I woke that morning with a groan as I pulled the CPAP mask off my face. Walking into the bathroom I emptied my bladder and stared at my reflection in the mirror as I did so. Brownish grey eyes stared back, blood shot with a lack of good sleep. A couple days worth of stubble adorned face and neck, and the hair on my head had started to grow out revealing the rather noticeable section that had receded years ago. Why the rest failed to follow suit often baffled me.

I started up the shower and waited for it to get hot then jumped in and shaved my head and face, no point in having hair up top if it wanted to form a cul-de-sac. I finished cleaning myself and let the hot water roll down my back as I stood there enjoyed the sensation. It’s the small things. Then I dried myself, brushed my teeth and found a shirt and underpants. I sat down at my computer and woke it up to check for anything interesting on Youtube or Netflix. This was how I started every morning of my immensely mundane existence.

I was 43, single, and had a serious dislike for most people. I hadn’t always been that way, but something about the way the world had been heading for the last decade left me angry and despondent. Motivation had fled me when I took a promotion that moved me to Winslow, AZ. I really fucking hate this town. The familiar thought swirled through my brain as I felt another migraine brewing.

I worked for the prison system in Arizona and had taken a promotion to Sergeant. It was starting to go well when I was railroaded by staff who didn’t like the fact the shift Lieutenant wanted them to do their jobs. Next thing I know I’m under investigation for EOL issues and then barely keeping my job but losing my rank. To compound things further I had a request to transfer back to the unit in Tucson that I had started my career with the department going on five years.

Everytime I inquired about said transfer I was told the unit didn’t have enough staff to allow me to transfer. My father had died two years after I moved up here, six months after I lost my rank. And my mother had recently passed several months ago. I didn’t have any reason to stick it out with the department other than the pay and benefits. Which seemed to be worsening every year. For some reason I just couldn’t break away. It was like being paralyzed with fear. The thing is, I was no stranger to being jobless. But for some reason I couldn’t make the leap.

Finding nothing on Youtube except some reports of larger than normal wild animals attacking people in some big city somewhere not Winslow I hovered over the Pornhub bookmark and considered rubbing one out. However, the pounding in my head was increasing and I just knew a migraine was incoming because I had just started seeing the tell tale ‘auras’ of shimmering light in my vision. Isn’t there a song lyric about ‘when masturbation loses its appeal’? I thought wryly.

Fortunately I was on my regular day off and didn’t need to call in to work. That’s all I needed to push this migraine over the edge, dealing with an inept, witless Sergeant or Lieutenant hounding me about ‘how they need me’, or ‘we’re already short staffed’, and ‘I’m going to need you to bring in a doctor’s note’. A DOCTOR’S NOTE! I’M NOT FUCKING TWELVE YOU INCOMPETENT SHIT! I’M A GROWN FUCKING MAN! I THINK I KNOW WHEN I’M ABLE TO WORK OR NOT!!!

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down from my raging internal monologue. The aura was growing in intensity and I blinked several more times before what appeared to be words burned into my vision wherever I looked.

UNIVERSAL MANA SYSTEM INITIALIZING…..

“What?”, I mumbled to myself while swiping at the glowing blue text that appeared suddenly in my vision.

…… GREETINGS USER, YOUR PLANET HAS BEEN SELECTED TO JOIN THE UNIVERSAL MANA SYSTEM.

…… USER ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATION WILL COMMENCE IMMEDIATELY.

“Do what now?”

Now I was beginning to get concerned. I rubbed my eyes furiously and blinked several times hoping to somehow make the strange messages go away. Well, this shit’s new, isn’t it!?

….. THE UNIVERSAL MANA SYSTEM HAS DETERMINED THAT THIS PROCESS MAY CAUSE SEVERAL SIDE EFFECTS TO INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, DEAFNESS, NAUSEA, HEADACHE, LOSS OF COMPLEX MOTOR FUNCTIONS, LOSS OF SIMPLE MOTOR FUNCTIONS, LOSS OF ALL MOTOR FUNCTIONS, AMNESIA, ITCHING, VOMITING, STROKE, HEART ATTACK AND/OR CARDIAC ARREST, LOSS OF BLADDER AND/OR BOWEL CONTROL…..

My eyes shot wide at the list of possible side effects of whatever was supposedly about to happen to me, “What the shit is this!?” It was like one of those shitty drug commercials on Youtube. The kind that last for 10 minutes and won’t let you skip them. “Fuckers.” I muttered as the list of side effects scrolled past my vision.

….. AND DEATH.

INITIALIZING… NOW

“EH!? DE…….” My whole world went white with sudden and excruciating pain. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire. My jaw clenched so tight I felt teeth break. Then my muscles locked up and I felt myself falling over backwards in my living room before I was plunged into unconsciousness. I honestly don’t know if the aforementioned unconsciousness happened before or after my head bounced off the hard tile.

I’m not sure how long I was out, when I woke I felt like I had just relived the first week of basic training at Fort Hood. Every muscle in my body was screaming at me for attention. “Didn’t die…” I rolled onto my stomach carefully and then pushed myself to my knees while giving myself the quick once over. Everything seemed to be in place for the moment and it appeared I hadn’t soiled myself during whatever the hell that was, “Bonus.”

I stayed in that position for several long moments before I felt that I had recomposed myself and managed to crawl into a nearby chair. My head was still hanging low when I noticed several bloody cracked teeth lying under my desk. One held a gold filling I remembered getting when I had been in Korea teaching English. Long before I hated the world.

Running my tongue across my teeth I was surprised to find them all in place. I rubbed my jaw gently and continued the inspection of the inside of my mouth with my tongue. Convinced nothing was out of place, I heaved a deep breath and focused on the litany of messages that awaited my attention.

….. USER ANALYSIS COMPLETE…..

….. CALCULATING PREVIOUS LIFE EXPERIENCE…..

“ Shit! This thing reading my memories or something!?”

….. ACTIVATING VIRTUAL PERSONAL ASSISTANT…..

While wondering how invasive this thing was getting in my head a small blue pulsing orb began forming in the center of my vision. I shook my head left then right, the Orb continued to sit directly in my line of sight. “You must be my assistant thing-y, maybe now I can get some insight into what is happening to me.”

“YES! I AM! GREETINGS KARL!” The assistant orbed pulsed vigorously with a young female voice that boomed through my skull.

“unGH… so loud!”

“OH! Oh… so sorry. Is this better?” Her voice went down several decibels and was no longer spiking through my brain when she spoke.

“Much” I glared at the little blue pulsing ball of energy. My patience was thinning now that I regained most of my senses and my body didn’t feel like it was on the verge of imminent failure.

“What the fuck is going on, and who the fuck are you!? Also, are those my teeth?” I demanded from the little blue orb impatiently.

The Virtual Private Assistant bobbed about and seemed to spin and look at the floor where my teeth had broken out of my mouth to be replaced with new ones then responded cheerily. “In reverse order, Yes! Those were your teeth, as I stated before, Karl, I am your System appointed Virtual Private Assistant. As for the first question, the system already announced itself, your planet has been selected to join the Universal Mana System. It’s how I’m able to talk directly to your brain. The only reason I have a visual component is because it seems in many of the cultures of sapient beings across the universe, having a disembodied voice can cause varying forms of psychosis or insanity.”

My left eye arched at her last statement, “You don’t say?”

“Oh! I most certainly do say, Karl!” Doesn’t catch on to sarcasm, does she?

“Ok, that doesn’t actually tell me what the hell is going on.” I was starting to get impatient, and I couldn’t just punch the orb without first punching myself. So that just made me even more irritated.

“That’s fairly simple. Your planet, Earth, has been inducted into the Universal Mana System and flooded with mana. CONGRATULATIONS EARTH!” Her cheery disposition was really getting to me. Is it a she? Do I really care which pronouns she ascribes to? She’s in my fucking head, it’s a she.

“And just what exactly is this Universal Mana System?”

“Oh, the answer to that question is one that scholars and philosophers across the Universe have been trying to solve for millennia. I don’t think we really have time to get into a philosophical debate that has spanned such a long time. We have to get you ready for what comes next.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, part of the process of saturating the planet with Mana is the enhancement or mutation of all non-sapient creatures on the planet as well as the ‘spawning’ of various monsters to test and temper the sapient beings of the planet. This would be you, Karl.”

“I know what the word sapient means. What I’m hearing from you is that shit’s about to get violent around here?”

“Very much so.”

I looked at the Canik pistol I kept in my desk and considered sticking the barrel in my mouth and finally pulling the trigger. I didn’t know if I had the wherewithal to deal with this shit. Maybe this is just a dream and that’s the sure way to wake up? I picked the weapon up and leaned my elbows on the desk and brought my free hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose. I tapped the side of the barrel against my temple several times as the blue orb bobbed about in my vision as if she were scanning everything in the room. It turns out that was exactly what she was doing.

“Oh, you’re already armed! That’s good Karl. My calculations predict those with projectile weapons will have a 21% increased chance of survival.” She chirped all too happy to identify the weapon I had almost ended my own life with.

“Is that so?” I rose from my chair and entered the back room of my apartment. I reached under a table and lifted a heavy rifle case on top of said table and popped the clasps noisily and flipped the lid open. Within were the only two rifles I owned. A Century Arms C39V2 American made AK47, and your standard run of the mill AR-15. The AK was dressed in Magpul from front to back with a Texas Weapon Systems dogleg railed dust cover with a simple 25mm red dot.

The AR had the CTR stock, a vertical foregrip attached to the handguard, and a 1-6 power optic on the top rail. Then I reached into my closet and pulled out a Mossberg 930 tactical with a nine round magazine tube. The little AI quickly scanned the hardware I placed on the table then slowly spun to look at me.

“I now calculate our chances of surviving the first day at 78%!”

I found myself laughing at that and reached to a shelf to gather my magazines and ammo and started loading them up. The AI continued her explanations while I loaded magazines.

“Currently the system is analyzing your genetic code and making corrections. It’s essentially correcting thousands of years of poor breeding, genetic mutations, etc., and any other issues that it finds to make every human the optimal version of itself. The initial work was conducted during the system start up, it probably hurt. Alot. It probably still does as it is correcting any lingering issues.”

Interesting, maybe not so bad then? We’ll have to see the results and assess later.

The orb dipped slightly and paused in her exposition “about 18% of the Human population did not survive the initialization process…”

“Shit… that’s… roughly over a billion people. Guess I’m lucky…”

“If we’re still alive tomorrow, tell me if you feel lucky or not.” This was the first time I had heard the little AI be anything but overwhelming positive.

“To elaborate, the process as I said, has been building up for the last 47 of your Earth days. Mana has been saturating the planet and changing it’s very structure. I am sure you have seen reports on your communications networks about unusually large and violent wildlife over the last few weeks, yes?”

“Yeah, there was a sighting of a wolf or something almost half the size of a car chasing people down the street in like… Chicago? Something like that. You’re saying that was a mana infused animal?”

“Yes, perfect, it’s only going to get worse, the animals will get bigger, and soon other creatures will start spawning in the wilds…”

“Fucking great. How long do I got before the shit hits the proverbial fan?” I asked throwing more sarcasm at her.

She buzzed and bobbed silently for a moment then responded, “It’s already started, look out your back window at the highway.”

I slid my already loaded pistol into its holster and attached my spare duty belt to my hip then grabbed the shotgun and went to the kitchen. I pulled back the curtains and was stunned at what I saw. At first it looked like a massive pileup, except, in most cases the vehicles on the highway weren’t actually near each other. Several had rolled down the side of the highway and came to rest in the field between the community college and the Flying J that was only a kilometer from my apartment. These vehicles had damage to their hoods and roofs, not the front or rear like they would normally have in a highway accident.

As I watched the scene in front of me play out I saw several people run from the highway as a large lizard with six legs and a scrunched up muzzle with too many teeth attack a semi-truck. I could hear screaming and smell the smoke in the air that drifted from several vehicles that were burning. The lizard was twice the size of the truck it was attacking, even with the trailer attached. The man tried to flee the vehicle but a long frog like tongue lashed out and tugged him to his sudden and violent death.

My AI watched from the corner of my vision with me, as people and vehicles alike were devoured or smashed by the odd looking lizard. After a long moment of watching people die, the little AI turned to me and spoke.

“Karl, I’ve finished analysing your life history and experience. I’ve narrowed down your selection of classes. You need to pick one and distribute your free attribute points.”

I spared a last look at the carnage on the highway then went back to my living room, leaned the shotgun against the wall and took a seat at my desk. “Alright, how do I do that?”