Grant reappeared into existence but in a vastly different location and very high above the ground. Falling from several meters in an unconscious state. He fell for over thirty seconds, before hitting the ground with a slight thump. Luckily, the impact of his fall was greatly reduced from brushing and colliding against the large tree branches that are characteristic of the rainforest he found himself in. Contact with the moist, muddy, ground abruptly jerked him into consciousness.

“Urghh, where the hell am I?”, he muttered in a surprisingly deep and cracked voice as he wiped mud off his eyes and face. As soon as he opened his eyes, a screen-like surface seemed to project from his vision like a large, transparent board visible only to Grant and it displayed “Start Up Progress: 99%”. He was still trying to figure out what was happening and where he was when a voice began to play in his head, seeming to cover his entire psyche.

[Symbiote V8 is activating, please stand by as this may take some seconds.]

If someone else had told a rational Grant that they heard a voice in their head, he would have definitely recommended them to a psychiatrist. But here he was, feeling as if a recording was playing in his head. And there was no doubting what he was hearing - at least anyone could doubt it, but not him – he was so sure he heard that voice, whatever it was.

It was as clear as hearing his least favorite voice bark “forwaaaaaaard march!”, back in his days in the military or hearing a friend’s voice on the other end of the phone. That real. And the voice wasn’t even done yet.

[Activation Completed! Initial System Calibration to begin three seconds. Do hang in there, this might cause some discomfort. So, we go in 3. 2. 1]

As soon as the voice in his head mentioned “one”, a serious, banging, headache coupled with an immense stomachache – or intestinal twisting, as it felt, overcame Grant and he fell to the ground rolling for the next minute or thereabout. After which, all the pains subsided immediately, and he felt good again.

Grant's memory immediately flashed back to the last few moments that transpired before he arrived in this strange land, he remembered how a vial had broken loose and struck him; spilling some green liquid on him. He had felt a hot, burning, sensation and thought an acid was melting him alive. It started to dawn on him that there was no acid, but a bio-machine of some sort, clearly of alien origin and he was now playing host to some symbiote. The Symbiote V8.

[Initial System Calibration Completed! Symbiote V8 Now Ready To Take Charge]

As soon as the Symbiote was installed, it scanned through Grant's entire being and detected the presence of an intruder. A foreign energy trying to gain access to Grant's being, and in a bid to protect its host from any alteration, it partitioned the foreign energy and commenced thorough analysis on it. But it could only hold it back for so long.

Meanwhile Grant, still quite unaware or still in doubt of his new reality, tried to nudge on and survive this dream, “maybe someone will soon tap me back to reality and I’ll continue my normal routine of cleaning up Area 51”, he said to himself as walked through the bushy paths.

His heavy backpack seemed to be weighing him down, so he stopped and thought to assess his supplies. He still had his backpack containing his phone – which seemed quite useless around here –, a hoodie, a bottle of Mountain Dew and his Vape containing some vape juice which now felt quite hot and unappetizing. He was hungry and thirsty, but more thirsty than hungry.

He slung his backpack and, like a wounded animal, searched around for some fresh water. After walking for about a cumulative two miles towards different directions, he came across a large tree trunk that seemed to barricade a new space; indicating a new territory.

He precariously climbed over it and carried on his search for water. Before long, he was greeted by a strong stench of dead, putrefying, flesh. Moving closer, he discovered the remains of a man dressed in modern jeans and a T-shirt. He seemed to have been gored by the tusks of some gigantic bull or other kind of beast. The large hole that sat in his midriff revealed what were once his intestines.

“What the hell is this place?!”, Grant exclaimed in shock, as he continued on his way. A few steps ahead, he glanced back at the body and thought it a bit strange that for a body that decayed there was no swarm of flies hovering around it. “Why am I surprised? Everything’s strange here”, he said to himself as he staggered on.

The forest was beautiful and swampy, and you could see high rising mountains surrounding it. As far as Grant could see, there were no settlements and no signs of individuals around. He wondered where the dead body he saw had come from. “Maybe people live on the other side of the mountains”, he thought to himself with his gaze fixed to said mountains. Then he saw two boys holding spears at the peak of the mountain that flanked him on the left.

They seemed shorter than average boys and their heads as large as a basketball, but square shaped. “What are those?”, he said with interest and tried to move closer. But he blinked, and they were no longer there. They seemed to have disappeared. “Where the hell did they go?”, he said, curious, as he was eager to figure out whatever they were. They were nowhere to be found.

“I must have been hallucinating, this strange place is taking it’s toll on me. I gotta get outta here”, he said desperately and started walking faster as though his increased pace would get him to an exit door. After walking for a while, he got exhausted once again. The adrenaline rush had died down and all he could feel was thirst.

“Oh yeah! You've gotta leave this place, but first, you’ve gotta find potable water. I don’t want to die”, he said out loud as though he were addressing a third party. He trod on, thoughts still hovering around whatever he saw. Till those thoughts were distracted.

“Voila!!! Water at last”, Grant exclaimed excitedly as he raced towards the large water body.

The water appeared quite murky and a tad unfit for drinking, but he didn’t seem to mind, the water was enough to quench his thirst and that was all that mattered at that moment. He went knee down into the water to enjoy the feel, the cold temperature felt very refreshing even before going down his throat. He was at least happy he wouldn’t be dying of thirst. Then he placed the palms of his hands together, cupped them and made to scoop some water from the lake.

After gulping down two mouthfuls of water, his now refreshed eyes caught a glimpse of his skin and it seemed to glow – although he doubted his eyes, maybe his skin wasn’t glowing after all. But what marveled him the most was the realization that whatever the content of the green vial was, it didn’t harm his skin.

It was while he was examining his skin that he felt some hot air at the nape of his neck and then heard some snorting and shuffling. “What the hell is tha–“, he was trying to say when he turned and saw a monster boar, duly ready to charge him down. His mind raced back to the body he saw in the woods and he immediately knew they must have fallen prey to this boar.

“Holy fuck! Not me”, he screamed in panic as he dived sideways as far as his strength could carry - just milliseconds before the boar charged towards his former spot. That would have been the end of Grant, but he got lucky this time.

As he made to start running aimlessly and quite sure the boar would outpace and kill him eventually, two circuitous lines seemed to appear in his eyes. One of the lines green and the other red, “What the hell are these?” He said feeling quite perplexed as he tried to wipe whatever they were off his eyes. They weren’t going away.

“Well, I don’t care but green seems to connote safety”, he said quickly, running out of time to make a decision as the boar was all positioned and charged up, ready to take him down.

Grant immediately ran towards the path displayed by the green line overlaying his vision. His first dash on the path shielded him with a tree against the sharp tusks of the boar. As soon as he embarked on the path the boar had charged towards him but collided against a tree trunk and let out a loud grunt. Its eyes reddened and it seemed more determined than ever to devour Grant.

But his long and winding journey down the path indicated by the green line seemed to be his saving grace and the red line was effective in highlighting paths that meant danger. Some sort of intelligence he was yet to understand, clearly Symbiote V8, was directing him.

After about twenty minutes of nonstop running on the snake-like path, he became too exhausted to continue. Just when he thought he was going to die; he was led to a path where the green line formed a green circle. He took it as a rest signal and stopped there to catch his breath. The monster boar saw it as an opportunity to devour his prey, but as it tried to launch a charge at him, its head got stuck between two trees that seemed to protect that region.

Grant immediately fell to the ground, gasping for breath as he watched the boar struggle to release itself from the firm grip of those trees.

“Die, beast! Die!”, he barked at the boar after watching it struggle for several minutes. Just then, one of the trees let out a creaking sound. “What was tha- “, he was cut short by the reemergence of the green line. “Oh! Fuck! You mean this shit ain’t over yet?”, he asked as though green line would respond, and began running immediately.

Finally, one of the trees fell with a loud thud letting the now wounded boar loose as it chased after Grant, hot on his trail. After running down the circuitous path for some minutes, the red and green line seemed to converge at a point showing him an abyss of some sort which was covered by very broad leaves, not so wide but infinitely deep. The meaning of the lines was clear: he was to jump over carefully but not go around, in order to fool the boar to its death.

And it worked. As soon as he jumped over the chasm, the onrushing boar came along without caution, ran over the leaves and fell deep to its death, enrage squealing signalling its descent.

“Hmmmmm”, Grant heaved a sigh of relief. “I'm safe! I'm safe!!”, he screamed excitedly trying to make some dance moves, although he’d always been a bad dancer. His prom date was a living testimony, all he did was continually step on the tips of her toes and got a slap to the face for it. Not like he really cared about her though, he had just needed a date not to seem odd. The slap was the embarrassing part and that was the last time he tried to dance in the midst of others.

His ecstatic mood and dance moves were short lived. The moment was abruptly cut short by the message in his head once again:

[Foreign presence activity re-detected! Foreign presence ready to make Admin-Level Changes. Foreign presnce will proceed to make changes unless it is assimilated and brought under control by the V8 system]

[The V8 System requires permission to assimilate foreign presence.]

As soon as the voice stopped talking, a virtual screen popped up right in his vision with two options in green and red rectangular boxes, respectively. “Accept” or “Decline”

“What the hell is going on here?”, he asked in sheer perplexity. “What actually is the V8 system? What foreign presence?”, he said confusedly. “Well… The V8 system must have provided the route that helped me escape that boar. I’ll give it a try. I’m out of options”, he said knowingly as he stretched forth his hand to the virtual screen that appeared before him and hit the “Accept” button.

[Thank You! Assimilation Proceeds in 3. 2. 1]

“Okay…”, Grant said getting ready for some banging headache or stomach cramps, but none of it happened.

• • • • • •

[Assimilation Completed]

[V8 has successfully created an interface (based on the host’s familiarity and preferences) to monitor and control the foreign energy]

[Alert! Foreign Energy Can now make system changes, but is closely monitored by the V8 system]

Then the virtual screen popped up once again before Grant, displaying the newly installed interface exclaiming:

“Level Up! Please select which stats should progress”.

Then, to his utmost bewilderment, a classic status sheet appeared on the virtual screen. Just like the ones Grant had read about in his favorite LitRPG books, and saw in his favorite RPG video games.