Elijah Hart ran a hand over his hairless head as he tried to ignore the curious or disgusted glances originating with the plane’s other passengers. His lack of hair wasn’t really the issue – not by itself, at least. Instead, the real problem was the lack of eyebrows; he’d never really considered how much the presence of those two short tufts of hair affected the way someone looked. Not until he’d lost his, that is. In addition to the alien absence of hair on his brow, he was also afflicted with sunken cheeks, red-rimmed eyes, and a pallid complexion. One look, and anyone who knew anything would recognize precisely what he was.

He sighed, drinking in the stale, antiseptic atmosphere. He hated flying, but not because he was terrified of crashing. No – it was more the act itself. The sudden jumps and jerks, the steady drone of the engines, the cramped confines of the cabin – it all added up to a particularly uncomfortable experience that, if he had any choice in the matter, he would have avoided.

But some things were more important than the avoidance of discomfort.

“Elijah!” came his sister’s voice, jerking his attention back to the tablet in his lap.

“Shit. Sorry,” he mumbled, locking his eyes on the screen. “Chemo-brain, I guess.”

Alyssa shook her head, pushing a lock of blonde hair back behind her ear before saying, “I wish you would have waited for me to come pick you up.”

Before Elijah had been diagnosed with cancer and forced to undergo the horrors of radiation and chemotherapy, he and his sister had looked strikingly similar. Now, though, when Elijah looked at his sister’s sandy blonde hair and clear skin, he couldn’t help but be reminded of all he’d lost.

Of everything he’d yet to lose.

“It would’ve just been a waste of money,” Elijah said with a tired sigh. “There’s no point in you paying for a flight all the way out to the island when I’m perfectly capable of sitting in a plane by myself for a few hours.”

Of course, Elijah didn’t mention the half-dozen times he’d had to race – or hobble, given his distinct lack of energy – to the plane’s lavatory to vomit. The treatments had torn him apart, leaving him a shell of his former self. And though he’d recently finished his last round of chemotherapy, he still hadn’t had time to completely recover.

And he never would, either. What the treatment hadn’t destroyed, the disease itself had. Soon, it would all be over. Or that’s what the doctors had said, at least. It was the reason he’d left his home in Hawai’i to fly back to Seattle where he’d grown up. He didn’t want to spend what little time he had left drugged out of his mind in hospice care. Instead, he wanted to spend it with the only family he had left – his sister, her wife, and their son.

Still, just because he preferred going home to lying in a hospital bed didn’t mean he was happy with his circumstances. As much as he wanted to see Alyssa and her family, the last thing he wanted was for them to see him wither away and succumb to cancer. He’d have preferred to be remembered as he’d been – vibrant and alive. Not the husk he had become.

“Elijah, I –”

The tablet stuttered, then went dark. At the same time, the lights in the plane’s cabin went the same way, leaving the passengers mired in complete darkness. Someone screamed. Others gasped. Most of the reaction was confined to a low murmur, though. There was no point in panicking.

Elijah felt something dig into his forearm, and it only took him a moment to realize that the claw-like fingernails belonged to the woman next to him. He was just about to say something comforting, but his words were cut off when his stomach jumped into his throat as the plane dropped.

There were more screams.

Elijah’s heart pounded, and his stomach clenched.

And then he realized what was wrong. The hum of the plane’s engines had ceased when his tablet stopped working. Had they been struck by lightning? Or was there some other mechanical issue? He didn’t know enough about planes to figure it out. Instead, as was the case with everyone else on the plane, the panic had truly begun to grip him. His fingers wrapped around the armrest, squeezing the hard plastic with every ounce of his meager Strength.

Elijah had long since come to terms with his own mortality. Death was inevitable. He would just have to confront it a little earlier than most. And though he’d spent a few weeks after his diagnosis railing against his own fate, questioning why he’d been chosen to die an early death, he’d slowly made peace with leaving the world behind. After all, what choice did he have? It was coming for him, regardless of how he felt. Whether it was in a few more weeks or a scant few minutes shouldn’t have mattered all that much to him.

But it did.

With everyone else panicking all around him, Elijah couldn’t stop himself from reacting similarly. It was simple human nature at work, and as the plane continued to plummet, his heart raced out of control. He murmured, “It’s going to be fine. These planes can glide for miles without power. It’s going to be okay.”

“Y-you think so?” asked the woman beside him, her voice small, quiet, and terrified. Elijah couldn’t see her – it was night, and with the plane’s lights having stopped working, he was almost entirely blind. Still, he remembered her being an attractive redhead, and she spoke with an Irish accent. She’d introduced herself out of politeness, but after a four-hour flight, most of which Elijah spent mired in self-pity, he couldn’t remember her name. He wanted to say it was “Gwen” or something like that, though that might’ve been completely wrong.

“I think –”

Elijah never got the chance to finish his statement because, only a moment later, something wholly unexpected flashed before his eyes. A disembodied block of text appeared:

Your planet (Earth) has been touched by the World Tree. Scanning…

Elijah blinked, thinking that he’d suddenly gone crazy. Perhaps he’d hit his head and hadn’t realized it. “What the…”

He never finished that question either, because a moment later, a different message replaced the first:

Scan complete. Grade: Unranked.

“What is going on?” demanded the redheaded woman. “What does this mean? Who’s doing this?”

Elijah had no idea how to answer that, so he remained silent. Regardless, the fact that she’d seen the messages as well meant that he wasn’t going crazy. Unless her response was part of his delusion. Either way, he didn’t have much time to offer any words of comfort because a third notification came closely on the heels of the second:

Due to lack of energy and mass, planet (Earth) will be adjusted to multiversal standard. Selective randomization of terrain will occur as mass increases. Standby for insertion of planetary core…

None of it made any sense to Elijah, but the information never had the opportunity to marinate because, only a second later, the world shifted. The already pitch-black cabin somehow grew darker, and suddenly, Elijah felt more alone than he ever had in his entire life. He couldn’t feel anything. Not the plane’s sharp descent. Not the fingernails digging into his forearm. Not the ever-present weakness and nagging nausea he’d felt since the night after he’d first started his treatments. Nothing. Nor were his other senses working properly. The sounds of panicking passengers and the buffeting winds were gone. No antiseptic ozone smell assaulted his nose. There was nothing. Instead, he felt as if he was floating in an absolute void.

Fortunately, that disconcerting lack of sensory input only lasted for a couple of instants before he was distracted by yet another disembodied block of text:

Planet (Earth) has been accepted for integration into the Cua’ti Sector. Indigenous population given access to the System.

Elijah tried to shake his head, but without any senses, he wasn’t sure if it did any good. In fact, he wasn’t even sure if he had a body in that strange void. He did his best to ignore the existential terror that came with that thought, distracting himself with the information conveyed by the blocks of text. It didn’t make any sense to him, but he also couldn’t deny that it was happening. After all, the woman sitting next to him on the plane had seen the odd notifications as well. Unless it was all a hallucination brought upon by the combination of his disease and the treatments he’d undergone, it was all really happening.

And the implications were terrifying. Specifically, the parts about randomization of terrain. His mind jumped to scenes from various disaster movies he’d seen, and he wondered if the entire world was experiencing a great earthquake or some other massive upheaval. If that was the case, how many were already dead? How many would die?

Before he could wind himself up even further, Elijah was confronted with yet another notification:

Scanning human (Elijah Hart] for aspects. [Nature] aspect found. [Martial] aspect found. [Scholar] aspect found. Generating class choices…

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It didn’t take much internal investigation for those so-called aspects to make sense to Elijah. The [Nature] aspect was probably the most fitting, given that, until he’d been diagnosed with cancer, he had spent his adult life working as a marine biologist. Moreover, he had always felt a certain connection with nature that he’d never been capable of putting into words. Ever since he was a kid, he’d always felt more at home in the wilderness than surrounded by so-called civilization.

The same could be said for the [Scholar] aspect, which probably came from his years in college and his career as a scientist. The incredible amount of study required to attain a doctorate had clearly left its mark on him. Since then, his work as a marine biologist had only thrust him deeper into the life of an academic, albeit one who spent more time in the field than in a laboratory.

Finally, he considered the [Martial] aspect. That probably made even more sense than the one awarded for his time stuck in the trappings of academia. After all, Elijah had spent much of his youth playing one sport or another. He wasn’t always the best at any of them, but he was naturally agile, and what he lacked in sheer physical size, he made up for in Dexterity. However, his first love had always been boxing. He’d never been an elite fighter, but that didn’t matter; he loved the sport, and as a teenager, most days saw him down at the gym.

In college, he hadn’t had time to continue boxing, but he’d picked it back up in the years since getting his doctorate. He didn’t train as hard as he once had, but he still put in plenty of time. To see that acknowledged by the so-called System – whatever it really was – was more than a little gratifying.

Of course, Elijah couldn’t be entirely certain any of it was even real. It could have just been a hallucination. Or perhaps he was already dead, and the whole thing was the result of his last few neurons flashing out of control. In either case, he wasn’t given enough time to get into those sorts of existential questions. Instead, he focused on the latest notification to appear before him:

You have been awarded four choices of class archetypes. Choose well, because this decision will forever affect your path.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all…”

He felt certain that he’d spoken, but he couldn’t actually hear the words. They might’ve just been thoughts, for all he could tell. As soon as he’d finished reading the last notification, another appeared:

Archetype: Warrior

A versatile melee archetype, proficient with most weaponry. Features bonuses to durability, Strength, and learning martial techniques.

Required Aspect:

[Martial]

Sample Class Choices:

{Berserker}, {Guardian}, {Knight}, {Brawler}, {Gladiator}

First Skill:

Heavy Strikes

Compatibility: 51%

The next was:

Archetype: Researcher

Research is the root of all academic pursuits. Features bonuses to memory, calculation speeds, and observation.

Required Aspect:

[Scholar]

Sample Class Choices:

{Librarian}, {Tradesman (various)}, {Philosopher}, {Doctor}

First Ability:

Knowledge Repository

Compatibility: 63%

Elijah’s eyes found the third option:

Archetype: Druid

The druid is a defender, ally, and cultivator of nature. Features bonuses to natural Regeneration, Ethera density, and One With Nature.

Required Aspects:

[Scholar], [Nature]

Sample Class Choices:

{Bard}, {Preserver}, {Fury}

First Spell:

Touch of Nature

Compatibility: 94%

“It feels like a video game,” he mumbled to himself. He didn’t even think about the fact that the words were lost to the void.

Archetype: Ranger

The ranger is a hybrid between the druid and warrior archetypes, with strong ties to both the martial and natural paths. Gives up true mastery of either path in favor of versatility. Features bonuses to durability, Regeneration, and One With Nature.

Required Aspects:

[Nature], [Martial]

Sample Class Choices:

{Predator}, {Tamer}, {Trapper}

First Skill:

Natural Instincts

Compatibility: 89%

So, his choices were between becoming a Warrior, Scholar, Druid, or Ranger. The first seemed pretty self-explanatory, and if Elijah was reading the description correctly, it would eventually branch off into something more specialized. Given his background as a boxer, he was particularly intrigued by the {Brawler} options. However, he was a little thrown off by the seemingly low compatibility of the archetype.

The second choice, Researcher, was at first easy to dismiss, but the archetype’s descriptions had hinted that magic was now going to be a real thing. As crazy as that sounded, it was much easier to accept when he was floating in a void, deprived of all senses, and seeing a bunch of notification boxes about classes, archetypes, and the randomization of Earth’s terrain. And that wasn’t even considering the messages concerning Earth’s core and increasing the planet’s mass.

So, with the assumption that magic was real, what sort of secrets could a magical Researcher unlock? The archetype had also mentioned {Tradesman (Various)} as class choices that branched off from the Researcher archetype. And Elijah had a suspicion that the System wasn’t talking about electricians or plumbers. If his experiences in a materialistic society were anything to go by, that might be a route to wealth or importance.

Not that either of those things really interested Elijah. So long as he was comfortable and doing something about which he could be passionate, he was happy enough. Even so, the Researcher was worthy of consideration, and he couldn’t dismiss that archetype out of hand.

Next, he considered the third option – the Druid archetype. He really didn’t know what such a path might entail, but by the required aspects, he could surmise that it might be some sort of natural wizard. Or a scholar focused on the study of the natural world. A plant mage, perhaps. Whatever the case, he didn’t know enough about it to choose it. After all, if the notifications were to be expected, these decisions were permanent. And while he didn’t necessarily expect to survive much longer – even in the calm void, the plane’s descent loomed large in his mind, and he still had terminal cancer to worry about – he would need to make a rational choice. And without further information, there was no way he could choose the Druid archetype.

For the first time in his life, Elijah wished he’d spent his youth playing video games like his friends and classmates. However, he’d been too busy with sports – or with his family’s weekend camping trips. That hadn’t left much time for more than the occasional game, but even that was enough to highlight the similarities between this System and some of the rules that governed roleplaying games. Perhaps if he’d spent more time with them, he’d be better prepared to make appropriate choices.

Finally, he moved to the last option – the Ranger. It was a blend of the Warrior and Druid archetypes, which made the choice seem very appealing. However, Elijah couldn’t help but think that there should be some sort of drawbacks to the class. He found himself focusing on the description, which said it gave up true mastery in favor of versatility. That planted a seed of doubt.

For a long time, Elijah stared at the descriptions, torn between his choices. Indecisiveness strangled his mind, and he found himself incapable of making a decision. It would have been different if he’d had all the information, but those paltry archetype descriptions highlighted just how ignorant he was.

Suddenly, another flash of text interrupted his internal debate:

Insertion of planet core successful. Due to proximity to high energy sectors, planet’s (Earth) mass and energy adjusted. Randomization of terrain complete. New grade: C

Next, the void suddenly disappeared, replaced by the chaos of the plummeting plane.

A feminine voice mumbled, “Oh, God…what is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Elijah answered, his own voice quivering with fear. He still hadn’t made a choice, so he turned his attention inward. When he did, he saw the same options laid out before him. Warrior. Scholar. Druid. Or Ranger.

They all had their benefits, and he was certain that they would all have deficiencies, too.

Meanwhile, the plane found some stability, and it leveled off. The shaking stopped, and Elijah heard more than a few sighs of relief.

It was all temporary, Elijah knew. They’d been an hour and a half away from Seattle when everything went dark, which meant that they were still hundreds of miles out to sea. He had no idea how far a plane could glide, but he suspected it wouldn’t be that far.

Someone shouted over the din of tense murmuring, “Okay, everyone – please remain calm. I’ve spoken to the pilot, and he says everything is going to be okay. We’ve lost power, but he thinks –”

Just then, something slammed into the plane, ripping a giant gash in the fuselage. Everyone screamed, and Elijah caught sight of a huge shadow with a hint of feathers before the plane resumed its sharp descent. Elijah’s heart once again jumped into his throat as the plane dropped like a rock.

A few unlucky passengers had been torn from their seats and sucked out into the dark night. The wind whipped by, adding to the panic, and Elijah clutched his armrests with all the Strength he could muster. It wasn’t much.

Another furious impact tore yet another gaping hole in the plane, and Elijah was close enough to see one of the wings cartwheeling off into the air. Nearby passengers were ripped free, and they disappeared into the darkness a moment later.

That was when it hit him.

He was about to die. They all were. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.

If the crash didn’t get them, then whatever had ripped the plane apart would pick up the slack. The introduction of the System had given a brief glimmer of hope, but reality had come crashing back in a hurry. He was already dead. Between the cancer, the impending crash, and the creature outside, he knew his remaining time was numbered in seconds.

That expectation was proved true when, a moment after that thought flitted across his brain, the sound of screeching metal filled his ears as the creature tore into the plane once again. This time, Elijah was one of the unlucky ones who’d been close enough to be thrown free of the plane, and an instant of chaos later, he found himself falling through the air.

The starry night twinkled above him as he watched a monstrous, bird-like shape rip into the plane and tear it to pieces. An explosion erupted as something ignited, and Elijah got a brief glimpse of the monster. It was a bird, though its size beggared comprehension. Its wingspan was comparable to the plane’s, and it was equipped with talons the size of an economy car.

Elijah didn’t have the chance to see much more before his fall abruptly ended with a splash and unconsciousness brutally smothered his awareness. His final thought before he completely surrendered was that he still hadn’t chosen an archetype.

Perhaps he never would.