‘Progress until possible rebirth’

1/1 Stable Connection 4000/4000 Energy

'Rebirth Possible: Activate?'

Yes No

Yesssssss. Finally! Energy full, words changed, and one ticket out of bored-land complete. Now I just need to poke the words that are floating right over the. . .well, they used to be floating right over the center of my bubble. They seem to have teleported over to my herculean effort in design made of blood, sweat, tears, some hair, lots of sand. . .the works.

The fact that they are in the middle of my nicely drawn circle seems promising. If the symbolism didn't matter, I wouldn't have needed a spot to stand in the middle, would I? Which means all I need to do is walk over there and press the yes button all while making sure not to step in my sand drawings and smudge them. Smudging them can cost me up to a hundred or so energy and I really want to get out of here soon.

In fact, I would be walking over there right now if there weren't still words floating where the energy counter had been a minute ago. See, food is good, and I'm really quite hungry, but at this point I'm in a zen state with hunger. After the first day or so the hunger didn't increase that much, and I haven't been exhausted in the way starvation would usually cause. Having the time to really sit down and think about this whole new reality thing makes me think that these new words are probably the most important part of ending up here.

'Player System Setup Complete

Generating Unique Reward'

'47'

'46'

'45'

Yup, so this was supposed to be some sort of tutorial, I guess? Show the player that they are woefully under-prepared for the world they find themselves in, and then give them something to use in order to progress. The squirming ball of silver light hovering over the words is probably whatever the reward is going to be. The silver ball of light looks kind of like what a cat in a bag would look like, but without the recognizable paw shapes and no opening and way more legs than a cat would have. About the right size for a cat though.

'29'

'28'

'27'

Obviously my hunger can wait for whatever reward I'm getting. Hopefully a good reward for finishing this tutorial quickly instead of a bad one for dying early. There's a chance I can get a bonus for being the first to revive, but the skydiver might also have gotten here and respawned before me. Everyone is smart enough to figure this stuff out on their own, probably faster than I can with all the time people spent stuck playing games. The only edge I have is my brain's visual-processing center, and that isn't super easy to use without specialized machinery or extra-sensory powers like I always rushed to obtain in the VR games. Maybe the reward will be a third eye or something?

'11'

'10'

'9'

Whatever it is, the squirming stopped. Now the light is a perfect sphere, floating there a foot above eye level. Must have decided on something.

'2'

'1'

'0'

Crack

Crack

Crackrackrack

. . .

Huh. It hatched. The bottom shattered open and out popped a silver-toned. . .animal? Maybe a monkey? It has the right proportions, but no long tail. I would say that it's a goblin, but it doesn't have pointy ears and it isn't green. Maybe some sort of pet? If there was an explanation from the floating words, they dispersed when the creature fell through them. It's just laying there on the sand now, moving a little so it must be breathing, but it isn't getting up right away. Lets poke it and maybe it will turn over?

Poke

. . .

Fleshy. That's. . .an interesting feel. Not scales or fur or even plastic texture, but fleshy.

. . .

. . .

Poke poke poke

. . .

. . .

Po-

"Will you cut that out, asshole?"

. . .

"Huh?"

It can talk? Finally it rolled over, and it really does look like a tiny person missing a few features. Four finger and toes on each leg and hand. A mouth filled with pointy teeth. Rounded ears that are flat up against the head. A squished looking nose. No hair, nipples, genitalia, fingernails, toenails, eyebrows, or even eyes. At least none that are visible. I can feel it glaring up at me right now.

"What, you're just gonna gape at me?"

"Ummm. . ."

"Yeah, shut up. I just got created and I don't like you already."

"Then how can you-"

"No, but seriously, shut your mouth, giant-man."

"But you're just sho-"

"Not one more word."

"W-"

"Or I kick you in the nads."

. . .

Can he/she/it even reach this far up? I think its probably a he from the voice, but. . .

"So here's what's going to happen. You are a dumb giant-man who I, magnificent I, am stuck sharing this bubble with."

Which means that I really should just hit the resurrect button and leave, I guess? Maybe after my next death this guy will be more. . .friendly?

"By which I mean, on the off-chance I happen to die, which I won't, I might happen to run into you here. From what I saw of your brief stay in the land of the living, you at least will be here way too often."

Wait, he knows what happened before I died? So he was created with knowledge about me, which is probably how he can talk. . .

"As long as you leave my resurrection gate alone so I don't have to redraw one, I won't even go out of my way to remind you how much you suck."

Wait a minute, is he talking about my respawn circle?

"Anyway, toodles Mike."

"Wait a-"

Thunk

"Ooof."

"I said not one more word."

And then, after such a spectacular roundhouse kick, he walked over to my circle, hopped inside, then touched the yes button. A flash of silvery light, and then the asshole was gone. Above my painfully crafted circle a new phrase floated. Well, more like an old phrase.

‘Progress until possible rebirth’

1/1 Stable Connection 1003/4000 Energy