So there I was on the rooftop, naked as I’d ever been before, and alone. Never, not even in my wildest nightmares, had I ever imagined being in a situations like this. Had anyone? Ever?!

I didn’t have a clue what to do. Let’s be honest: I’m just a high school student who really doesn’t even try too hard in high school. I wasn’t in any of the endless sports clubs that this school offered. I wasn’t one of the academic nerds. I wasn’t one of those students who snuck around and experimented with every drug they can find. All I was was a poor disillusioned student who wanted to go home – even more so than ever now!

But for some reason, I just didn’t think that was going to be possible for a while currently…

For a while, and I have no idea how long really, I just stood there on the center of the roof in a hopeless daze. I suppose I was in shock after what I’d seen and been through. Wouldn’t anyone be?

As the sun slowly moved across it sky, it was a rather warm feeling in my… umm.. nether regions which finally made me snap back to myself. My… umm… little buddy… My little buddy wasn’t used to feeling the sun glaring down on him, and from the way I was standing he was trying to get himself a golden tan – which as pale as he was would’ve probably instantly became a big red sunburn instead! Just thinking about it made me cringe!

With Little Bud telling me it was time to quit standing there and being a complete idiot, I decided to try and sort things out. First, I wanted to know exactly what was going on outside the school. (OK, if I’m completely honest, I was simply afraid to stick my head past the broken door and see what was going on inside as that’s where the beast that had already killed me twice had went.)

For starters, I carefully eased myself over to the edge of the roof to look over and see where the minotaur had booted my body. Call me a masochist if you want, but I just had to know what had happened to my body. My first one had burnt to a crisp and faded away into nothingness, and in some ways I was trying to convince myself that it’d never happened. Looking over the edge, and once again, there wasn’t a single sign of anything that might’ve resembled my body – all that was there was a burnt scorch mark on the pavement.

Sighing – whether with relief or trepidatious self-doubt of my own sanity, I couldn’t say for certain -- I finally lifted my head up and looked out over Cowtown. And the whole place was a mess. Smoke and flame could be seen billowing off in the distance, and I saw several small micro-cracks down below; and those cracks appeared in places with no rhyme or reason that I could discern.

There was a crack in the ground from which I saw some sort of oversized mole creature climbing out of: a mole creature the size of a fully grown police dog! A crack in the side of a school bus that was parked out back, from which little blobs of jello seemed to bounce out of and across the parking lot. I could see a crack in a tree that seemed to be letting bees the size of sparrows through. A crack in the wall surrounding the school that just smoked as if there was a fire of some sort behind it, but nothing that I could see actually coming out of it.

All I could do is shiver and, honestly, cry to myself. I’ve never thought of myself as being someone very afraid of things in my life, but I’ll admit that I was almost completely lost in the emotion now. This couldn’t be reality. My mind simply wouldn’t accept it as reality. Without even thinking, I stepped off the edge of the roof so that I could wake up from this nightmare…

DUMPT! DUMPT! DUMPT!

Lost and confused even more than ever before, I looked for the source of the weird sound that had came out of nowhere and seemed to prevent me from jumping to my death again. Methodically, I slowly gazed everywhere that I could see on the rooftop, but I was still alone. Hesitantly; as the thought of falling, breaking all my bones, dying, burning back up and being reborn wasn’t that appealing to me now that I’d regained my senses a bit more; I attempted to move one foot off the edge of the rooftop once again.

DUMPT! DUMPT! DUMPT!

Once my foot tried to go over the edge, the noise started again and I felt as if there was some sort of invisible cushion in front of it. I literally couldn’t walk off the edge of the rooftop! All I could make it do is produce some sort of odd sound which I assume meant, “Not a viable path, stupid!”

As far as I could tell, reality had turned itself into some sort of video game! Stats and skills; monsters and areas off limits to players; death and rebirth! Reality had broken and became some sort of game! And this wasn’t a game I was really wanting to play!

“Log Out!” I screamed at the crack in the sky!

“Exit! Reboot! Power Off! Reset! F4! Alt-F4! Control Alt Delete! Comeon! If this is a game, let me out of it!”

It didn’t matter though. No matter what I yelled at The Crack, I couldn’t disconnect from this game and return to reality. If it wasn’t for Little Bud reminding me that the sun was still hot and he wasn’t comfortable where we were standing, I might would’ve stayed where I was for the rest of my life and just cried.

But, Little Bud is a powerful persuader for a guy my age, and I finally took him up on his advice and moved away from the edge and out of the sun. I wasn’t confident (or desperate) enough to head into the building yet, so I sat down underneath the water tower and huddled my arms around my legs and rocked back and forth.

If this was a game, there should be some sort of interface or information panel for it. At least, I’d imagine that there should be; I’d already seen several of those floating message pop-ups.

“Information!” I was willing to try anything once to try and figure out a way out of this mess, but nothing happened.

“Help!” Nothing.

“Stats!”

DING!

Name: UnchosenTitles: The WitnessAge: 17STR: 8SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 8MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 10SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 20MP: 8SP: 4PD: 0DR: 0MR: 0SE: 1

There was one of those windows again, but a fat lot of good it actually did me to see it. I’d played games before, so I could guess at what some of the abbreviations stood for – STRength, DEXterity, CONstitution, WILl, LUCk, but I could only guess at the others. Since the first three was physical stats, I’m assuming that the middle three were probably mental stats of some sort. SYI? What the heck is that? MYS is MYStery? MYStake? SPRint? SPRing? SuPeRduperism?

And PRE? PREttyness? I’d never considered myself to be extremely pretty before, and I certainly didn’t consider myself to be a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. That is of course, IF these numbers went on a scale of 1 to 10. Without any reference to go by, I didn’t know if they were low, high, average, or off the charts!

HP could probably be Health Points, and MP was probably Magic Points (if Magic was something that existed in this reality, and from what I’ve seen so far, I have no reason to doubt that it does), with SP being Stamina Points.

But, that’s all just a guess – but if my guess is right, I might just be an amazing wizard or something! After all, my stamina was about average from what I could tell, and my MP was twice what my SP was. I could be a truly gifted mage in this new reality!

“Fireball,” I yelled expectantly while pointing my hands in front of me, but nothing happened.

“Fire bolt!” Nothing. “Flame on! Ice on! Ice cutter! Wind blade! Magic Blast! Inferno!” I tried the names of all the spells that I’d ever seen in the games I’d played before, but nothing happened.

Looks like this reality isn’t going to be that kind to me; I really should’ve expected it… Letting out a deep sigh, I waved my hands through the floating box in front of me and said, “Skills!”

DING!

Witness Protection -- ????

- Witness Liquidation -- ???

- Witness Reconstitution -- ??? (Current death today: 2)Spiritual Manipulation – Allows the user to manipulate the energy of the spirit realm when the conditions are right to do so. (2)

Witness Protection? Liquidation? Reconstitution? I guess these have something to do with my ability to die and come back from it, but there’s not much information to see about them except some question marks and the fact that I’ve already died twice today. And the spiritual manipulation I suppose is what lets me float around as a ghost; after all, I did acquire it while I was one.

All in all, I suppose the information confirms that reality has somehow became more game like than it used to be – but it still doesn’t do a thing to help me out of my current situation!

Naked, alone on the rooftop, with who knows what monsters waiting to feast on my corpse nearby -- all I wanted to do was curl up and die, and I honestly didn't even think I could do that anymore!