I was dimly aware that I was throwing up into a bird bath. My vomit evaporated into steam and the stench brought me back to full awareness. I was standing in a marble gazebo, the ground all around me was covered in a low, dense fog. The sky was a deep inky blue, with unfamiliar stars twinkling all around. I couldn’t tell where I was, or if I was anywhere. My HUD was still up, which meant I was still “in the game,” or whatever. Shelby was sitting on a low marble bench across the gazebo, wearing a toga, a wide smile on his face.

“Huh?” I said.

“Hey, man.” Shelby said, “Nice toga.”

“You’re dead…” I looked down, I was wearing a toga just like him. “Fuck. I’m dead. Fuck!” I said, and vomited again.

“Dude. Stop that. It reeks.”

“Sorry,” I said, and looked around again, “Is this, like, heaven?”

“I dunno.”

To my right, Evan slowly materialized, like his opacity slider in Photoshop went from 0% to 98% percent. Come to think of it, Shelby was also at 98% opacity.

“That was quick,” I said.

Evan vomited in the bird bath.

“Oh come on, dude! That's disgusting,” I complained.

“Hey man,” Shelby said, “nice toga.” It didn't sound as good the second time.

Evan looked at us stunned, his eyes widened in realization, and he rushed over to hug Shelby.

“Holy shit,” he said, crying, “I thought you guys were dead.”

“Oh, we are, don't worry,” I said.

Evan scrambled backwards and looked around, “what the fuck?”

“Yeah, dude, I can’t survive getting torn in half. That shit hurts,” Shelby said.

“That traumatized the fuck out of me. I’m gonna have nightmares for weeks,” Evan said.

“Sorry,” Shelby frowned.

“Yeah, that makes me think, though,” I said, “what do we do now? Can we even, like, sleep and stuff…” My heart started racing, if I even had a heart, “can we still get high?”

Shelby and Evan shared a worried look, ruminating on the implications of no more weed. They didn’t ruminate very long, though, because the bird bath we’d been vomiting into started glowing. Soft purple light shone out of the little basin as a translucent orb slowly rose out of the water.

“Hey, look at that orb,” Shelby said, pointing.

“Is that God?” I asked.

“You think God is an orb?” Evan asked bitchily.

“What do you think it is? A dragon or something?” I retorted.

“No…,” Evan lied, “fuck you.”

“Dude, don’t curse in front of God, he’s going to send you to heck,” Shelby said.

“Heck?” I asked.

“Y’know, ‘H’ ‘E’ double-hockey sticks? I’m not gonna say the real thing in his presence.”

“We don’t even know if it’s God. It could just be an orb,” Evan said.

At this point, the orb was completely out of the birdbath, hovering about a foot above it. It started making a low pulsing sound, interrupting our conversation as we all, in unison, whipped our heads to look at it. The orb continued its pulsing as a green bubble started to inflate from each of our noses, our experience bars draining down as the bubbles grew.

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“Ew, what the fuck?” Shelby said, and tried to wipe the bubble off with his toga. I tried to pop it with my finger, but the membrane of the bubble was hard, almost like chitin.

The bubbles detached from our noses when we hit level zero and floated right into the orb. A menu popped up in my vision, with the word “Rebirth” at the top. Underneath, smaller text read “6% Experience Bonus” and “Total Levels: 6.” The bulk of the menu had three tabs: Attributes, Abilities, and Skills. At the bottom of the menu, text told me that I had “6 Rebirth Points.” The Attribute tab was open by default:

Strength: 3 (5)

Dexterity: 4 (7)

Constitution: 2 (5)

Intelligence: 2 (3)

Wisdom: 1 (1)

Charisma: 4 (5)

Each attribute had a blue plus sign next to it, except for Wisdom, which was grayed out. The Abilities and Skills tab were very similar, both had a list of abilities and skills I had unlocked. The skills each cost 5 points a level, while the cost of the abilities varied. I had to buy each job’s abilities in the order I unlocked, and both [Flurry of Blows] and [Windwalk] cost 10 points. In other words, I could only afford attributes.

“Do… you guys think we’ve been here before?” Evan asked.

“Huh?” Shelby asked.

“Like, we’ve already died once or something? We had stat points when we, like, spawned in or whatever,” Evan said.

“We did?” Shelby asked.

“Shelby, is your Intelligence still 1?” I asked.

“Uh, no,” Shelby lied, “don’t change the subject. Are we dead again?”

“I dunno, maybe we all died when Evan touched that wizard’s hole and this is, like, hell, so we can’t really die, we just come back here,” I said.

“Whoa.” Shelby said.

Evan got bored and started spending his points. He put a point each in Strength and Constitution, and two points each in Wisdom and Intelligence. Shelby maxed out his Strength and Constitution with three points in each. I put two points in Constitution and Dexterity and a point each in Strength and Intelligence. I didn’t find it worth mentioning that my Wisdom was stuck at 1 like Shelby’s Intelligence.

When I spent all my Rebirth points, a burning purple button popped up in my vision that said, “Confirm?” I confirmed and the button flashed impossibly bright. My ears popped violently, and my vision went black.

I started my Sunday like anyone should: at 11 A.M., with a hangover, and an intense feeling of deja vu. Usually I’d scroll on my phone for, like, an hour, but something didn’t feel right, so I rolled out of bed fairly early. I threw on a tie-dye sweater and pushed my hair back with an elastic headband, and made my way to the living room.

My roommate Shelby was sitting on the couch, protein shake in one hand, joint in the other, two microwave breakfast burritos waiting in front of him. Law & Order was on the T.V. in front of him, but he wasn’t paying attention to it; he was looking around, swiveling his head frantically.

“Yo Shelbs, what are you looking at?”

“There’s, like, a little Skyrim compass in my face,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Right here,” he said, pointing to his forehead.

“Dude, I’m cutting you off,” I said, and took the joint from him. I took a hit and immediately noticed the health bar at the corner of my vision. Immediately, everything rushed back to me.

“Aw shit, we gotta find Evan again,” I said.

“Where’d he go?” Shelby asked.

“The game, doofus.”

“Where’d he get the money for tick… ets… oh shit.”

I could still open all my menus, and I still had all my classes unlocked, but I had to relearn all the abilities as I leveled up. As expected, the rebirth points I had spent were added to my attributes. I chose Monk, wanting to get my Wisdom up a bit. Shelby went back to Fighter, hoping to unlock a different class at level 5. I grabbed Alfredo and we rushed out the door. It felt comforting to have him, he’s very important to me.

We very quickly ran back into Deladrea and Marloe. She was a Level 4 Warlock and he was a Level 3 Fighter.

“Don’t worry Shelby, I’ve got their attack pattern down, she’ll open with-” I got hit in the face with a bright blue bolt of magic.

I spit out a snotty glob of blood and readjusted my headband.

“That one, and then-” Shelby started laughing.

“And then the rod,” I said, as Marloe kicked the shit out of Shelby. I stayed back, trying to bait out the spell. Instead, green energy spilled out of Deladria’s hand and wrapped around me.

“Hey, bitch, what?” I asked. The energy reeled me in as she charged up her evil orange void spell. I struggled, but couldn’t do much as she blasted my face apart.

“Fuck!” I shouted, back in the mystical bird bath gazebo, “Shelby, you gotta stop letting her get you with that laughing spell.”

Shelby didn’t say anything, he wasn’t even there.

“If you don’t die in the next, like, minute, I’m gonna be pissed,” I said out loud, and sat down on the bench in a huff.