Groaning, I tried to tell Alexa to turn the alarm off. Nothing happened. Ugh. I managed to groggily force my eyes open, only to be greeted with…The sun? What? Panic gripped my heart. Have I been kidnapped?

Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I noticed that I was on a tiny raft. Am I dreaming? After pinching myself a few times, I realised that the water was too vivid and clear to be a dream. Someone must have kidnapped me and abandoned me in the middle of some ocean. How they managed to do all this without waking me up is unknown.

I was a very light sleeper, so it is quite odd for this to happen. Maybe I was drugged? Luckily, the sea was very calm, so I wasn’t at any risk of falling off the wooden raft.

As the reality of my situation began to sink in, my panic intensified. I frantically searched the raft for any clues as to what was happening and why I had been brought to this empty sea. But there was nothing to be found - no food, no water, no supplies of any kind. Just an empty raft and an endless expanse of water.

I was just about to give up hope of finding anything useful on the raft when Inoticed something glinting in the corner of my eye. I turned to see a small, metallic object stuck in between two cracks in the wood of the bottom of the raft. 

I gently pulled at the metal but it wouldn’t give. Narrowing my eyes, I placed both of my hands on the metal and-

Welcome to the ‘Uncharted Waters’. I am your raft. I can gain experience through completing quests. Here is a basic rundown of my stats:

Property

Value

Description

Level

0

As level increases, the raft can be upgraded.

HP

1/1

The current health of the raft. If the raft's HP reaches zero, it will be destroyed.

Capacity

5/10

The amount of weight that the raft can currently hold. If the raft is overloaded, it will become unstable and may capsize.

Speed

1

The raft's current movement speed. As the raft's level increases, it will be able to move faster through the water.

Magic

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None

Any magical abilities or spells that the raft may have.

Skills

None

Abilities or techniques that the raft has learned, such as the ability to navigate through storms or to repair itself.

Quests

Get Moving! Commandeer! Vanquish!

Any tasks or objectives that the raft has taken on.

Was that…a status table? For a raft?

Yeah, I’m definitely dreaming. No sane person would mix an RPG like status screen with a raft…right? Oh well. Might as well see how far I can level up this raft before I wake up.

You see, I’m something of a professional gamer. I’d never admit it, but I have wasted thousands of hours on all sorts of games. And well, that table seems straight out of an odd MMORPG.

I focused on the ‘Get Moving!’ quest and the raft spoke into my mind again.

Get moving: Move the raft 10 metres. You can do this by willing the raft to move while touching a control point. Reward: Shop, 10 credits.

Well, now I know that this metal thing is a control point. 

Determined to complete my first quest, I focused on moving the wood underneath me. I could feel the raft start to move, gliding smoothly through the water.

After a few minutes, I reached the 10-metre mark. I could see a counter ticking up as I concentrated on moving the raft. It was quite difficult and gave me a large headache, but nonetheless I was amazed at being able to control something with my mind.

Quest complete: 'Get Moving!' You have moved the raft 10 metres. Reward: Shop, 10 credits. Use your credits to purchase new items and upgrades at the Shop.

A wooden chair suddenly appeared next to me. I quickly checked the capacity and breathed a sigh of relief when it only increased to 7/10. I did not want the raft to become unstable or capsize.

The wooden chair was presumably the shop. Weird choice, but a raft system is odd in the first place. Before checking out the shop, I looked at the other quests. Commandeer was a quest which required me to forcefully take over another ‘vessel’. It had a reward of 100 credits and the ‘basic weapon system’.

That was slightly worrying. The raft system wanted me to fight others? Where was I even going to find other people in this endless ocean?

Part of me wanted to stick to old values, and completely disregard this quest. But…survival out on the ocean will be hard enough without taking any opportunity that I can. I suppose it depends on the situation.

With a quest like this, I couldn’t trust anyone who I might come across.

The other quest was just to kill one monster and gave 10 credits. So. There were monsters. I shivered a bit, but not from a lack of warmth. The sun was blazing and even though I was only wearing my pyjamas, I was still quite hot.

I would struggle to fight monsters. I was just an average, slightly overweight man in his late twenties. The worst fight I had ever been in was at a bar years ago.

Releasing the control point, I sat down in the chair. The shop appeared in my vision.

There was a plethora of items to buy including food, upgrades to the raft, equipment, weapons and more. I could also buy information.

Almost everything cost far more than 10 credits except food, water and information. I could probably buy enough basic food and water to live comfortably for a week. While debating what I should buy, I remembered a quote: ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him one meal. Teach him to fish and he can feed himself for many meals.’

It was quite relevant here since almost all of the food were types of fish. After almost fifteen minutes of debate, I decided to buy enough food and water to last me a couple days and the ‘super-basic information pack for starting out’. There were a few others that I could afford, but they all seemed to be focused on one particular thing.

I had to buy the food and water if I wanted to survive. I don’t know much about sea water, but I had heard of it being very bad for you so I was not going to risk drinking it. I had thoughts about trying to filter it, but there wasn’t anything in the shop that could do that as far as I could tell. 

The food appeared in my hands while two large water bottles materialised next to me. The information I received shocked me to my core.