This wasn’t going well. At least it was a magic sword, and weapon availability was a god-send. I didn’t have much faith in going out and punching things. That was reasonable in contact sports since you had gloves - I’d punched a wall in frustration exactly once in my life and broken my hand whilst doing so. All of a sudden feeling returned to my ears again and caused me to mentally hit the next shiny tab in hopes of avoiding more creepy surround-sound whispering. It was ‘magic’.

There were three categories of magic; cantrips, low magic, and high magic. Both low and high were greyed out, but cantrips showed a single-item list and a blinking ‘choose new cantrip’ button. The System treated me to another involuntary reading session. Spells were cast by thinking about them, the same had been true for summoning a sword. At least I didn’t have to say shit out loud.

I centered myself for a moment as the speed-reading was starting to get to me, or maybe it was the being frozen in time bit - or the world ending. The insanity of recent events once again broke through to the forefront of my mind - only to be whisked away back down, which allowed my consciousness a return to the main event.

My class gave me a single cantrip, Dungeons & Dragons terminology for infinitely repeatable and essentially free spells. This was misleading as [Create food and drink], also a D&D spell but not a cantrip, had a cost of 10 energy. It was a very good one to have, even if it lacked a description.

The orientation message outright said things weren’t the same anymore, which probably meant no supply-chains and so forth. I’d never gone deep on researching any food industry but mass starvation seemed extremely likely. The thought rekindled another realization as it became clear none of my family was going to survive the week if that was the case. Dad was on life support and grandma was on a laundry list of medication she couldn’t live without.

She also hadn’t been much of a conversationalist for the last five years - dementia did that to a person. I didn’t need the System’s help to repress the rationalization. It looked like I’d be making my way through the post-apocalypse the same way I had before, mostly alone.

For a moment I wondered if my kittens had survived, I hadn’t even given them real names yet. I hoped my buddies would be alright at least – all of them, not just the ones I’d kept in touch with through the years. A deep loneliness broke through, which the System remedied by reminding me I had company, again. The whispers had been repeating themselves for a while now.

“Choose.”

‘Fuck off’ was the first thing which came to mind. I wasn’t a very mature person unless something called for it and perhaps somewhat stressed at the moment, which I considered quite reasonable when accounting for current circumstances. The System really wanted me to get on with it though. As always my powers of deduction were impeccable. Shame I had a problem with authority.

“Choose.”

...

“Choose”

This fucker could really use a lesson or two on user-friendliness. A better color scheme would be a good start. Or, god forbid, perhaps it could allow people to do things at their own damn pace. If I ever made it face-to-face then I’d be giving this dude a stern talking-to.

“Choose.”

Or I’d quiver in fear since I’d be at arm’s length with an entity apparently capable of turning reality into a shitty videogame, not to mention ‘reconstituting’ what I presumed to be the entire fucking planet. Upon reconsideration, I’d settle for a sternly worded letter.

“Choose”

I almost said Pikachu. Fine. It hadn’t given me a list to select from or anything reasonable like that. It wanted me to ‘vocalize’ a keyword and my mouth had unfrozen a while ago, but I’d at least had the presence of mind to stop reflexively saying shit out loud - one of the best life skills I’d picked up in my teenage years. It took a few repeat incidents before it really sunk in, though.

“Choose”

I tuned out the incessant whining and had myself a thinking session. Instincts wanted to say ‘Light’ but fortunately my gut reactions were less of the ‘always listen to’ variety and more of the ‘you know what would cause a shitstorm?’ kind. A furtive glance of my surroundings, right before the time-lock or whatever hocus pocus bullshit was going on, had shown my vision was surprisingly clear for someone in a completely enclosed space with no light-source.

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Doubly so considering the fact my contacts were currently somewhere on the floor and I wasn’t effectively blind for some reason. A longstanding nagging feeling settled, laser eye-surgery would’ve been a waste of money from the looks of it. Oh, well at least I wouldn’t have to pay the mortgage anymore. Too bad the house was probably gone too.

The thought calmed me down a little. I tried to remember what D&D cantrips and first level spells existed but it wasn’t going so well. A few ideas sprung up, however. First thing which came to mind was ‘message’... or rather ‘sending’. The gaminess of everything so far and the lack of good design philosophy made me a bit worried ‘message’ would be less ‘send a text’ and more ‘leave bad advice on the ground’. If this worked out I’d at least have a chance at contacting friends.

First-second idea was healing, although I hadn’t seen anything suggesting it was a thing in the class list. Second-second idea was ‘mending’. Clothes were a bitch to make pre-industrial revolution and if I accepted the premise here then not walking around in rags would be a big win. Especially if time equaled power, lots of extra utility there too - assuming things worked like they did in a completely unrelated table-top game.

Third and so on was just a list of poorly remembered utility cantrips – mage hand, prestisomething, more cool than useful. Offensive and defensive cantrips were a thing too, probably had the angle covered with the magic sword and prospect of becoming superhumanly fast though. Okay, sending, healing, mending, rethink.

“Sending”

Invalid cantrip.

Damn.

“Healing”

Invalid cantrip.

“Mending”

Cantrip chosen: Mending.

Yes!

Orientation complete. Think: ‘close interface’.

An intrusive thought did.

Shades of color returned to the world. Then it hit me. Almost figuratively. A near miss one might say, which in the words of the great George Carlin was a collision. My ears rang with worlds’ worst case of tinnitus, like someone punched me in the face, repeatedly - swollen lips and all. I fell to my knees with my hands on the floor, again. My vision clouded and I almost threw up. I nearly cried but instead I stared, another well-honed skill of mine.

My head spun. Everything was fucked. Future? Gone. Everything I worked for? Gone. The thoughts looped over and over again in my head – I heaved. I catatonically opened and closed the interface with the vain hope it would fail so I could wake up. The bad thoughts circled the drain and finally flushed away to make place for… a feeling I didn’t recognize. Something changed before I could pick it apart.

Errant detected. Closing interface.

Odd rickety clicks and scraping echoed. My eyes snapped up and I backed off towards the wall opposite the hallway, in what must have been the most adrenaline fueled scurry of my life. It still took me a second or two to really focus on the creature, partly because I had to wipe my eyes and clear my airways, partly because it just came out of the shadows. Some kind of skeletal abomination, or maybe a metal-album cover come to life.

A quadrupedal monstrosity, with four arms too – an inhuman mish-mash of skeletons. It reminded me of the Vitruvian man drawing but with a spine made out of skulls fused together at odd angles and no head - all kinds of skulls, including human. Everything else looked like interwoven cords of bones. Two of the legs were vertically oriented and taking lanky, unbalanced steps towards me. The other two legs were doing much the same, but each on opposite sides of the wall like it was bracing itself in the hallway.

It had an unnatural gait, slowly sliding towards me with four appendages outstretched and grasping at air. There was all kinds of nasty looking shit at the ends, a pincer of lower jawbones with teeth and all on one. A collection of pointy bone shards adorned the other. The third waved various talons around while the last snapped with a single big claw. A snort finally cleared my airways, the air smelled stale, aside from a whiff of cigarette smoke. It was a big bastard, bear-sized maybe. Not that I’d ever seen a bear up close. But if I had, it should be around the same size. Shit. This wasn’t a good time for distractions and escapism in general probably wouldn’t work out in my favor anymore.

The human mind worked in a funny way. It put labels on everything, all filed into categories according to patterns. I considered this thing a bone golem before I’d even finished consciously taking in what it looked like. Another funny thing about humans was that we had a built-in combat mode. We weren’t at the top of the food chain without reason.

I had already frozen, couldn’t flee and just finished fawning. The last remnants of catatonia faded away, replaced by a rising anger, perhaps even hatred – wasn’t really the type to hold a grudge but I’d make an exception here. Errant detected… Errant projectile… Kill Errant.

For the first time today, the System and I were in perfect agreement. I also learned something about myself. I’d never really hated anyone or anything before. Disliked - sure, despised even, been angry to the point of violence on occasion. Usually a loud, expressive affair with shouting, pulsing veins and shaking hands involved. This was the opposite, calm fell over me. I never really understood before, but I did now. Beware the quiet ones indeed.

I straightened up and placed one foot forward and the other foot back, then bent my knees a little. I put both hands together in front, like I had a two-handed grip on an imaginary stick.

Summon sword.

Some part of me went ‘’what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’’ but for once it worked to my advantage that I never listened to that particular internal voice. As usual, I preferred the other one and it sang to me – telling me to take this fucker apart.