“Wake up Steve!” a quirky female voice shouted. “We have to start now!”

Steve awoke with a massive headache. He felt too dizzy to obey the command just now. The world was swirling with bright colors and he found himself in a forest of some sort.

Then, he felt something. Rather than felt, he sensed. Right next to him was a thin long bug. It was brown colored, like the color of… What was it again? Steve paid it no mind and focused on the task at hand.

He awoke completely. Then he got overwhelmed because of his overloaded senses, and promptly passed out again.

“Come on Steve!” the Voice pestered. “You’re falling behind.”

This time was a bit different. Steve felt a bit better in the head, and started to arise.

Only, he didn’t actually get up. He just sort of floated. As Steve realized this, he was startled awake. He instantly shot up five feet in the air and looked all around. All at once.

Steve couldn’t really put a finger on it, but it felt wrong. Though, he couldn’t understand why it didn’t feel right.

He looked around again and saw a forest all around. There were multi-colored rocks on the ground in the little clearing that he was in, but other than that there were blue colored trees not too far from his location. The trees were all different heights, from three feet tall to twenty feet tall or more. The rocks were all sorts of different solid colors.

Steve realized what was wrong. The Voice that was talking to him seemingly didn’t come from anywhere.

This could only mean one thing.

He looked at the brown bug next to him and started talking.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Steve asked the bug.

The bug just stood there, unmoving.

“Well… you’re in a new place now, Steve. I can tell you what is going on, but you’ll have to be fast. Start walking to the edge of the forest to that purple rock over there.” It replied.

Steve started hovering as it started explaining. He took a look at the bug again and kept his vision on it as he hovered over there slowly

“This is a world filled with danger and opportunity. I’m not too sure why you were brought here, but your memories are sealed by Ancient-class magic. Here you will have the opportunity to be anything you want to be, but at an equivalent cost. To my knowledge, it seems like there were a number of others as well.” The distinctly female Voice continued.

It was then that the bug began to move. It moved slowly at first, towards Steve.

“I have been given a set of rules for you for the first countdown. The rules are as follows:

1)     Don’t die.

2)     Don’t wander outside of your 10 kilometer radius until countdown ends.

3)     Don’t evolve until countdown ends.

4)     Don’t intentionally kill until countdown ends.

And failure to obey these rules will result in consequences.”

Steve was confused. He understood the rule part, but nothing about the countdown part.

“What is this countdown?” Steve asked.

The bug was now three feet from Steve’s current location. The speed in which the bug moved was a bit faster than Steve’s current relaxed speed. It kept up with him as he made his way over to the rock.

“If you focus your mind for a bit on the word countdown, it’ll pop up for you!” the Voice happily answered, clearly pleased that Steve was paying attention.

Steve focused his mind for a bit and found the countdown. It currently read:

4 Days, 23 Hours, 20 Minutes, 10 Seconds.

There was also four numbers going too fast after the Second’s mark. Steve felt that this was interesting to watch and sort of useless. Steve reached the rock. He still felt a bit weird, like he was having trouble adjusting to his new body. Steve frowned. It just didn’t make sense, that he would be having trouble with his body.

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Wasn’t he always a normal ball of light?

He rested on the rock.

“What should I do?” Steve voiced his concerns out loud.

“Not sure, but I guess you can start considering your options now!” the Voice replied merrily. “I’ll send you a mental list.”

Instantly, an image of some choices popped up in his mind. They were written in some kind of language that Steve had forgotten the name of. But the words themselves, he still recognized.

1Goblin2Elf3Undead4Troll5Ogre6Slime7Kobold8Naga9Turtle10Human

There were a bunch of explanations next to these words, but they were long and Steve felt that this wasn’t the moment to go through them all.

He figured that he didn’t need to decide right now since he did have close to five days. Something was nagging at him, but Steve couldn’t quite place his thought on it.

His mind was still in a light haze from the first time he woke up, but he really did feel much better now. Compared to the first time he awoke, he felt a bit of energy coursing through his metaphorical veins.

Steve suddenly thought of something.

“What are you?” He asked the bug. By now, it was about a foot away from his position.

“I’m your helper! Unfortunately, my memory isn’t that intact too, somehow.” the Voice started off strong, then started trailing off. “I also don’t know too much about this place at the moment, but I can assure you I can help…”

The voice had a habit of appearing right in his mind, or right next to him. He wasn’t sure how the creature was doing that, but it seemed trustworthy. Steve started feeling a bit warmer about now.

“I told you to move closer to this rock, because the sunlight falls more heavily in this area than your original place. It feels like sunlight is good for you, right?” the Voice asked hesitantly. It was unsure, by the tone of voice.

“I’m feeling a lot better now, thank you,” Steve replied. It was the truth, he did feel a lot better than he did before. The red sun shining above his head were evidently causing this.

Wait.

A red sun? Steve turned his attention away from the slow moving bug and focused on the sky. It was blue, with a small red sun in the middle of it. Steve felt that this wasn’t right, but he couldn’t pinpoint his feeling exactly.

“Uhm… Steve?” the Voice said, seemingly recalling something. “You might want to move away from that bug. I have a feeling it isn’t friendly.”

Steve turned his focus back to the bug. He felt confusion.

“You mean this isn’t you?” he asked as he stared at the bug, now even closer.

Then, the bug jumped him.