I am floating lazily through an empty void.

Where am I? What’s happening? Who am I?

Aaron Leum

Flashes of memory come to me. I begin to remember everything that has happened.

I died, haven’t I?

Does this mean that this is the afterlife? It appears that all there is to do is to float through this endless void. I look down on myself.

Weird, so I can see my silhouette but not my actual body. It’s still there though – I can touch it.

So where was I before I died?

I remember waking up in a room. It was warm – no, hot. I get shivers all over my body as I remember the flames encroaching upon me as I lay trapped on top of my bed. I was burnt alive inside the apartment complex. My mother, Alicia, set the room on fire to collect insurance.

Strangely enough, I feel at peace floating through the void. My past life and all of its tribulations are behind me. I close my eyes and dream.

I was…

I was standing upon a hilltop, looking over a city that I don’t know or have any relation with. It was a freezing night, but I could still see the bustling activity through the streets. There’s plenty of it too, the snow barely doing anything to hinder the joyfulness of the residents. I hear footsteps in the grass behind me. Turning back to look at who’s there, I see a girl standing there, her features indistinguishable for some strange reason. Even with that, her beauty is very apparent, with her long, glossy hair that seems to be a reflection of the night sky and the feeling elegance she emits. The rest of her body seems surprisingly normal, however. I open my mouth to greet her but she speaks first.

What an interesting place we are in.

I am taken aback a little by the peculiar but oddly pleasing tone the mysterious girl speaks with. I quickly try to pull myself together and respond.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it really.”

I smile bitterly, as I reminiscence about gazing upon the numerous rioters that would be standing outside of our mansion, begging for the mayor to fix whatever problem the mayor neglected for the day. The girl walks up next to my side and gazes out of the hilltop and onto the city below.

It’s… bright.

The girl turns to look at me.

What is your name?

“It’s Aaron Leum.”

There was an awkward silence as the girl looked up, looking as if she was in an intense focus. It began to feel a little uncomfortable so I say something.

“Could I have your name?”

The silence continues for a little while longer as the girl continues to look focused as if she hadn’t heard a thing. I turn back to gaze at the city. Looking at it completely removes any feeling of awkwardness from that conversation. Instead, it feels me with peace.

I wish my life was like those below. So happy.

I spot a Father Daughter duo working together to build a snowman next in their front yard. In the park, I see a group of children having a snowball fight. In the far north of the city, way in the distance, I spot a plume of smoke, rising slowly as I see flickers of red and orange at its very base. I was shocked for a moment, but before I could think of anything the girl speaks again, her voice flowing through the air seizing the attention of all around her.

What should we do about him?

It was an unexpected response out of nowhere. Not to me, for sure, but to someone else. Suddenly, the scenery fades out to give away a blank void, similar to what I was just in, except this time we were on a circular blue platform floating through the void.

The girl nods at what I presume to be the entity she seems to be speaking with and then turns to look at me. Her body language suggests she is about to engage in a battle. She grows wings made of some blue ether, swirling with incredible fury and a sword is summoned out of nowhere. I can finally make out her eyes. I can see that they are filled with those same exact emotions I seen once before.

An eerie stillness fills her eyes, just like what she had before she murdered me.

It hits me. Before, I simply recalled the events that had happened, but now I remember living through that horrific nightmare. The emotions within swirl violently as I recall each and every single detail of what I went through. The mysterious girl is surprised and looks around her as blazing hot fires start to pop up everywhere on the platform. An atmosphere of despair descends upon the area. I am too stunned in my own recollection to notice anything that has been going on around me. The girl drops to the ground, dropping her sword. Her wings encircle around her to protect her from the roaring flames.

I feel anger.

Hate.

Shame.

I feel the urge to vomit well up within me. I wish I hadn’t have looked. I feel disgusted with myself as all of those repressed memories hit me in full. A scream starts to build within me as the emotions are simply too much to handle all at once.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I drop down to the floor, the force breaking me out of my stupor and giving me a tiny window of clarity. I don’t know where the girl is any more or what just happened with her. All I can focus on now is breathing.

I close my eyes and breathe in and out, trying to calm myself. I can’t see what’s happening around me, but it feels like it’s getting less and less intense.

I breathe in, holding it in for as long as I can.

What had been done has been done.

I breathe out.

There isn’t anything to do about it now.

I breathe in.

Everything has come to pass already.

I breathe out.

No more politicians or murderers.

And finally, I just lay there, after those moments of intensity, for who knows how long. I feel a bit better now. Just a bit.

My eyes are still closed. I think it’s finally time.

Finally time for me to wake up.

My eyes shoot open, and I hear messages flow into my head.

~Error entity:Unknown detected~

~Assigning entityType:Monster~

~Detecting entity:Monster~

~Rolling skillTable:General~

While still a little groggy from just waking up, a dinging sound plays and a blue screen pops up in front of me.

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You have obtained Identify Level 1.

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What?

~Assigning monsterAttribute:Random~

~Error type:Dark detected~

~Rolling skillTable:Dark~

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You have obtained Camouflage Level 1.

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More windows, more questions.

~Error resolved~

~Displaying status screen~

~Shutting down bugResolver~

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Name: Aaron Leum

Class: Juvenile Shade Beast

Level: 1

Health: 20/20

Magic: 10/10

Power: 1

Endurance: 1

Speed: 3

Intelligence: 4

Spirit:3

Skills: Camouflage LV1, Identify LV1

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And now finally, one big blue window to top it all off.

I look through the windows, and I think I begin to understand it.

This is like I’m in some sort of Dungeons and Dragons game right? Looks like I have my own character sheet. I wonder how I can remove these windows.

As I think that, the windows just disappear from sight.

Interesting. I will it to open back up again.

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Name: Aaron Leum

Class: Juvenile Shade Beast

Level: 1

Health: 20/20

Magic: 10/10

Power: 1

Endurance: 1

Speed: 3

Intelligence: 4

Spirit:3

Skills: Camouflage LV1, Identify LV1

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So I really can control it with my mind.

… Am I hallucinating? Is this what people experience after death?

Whatever the case may be, this is my reality now. I have no choice but to accept it. Now, lets see what all of this stuff means.

I guess the two smaller windows are simple enough. It’s just telling me that I’ve received some skills. That robotic voice from when I woke up had something to do with that I think. I wonder what was that voice even.

My name is self explanatory – It’s just me. My class, however, is less so.

A Juvenile Shade Beast? What kind of fantasy-esque…

I look down on myself, and discover… darkness.

Not from the brightness inside the cavern – there are plenty of luminescent plants around here that allows me to see. It’s just that when I look at myself, I see neither skin or my old clothes. I’m in a new body, one that is completely dark. I can still see my silhouette however, as it seems to be lined in silver, but it's difficult to see any depth unless I try hard to look for it. It’s just that there seems to be some sort of hazy… thing that just covers me, and prevents me from seeing how I really look. My hair is still here at least. I think that’s something that I should at least be happy about kinda.

So that’s it then?

I’m still alive after dying, in the body of this so called "shade beast", no longer human, and I have blue screens detailing my status with me?

I guess this is the life I have to live for now on. Maybe I’m hallucinating. I’m not actually dead and is instead in some hospital in a coma. Or maybe I’ve become crazy as my mother.

Whatever it is, I guess the only option I have right now is to continue living as I have, or at least tried to.

I see on the status that my health and “magic” are represented numerically. I have no idea how that could work in real life, but my knowledge from games, pitiful as that may have been, tells me that the only thing I should worry about is that once it reaches zero, I die. Magic is more interesting, however. It sounds especially dubious, but also kinda exciting. Can I cast spells in this world then? I want to fly on brooms and the like. Maybe not brooms. If I could fly on a couch. That’d be nice as well, despite looking less cool.

I’d have to save that for later because I’m getting an increasingly uneasy feeling that I’m not as safe in this cavern that I thought. This screen and the suspicion of magic do tell me that this is some sort of fantasy world right? That means that there are probably some very dangerous monsters too, especially with the addition of Levels in the status panel.

The next four seems to detail information on my capabilities. My power is… low. Is it possible to have a power lower than one? Maybe with fractions, but I haven’t seen any so far. My endurance is equally low, at the fantastically low number of one. Speed seems to be doing a little better, being at three. Not sure though, I haven’t really tested how fast this body is. Or maybe a speed of three isn’t much to begin with either. Intelligence is my highest stat it seems, sitting at a 4. Like health, I’m not sure how something as intangible as “intelligence” can be so simply qualified into numbers. I mean who is more intelligent: Pythagoras or a modern day math teacher? Technically, I guess the teacher would know more areas math but I don’t think that person will be inventing any new numbers or groundbreaking findings in math anytime soon. Next stat is spirit. I think I should really just give up on trying to figure out what these titles can possibly mean.

Next are my skills: Camouflage and Identify. I know they were given to me I think by that voice from when I woke up. But I don’t know what they do really. Well I mean I guess camouflage is obv-

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Camouflage LV1

The User is able to blend in with their surroundings, lowering visibility slightly,

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Identify LV1

The User is able to obtain information related to a targeted object.

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Oh.

Well, that certainly is convenient.

So what then? Do I just think of it- woah…

I’ve just done something… completely impossible.

I just camouflaged…

I smile. That is really cool.

I use identify on myself.

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The User.

A unique Juvenile Shade Beast. Unlike others, this one seems to hold a higher degree of autonomy.

Juvenile Shade Beasts are a rare type of monster that arise from dark areas in places of high mana concentration.

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