As soon as the status effect wore off, James bolted upright, wincing at the lingering pain in his head. Glancing at the new skill, he smiled a little, then dismissed it. This was no time to admire himself.

Dana knelt next to him, a pained expression on her face.

" I'm... I'm sorry James... you tried. To, to save her. I could have stopped her. But I was frozen. I'm so sorry James. And now she's probably dead, and so is Jack, and oh my God, what are we going to do!"

Dana speech got faster and more blurred as she rambled, James sat there awkwardly for a moment before he made a decision, grabbed Dana's surprising soft cheeks, and kissed her. This was somehow new to James. Despite having gone far in his relationship with Dana, the two of them even spending nights of hot, slightly awkward passion together, this was new. The new Dana was something else entirely.

Despite her initial shock at the kiss, Dana quickly recovered and leant into it. James could have spent eternity at this moment, actually feeling genuine love for this girl, surprising even himself. Dana seemed to share the expression, as she took the offensive, and pushed her tongue against his slightly pursed lips. The surprise from this broke James from his illusion, and reality quickly set in again. What the hell were they doing? Two people had probably just died, and here they were, having a soppy teenage make-out session. Pulling back, James opened his eyes and saw the slightly disgusted looks of the three other conscious people in the room. Dana, on the other hand, had eyes filled with passion but looked a little upset.

James supposed he had reacted a little over the top to her advance, and so whispered to her.

"Not now, later. I promise."

This seemed to perk her up, and she was more than happy to cling to his arm as he spoke to the others in the room.

" ok. I have no idea what's happening, and I'm sure neither do any of you."

He was met with a range of faces. Mostly a weird mix of surprise and disgust.

Completely rattled, James trailed off.

"Wha... What am I missing?"

The boy closest to him, a moderately well built, dark-haired figure spoke first, albeit hesitantly.

"Well, this is a game obviously. We're in an RPG."

James was getting frustrated again.

"A What? What is an RPG?"

"A role-playing game". Spoke the petite girl, standing at the back.

"A game where you take on the role of another, become someone else, a break from real life."

Swing James was still confused, she continued.

"Typically, an RPG starts with character customisation, the beginner's progress, and players will go on to accomplish some great task. But the game is not won. Multiplayer RPG games don't end, you just progress further."

James nearly fell upon hearing this news. There was always some faint hope that there was just something he had to do to return to his world, his home... his life. But these were dashed yet again by the system.

Struggling valiantly to hold back bitter tears, James pressed forwards with his speech.

"I don't know why, but some people haven't come back from the character customisation. Regardless, we need to get somewhere safe. There is something or some things out there that can kill, so we have to be careful. Currently, we're on the third floor, so the windows are a no-go. That means we have to get out the normal way. You all seem better prepared for this than me, so..."

James trailed off as a thought occurred to him.

"Wait. Why are you all better prepared for this? None of you is freaking out and jumped right into exploring your new powers. What the hell?"

James was met with a small chorus of replies:

"I've played like all the MMORPG's there are." "I've read some books where this happens." "This world is better."

The last reply was from the petite girl James noticed earlier. Creepy. James made a mental note to steer clear of her whenever he had the chance.

"Ok, fine. Our first priority is getting her out of here in on piece. The second is making sure we get out too."

Pointing at the still unconscious girl, James began running through strategies he knew of and swearing at many of them in the process. James reflected on how useless the historical conflict course was. He knew how to defeat several thousand runs with a numerical disadvantage, but with no idea what the capabilities of the room were, or what their plan even was, James was drawing one hell of a blank.

Clearing his throat to gain their drifting attention, James made one more attempt at leading them. They may not be his friends, but as the risk of death approached, he reasoned he was better off with them than without.

"Fine, I'm not as experienced with this game world, so can we have some suggestions? What would you usually do when you start a game?"

Of the three ex-nerds in front of him, two looked stunned lightly.

'Good' thought James, he had surpassed their expectations.

The third, one of the guys reached into the bag next to him and pulled out a pad of paper and some pens. Sitting on the desk behind him a little unsteadily, he drove his attention to the pad in front of him and began scribbling furiously.

Upon realizing what he had just done, he looked up for a moment, and quickly said:

" While I try and figure something out, why don't you guys get better acquainted with each other. I know you all, but maybe you should all know each other too."

He then promptly threw his head back into his writing.

James wasn't sure what to make of that. He sure as hell didn't know who this guy was, so how did he know James? Dismissing what might have been a rather creepy sentiment, James turned to the others. Facing him expectantly was a much smaller group than he expected. Dana, the small girl and the last boy were the only people to talk to, and James realized how quickly their initial group of seven had changed so quickly.

Looking to the two strangers, he decided to vs the ball rolling:

"Hi, so I'm James Lander. You were in my class, so I'm sure you knew that, because I didn't really change myself. But since you all did, I'm not sure who you are... Oh yeah, and this is my girlfriend, Dana Bryce. I'm sure you didn't know her though."

James looked around expectantly as Dana blushed beside him, and smiled at the ground. It puzzled James how she still got embarrassed over stuff like this, but he let it go. She looked so damn cute like this.

"I'm Annie. Annie Decker."

The voice of the petite girl broke James from his stupor, and he began to pay attention again. But this was in vain, as that was all she was willing to say.

"My turn I guess" muttered the guy standing beside her.

"Um... I'm Callum. Callum Hung."

James thought he could hear an accent in that voice, that didn't really suit the speaker. Callum continued, confirming what James had thought.

" I'm half Japanese actually, but I guess... not anymore."

James had to agree. When customising his character, Callum had apparently restructured his entire body, as he appeared, by every meaning of the word, like an Arian man. James couldn't imagine the pain he must have gone through when falling through the gel.

"Oh, and this is May," Callum spoke up again, gesturing towards the girl on the floor.

"She's uh, my girlfriend," Callum said, his cheeks reddening.

Coughing emerged from Mays limp body, that slowly turned to laughter. Callum's face froze in an expression of fear and embarrassment, as his face tried to flush and Blanche at the same time.

May pushed herself into a sitting position with some difficulty, and Annie quickly went to help her. But May wouldn't stop laughing. Callum looked more and not helpless as James caught on to what was happening, then he started to laugh as well. Spinning to face him, Callum attempted to appear angry, but He just looked like a pouting child, which just made James laugh more. At this point, even Dana was suppressing a grin, and the guy still absorbed in his writing even looked up for a moment. Unsurprisingly though, Annie was still as stoic as ever and her expression didn't change.

For several seconds, everyone was relatively happy and briefly forgot what had happened far too recently.

When May finally calmed down, she looked once at Callum, who had retreated to a corner of the room before turning to the group.

"Ha ha haaaaaaa, that's just what I needed. For those who didn't know, no. Callum is not my boyfriend. He likes to think he has a chance, but I'm not that into him."

Surprised at her open nature, the room was silent.

"Oh", she continued, a little shocked at the reception she was receiving.

"I'm May Barnes. I've played more than my share of RPG's, and I usually play a mage or healer. Apparently, spells work kinda differently in real life, because as soon as I activated mana wave, I lost all my mana, and blacked out."

The introduction that rapidly devolved into a half-assed explanation was another stunning revelation to the room. James thought he was surprised, he didn't know this girl before, but if this is how she was normally, maybe he should have. Callum and Annie were looking at her as if she was a stranger, and something told James that this version of May was a stranger to them. Annie quickly and quietly introduced James and Dana to her, while Mays' eyes glanced over them, lingering on James longer than Dana would have liked, then doing the exact same thing to Dana, making James feel uncomfortable.

The conversation stilled, and everyone started to fidget, doing their own thing. Callum seemed to be fighting a battle in his head, and eventually, somewhat reluctantly whispered: "status".

His eyes lit up, and he quickly ran back into the fray.

"Guys, say status, I don't know why I didn't think of this before, this is amazing."

Turning to James and Dana, he elaborated.

"You remember when you made your character, this is it. Says status and the menu will appear. There's even more here now that we have health and stuff."

Curious at what Callum meant by more, James took his advice.

"Status"