It was a beautiful spring Saturday morning. The temperature was at that perfect point where the sun was bright enough to be hot were it not for the cool breeze. But the beautiful weather couldn’t stop Levi scowling at his bike in the vain hope that his gaze could fix the hole in the back tire. Unsurprisingly, the tire remained flat, and with a sigh, Levi relented from his one-sided staring contest and grabbed the tent from its spot next to his bike. He was here for the tent anyway. Seeing his bike there only drove home his procrastination and the reason why he needed the tent in the first place.

He had planned to get the tire fixed last Monday, and if not, then on Tuesday. Before he knew it he was lying in bed late Thursday night when he realized his bike was still inoperable. Even in his half-asleep state he knew that if he didn’t write it down he would forget about it tomorrow. But his bed was too comfy, and sure enough, come Saturday, he was without a working bike, severely inconveniencing his plans for a weekend bike ride.

Levi had developed a schedule based around rotating weekly between hiking and biking in the mountains behind his house. And that schedule was very important, lest he find himself scrambling to get ready for work on Monday, having spent the weekend in front of his computer, not bathing properly and eating frozen pizza and cup noodles. One weekend off became two, and two became four, and four became never leaving his house when he didn’t need to ever. He knew himself too well to let that happen again. So if he wasn’t able to go biking, it was time to break out his unopened tent and try staying out overnight. It would be a waste to let the tent just sit there after all. The thing had been expensive.

It took over half an hour of scouring his house to find everything he needed. Truth be told, Levi doubted he really needed everything he had packed. Were it not a hiking pack with straps around his waist he wasn’t sure he could have walked more than a mile with it after he was done cramming it full of supplies. It was full now though, and he wasn’t about to root through it to unpack his fourth pair of underwear. At worst the extra weight would increase his cardio workout during hike.

Preparations finished, it was at this point that Levi should have started walking out the door and making his way down the path behind his house that lead to the mountain trail he frequented. Instead, he found himself in the bathroom, camped out on the toilet. It didn’t take much thought to figure out why. The night before, when Levi had finished his shift at work, a strong craving for Mexican food overcame him. That meant he had two options: he could go in the opposite direction across town to the authentic Mexican restaurant, or he could stop at the Taco Bell on the way home. He chose the latter, and his bowels were now regretting it. He belatedly realized that his ‘don’t stop at Taco Bell’ sticky note reminder in his locker at work had fallen down, likely contributing to his present situation.

So instead of enjoying the beautiful hiking trails he normally frequented, Levi was stuck inside on the toilet, regretting the delicious food he had eaten the night before. This time seemed particularly bad, and as he sat there, the pain started to build, slowly but surely, climbing towards what had to be the inevitable release. Finally, after praying to every god known to man, he felt movement. That’s what Levi convinced himself it was through his pain filled haze. Truthfully, the movement he had experienced was more a buildup of pressure. Except it was outside his body. That made zero sense though, so it must have been the pain getting to him. Either way, any pressure had to be good pressure. He could only hold in so much, and he wasn’t about to let a burrito get the best of his carefully planned schedule.

The next few minutes had the pressure building, both inside and out. There was a very teensy tiny part of Levi’s brain that wondered about this external pressure. That part was immediately squashed under the pain from the internal pressure. It eventually built to a crescendo, and Levi summoned a superhuman effort of will to block everything else out and just focus on the task at hand. Goddamnit he would not cry like a little kid. It was possible he might cry like a young adult with severe gastrointestinal distress, but, well, you couldn’t win ‘em all.

Finally, after a great deal of pain, Levi had release. It always took a lot to get started, but once he got going he cleaned out his system quite quickly. After a few deep breaths Levi’s pain addled brain finally surfaced from his willpower induced stupor and was greeted by a rather strange phenomenon. Something had changed, and that something had injected knowledge straight into his brain in the form of strange messages.

[System unlocked! You have unlocked the System! Please hold while the System calibrates all initial installation procedures.]

[Unlocked title: System Inductee! The title System Inductee gives you access to the System as if you had been born with it.]

[Unlocked achievement: Human! You are a Human. Humans receive an extra stat point to every basic stat for every ten levels they possess, rounded down.]

[Unlocked achievement: Supreme Will! For achieving a feat requiring extreme willpower and concertation you have received the skill Concentrated Will.]

[Unlocked skill: Concentrated Will! This skill allows for greater feats of willpower and concentration. This skill is associated with: Willpower, Willpower, Concentration.]

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

[Unlocked stat: Concentration! You now have access to the Concentration stat.]

[Unlocked achievement: Shit Don’t Stink! For unlocking an achievement for a fortuitous defecation activity, you receive a +2 to Luck and your shit don’t stink.]

[Unlocked stat: Luck! You now have access to the Luck stat.]

If someone told him yesterday they heard a strange voice in their head Levi would have questioned their sanity. There was nothing to question here. There were some things you just knew. Levi knew the messages were real in the same way he knew that hunger meant he should eat. In a strange sort of way these messages were like a basic biological function. And they weren’t done.

[Calibration finished! Starting final installation procedures.]

[Warning! Installation procedures may cause slight discomfort. Please stand by.]

That was all the warning Levi got before he fell off the toilet and onto the bathroom floor, clutching his head. It wasn’t pain, exactly. That, he knew how to deal with. Pain hurt, but that was all. This though, this was something else, something more. It felt like some mystical force was simultaneously destroying and rebuilding him from the cellular level up. Which it was, although he had no way of knowing that. And it wouldn’t have done him any good either. Knowledge wouldn’t have made the experience any more pleasant.

It only lasted a short few minutes, leaving Levi splayed on the floor, chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. He could tell he was different. If there was a trace of a doubt before, there wasn’t any now. This was real. After somewhat calming his breathing, he stood up and took stock of himself. Thankfully he had finished his business before this, whatever it was, happened. He didn’t want to imagine the state he would be in otherwise.

Levi finished up in the bathroom before walking out and plopping down on his couch, taking some time to try and digest what had just happened. That time actually yielded a few answers. Whatever force had initiated that installation procedure left something of a very tiny user’s manual, but the answers it contained led to even more questions. The most burning being, why hadn’t everything turned to hell in a handbasket?

Levi powered up his computer, and it didn’t take long to get a clearer picture as he started to read reddit posts in real time. As he had suspected, this was global. Whatever had been installed seemed to suggest as much, but it also suggested other changes. Changes that were conspicuously absent. This “System” was clearly part of a larger whole. And for once the internet was in agreement, this wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot.

For one, the installation hadn’t even gone live yet. Levi felt different, that’s for sure. But not that different. It was the difference of a good night’s sleep, except he had already been well rested. The knowledge in his head said there was more. But then there wasn’t. The biggest indicator was he couldn’t “see” his status screen. He knew it was there. It had clearly been installed, but for some reason he just couldn’t figure out what was on it. This seemed largely consistent with the reddit posts he was reading.

The most convincing post Levi found suggested there was a larger installation still to be fully installed. Except this one wasn’t for people. It was for the Earth. There was probably more useful information out there to find within the flood of threads being created, but Levi was done searching. He shut down his computer and just sat there for a second, digesting.

Levi lived in what basically amounted to a glorified two room shed. It was located on the edge of some rich family’s vacation property by the mountains. For the small inconvenience of taking care of some of the groundwork for the main property, Levi got dirt cheap rent and all his utilities paid for.  Finding the place had been a once in a lifetime opportunity, and one he never regretted taking. It meant he had a slightly longer commute into town and to his job at the town’s only department store, but that was easily worth the privacy. And when Levi had found the place, he had just wanted to get away.

Before moving in, he had lived with his then girlfriend. They had been together since 10th grade, and when his dad met with an unfortunate accident shortly after he graduated high school, Levi had moved in with her family. But shit happens, and when they broke up Levi was done with people. Not that he really had any to interact with anyway, but still. All his previous friends had moved away or drifted apart. All this left him living in a secluded house. One that was now separate from the chaos he suspected was now engulfing the world.

For something of an apocalypse, things didn’t actually seem that bad. Electricity and cell service still worked, and it seemed likely government would still be mostly intact to try and deal with the fallout. Levi tried to ignore the direct result of the “System” and its installation. He hadn’t been alone in his reaction to it, and he had quickly skipped over the threads describing what the roads looked like. It didn’t sound good. The worst was a post he started to read about someone who had been at a pool party with their friends. The person posting hadn’t been swimming at the time, but others hadn’t been so lucky.

It would take a long time to recover from everything that had happened, that much Levi was sure of. But if this wasn’t done then there was work to do. Levi sent out a quick prayer for all those who had lost loved ones, for once thankful he didn’t have any to lose. He thought about trying to call Chelsey’s mom, the only one in the family he had left on reasonable terms with, but ultimately decided against it. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Everything had already been said.

Levi shook his head to get rid of the image of a pool full of dead kids brought up by the reddit post and stood up. If this whole thing wasn’t done yet, he had to prepare. He didn’t want to be caught off guard a second time. He was lucky to be where he was when it happened.

The obvious preparation was a gun. This was where Levi’s more liberal views bit him in the ass.

He thought that no reasonable society should have unrestricted access to firearms during the normal course of events. This was anything but normal though, and despite never having shot one before, he would have felt much safer with even a low caliber pistol to defend himself with.

He didn’t have time to try and find one though. The pressure was building again. The same kind of pressure he had poo pooed before away while doing some poo pooing of his own. Now he knew what to look for, and it couldn’t have been more obvious. Levi quickly strapped on his hiking pack. Something was coming. Something big.