"So, do you have any questions for me?" asked the entity sitting before me.

I mutely stared back into its blank gray-white eyes. They were weird eyes, it was the same elliptic shape which everyone has; however, there were no lashes to shield the eyes. Even worse, there were neither pupils nor circles of color upon the elliptical surface of those eyes, it was just one solid gray-ish white-ish color, and when the entity blinked its eyelids were the exact same color, with the exact same unnatural smoothness. They reminded me of those electrical blinds some people installed in their homes, it really was quite a frightful thing to witness. The alien and so clearly synthetic and robotic entity working so hard to mimic human expression.

I continued to numbly stare at the entity before me as it sat on the other end of the folding table, which was oddly the same gray-white color as the entity's eyes. In fact, everything in this room was that color, the plastic chairs me and the entity sat atop, the cement-like walls, floor, and ceiling, and the entirety of the entity's body. The only exceptions to that rule of color were myself, and the office light which hung above the folding table. One of those basic office lights which constantly gave off a low hum as it poured forth a constant deluge of white, artificial light which would occasionally skip a beat and flicker.

Slowly, with worry that the wrong move might agitate the inhumane entity, I brought my right hand to the bicep of my left arm and pinched. 'Maybe I'm just dreaming', I thought.

I felt a brief flash of pain, but nothing else changed.

'This can't possibly not be a dream'.

The office light flickered again, drawing my attention to that white ball of brightness which hung above my head. I'd just been staring into a very similar orb of brightness not 2 minutes before, at a table in a fairly busy coffee shop, bored out of my mind.

It was only natural that I was bored, it was 9 a.m. on an average Saturday morning, I'd been awake for just over an hour, but already my laptop had been opened to a past physics lecture I'd been unfortunate enough to miss. Ironically enough, it was a lecture about light, well, light waves and optics to be more specific, but still.

'How much changed in the short 2 minutes since then', I absently mused as I continued listlessly staring at the entity before me.

It all started with a loud explosion somewhere in the nearby vicinity of the coffee-shop. What the causes and effects of the explosion where I don't know, a grove of tall trees which I could swear hadn't been there before had blocked my line of vision; what I do know, though, was that the explosion was followed by a sudden mayhem of screams and clattering tables and chairs as most everyone in the shop either dove for cover or froze in fear. Me, personally, I fell into the latter group, beset by a sudden surge of analysis paralysis and detachment as I mutely observed the scene around me.

All that was until the second explosion, at least. Or perhaps it's more apt to call it the 50th explosion? For after that initial detonation dozens more ignited in the span of just one second.

And then, everything suddenly froze.

I don't mean just the explosions, I mean everything, all the people, the birds in flight I could see just outside the window, the pooping dog on the nearby grass, the dog's poop, for that matter, had stopped in midair too; the only things that could move were people's eyes, and boy did they move. Eyes were darting frantically from side to side as people tried to make sense of what was happening around them, shock, fear, resentment, regret, acceptance, and even determination were present in the eyes of everyone around me. Then, a bright flash of white light, and suddenly I was sat before the entity in front of me.

Which brings us back to the present:

"Do you have any ques-" the entity began asking again before I cut it off.

"I'm sorry," I said, "could you repeat all that again please?"

"Certainly," it replied. There was a certain something which felt off and imitated in the entity's attempt at a calm and sweeping tone.

It continued: "Your species have reached the threshold percentage and quantity of competence to gain access to God's 3rd gift. I am a physical manifestation of the 3rd gift, sometimes called the Interface. I am here to guide you through basic usage of the 3rd gift, and I will guide you to the tutorial platforms once you gain an adequate understanding of the soul-side interface of the 3rd gift. Do you have any questions?"

I took a quick second to process what the entity had said, then finally asked: "What do you mean by "God's third gift" and "soul-side interface"?"

"Great question", it said, making a frightening attempt at a smile, "God's first gift was the gift of the infinite universe, the second gift was the gift of life, and now their 3rd gift is the gift of interconnectedness, some species also refer to it as the gift of magic. As for "soul-side interface", that is the interface which pops up once a final-class--otherwise known as 3rd-class--being calls for their status. Feel free to try it at your leisure if you have no further questions."

Hesitantly, ignoring that the entity implied there are numerous other species in existence, I called out "Status".

Just like that, a game-like screen opened before my eyes, contained within a sort of computer-like window. On the top right corner of the window was only a single red 'X' button, likely the button one presses to close the window, but just below it, on the actual screen, were two other buttons, one with an image of a scroll that read "History", and one with an image of a bell that read "Notifications". 'Those are fairly self-explanatory,' I thought.

Then, I turned my attention to the real meat of the floating pop-up window, the 4-lined, quadrupled columned table which hung below a few lines of text and seemed to list 7 attributes and their levels:

Strength: 11 Intelligence: 14

Dexterity: 12 Wisdom: 16

Endurance: 12 Willpower: 6

Vitality: 11

They all seemed fairly self-explanatory to me, though they did elicit one particular question: "What's the relative significance of the numbers?" I asked the entity.

"Your species' average value for each physical attribute is 10, and for the mental attributes it is 11," the entity explained, then continued, "the calculated maximum to which a member of your species should be able to push any attribute is 20, although very few amongst your world's people had managed to do so, especially in the physical attributes."

I nodded in understanding, even as my eyes dropped to my willpower attribute. It seemed a fair evaluation of my general ability to make continuous efforts at most anything that required any mental presence. Even with things I enjoyed, I could barely maintain motivation or discipline for more than 5 or so minutes.

Finally, I raised my eyes to the lines above my attribute sheet.

Congratulations! A Bloodline has been detected in the host! The percent of people with a bloodline in your world is approximately 0.0000125%! You should consider yourself lucky.

Detected Bloodline: Cat