A white-haired woman was lying on the bed, locked inside an empty square room with a large screen on one of the walls and a camera in the corner. The Dimensional Bureau clearly didn’t want to take any chances, because if you’d be able to investigate the insides of the walls, you’d find steel bars and other reinforcements. It was said that these walls could withstand anything that wasn’t nuclear in nature.
“Ugh…” – A soft voice escaped from the woman’s lips; she was about to wake up. The woman opened her eyes, a clear confusion was visible on her face. She removed the blanket covering her and sat on the edge of the bed. Currently, she was wearing a dress, it resembled a hospital gown, yet a bit more stylish. It was loose enough to cover most of her body features.
“Hey, you! You’re finally awake.” – An androgynous voice came from the camera, as it focused lens on the woman.
“Was iley ga irs wer lof mea? Wh…” – She replied in a weird language, but before she could finish the sentence, she covered her mouth in surprise, before slowly examining herself. She carefully extending her arms as if to check if everything was in place.
“We’re sorry for locking you in this room, but we didn’t know if you’d be hostile or not.” – Even though the voice tried making a conversation, the woman was clearly ignoring it. She was currently sitting there and blankly staring in the space in front of her.
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The pain was finally gone! Nerine was elated, but even though she no longer had to suffer, another crisis approached her. She was currently locked in a room, and when she heard somebody’s voice, she wanted to ask some questions to get a hang of the situation, but what came out of her mouth wasn’t her voice. She even spoke in a different language! Which she now apparently knew very well. In fact, her thoughts were mostly in this language now.
Nerine looked at her own body, ignoring everything else. After a closer examination, she noticed that her body wasn’t her as well. As bad as it sounds, she was inside a girl’s body.
She couldn’t get a closer look because of a gown She was wearing, but the thought of being a girl didn’t feel that alien to her, in fact without noticing she began thinking of herself as a woman. Did that strange place mess up her mind? She wanted to freak out about this, but she couldn’t, she felt completely normal as if something was preventing her from panicking.
“Welcome to the System. User account has been created.” Before she could think of something more a familiar popup appeared in front of Nerine’s face.
Soon the message disappeared and something that looked like a status screen from an RPG game replaced it. Nerine was completely stupefied, the status screen showed the game character she had painstakingly created, with several differences, the most significant was that her overall level was now at 1, even though the classes had their levels intact.
Was that a joke? Aren’t people usually transported to another world in such scenario? Why was she in this room? Her mind jumped from question to question, without finding any answers. All she knew was that she was now stuck in this ridiculous body with ridiculous abilities. She didn’t know why she was so calm, but she suspected that it may be because of the “iron will” perk that she picked while creating this body.
“Excuse me! Can you understand what I am saying?” The voice has finally managed, to break Nerine out of her ponderings. Yes, she could understand English, but the question is will she be able to speak English, will the mental changes prevent her from doing so?
“Yes?” Nerine turned her head towards the camera and answered with an audible hesitation in her voice. She was curious if she’d still be able to reply in English, but fortunately, she didn’t forget how to speak her original language, though her accent has slightly shifted.
“Can you tell us what’s your name?” The person behind the camera asked.
“… Nerine.” She replied. Although she wanted to give them her earlier name, Nerine realized that a woman called John would seem weird, additionally, her original name now felt alien to her. Was it because something messed up her mind? She was hoping that despite some changes she was still the same person, not just an imperfect facsimile.
“Well then, Nerine can you tell us something more about yourself? Why or How did you come to our world?” Camera voice asked one question after another. Clearly, they didn’t know much about her, but Nerine had no idea as well. She could try escaping using abilities from the game, but that would certainly antagonize her captors and wouldn’t guarantee success. Especially since Nerine didn’t know if her abilities would work.
“Hmm… I’ll try to answer your questions, but could you first answer two questions of mine?” Nerine replied. She wanted to gather some information so that she could make at least a somewhat convincing lie if necessary.
“All right, we’ll answer your questions if we can.” The voice replied after a long pause. Whoever was behind this mysterious voice wasn’t the one who’s pulling the strings, but it didn’t matter to Nerine, because she only wanted to get as much information as possible before making any decisions.
It was one of her traits from back when she was still a guy named John, and the fact that this thing didn’t change made her feel more certain about herself.
“Where am I? What is this place?” First and Foremost, Nerine wanted to know, where is she? She believed, she was still in the same world, since people were still speaking the English language, but she wanted to know if she was currently some sort of a test subject.
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“You’re currently in one of our maximum-security cells. Don’t worry it’s only temporary, and if it comes to this place, you’re currently inside one of the dimensional bureau offices. I don’t know if that tells you anything, but you should at least know that we deal with cases like yours and we aren’t your enemies.” The voice explained. “Could you answer one of our questions now? The sooner you cooperate the sooner we’ll be able to release you.”
Nerine was now sure that either it was her old world or some other world with similar technology. She hasn’t heard about Dimensional Bureau before, but it might be because it’s some secret organization something like MiB, but what could she say to them? That she was a 25-year-old guy who turned into a game character he created. She didn’t want to take that chance and since they already think she’s from another world, she decided to play along and use knowledge from the game to pretend that she’s an actual otherworlder.
“I’m don’t know how I got here. All I remember is that I touched a crystal surface… then… lots of pain before waking up here.” Nerine shuddered as she said the last part. “Why are you holding me here? I did nothing to you! Why are you using this mechanical eye to speak to me?” She tried to make her performance more believable by looking distraught.
“Please calm down… We just want to make sure you’re safe, cooperate with us for a little longer and I promise will release you.” The mysterious voice tried to reassure Nerine. “If you’re uncomfortable with speaking to a camera or as you called it ‘a mechanical eye’, please turn around and look at the black panel on the wall, please don’t be alarmed when an image of a person appears on the panel.”
While trying to look a little uncertain Nerine followed the request and turned towards the TV screen. It was way thinner than LCD screens she could remember, but maybe the government technology was more advanced than the one used by people.
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It was already 6PM when a woman entered the Chief’s office, she wanted to report to the Chief about her findings. Mr Dark was currently sitting in his chair and smoking a cigar, he had a habit of smoking before leaving the office. It was her last chance to tell the chief about the woman they found earlier this day.
“Sir, we’ve got results of a DNA test. Her DNA is almost that of a normal human.” The Lieutenant put a bundle of papers in front of the bureau’s chief
“What do you mean by almost?” The chief leaned forward and extinguished his cigar. He took papers and begun slowly browsing through them.
“She is as similar to homo sapiens as homo neanderthalensis is. She could even have a child with a human without any issues. She can be classified as a different species of a human.” The woman explained, “But there was one mysterious thing, in the sample, we took every cell was already dead.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a coincidence or some error?” The Chief Replied
“About that. We can’t be sure without taking another sample…” Lieutenant answered the question, there was a noticeable hint of hesitation in her voice.
“Spit it out, Lieutenant Mira.” Mr Dark ordered
“She woke up 30 minutes ago and since she’s technically a human plus we don’t want to antagonize her, we can’t take another sample.” She explained. Lieutenant Mira was a curious person, most people thought she was too curious, but more often than not it’s that curiosity that helped her solve thousand of cases. Yet in this scenario, it only made her more anxious, since she was unable to satisfy her thirst for knowledge.
“I don’t want another PR nightmare. If she’s not hostile, apply a standard procedure we use for people lost in the dungeons. Give her a new identity and help her ‘reintegrate’ into a society.” Mr Dark answered
He was referring to a law that was passed 8 years ago after people who were declared dead after an initial dungeon outbreak started appearing all over the world and since it was easier to create a new identity for ‘deceased’ people than reinstating them as living, most governments went with the easy option.
“But we can’t be sure if she really is harmless!” Lieutenant argued.
“That’s why we can have someone to keep an eye on her. A certain lieutenant might for example offer her accommodation for the time being. We’d be able to observe her 24/7 and it wouldn’t be a violation of her rights if she agrees.” Mr Dark explained his idea, he knew that Lt. Mira was too curious of the woman to pass up on the opportunity.
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Even though Nerine has already been let out of the cell, they were still inside the bureau, but this time Nerine was wearing normal clothes, a grey skirt with a floral pattern and a matching top. They even gave her heels to wear, and even though Nerine was reluctant at first, she realized that she shouldn’t complain since she was now pretending that she’s a full-fledged girl. What’s worse is that the clothes didn’t bother her as much as they should.
“Here is your new ID.” Lt. Mira passed a plastic card to the half-elf.
“Thank you.” Nerine was happy that they didn’t cause her trouble and even managed to give her a temporary ID, some starting funds, and a permanent ID within one week. A woman named Mira even offered her to move into her apartment, so she can have a place to stay before finding a permanent abode for herself. Though she’ll have to figure out the issue with blood since according to the lore she has to feed around once per week.
“So, what was your home like?” Mira inquired, she always asked questions about Nerine’s past. It was really taxing because she had to say something and she wasn’t a good storyteller, so she used game lore instead, but that approach had another downside. They might actually know the game She was referring to.
“Um… I can’t really tell. I lived in the forest with my parents for most of my life. We rarely went to bigger towns.” Half-elf explained. “And most of my free time I spent studying.”
“Did it bother you?” Lieutenant asked.
“Not really, I liked the peace and quiet the forest had to offer.” Nerine replied it was a standard backstory for a half-elf character. Since most elves and humans didn’t accept each other, the mixed families were often forced to live in isolation, so that they can raise their children in relative peace.
Similar questions and answers were going back and forth for another 15 minutes before finally, a young man stepped into the room. “Ms Nerine, we’ve completed all the necessary paperwork, you are now a legal citizen of this country. Be sure to not to break any laws and your future should be bright.”
Nerine smiled at the man. She was thankful that he stopped this conversation because the longer she spoke about her past he higher a chance that she’d make a mistake. The man blushed slightly in response to the smile, but the blush was so brief that nobody managed to notice it. Only after he left some muffled laughs could be heard from outside the room.
“I guess it’s time to show you my place.” Mira stood up from a chair. “Let’s go.”