Huay woke atop a mountain of scorching hot sand. At that same moment, a voice spoke.

“Name: ASSIGNED.”

“Level: ASSIGNED.”

“Type: ASSIGNED.”

“Titles: ASSIGNED.”

“Abilities: ASSIGNED.”

“Certifications: ASSIGNED.”

She scrambled to her feet and searched for the source of the voice. An endless ocean of sand dunes stretched to the horizon under a cloudless blue sky.

The late afternoon sun assaulted the world below with brutality. The heat was unbearable, and Huay felt as though she’d been thrown into an oven where she would bake to a slow death. No signs of life were visible from the towering dune on which she found herself. Is this purgatory?

“Hello?” She took out her earbuds and listened for a response. “Anyone there?”

An abrasive gust of sandy wind was the only answer. She coughed as grainy air invaded her lungs and attacked her eyes. There’s no one around… Where did that voice come from? Did I hallucinate the robbery too?

She looked down again to the sand at her feet. There was something off about it. Huay had no clue what might be, but she was certain that it wasn’t her imagination. She bent over and scooped up a handful. The sense that something was off about it intensified. It was different in some tangible way, she realized, from the sand that had been blowing in her face.

She tossed the first handful into the wind and picked up another from a nearby spot on the ground. The feeling was uncanny, and Huay was certain that this new handful was different both from the sand in the air and the prior handful. She failed at first to find any words that could describe it.

What in the world? Huay bent down and scooped up a third handful. The perception returned once again. This third batch somehow struck her as being ‘superior’ to the ones before it, and she realized that the sensation seemed to denote a hierarchy of some sort. I don’t get it…

Huay shook her head. Weird sand was the last thing to be worrying about. She took off her Christmas sweater and tied it around her waist before starting down the dune. The slope was long and steep, requiring the utmost focus not to trip. The ever-shifting ground beneath her feet with every step did little to help matters. She was halfway down the hill when the same disembodied voice from earlier spoke.

“Certification earned. Hiking [Novice].”

That voice again. She looked for the source once again and frowned upon finding nothing. So I am going insane. Huay noticed as she resumed her descent that it was very slightly easier not to fall. The difference was minor, yet tangible.

The sun was getting lower—Huay could tell that it would set by the end of the hour—but the desert heat remained unbearable in the meantime. Her pale skin was already beginning to flake from the burns, and she wondered what would happen if she died again. The voice, its tone feminine and robotic, spoke once again.

“Certification earned. Heat Resistance [Novice].”

The dry air was still unbearable, but somehow it wasn’t as bad as before. Huay felt as though she might be able to endure it for a bit longer, but the threat of a second death was still at the forefront of her mind.

She reached the bottom of the dune after a few more minutes of walking. Huay immediately noticed that the air in the troughs between the dunes was ‘different’ from the air at their peaks. The sense of ‘hierarchy’ from earlier returned, and she was somehow left with the impression that the sand where she now stood was ‘worse’ than the ‘better’ sand at the top. The notion that she might have gotten brain damage from the bullet was beginning to seem more plausible than anything else; it’d explain the voices, at least.

“Certification earned. Investigation [Novice].”

“Shut up!” A wave of anxiety washed over her as she contemplated what she believed to be her newfound insanity. The voice in her head was bad enough on its own, but there was also a ‘sixth sense’ to deal with that only served to distract her from getting to safety.

Feeling somewhat deflated, Huay bent down and grabbed another handful of sand. The sensation was still there. She stared at the grains in her hand, trying to make sense of the perception, for the better part of the minute. After a while, a number popped into her head.

This sand is… level 9? She looked down at the patch by her feet and saw that it was level 7. Another patch nearby was level 10. The sand in the air was level 3, but the air itself was level 6.

“Wait!” She took her focus off the levels for a moment. “What the hell am I on about? Where are these numbers coming from?!”

Now that she’d noticed the levels, they were everywhere. Everything had a level. Individual patches had levels, and so did the larger sections of land they made up. A nearby dune was level 11. Another one was level 12. Collections of nearby dunes had levels, as did clusters of collections. Even individual grains of sand had levels.

Huay closed her eyes and groaned. It had been fine before, but now it was overwhelming. There were millions, maybe billions of ‘levels’ everywhere she looked. Not even closing her eyes provided an escape, as the insides of her eyelids, of course, had levels of their own, and so did their composing cells.

She reinserted her earbuds in an attempt to drown out the surroundings. The noise helped at first, until she started hearing levels in the music. Every song had a level and, in each of those, every instrument had a level too. Chords had levels. Notes had levels. Even individual frequencies had levels. The experience went from a decent coping mechanism to torture in seconds. She turned off the music, took out the earbuds, and tried to enjoy the silence of the desert. But that had a level too. She cried out in frustration and fell to her knees.

“Why is this happening?!” She noticed that her voice was level 9. “God… damn it!”

“Certification earned. Sound Detection [Novice].”

“Oh my god… Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Why won’t you just shut up?! Please… Just one moment of peace is all I ask…” Huay realized that her plea was only level 3. “What is that even supposed to mean?!”

She began to tear up. The droplets that rolled down her cheek danced between levels 4 and 5. She wiped away the tears with a level 7 right hand. The sweater she dried her fingers on was level 21, though its fabrics mostly hovered around level 19.

The levels were inescapable. This was hell, not purgatory. Her vision was already getting blurry from the heat and her head was dizzy. She genuinely began to feel that she might die again.

Huay cycled in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so until the sun was low enough in the sky for the massive dunes to start providing shade. She started to feel better about the situation, bit by bit, as the shadows of dunes crept over her.

“Certification upgraded. Heat Resistance [Novice] improved to [Basic].”

She could feel the coolness of the shade coming over her body. A level 21 shadow. I wonder if level 21 sand feels any different to touch… She sat up and shook her head.

“Damn… What is wrong with me? Why am I thinking like that?”

She took a glance at the dune casting the shadow. Level 30. That was the highest she’d seen thus far. Huay stared at it for a while. It was by far the largest dune in the area, and it stuck out like a mountain surrounded by foothills.

“Certification earned. Hawkeye [Novice].”

The rigid silhouette of what looked like a building poked out from its backside. Only the tip of the structure was visible but, without anything else to cling onto, she decided to get up and investigate.

Huay started walking. Her body was like lead and every step took a concentrated effort. Water. She wobbled along the path like a drunkard, barely capable of thought. The heat was gone but, in its place, there was a new problem.

As the distance between her and the structure that was now her destination closed, Huay saw what she thought was light—she was so delirious by then that she couldn’t be sure. Only the numbers remained in everpresent and excruciating fidelity.

The dune was of such size that walking its perimeter to the other side would have taken a great deal of effort even under better conditions. She managed to soldier on despite everything, and as she continued on the path around the base of the dune, her luck became apparent.

A structure of titanic proportion came into view. Mostly buried beneath the dune was a temple upholstered by a truly megalithic array of columns. Each was a tower in its own right and together they shouldered a roof capable of withstanding the weight of the sand above. Huay had never before seen such a magnificent structure, and only the Great Pyramid of Giza could compare.

Around the first column, there was a campsite, vacant besides a herd of camels with heavy cargo on their backs lying in groups of three by each tent. They were all around level 14, except for one group of towering grey camels almost twice Huay’s height away from the others at level 22.

One of the elite camels had what looked to be a canteen strapped to its back among a messy assortment of goods. Huay took a glance at the surroundings and, not seeing anyone nearby, stepped up to the camel and reached for the water before quickly jumping back to avoid retaliation. The camel didn’t even seem to notice. There was a little guilt about the theft, but the situation’s direness surpassed her inhibitions.

“Certification earned. Burglary [Novice].”

“Hey! What do you think you are doing with my camel?” A distant voice that echoed against the walls made her flinch. “That is my property!”

She took a long swig from the canteen despite the man’s demand. Even water tasted like ambrosia at that moment, and consequences lost significance when death was the alternative.