Forever

The sun beat down on his skin like a thousand needles stabbing all at once. Hazel eyes slowly opened and blinked, trying to rid themselves of the bleariness of sleep. Spine cracked as it attempted to pull itself off of the earth, sore from sleeping without any support. As mind cleared and body stirred, Salim was certain he had no clue where he was.

Panic set in first as Salim’s blood felt like it had turned to ice, and his stomach dropped into his legs. With hands shaking ever so slightly, he began to look around, searching for anything familiar to ground himself. Unfortunately, familiarity was not to be, as massive redwood trees with smaller shrubbery below his feet were the only thing to be seen. Even the sky was crowded by the canopy above, making it hard to make out anything besides its bright blueness and a few clouds.

Plopping down against the nearest tree trunk, Salim held his head as his vision began to spin. Why’s and How’s swam around his brain, blending with the feeling of dread that naturally comes with being abducted and dropped in the middle of some random forest. Sitting there, he eventually was able to clear his head, simply sitting in silence and listening to the buzzing, chirping, and general hubbub of the forest.

It was calming, and while not reassuring in the slightest, let him focus on what he was going to do about the current situation. The last thing he could remember was laying down to sleep in his apartment then, bam, waking up in the middle of nowhere. A more unfortunate fact was that he was still dressed for bed, completely exposed to the elements except for some gym shorts.

Thankfully, wherever he was didn’t seem to be anywhere close to where he lived; it was the middle of January, and he could have succumbed to the elements before he even woke up. That being said, Salim took this to mean that he was somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. The air was muggy and hot, meaning mosquitoes were likely not far away, even if he hadn’t been bitten yet.

However, knowing what hemisphere of the Earth he was on didn’t matter if he couldn’t find civilization. Normally the thing to do when lost in the woods was to call out, but if he had been abducted, that probably wasn’t a smart thing to do. Salim pulled himself away from the tree's base and moved over to the center of the clearing, preparing to begin walking. This probably wasn't the best choice of action since he had no way to orient himself, but he wasn’t going to stay where he had been put.

Observing the surrounding forest, Salim noted that it wouldn’t be that hard to navigate through the woods, the giant redwood trees took up a lot of the available sunlight, and anything larger than shrubbery struggled to grow. Shuffling his feet in a random direction, Salim reached the edge of the clearing in only a few steps but was stopped by… something.

There, floating in front of his face, was a blue box.

Form still calibrating, please stay within the boundary.

For more information, think Help or press the hyperlink. Expected wait time for calibration is 10 minutes. Please stay awake during calibration for maximum effect. Bug reports are not enabled currently, so the user is unable to file for support in case of a bug. Have a good day.

Salim stumbled back, from shock or confusion, he wasn’t sure. Gathering his bearings, Salim moved back over to the screen and read its contents. The information provided only sent him further into confusion, all of this made no sense. Except it did at the same time; ‘help’, ‘calibration’, and ‘bug reports’ all stuck out to him as terms used in a video game.

Cautiously, Salim peered around the side of the box, vanishing from one of his eyes when looking at it dead on. Looking closer, he could not discern any sort of thickness to the box, it was simply a plane that displayed text on one side with no discernible volume at all.

Putting his deduction away for a second, Salim pressed into the box. His finger went straight through with no resistance, like sticking a finger into fresh mud. But, when he pressed specifically on ‘Help’, the box suddenly became solid, feeling like he was pressing into metal.

Help Page No. 1

There are several keywords that can be thought to bring up menu interactions. The main keyword is Menu which is responsible for managing most system interactions. Skills is a direct way to open up the skills page which is the representation of how the world is manipulated. Log shows past interactions that are deemed significant.

Next Page ->

The sudden influx of information made him pause, reading the text and falling into thought. “I’m in a video game?” He thought. “At least that was what it looked like, why else would there be menus, skills, etc…” His mind trailed off, questioning everything that he had seen. That along with the bug report thing pointed this towards being some sort of hyper-advanced virtual reality, even though he had never heard of something this advanced being possible yet.

It still didn’t add up to him though, the sensations he was feeling were so real, his body still ached and burned from his dirt nap. But at the same time, why in the world would someone drag him out wherever he was and somehow configure these menus to dupe into… into what? What would be the point of it?

That was unless he was drugged and currently tripping incredibly hard, he had never done anything before so he wasn’t sure what it would feel like. But, at the same time, he felt fairly safe in assuming that since he could think straight and everything else felt clear, nothing was in his system. Completely immersive virtual reality though, while some of the parts were publically known it just didn’t seem like the full technology was completely there.

The most rational idea he could come up with was that some company or group abducted him in the middle of the night and stuck him here, wherever here, was. He couldn’t do anything and for all intents and purposes, he could pound sand in this whole situation. He had zero control, and he absolutely despised it.

For now, though, he didn’t have enough information to figure out his situation. All he could guess about what had happened was based on conjecture from a source he couldn’t trust. While there was important stuff going on, he needed to get a grip on the blue boxes. Calling out for the menu in his head, another blue box popped straight in front of his eyes.

Name: Salim Douglas

Race: Human

Level: 0

Class: N/A

Skills

Logs

Stats

Titles

Help

Settings

A few things stood out, notably that his race was considered human and that he was right in assuming that he was probably in a video game. Containing the frustration of tapping a foot and wringing his hands, he tried to click on any of the top four words, but to no effect.

Not seeing anything else, Salim continued selecting settings. A long box starting from his head to his knees appeared, detailing simple options from box customization to notification settings. While the settings were interesting (he had played around with them a bit, changing the box's color to purple), ultimately it didn't give information he considered helpful.

Pulling up the menu again, he indented his finger on the glowing box.

Skills

(None)

Not quite the explanation that he was hoping for, it showed that there was some sort of skill system in place, but nothing useful like how to get skills or what they did. He would have to refer back to the help menu after looking through all the screens.

The logs' menu was empty, simply having a blank screen waiting to be filled with “significant interactions.” However, the stats page had more things, with less than stellar explanations.

Lvl. 0

Stats

Free Points: 0

Might: 8

-/+

Finesse: 9

-/+

Resilience: 7

-/+

Acuity: 12

-/+

Resolve: 14

-/+

Depth:0

N/A

Salim wasn’t sure what to think about the stats. They didn’t have any explanations tied to them, but he could guess based on their names. From what he could figure out [Might], [Finesse], and [Resilience] could probably be translated to stats in games he played like ‘strength’, ‘dexterity’, ‘agility’, and ‘constitution’. The other stats were a bit more of a mystery; [Acuity]’s definition was clearness of thought and emotion, while [Resolve] could be similar to willpower or specific definitions of charisma. He had no clue what [Depth] could be, considering it was zero and was unselectable so he left it alone.

The point distribution was also interesting to him; he was not at the height of his fitness and hadn’t been since high school, as spending your days in an office didn’t do too well for the body. His [Acuity] might be related to him being able to focus. He never really suffered like people with ADHD or other attention-based issues, so perhaps his [Acuity] was based on that.

His [Resolve] was something he didn’t agree with. He couldn’t see himself as being particularly strong-willed, he often failed at diets or other self-control exercises his girlfriend made him follow. Even if he didn’t think the stats lined up with him perfectly, he didn’t know if they were meant to, so he decided he would figure this out by reading further into the help pages.

Enthralled by the influx of new stimuli, Salim closed out of the stats before opening the final unchecked menu.

Titles

Number of Titles: 2

The First

You were the first to step upon the path of sentience.

Alone

Whether by creation or genocide, your existence is unique.

What?

Looking at the words on the screen, Salim watched as they swam before his eyes, taunting him with their audacious meaning.

It couldn’t be… could it? His mind spun at the thought.

Of course, this lined up with his theory about this all being a simulated virtual reality, but there’s no way whoever put him here would just leave him alone. That would be a monumental waste of time and resources, would it not? They probably just put the flavor text in to see how he did under pressure or something.

Or something. His thoughts mocked him.

Salim felt his legs cease its tapping as they gave out, plopping him down onto the warm leaf-covered ground. In his head he was fighting for clarity, but in actuality the meaning of being truly alone was hitting him in the gut like a shot put. His family, his girlfriend, his friends, everyone he knew and loved was gone, and he had no idea how to get out.

His breath tightened as he struggled to breathe, he had never experienced a panic attack before, but in all fairness this was a less-than-usual situation. Swimming in the dizziness, he fully laid down against the dirt and stared up at the sky, watching as bright yellow blended with blue in a scene that he had witness hundreds of times before, basking in the comfort of familiarity.

The ground made for good emotional comfort, but the physical effects had much to be desired. Once his vision had returned to normal, Salim pushed himself off the ground in direct opposition to his screaming back. While he wasn’t incapacitated by fear and panic, he felt sadness clamp onto his body, strangling him with a lethargy that he hadn’t felt since before he began therapy years ago.

Even so, he couldn’t wallow in the dirt forever. Lazily moving his hand to the taunting purple box, he dismissed it with a wave.

It was strange, it felt as though he had died, and he was mourning the “living.” From everyone else's perspective, he must have had run away, ditched them, or simply vanished, never giving them the closure they deserved. While he still held some hope of returning, the pit in his stomach said otherwise; he was a logical person, and being stolen in the dead of night was not a recipe for a safe return.

Even if his hope was as useful as the dirt he was standing on, he wouldn’t despair. He couldn’t, if not for his family, then for his dignity. The sadness that cloaked his body suddenly steamed, boiling with indignation and confusion. He would get through this. He just needed to focus on the here and now.

But his confusion was short-lived, cooling into apprehension as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something had changed.

The forest had gone completely silent.