Anna stared at the mirror and tried to calm herself.

It had to be common, right? A quick google search had spawned numerous recounts similar to hers. A product of anxiety, of stress, of a vivid imagination and too many hours on the PC.

But it seemed so real.

The brown haired girl gripped the sides of the sink and closed her eyes. I am an ordinary high school senior. I do not WANT to be a high schooler, but then what psycho in their right mind would want to be?

But she'd braved the boiling cesspit of hormones twice before and so why was this any different?

It was just another summer day, albeit the last one.

The night before, Anna had performed her usual self-destructive ritual celebrating the last night of freedom. This meant locking her bedroom door, shoving all the new textbooks, binders and pencils into her closet, and burying her head in fantasy novels for twelve hours. Once she found she could read no more, but still that macabre sense of dread still filled her with profound remorse, she'd plug in her laptop and play through Iron Raiders. An old cookie cutter RPG from the 60s, it was one of the few really good RPGs you could play through in a single night without a single moment of boredom.

An ordinary high schooler who is not seeing hallucinations from her favorite computer game.

Slowly, Anna cracked one eye open.

There, bold as you please, hovered the words over her head. In simple, pixel blocks:

Level Up!

Level 0 -> Level 1

"Still there," Anna said, touching the air as though the words were on fire. Her fingers passed through the words just like they had the last ten times. "I do not need this right now."

Like scrolling an invisible iPad, the words moved up, following her fingers direction.

Below them, in smaller text:

Anna Lin

Level 1 Rogue

Str: 3

Dex: 4

Wis: 2

Int: 5

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Con: 2

"So I'm stupid and weak, great," Anna said. Turning the faucet, she splashed cold water in her face, rubbing her eyes furiously.

At five foot three and weighing barely more than a wet cat, the dark haired girl could hardly fault her subconsciousness for the class it chose for her. With her short hair, aversion to sports, and middling academics, being a Warrior or Wizard seemed even more incongruous. Rogues were scrawny but they were also survivors, unladen with knightly duty or wizardly pretense.

At least it didn't label her a necromancer or something gothic. Would I be expected to dig up corpses? Oh the rumors that'd spawn.

Turning off the sink, and drying her face with a towel, Anna took a deep breath and tried to push those strange words out of her mind. As usual, the real source of her anxiety lay just outside her bathroom, just outside her house. Like an insurmountable cliff looming over her tiny ship, Anna continued taking deep breaths as her hand closed around the doorknob.

You can do this. You can do this.

It seemed almost hopeless to hope. Every year she tried to be optimistic, to change herself, and every year it inevitably sucked. Like tossing a piece of gum down the sink and turning on the water. You could throw it anywhere you liked but eventually it'd swirl around and around to meet the same end.

So when her mother's fist finally did bang on her door followed by the annoyed "Annie, it's already eight!", Anne knew that she'd delayed the inevitable long enough and finally stepped out into her room.

"I'm almost ready!" She called. That was a lie. She was donned in her pajamas and hadn't even taken a shower. Kicking fallen clothes aside, she endeavored to find a clean hoodie to pair with a clean pair of jeans. At some point a week before, she'd meticulously and optimistically planned out her outfit for the first day but now it was buried with her laundry, notepads, novels and other debris.

At least I packed my backpack. Tossing it over her shoulder, she took a final deep breath.

"Anna!" Her mom called again. This time the door cracked open and her mom's sharp eyes peered into the room. Her face wrinkled with disapproval. "This room is a mess."

"Thanks mom."

"It's 8:15"

"I know-"

"Were you up all night again?" Her eyes narrowed when she saw the laptop lying on her pillow.

"No," Anna lied. "Look, I'm ready. We can go now."

"You can't keep doing this," her mom said as Anna snuck a few bites of scrambled egg as she grabbed her lunch bag. "You're eighteen now. When are you going to grow up? When are you going to stop acting like a little kid?"

Once Anna's mom entered sermon mode, it was like an un-skippable cutscene. Anna could be attacked by a Great White shark and her mom wouldn't stop until the last word left her mouth and her point was made to the universe.

Desperate "Uh huh's" and "OKs" left Anna's own lips as she stuffed some scrambled eggs and fried rice into her gullet from the kitchen. Every time, her mom's lectures still stung. They seemed to telling what a failure she was in a hundred different ways with all the creativity of English mixed with Mandarin.

"Eat more," her mom finally concluded, checking her watch. She sounded like she'd just ran a marathon. "We're late already."

"It's OK, I'm full now." Anna pushed the remaining plate away.

"You're too skinny," her mom replied as they left the house, the cold Autumn air bracing outside. And just like that, their argument flowed into a new topic as naturally as the seasons.

Their car, a faded red Toyota, already donned a thin cloak of October leaves covering its windshield and crowding its tires. Her mom cursed and began pushing the leaves obscuring the windows away while Anna stood by, rubbing her bare arms.

Level up, huh?

It felt like same old, same old, if you asked her. The same jocks, the same clowns, the same outcasts and same teachers. Only the bad stuff stayed the same. Anna's eyes flickered once more to the words over her head. Level up. It seemed like a bad joke.