... have you done this before?”

“Yes, you're lucky number four. I knew the first one wouldn't do for my purposes, and the other two turned me down. I really hope you don't, as my options are getting limited”.

“What do you mean?” I was curious what options he spoke of.

“First off, I want to check on something. Do you have any magic here? Any goblins or dwarfs or anything non-human?”

“Of course we don't”. I should have taken the hint after seeing what he just did in front of me, but I dumbly asked. “Do you?”

“Yes, all of it. We even have a leveling system which one of the others was very excited about, even if he turned me down.”

He looked to the side and my gaze went to match his.

A blue box, almost like something out of a video game, appeared with my name, but it was clearly refering to my other self.

Name: William Taylor

Age: 16

Race: Human

Class: None

Sub Class: None

Skills: Life Swapper LVL 1/10, Chef LVL 3/10

Level: 5

Experience: 23%

Constitution: 13

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 21

Strength: 20

Wisdom: 20

Charisma: 12

Health: 40/40

Mana: 30/50

Stamina: 20/20

Attribute Points: 0

This would have seemed weird if not for all the other stuff that had happened. It really was almost like a video game. He didn't say anything and continued to let me look at it. His mana dropped to 29/50. He let out a sigh.

“Mana doesn't regenerate here, just like in the other worlds, and it seems to slowly drop down. What a pain.”

He closed the status window for now.

“In any case, let me get to the point. Would you like to switch places with me?” Switch places? Like I would go to his world and he would go to mine? What would be the upside for him?

“Why would you ever want to leave your world?” This certainly took a turn.

He walked away from me and grabbed a weight on the floor. Without effort, he picked it up and began to play with it like a mere toy.

It wasn't otherworldly, but his muscles showed no signs of the kind of strength he possessed. It got me thinking, what did his 21 point intelligence mean, and what would mine be compared to it?

“It's complicated. In short, I'm tired of it all. The leveling up to reach a higher rank only to level up again. It's so static and nothing ever changes. That is the way it was for my great great grandfather and that's the way it will be for my great great grandchildren”.

He swept his arm across my room.

“But look at all this stuff. No tinkerer or blacksmith has ever dreamed of anything like this. Now this is an adventure!”

He looked at my old TV as if it was some kind of miracle. Which I guess it was, from his perspective. I interrupted his thoughts.

“What about your family and friends?” As I spoke I thought of myself. I didn't particularly like my family to be honest. As for friends, well, reading was my best friend.

“I'll miss my little sister, but my family situation isn't great. Plus, we have pretty much the same family in the end. You take care of mine, and I’ll take care of yours.”

I didn't care much if he didn't take care of mine, but I agreed. I hoped his sister was nicer than my version.

He kept looking around at all the things in my room, lost in thought. He was an easily distracted version of me it seemed. I needed to keep this on track.

“Let's say we were to do it. They will know something's up, right? I assume my level won't be the same as yours, and I won't know anything about the world I'm about to live in.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too big of a problem. People in my world occasionally lose their levels and skills. It mostly happens to the low level ones when they try to do something against the Mother.”

“The Mother?”

“Oh, I think the term you would use is 'system', judging from my past conversations with other versions. When you try to force the Mother to do something you aren't allowed to do, and you're below level 10, it can sometimes knock you back down to level 1.”

It seemed odd to me why the system would only have this penalty for lower leveled people, but that was something to be worried about later.

“Okay, but let's be realistic here. You seem smart, but how would you even get by in my world, or me in yours? We lack the common sense and skill set for each.”

“Well, obviously, we would tell each other a bit about our worlds before we switch. We have about 30 minutes before I run low on mana. That should be plenty of time.”

I was not so convinced about that part. He interrupted my retort.

“They will have no clue. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened before. I looked as hard as I could and I never found any examples of anyone being able to leave my world with a spell. Teleport yes, but enter a new world? Never.”

“Well, how did you, a mere level five, manage to do what no one else has ever done?” I guessed level five was low.

With a large smile, he crossed his arms and proudly proclaimed;

“luck and fate”.

He told me the story of the level ten dungeon that appeared by his town. It was the first time one had appeared in the past twenty years. It brought the strongest legends in the entire world to their small town. That must have done wonders for their economy.

We were short on time so he rushed through the details but the gist was this: a world renowned adventurer went into the dungeon and didn't come out. Even among the strongest adventurers, it was not uncommon for this to happen in a high ranking dungeon.

About a week later just as darkness fell. My other self was getting water at a nearby lake, because his pump broke down. He then saw a bloody mess stumble out of the dungeon entrance, only to drop dead mere moments later.

It was too late to get any help, and knowing the pockets of high ranked adventures were rarely empty, it would be a waste for him not to take advantage of this chance.

I wondered if I would've felt the same.

Along with 20 gold pieces, which he told me were hidden in his bed, he found a spell book. He couldn't read the title, or many words in general, but he knew it was something special.

Spell books were rare by themselves, but something about this one was different. Even him, without any experience, could sense that.

After another quick look around, he grabbed the book and accepted the option to learn it. He described it as a rush of knowledge, concepts and ideas filling his head all at once. In a moment, it was his.

After realizing what he'd gained, he struggled with the choice of if he should use it. After much debate, he figured 'what harm could a look do'?

He visited a world nearly just like mine, and from that moment on he knew this was the life he wanted. But it needed to be a consensual switch with another version of himself.

We talked back and forth about our own worlds for a while, he occasionally checked his status screen as his mana slowly ticked down. There wasn't much time to decide and it sounded so different. I knew even with a basic run down there would be so much I wouldn't know.

I gave a longing look to my fantasy book. How many books like these have I read over the years? Wasn't this always a fantasy of mine? What did I really worry about leaving behind here? Before I even knew what I was doing, I answered.

“Okay, let's do it.”