“There is a lot of things that can go wrong and often they do”

When I think about it there is a lot of things I regret: forgetting to tell my parents I love them; not having the courage to confess to my first crush, life has always been filled with choices.

Scenes flashed in front of my mind. The tall bodies that my eyes could never reach, the first steps as I first began to walk. Riding in the wind, the sun shining down when I first learned to ride a bicycle. Discovering the tears that followed like a stream on my mother’s face when we stood surrounded in a sea of strangers, the true meaning of when someone really leaves. The pain and sweetness of living for someone else other than you. Memories replayed itself in my mind, flowing like streams into a river, even a drop of water carries the sea.

The laughter of my childhood engraved by the maturity of my youth, there were a lot of things. But somehow the last thing on my mind wasn’t any of these, as my eyes started to go blank and the throbbing inside my head started to grow louder like lightning in the storm: the last thing on my mind surprisingly, the colour of the panties which had floated down past my window this morning as I had looked outside, they were black lace, it was black…

“CONGRATULATIONS PLAYER. WELCOME TO THE LABRYINTH. LOADING UP SYSTEM INTERFACE. BOOTING…. IN THREE…TWO…ONE…”

Awakening, there is no better way to describe it. As soon as I came to, I found myself in a white room with other people like me, it was like a group of ants that had been stranded, some were milling around while others stood in a daze.

I’m not sure I stood out, with a glance I might not even have been recognised by anyone else from work. Average face, average height, the only thing that stood out was my slim build but wide shoulders. Quick to calm down I started counting heads, reaching triple digits, after a hundred, I could confidently say I wasn’t the shortest.

In this way I began adapting to my situation, wondering for answers to questions which I could not answer would not get me anywhere. As I was doing this I was greeted by a notification inside my head, ‘…you will soon be entering the Labyrinth, please familiarise yourself with your settings, you have one minute’. Not long after a status screen appeared in my mind:

INGIL ???

Occupation: -

Abilities: Slow Metabolism

Modifiers: -

Equipment: -

Reading the few lines of what appeared to be a status screen, I could not help but be struck dumb as I could faintly hear myself laugh imagining myself as a protagonist in some of the few online novels I had been reading. Wondering how I would live in my next ‘life’. Bringing myself back to reality, I quickly looked at the status screen in my mind, only to hear a countdown appear “ten…nine…eight…” it was at this moment I suddenly noticed a missing prompt which I had not seen before, ‘please select a choice of weapon…’. In the last moment as the timer counted down I could only curse myself for not spending a longer time checking out the options