I regain consciousness to the red in the bar at the bottom of my vision growing slightly longer, and an icon at the top right fading away: yellow, a head with small spirals around it.

As I open my eyes, I make out voices in the distance.

“Welcome back,” an older woman greets me. She’s familiar, but I can’t place her.

“How am I alive?” I remember the fire creatures. Falling out of the plane, hitting something cold, getting out of it, fog. Something green running by me, fighting. It, no, her, no, him, not being burned to death by the fire creature, then darkness.

That moment of confusion a lot of people talk about when they wake up. Those seconds when they aren’t sure if they’re awake or not; that was beaten out of me. Not being about to take in my surroundings as soon as I woke up meant not being able to react to something my father could have set up while I slept. I’m not a heavy sleeper, but he’s an even lighter worker.

It could be as simple as a glass of water precariously balanced over me that would fall if I moved suddenly, or it could be vinegar, or bleach, or hydrochloric acid. Once it was a knife hanging over my heart like the Sword of Damocles by a thread, with only an again precariously balanced stone keeping it from falling on the headboard. One sudden move and I’d have a scar there now.

Right now, I’m lying on a blanket on the ground. I’m more damp than wet. The woman, I remember, is Mary. I’m outside. The sun is warm, something smells charred, and the world has gone insane.

“You landed in a snowbank, Terry made.”

You’re a wizard, Terry.

“How do I not have any broken bones?” forget the fall. Her husband, Bernard, now a troll, landed a fist on me I blocked with my arms. “Sorry, I doubt you know any more than I do.”

She smiles, it’s a kind smile, and I’m immediately on my guard. “Actually, I did some reading on it. I used to be a nurse, so I wanted to know what my skills did. Endurance governs things like bones breaking or being stunned or losing consciousness. I expect yours is relatively high.”

“Not really.” But it was doubled when her husband hit me. “Just twelve,” I force myself to add. To share a little of myself. My father would hate that.

“That is above ‘average’.” She makes quotes marks around the word. “Whatever this is, it seems to have set ten as normal. It seems arbitrary, and there isn’t any explanation about it that I can find. Mine is at eight.” She smiles again. “Old age and all that. Before you ask, I used first aid on you, so your health should have increased a little. It’s also supposed to help with some debuffs, but—”

“Debuffs?”

“Aren’t you kids into video games more than old folks like me?”

“I’m forty-three. And I’m not into games.” My father played too many of them on me for anything like that to appeal.

“A debuff is an effect that’s applied to you which lowers a stat or ability.”

“So losing consciousness would be a debuff?”

She nods.

“And a buff is something that boosts them.”

“I thought you didn’t play video games.”

“I read. ‘De’ is a prefix that’s usually used to negate, reverse or lower the word it’s attached to.” I smile. “As I said, I read.”

“He’s awake!” someone young yells, then Terry steps into view. He grins. “That was so cool, the way you threw yourself out of the plane and you let me catch you. Then that Fire Atrach jumps into the snow and puff, cold negates fire. How many did you kill?”

The eagerness on his face brings back the wariness talking with Mary had calmed. I have to remind myself he can’t be more than sixteen. This is probably just a video game to him. Killing doesn’t come with consequences.

I open my mouth to let him know what I think of his behavior, but his mother, the amazon, walked into view and I remember her warning. I pick a subject less dangerous.

“What’s an Atrach?”

“They’re the things you were fighting,” he says. “Minor Fire Atrach. Didn’t you check your combat logs?”

I look at Mary for a translation.

“One of the tabs keeps track of the damage you inflict as well as the kills and experience.” She shudders. “It’s a little macabre if you ask me, and you shouldn’t be talking about it as if this is just a game,” she chastises Terry with a smile.

“But it’s a monster,” the kid replies. “That’s what they’re for.”

“No,” I state. A reflex. Something my mother taught me, spend years explaining after my father vanished. It wasn’t because someone was a monster that it was right to kill them. Killing should never be considered.

Now they’re all looking at me, expecting me to elaborate.

That’ll teach you to keep your mouth shut.

I sigh. “Killing’s wrong. Sometimes it might be needed, but it’s still wrong.”

His mother nods in approval, which tells me she isn’t noticing the eye roll Terry gives me.

Kids.

I try to get up, but Mary places a hand on my arm. “You shouldn’t move, you don’t have a lot of health left.”

I tense at her words and she stops talking. Can see my information? What else is on there that she might know about me? Did she tell everyone? Is that why they’re staying away?

I am ripped the wrapper off a trail bar as I wrestle with my paranoia. I don’t even want people around. I should be relieved they’re not here. But if it’s because she told them your secrets. They aren’t secrets, just problems I deal with. Just because I don’t volunteer my mental problems doesn’t mean I’m hiding them.

There’s half a dozen wrappers on the ground, along with the empty box that contained the bars, before I’m feel like I can breathe. They’re still there, watching me. Instead of snapping for them to leave me alone, I shove another bar in my mouth.

“I didn’t mean to pry, or try to,” Mary says, her tone conciliatory. “When I used first aid on you, it showed me your bar for a second as it refilled. I think it’s so I know what I’m doing is working.”

Like that’s a likely explanation, my father’s voice mocks.

I nod. I try to believe her. She has no reason to want to pry. She hasn’t done anything to turn this to her advantage.

You just wait.

I rub my temple, trying to will it to shut up.

“Can I help?” someone asks and I close my eyes before I voice my exasperation.

After a few breaths and some semblance of control over my emotions, I open them and look at them. A man in a rumpled brown suit. He’s slightly overweight and squints as if he needs glasses. His short black hair is uneven and his suit burned in places. I don’t recall seeing him before.

“You are?” I ask.

“I think I’m who you saved.” He motions in the distance with the stump of his left wrist. “I lost consciousness trying to escape those things on the plane. I remember falling in a seat, but I woke up on the ground, this no longer bleeding.” He indicates his stump with his other hand. The end is bright pink.

“I meant your name.” My tone is too brusque. The glares from Mary and Elizabeth tell me that. What are they, my mother?

“Oh, right,” The man gives me a smile. “Griff Delaware.”

“Chuck,” I replied, feeling obligated to give him my name now.

“Well, thanks for saving me.” He turns to walk away.

“You said you can help?” Mary asks.

Griff faces us again. “Yes. As part of whatever happened, I picked up some sort of healing power. Ability?”

“Are you a cleric?” Terry asked. “That would be awesome. I’m a DPS, Chuck’s a Tank as if my mom, and you’re support.”

I share Griff’s confusion. He looks to be a decade younger than I am, but he’s no more a gamer than me.

“I don’t think so? Don’t those believe in God? I don’t. I’m an Atheist. I have no use for God in my life.”

“What’s the name of the class you picked?” Elizabeth asks.

“Oh, just Healer. I’m level one, so I can’t do much, but I’m willing to help.”

My reflex is to refuse. No one just offers to help.

I nod. That damned refrain is my father’s mantra.

He crouches before me, nearly falling as he tries to use his stump for support. Elizabeth catches him. “Is the damage localized?”

“I don’t think so. My arms should be shattered from the blow they took, but they seem fine. It’s like the damage I took only registers on this bar and nowhere else.”

“So no broken bones or any icons?”

I shake my head.

“This should be easier, then. I don’t know if this can actually fix anything yet.” He closes his eyes and places the hand and the stump close to my chest. “Oh. I have no idea how this will feel.”

It tingles, or more like those pins and needles, I get after my leg falls asleep. After five seconds of that, I’m about to tell him to stop when the bar appears and the red slowly increases. It goes to a tenth of it being full, to close to a fifth, then stops.

Griff is panting. “I think that’s all I can do for now.”

“Do you know what you did?” Mary asked.

“I used my power.”

“Is it a spell?” Terry asks. “Those are with your skill list.”

Griff shakes his head.

“It’s your ability then. Those are listed on their own tabs, but you can also see them on the identity sheet. That’s really a character sheet, they should have called it that.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Griff says with a smile.

“What happened, Griff? On the plane. Were those fire things on it while it was in the air?”

The man sits down. “Yes. They appeared while we were in the air. Just before the plane’s lights went out, and we started falling. It was already chaos by that point. Some people had changed into… things. I was in economy.” He chuckled. “I don’t get to travel first class, and right now I’m glad of that. I was in a window seat. I saw a flash of light. Not long after that was the welcome message, and that’s when things started getting messy, but the captain and the stewardesses kept things more or less orderly. There were also a lot of people focusing on the identity sheet. Or something we could now see. More than I expected. People tend to be so irrational about stuff they don’t understand.”

He shakes himself. “I quickly looked through what was available. I wasn’t staying with the suggestion of Merchants. Healer sounded good, especially after…” He shakes himself again. “Then I just waited for the timer to reach zero and find out what would happen. That’s when the real chaos started. One of the stewardesses turned into something scaly and brown and went kind of nuts, attacking everyone. My neighbor tried to stop her. He was the noble hero kind, if you ask me, destined to die trying to help. She killed him. She came at me and I tried to get away.” He looks at his stump. “I wasn’t able to, but there was an explosion in the front, then fire through the travel lane. The seats saved me, but not her. Then something happened behind me. The lights went out, only the fires stayed. The plane started going down and I buckled up. Then we crashed. When everything was still, there was daylight coming from the front and I went for that. Only the fire things were there and I was losing blood. I fell unconscious in a seat and woke up on the ground. When I woke up, this was no longer bleeding. Then you fell, the snow appeared. And other people came.”

“I didn’t wait for the others,” Terry says. “As soon as mom went to tell them you’d gone to see what was going on, I ran after you.”

I want to tell him he’s an idiot, but I’m sure he saved my life. “You shouldn’t have followed me. You had no way of knowing if it was dangerous.”

“I’m a wizard of water and ice,” he replies proudly. “I can defend myself.”

“Terry,” Elizabeth says in exasperation. “This isn’t a game.”

“It kind of is,” he replies, “with stats and skills and spells. It’s so cool!”

I bring up my inventory as she pulls him away. By the tone, Terry’s in for one hell of a scolding. I wish him well. My mother was a master at scolding.

I’m down a box of trail bars and two fifteen kilo weights. I should be able to compensate with the others, so long as the bar isn’t—

“Where’s my barbell?” It isn’t in my inventory. I had it in my hand when I lost consciousness.

“You mean this thing?” a man with a deep growling voice says, and I look over my shoulder. The man has green/brownish skin, small tusks jutting out of his upper and lower jaws, and wears burned bike leathers that are also ripped at the shoulders, where he outgrew them.

Only these had been on Biker Woman when I’d seen them last.

He’s also holding my barbell, offering it to me.

“Name’s Hanz, although I might have introduced myself as Jazz before this happened to me.”

“You didn’t pick that?” I take the bar and study it to avoid staring at him.

He laughs. “You kidding? Of course, I picked it. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to be an Orc? Big, strong, tough. Heals quick to.”

“Okay.” The bar is in good enough condition. Scratched but not bent.

“You’re dying to ask, aren’t you?”

I shake my head. “That’s your business.” The bar goes back in my inventory.

“Really?”

“I know what it’s like to have someone get all over your reasons. I’m not going to inflict that on you.” I look around and as far as I can tell, everyone from the underpass is now here. “Shouldn’t they have stayed back?” the businesswoman has her group to one side. Bernard was on his own to another. Mary was rejoining him. A handful of people were wandering among the smaller wreckage. Looking through it.

“Once Amazon realized—”

“Her name’s Elizabeth.”

“Once she realized her kid had run off after you, she was running to. I followed because this body can take punishment. And I wasn’t letting you be in trouble after you saved the kid. By the time I was done kicking that Atrach’s ass, then pulling you to a safe distance, the rest started arriving, with Mary and Bernard in the lead. Or rather, I expect those two decided to follow, and the rest felt too scared staying alone back there. For old folks, those two are pretty brave.”

“Being a monster has to help,” Griff says, and I fight the startle. I’d utterly forgotten he was there. I hate it when that happens.

“He isn’t a monster,” I say. I know monsters. “He got turned into a troll and he freaked out.”

“I’m just saying that he looks like—”

“He isn’t a monster.” I glare at Griff and after a moment, he nods. “Sorry.”

“I’d say that if something can speak,” Hanz says, “they aren’t monsters.”

“Oh, monsters can speak alright,” I say, then step aside; away from them. After a few steps, I open the map tab. The plane crashed near highway eleven. And I can follow that north back to the eighty-one. There will be towns and cities along it; in fact, there’s a Walmart a few exits north, if I remember right. The map doesn’t help confirm that. It isn’t like my GPS. It’s based on an out-of-date paper map, and it doesn’t even show the name of the towns or roads. Still, I know I’m south of the Walmart. So head north, it’s going to be visible from the highway. It won’t be more than a couple days’ walk to get there and hopefully, there will be something left I can resupply with. If not, there’s going to be other stores around it.

I might have to plan this trek entirely from town to town, which will slow me down. So I need to get going now.

I make it less than a dozen steps.

“Chuck!” Terry calls. “Where are you going?”

I let out a breath before I turn. His expression is as eager as I’ve seen. Does he have any other expressions? “I’m heading to the road. It’s beyond the crash. I want to hit the Walmart as quickly as possible; before it’s emptied.”

He turns without protest and I think I’m done.

“Everyone! We’re getting going!”

Question for the readers.

How should I handle Willpower. Should it be a stat, something derived from one or more than oen stat, like Health, mana, stamina? Should it be a skill?