Chapter 1
RESTART
Words were floating in front of my eyes.
***
Who are you?
***
I blinked, looking around. I had been sitting in my office a moment ago, taking a short fifteen-minute break between clients and drinking a cup of tea. I’d been tired, and more than a little bored. The last client had spent the entire hour hyper-fixing on a problem she had caused, which she could fix with a simple apology, but no matter what I said, she couldn't make the next step in her cognitive reasoning.
It was exhausting.
Professionally, I wrote in my notes that she had limited insight, meaning she struggled to identify how her actions, choices, and thought patterns contributed to her problems.
Quietly, in my head, I liked to call them crusty brains.
People whose thought patterns had solidified so much that their brains were crusted over. It wasn’t professional, but professional was something I did for other people.
What I was doing right now, floating in a black space with white words floating in front of me, was not sitting in my office. Perhaps I had a stroke? I wasn’t old enough to do that. I’d only just passed my licensing exam and launched my professional career this last year. I’d gone straight from high school to college and my master's with no breaks.
So a stroke would be very unusual.
The words had started to blink.
“I’m Deirdre Lynch,” I said out loud.
***
Deirdre Lynch - Choose your class.
***
“What is a class?” I asked.
***
A class is a defined character type that determines your abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. It categorizes you into a specific role or specialization like a job.
***
“I’m a therapist,” I said.
***
Begin.
***
There was a blue sky above me.
The backs of my hands itched and I lifted them to see small red dots on my skin.
“Grass!” I hissed, sitting up to realize I was lying in my biological nemesis. I quickly stood up. I was still wearing my work clothes, a beige skirt with a matching suit top, thick tights, and brown sensible loafers. My nose was already starting to run and I sniffled. I needed to wash my hands off.
I looked around.
I was standing at the bottom of a curving beautiful hillside covered in lush grass that looked as if it belonged in a fantasy painting, not a real-world scenario. Huge fluffy white clouds floated over my head. At the top of the hill was a massive oak tree, its roots and shade killing any small growths that dared to venture near it. The grass extended out from the hill in a huge circle, meeting a thick dark forest in the distance, the kind I would expect to find hiking in the Netherlands, not in the middle of the city.
I could be having a psychotic break.
I went through my mental list to try to self-evaluate.
I was having what appeared to be a severe all-encompassing hallucination. My thought patterns seemed calm, but the rapid beating of my heart matched the panicked feeling that I was beginning to experience. Panic and fear were normal if experiencing a massive hallucination.
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I bent over and picked up a strand of grass, putting it against my skin. I could smell the grass, with its horrible fresh scent that promised me hours of itchiness. My skin in contact with the dreadful plant began to itch and I quickly flicked the grass back down to the ground.
A flock of birds flew overhead and I could hear the whooshing of their wings through the air.
If this was a hallucination, it was incredibly detailed, with full sensory experiences.
“I need to find a colleague,” I said out loud. “I am not equipped to self-evaluate in this situation.”
It made sense to go to the highest vantage point, so I turned to hike up the hill.
I got to the top of it.
Several knobs looked like they were growing out of the trunk of the tree, propping up several rusty, dented medieval weapons that included a large sword, a pike, and a crossbow. On the ground below the weapons was an old, leather, backpack. There was also a sign above the weapons.
“Choose one,” I read out loud.
I reached down and picked up the backpack.
As soon as I touched the leather, the three weapons on the tree vanished with a loud popping sound. Then there was a strange crackling sound and the base of the tree split open, revealing the top of a set of stairs that curved into darkness. As I stared, I could see a light flicker on, as if from around a corner.
This was an extraordinarily strange hallucination.
I took a deep breath.
There was a chance that this wasn’t a conjuration of my mind. From what I understood of severe psychosis from my educational background and observations, there was at least some connection with the outside world. It didn’t just completely disappear. Unless of course I was comatose or something of that sort.
If there was a risk that this was real… I couldn't see how that would be possible.
However, I couldn’t discount anything at this moment as I had very little information. There were those full-body vr systems that I saw an advertisement for the other day, so there was always a chance that I’d popped into one of those and it messed with my head enough to erase my knowledge of going into it.
“I’d like to speak to a system administrator,” I said out loud.
***
You are number 24 in the queue.
***
I moved around the base of the tree from the forbidding hole and perched down on one of the large protruding roots to wait I put the backpack in my lap and opened it. Inside was a large hunting knife in a sheathe, a couple of apples, some dried meat, and a loaf of delicious-smelling bread wrapped in a cloth. There was also a metal water bottle.
“No, you aren’t in another world, a dream, in a video game, or hallucinating,” a woman said from behind me. “What are you even wearing? What class did you even choose? Your outfit should have been generated with your class choice!”
I looked up to see a young woman with long pearly blond hair that went down past her butt. It was pearly because it had pearls in it, along with a bunch of orchids. She was wearing a white tank top with a herd of unicorns chasing a T-rex, bright rainbow-striped leggings, and combat boots. Her skin looked like it was coated in white and black paint that had powdered crystal in it, but the black moved under her skin like it was a living thing, writhing in twisting patterns. Her eyes were green, but as I stared at her they changed to purple.
“I’m a therapist,” I said, rising to my feet.
The woman stared at me for a long moment before bursting into laughter.
“Ok, so I need better starting instructions,” she giggled. “Old people are having some problems. No wonder you were flagged for evaluation.”
“I’m twenty-seven,” I told her. “That hardly counts as old.”
“Eehhhhh, I suppose,” she shrugged, an orchid coming loose from her hair and fluttering to the ground. It vanished as it hit the ground, reappearing in its spot in her hair. “The last guy looked like he was fifty-something and he wanted to know if he could respec at will. I’m letting Order sort that out. He’s the rules guy. Now, why did you want to talk to me? And if you ask me the normal questions or the ones I’ve already answered I’m going to go onto the next person as there are like thousands in the queue now and I need to get a help booklet together or something cause I’m not doing this whole answering questions things much longer.”
I opened my mouth and paused, my mind going over the mess of words she just spewed.
There were several facts to extrapolate.
This young woman could appear and disappear at will. She was responsible in part for this experience and felt obligated to create documentation to help. There was someone else helping her with whatever this whole thing was. She didn’t like rules. This was happening to at least a few thousand other people, some of which understood what was happening better than me.
I wasn’t sure what to ask, so I resorted to the basics.
“Have you seen a therapist before?” I asked her.
She blinked and tilted her head to the side.
“No, and I don’t need to,” she crossed her arms.
“So there are no specific events in your life that still feel painful or unresolved?” I asked. “There is nothing you would like to achieve or change through self-evaluation?”
She lifted her hand as if to point at me, her forehead creasing as she paused mid-gesture.
“You know what, you have a point,” she said. “But, at the same time, psychoanalyzing a God is like, super risky. I could just have a mental breakdown and rip out your heart or something.”
“I don’t appreciate threats,” I told her, firmly setting my boundaries. “And delusions of grandeur don’t automatically lead to violent behavior. I will provide help to anyone who needs it, Gods included.”
“Delusions of grandeur?” the woman laughed again. “I’ll show you delusions of grandeur.”
She smiled wildly as her eyes opened to match her manic grin.
“I validate your class choice,” she said, dramatically waving her hands. “And leave you with a special… gift.”
***
Class Validated: Therapist
Special Class Ability:
Go Where Needed - Automatically teleport when needed.
***
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you fucked around and are about to find out,” the woman winked at me. “Oh, and I’m not just any God by the way.”
“What type of God do you believe that you are?” I asked.
“I’m the mother fucking God of Chaos,” she said.
I didn’t have time to ask another question.
Go Where Needed Activated.