I sat there in the dirt staring up at the sky watching the final sparks of purple fire disappear. We’d missed our chance and now we were stuck here with no idea what to do. Stella whined and crawled into my lap. I wanted to comfort the poor thing, but I needed somebody to comfort me first.

Then, like a light switch being flicked, the sun went out and the world was cast into unnatural darkness. I tensed, waiting for the next ridiculous blow this messed-up world was going to throw at me. Something grabbed me by the back of my neck, lifting me high into the air. Stella barked and then yelped as she was ripped away from me. I kicked and clawed at the thing holding me but there was nothing there. The thing holding me was a phantom. A ghost.

And then the disembodied voice spoke. “Welcome to the trial. The Guardians are pleased that you have chosen to stay. All players are encouraged to seek out Nigel the Sentinel.

All items, skills, and achievements attained by the player until this point are theirs to keep. All progress to the next level has been reset. Your class with be assigned based on your abilities. As you progress new abilities and class enhancements will become available to you.

A reminder, all deaths in the game are final. The exception to this is Earth’s feline race which naturally has multiple lives. They will retain however many they had remaining when they entered this phase.

All players who reach Nigel the Sentinel will be given the Guardian’s reward. All transfer zones have been dismantled. Thank you for choosing to join us in the next phase. Good luck.”

I floated there in the weightless void for who knows how long, fuming that once again the voice had given me a lot of useless information. What was I supposed to do with a few names and some nondescript gaming terms?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this game stuff is bullshit.

It’s hard to tell if the world is spinning when you’re suspended in pure blackness. The way my stomach flipped gave me a hint that it was though.

Something hot gripped my left wrist, burning through my skin as I screamed into the void. I tried to grip my wrist with my other hand, but it wouldn’t move. Nothing moved. I was stuck, suspended in this freakish place while the wave of pain coursed through me. There was an uncomfortable wetness in my nether regions. I won’t bother expanding on that one, I’m sure you all get it. Hey, if you were going through this shit, you’d probably do the same thing, okay? Stop with the judgment.

I don’t know how long I was trapped in that place. Eventually, the pain faded, and I was just floating in nothing again. My mind whirled and bounced from one thing to another. There was no sound, sight, or smell. Just vast and all-consuming nothingness. Have you ever heard of those sensory deprivation chamber things? Well, I’ve never been in one myself, but I assume this felt very much like that.

Then it changed just as abruptly as it had before. The world returned along with everything in it. I toppled to the ground, closing my eyes against the painful brightness of the sun, and clamping my hands over my ears against the sudden return of noise.

I felt weak. Like my muscles had melted in the strange black place. I lay there for way too long, even when Stella found me and started licking my face again. I couldn’t bring myself to move. I didn’t want to move because it would mean that all of this was real. I really didn’t want any of this to be real.

There’s only so long you can lay on the roasting hot ground wallowing in self-pity though. Eventually, you have to grow a set and get your ass up. And so, I did. Sometimes, when I look back at everything that’s happened from that moment, I wish I didn’t.

I stood, groaning at the aches and pains all over my body, and opened my eyes. I was where I had been before; in Joridoon Flats just outside the station. Stella sat beside me, her tail wagging and her tongue lolling out of her mouth. Cute, hard-working, and dopey, that was Stella to a T. I did a little spin, spotting Sob drinking deeply from a trough by the side of the porch stairs.

My wrist stung. I turned my arm and looked at the freakish tattoo the phantom aliens had giving me. There was two side by side. One was a set of three short parallel lines wrapped in a circle. The other was a strung bow and black mask, like the one Zorro wore, wrapped in a neat square. I didn’t know what either of them meant.

Stella jumped up at me, using my stomach to stretch and yawn. I frowned and grabbed her forepaws. She’d been given tattoos as well, one on each of her forefoot pads. She had the same lines in a circle on one, but the other was a shield crossed by a sword.

“What did the bastards do to you, girl?” I asked.

Stella’s struggling forced me to let go. I turned and looked at Sob more carefully. He had tattoos too but his were different. They were on one bulky shoulder, and they were glowing Sob’s favorite neon blue. The same lines in a circle above a weird blob that looked a bit like a bubbling cauldron on the other.

For some reason, I was really offended that they’d plastered this stuff on us. If I’d wanted a tattoo, I would have gotten one before now. It was just fucking rude.

I touched the bow and mask and yelped, in a very manly way, when tiny golden words squiggled just above my skin.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Class: Thief

You steal a few candy bars as a kid and all of a sudden even alien invaders have relegated you to a thief for life. Ridiculous. Why couldn’t I be a warrior, or a berserker, or even a battlemage? All of those things would be better than a thief. Have you seen me? I’m tall and thick and not very good at sneaking around. Even my stomach betrays me when I’m trying to hide. What the hell?

I tapped the other and flinched when an enormous screen blocked my view of the world. It took my eyes a moment to process the thing. It looked a lot like a menu. There was a silly-looking stick figure on one side with squares, some empty and some full with colored icons, spaced around the figure. Below that was a list of basic attributes in alphabetical order.

Agility:

11

Charisma:

6

Constitution:

10

Endurance:

6

Intelligence:

2

Perception:

11

Magic:

1

Strength:

4

My mouth dropped open again at the pitiful number they’d given me for intelligence. I was a pretty smart guy, why the hell was it so low? Again, rude. I shook my head, my stomach jolting a little when the screen shook as well and looked at the other side of the screen.

On the top half was a grid. Most of it was greyed out but there was a line of six boxes in a row that were bright. In one of the spots was my wallet. The others held my special gloves, my pants, and my boots. Everything I was actually wearing was lit up in light green. I only had two empty spaces. That wasn’t good.

Above the grid was a bar that told me I had zero gold. That didn’t seem good either.

Below all that was a split between a mostly empty minimap of Joridoon Flats, and a breakdown of my personal statistics. I read them as fast as I could.

Health:

43/50

Magicka:

2/2

Fatigue:

10/10

Level:

1

Race:

Human

Class:

Thief

Above all of the information was counter in big, bold, golden letters.

15,446,379… 15,446,151… 15,445,674…

It ticked down at unusual intervals so it couldn’t be any sort of timer.

I touched the tattoo again and the screen vanished as quickly as it had appeared. I rubbed my aching eyes, wishing I had a few painkillers for my growing headache. I needed food and sleep.

Sob snorted and started trotting around the station building. Stella followed him, her tail wagging as she jogged. I looked longingly at the buildings around me. One of them had to have a bed and maybe even a can or two of old food I could shove down my gob. But, the animals had spoken, and who was I to ignore them?

I chased after them. Sob was standing beside the corpse of the first croc, eyeing it like it was still a threat. The thing had been reduced to a skeleton but it was still glowing like it had before. I walked up to the thing, kneeling beside it. A small icon appeared above it. A little golden sack. I tried to touch it but that did nothing so instead I focused on it, putting everything else out of my mind.

Another window popped up. It looked a lot like my inventory but there were only two things in there. A pair of crocodile skin boots and a long, sharp tooth. Below the icons there was a square that read ‘loot all’, I focused on that and the window disappeared. The croc’s remains stopped glowing and all of sudden I felt a little heavier.

New item received: Croc skin boots

Armor: 102

Effect: 30% water resistance

Description: These boots are mighty fine! You’ll turn a few heads waltzing down the catwalk in these beauties. Watch your toes though. Croc skin pinches.

New item received: Croc tooth

Description: It’s a tooth yanked from the mouth of a croc… I don’t know what else you want me to say about it. Pointy but practically useless.

I ran to the other croc and did the same thing. This time the croc had three things. A tooth like the other, a pair of pliers, and a lockpick. I focused on the ‘loot all’ button but the screen flashed red.

Insufficient inventory space!

Oh. Right. That was a thing now. Great. I focused on the tooth and when that flashed and disappeared. I did the same thing with the lockpick. It seemed like a better choice than the pliers. Especially since I was a thief now.

A painful jolt of electricity shot through me from asshole to the tip of my nose. I cried out, leaping to my feet and whirling to meet the danger.