Chapter 4: Loosing Reality

Erika was watching Aeden. She became worried he had snapped because he had sat there silently for a few minutes barely moving, but his eyes were moving slowly like he was reading something, but nothing was there. “You, okay?” she asked him gently hoping he truly wasn’t in shock.

“Oh sorry, I’m fine didn’t mean to ignore you there.”

Silenced reigned between the two. Erika was never good with silence. She was used to lots of noise and activity around her, so it was uncomfortable to her. She searched for any excuse to when she saw that Aeden’s leg was bleeding. “You’re bleeding!” she quickly pointed to his leg. “Oh yeah forgot about that” he exclaimed calmly.

The pain was slowly returning to Aeden’s leg, but he knew what to do. He took off his hoodie, then the shirt underneath. He tore the shirt into long but thin shreds. And began to wrap his wound tightly to stop the bleeding. He was disappointed he didn’t have a way to disinfect the wound, but he would have to worry about that later. With careful and purposeful movements, he wrapped the makeshift bandage around his leg then with a quick but loud grunt he tied off the bandage. He let out a sigh of relief once he finished and focused on his breathing to mitigate the pain as much as possible.

Erika was startled when he quickly started taking off his clothes. She had been in too many bad situations with customers at the strip club she worked at. Some of them felt they were owed more than they were paying. Thankfully nothing happened to her in those situations because she never put up with that bullshit. She always quickly got security involved in those situations. Others thought she would be willing to do a little bit extra, but she wouldn’t go to that level just for extra cash. She had too much self-respect to stoop that low.

She slowly recoiled her hand moving across the ground until her hand slid over a rock, and she gripped it tight and ready herself to strike. Even if unlikely she thought maybe this Aeden guy would want to ‘collect' for her rescue. Even if she thought it was a bit rude to think that way, she had been in to many situations to not be on her guard.

However, she was caught off guard when he started to rip up his shirt into long strips. He then began to wrap them around his leg. Now she felt extremely bad about her thoughts a moment ago. Here he had just saved her and was even injured in the process, and she was accusing him of something most people would never think to do. She looked back trying to inspect his wound. It didn’t seem all too bad, but it seemed like it hurt. She watched him, still guarded even with her misgiving of those thoughts, as he tied the bandage with a pain filled grunt. He seemed well practiced about the thing. Maybe he was a soldier and knew some basic field dressing. She relaxed a little when he put back on his hoodie.

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The silence returned and was starting to unnerve her again. She wasn’t going to let that happen for a second time. She decided to ask what he was thinking about a moment ago at least she hoped he was thinking. “Hey what happened a moment ago? It looked like you were reading something?”

“You didn’t see the screen that popped up a second ago?” he asked quizzically. She shook her head. “Oh well I was looking at my status screen and it seems that I leveled up.”

“Level? Status screen? What are you talking about?” Aeden internally sighed it was never fun explaining video game knowledge to someone who probably didn’t pay video games. He turned to look at her and she just looked at him confused. ‘Had she not seen the screens?’ he thought. “Hey, do me a favor. I want you to close your eyes and think of the word ‘status’ in your mind.”

“Seriously what are you talking abo…” He cut her off. “Just do it.''

She did not like that idea. Here she was stuck in the woods with a stranger, even though he had saved her and now he wanted her to close her eyes. She took a moment to gauge Aeden studying his posture and his eyes for a moment. ‘He seemed innocent enough’ she thought to herself. She cautiously relented and closed her eyes, rock still firmly in her hand. As they closed, she took a breath and thought, ‘status.’ Nothing happened. “Nothing Happened.” She stated semi annoyed now. ‘Was this guy messing with me?’

“Open your eyes.” He replied.

As she opened them her face was filled with a screen with her name and some other text written on it. Her eyes went wide. “Seriously what the hell is going on.” She said aloud. Every minute she was here everything just got weirder and stranger. She was slightly panicking in her head things were just moving too fast for her, but she regained some control when Aeden asked what her screen said…

Name: Erika Lancaster

Lvl: 0

Title: [none]

Class: [Dancer]

Attributes: [Human] [Doomed Race]

Free Attribute Points: 0

Strength: 21

Dexterity: 28

Constitution: 13

Charisma: 25

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 25

Skills: [Enchant lvl1] [Quick Step lvl1] [Rapid Attack lvl1]

“What is this stuff?'' She asked, hoping for any type of answer. Thankfully Aeden seemed to have some.

“Before we were transported here, in that message it said our bodies would be reconstructed, and I guess this system gave us new ‘bodies’ to adapt to the environment. I’m guessing this part of the system is to help us survive by quantifying our skills. Then translating it into power we can use, at least that's my working theory after just initially looking at it.” Aeden felt slightly vindicated at last all his video game knowledge was finally coming in handy. Erika was still confused about all the information, but she remembered her little brother made her watch as he played video games a couple of times, and the screen reminded her of it a little. However, that line of thought brought an even worse sense of dread she ever felt in her entire life.

“Oh my God. My brother, did he get transported here!?” She began to hyperventilate. “I have to find him!” She quickly got up, but Aeden quickly caught her arm. She tried to rip her arm away, but he was holding on tightly. “Let me go!” She yelled. “I have to find my little brother.” She tried ripping her arm again from his grasp.

“Calm down!” He yelled. “And take a breath and think for a moment.” At the moment that was probably an impossible ask.