CHAPTER FOUR: REBOOT

As my body lay on the brink of death, I dreamed.

Were they dreams? Or were they memories? I couldn’t quite tell.

I saw myself taking my first steps, wobbling unsteadily before falling and scraping my knee. My mother rushed to catch me, burying me within her warm embrace. The smell of her shampoo comforted me. She carefully knelt down and stuck a bandaid neatly across my knee-cap, patting me on the head.

“Don’t cry, Dante. Men are supposed to be strong.”

I saw myself playing around in the sandpit at the park, immersing myself in the mountain I was building. I remember a friend I made that day, who’d helped me dig the tunnel beneath it. When my father finally came to pick me up, I didn’t want to leave.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You can always come back here tomorrow.”

He lifted me and me deposited me atop his head. I waved goodbye from my new vantage point.

“See you tomorrow!”

“Bye-bye!”

I remember how tall I’d felt back then, like a small soldier riding a giant into battle.

I saw myself getting into a fight with a bully at school. We were both kept in for detention, but my father secretly congratulated me when he’d come to pick me up. It felt good, knowing that I was doing something useful for someone else.

I saw many things. I remembered things about my early childhood that I’d forgotten even existed.

Birthday and Christmas presents. My first crush, an actress on TV. The time we’d gone on a road trip to the country. Playing make-believe with other children at the park.

The flood of memories began to slow down as I grew. Then, at a certain point, they stopped entirely.

The last thing I saw was my father surprising me with a new computer. After that, I was sucked into an endless void.

***

When I woke up, I was crying.

Wet tears trickled down my face, warm and salty. The dream was already fading away from my memories, but the emotions whirling within me remained.

I wanted to go home.

The last few years of my life were practically non-existent. I’d done nothing in that time except play games. I didn’t want things to end this way. There was still so much I wanted to see, so much to do.

But there was no going back.

I was dead, and this was my new life.

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“You’re up.”

I heard the gentle voice of an old man, and turned my head. My body ached, but there was surprisingly no pain.

I was in a chapel of some sort, lying on a rough fur mattress. There were three rows of seats on either side of the aisle and a small shrine at the very end. Off to the side, within arm’s reach of me were two other men, sleeping peacefully on fur mattresses. Injured, no doubt.

“Take it easy. Your body is still recovering.”

The man was a priest, dressed in loose white robes. There wasn’t a speck of hair on his head and his beard grew long and wispy like a portion of the clouds. He placed a weathered hand on my forehead. It felt cool and soothing.

“What... happened?” I asked.

Across from me, one of the men coughed in his sleep. The stained glass windows on the walls depicted a goddess of some sort, with flowing long hair and a simple white garb. The light filtering through tossed an almost ethereal glow across the chapel. The sounds of the city drifted past the stone walls, telling me that it was sometime early in the morning.

“You were found passed out in the middle of the slums, covered in wounds,” he said. “A kind traveller guided you here to be restored. It took me all night to purge the infection from your body, but Healara must have been on your side because you’re on the road to recovery now.”

“Healara?” I gingerly sat up, feeling my strain beneath my skin. My bloodstained, shredded garb had been disposed of and replaced with a simple cloth shirt. I moved a hand to my torso and found only smooth, unopened skin. It was as if last night had never happened.

“You are in her temple,” he said. “The traveller was kind enough to donate coin for our services.”

That was right. I’d been saved, by that cloaked stranger.

“Where is he?”

“He left without a word at the break of dawn.”

That person had helped me twice. I owed my life to them. I wished I could have at least thanked them, seen their face.

I slowly crawled to my feet and stood up. The chapel was completely empty, save the venerable old man and the other two injured. My stomach groaned, and a wave of dizziness hit me.

“Do you have food?” I asked.

The priest nodded. “We do. But it may not be to your standards.”

“Anything is fine.”

At this rate, I was so hungry that food was all I could think about. I would worry about what to do later.

***

It was little more than a few scraps of bread, cheese and water, but to me it was a feast for the gods. I walked out from under the tall archway of the chapel, my stomach slightly less empty than before. The bright sunlight flooded my eyes, but my eyes adjusted to it in a matter of seconds.

The Temple of Healara wasn’t far from where’d I’d ‘spawned’ in this world. I recognized a few landmarks here and there, and was able to make my way back to the job noticeboard without too much trouble.

I’d been given a second chance. Even though it had only been a day since I last checked it, there could already be new requests. If I didn’t act fast, they would be gone. That was what the priest had told me.

That was how jobs worked, both in this world and the previous. They could come completely out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever, and disappear just as fast. You couldn’t blink, or you’d potentially miss an opportunity.

As I stood under the tarp, looking through the pinned pieces of paper on the board, I noticed something that had not been there before.

I plucked it from the board and skimmed through it. The words ‘no experience required’ jumped out at me.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lady Luck must have been smiling upon me.

I turned over the piece of paper and set off towards the address provided, a newly formed resolve in my heart. I might have been in the pits of despair just a few hours ago, but now I was well-rested enough to think clearly. Just because I’d failed a beginner quest didn’t mean it was over. It just I had to dig deeper, start from below beginner level.

Life was just a game. A very, very hard game, but a game nevertheless. If I just kept thinking of it that way, I was sure I could make it.