The soft light of the morning sun seemed very bright through her closed eyes. Antoinette thought for sure she closed her bedroom curtains before going to bed last night. After several seconds wondering if there was any chance she could fall back asleep, she rubbed her eyes and threw back the covers. She might as well get up and pee and then go find some caffeine. Antoinette opened her eyes and stared at the room she was in. She looked at the unfamiliar surroundings and thought for sure she must have been kidnapped.

"What the fuck is going on?" She whispered to the empty room.

The room wasn't exactly empty; she was sitting on a full-sized mattress. The covers appeared to be clean, but the metal headboard showed plenty of rust patches. The walls were painted sky blue, but were in a sad state. The paint had started to peel, and she could see where small piles accumulated on the dirty tile floor. The room had the feel of a prison cell of some sort, but she couldn’t remember what she did to earn these luxurious accommodations.

Windows were centered on two walls, but neither had drapes. Before she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she inspected the floor. On the floor was a small pile of clothes. She reached down and lifted the clothes to see what her captors left for her. As defiant as she wanted to be, there was no reason to remain naked for when they walked in.

The pile contained a white tank top, hot pink boy short underwear, khaki shorts and white socks. Lifting the clothes revealed worn brown boots. If she didn't know better, this looked like someone set her up with a Lara Croft starter kit. Nevertheless, she dressed quickly and found that the clothes fit perfectly.

Before stepping on the floor, potentially alerting her captives that she was awake, she looked at the rest of the room. There wasn't much to see. A wooden door stood in the middle of the wall to her left. She couldn't see any locks on it, but they wouldn't be on her side of the room. She was starting to wonder if she was being held against her will or not.

Slowly she lowered her feet to the floor and stood up. She walked to the closest window and looked out. She was even more confused looking out over a ruined city. By her estimation she was sixteen stories up. She could see figures moving on the streets and sidewalks, but no vehicles. She wondered how there wasn’t any traffic? It was the city, there had to be taxis or busses at least. Maybe if she looked out the other window she would find out more about her situation.

She moved to the other window to see if things were better there, but the same depressing scene greeted her. Gray and ruin covered the immediate area. She could see mountains in the distance, but when you are surrounded by depression, any hope of reaching a better place seemed like a pipe dream. Briefly she thought about opening a window, but what if there was some toxin that caused the destruction? No need to take a lungful of poison shortly after waking up.

Antoinette patted down the pockets of her shorts, looking for car keys or a cell phone or something to help her understand what was going on, but her pockets were empty. With no other options, she tiptoed to the wooden door. There were large cracks in the wood like something tried to break through but was unsuccessful. She wondered silently how much protection the door was actually providing. Cautiously she put her ear against the door and listened. She tried to slow her pulse and quell the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, but a nervous excitement was getting the better of her.

Four seconds to breathe in, four seconds of hold, four seconds to breathe out and four seconds to hold. She repeated the process several times before her pulse slowed enough that she was confident she would hear something, if there was something to hear. She pressed her ear to the door; nothing. She touched the round brass door handle with the back of her hand to test it. She wasn't sure what she was testing for, but if the action worked for fires, maybe it would also work against electricity or some other trap. When she didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, she gripped the handle and turned until she couldn't twist the handle any more.

Antoinette counted to three and slowly pulled the door open. Once the door cleared the jamb it let out a loud screech. Fuck! She yanked the door the rest of the way open and stepped back, ready for what might be coming through. Her eyes bulged at the stark difference of the room the door opened into. It was half the size of the room she stood in, but was a direct opposite of her room in cleanliness.

Numerous lights in the ceiling gave the small room a sterile medical feel. She poked her head in and saw that the white tile in this room was pristine. The walls were made of a polished silver metal. A door made of a similar material was directly across from her, although it had no handle or hinges. On the wall to her left was a computer terminal with a hand scanner. In the center of the room was a circle roughly six feet in diameter. The material of the circle was made of something she couldn't place. A soft blue light pulsed in the circle like a heartbeat, giving the room life.

Before entering the room, she looked left and right and left, just like before crossing a street. There wasn't anything else to see, just the terminal and the throbbing circle; there was no way she was stepping on that circle. The likelihood of being teleported into some place that was worse than her current location was almost 100%. She tapped a boot on the shiny white floor and nothing happened. She stepped on the floor and similarity, nothing happened. She quickly walked to the terminal.

There was no other option than putting her palm on the scanner to try and activate the terminal. Antoinette held her breath and pressed her hand in the desired spot. Seconds later she could see green lines of light move up and down across her palm. Satisfied, the terminal blinked on and she read the contents:

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Name

Antoinette

Profession

Assassin

Race

Human

Level

1

XP

0/300

Health

12

Skills

Bloodshed – Novice - Lvl 1

Strength

10

Stealth – Novice - Lvl 1

Intelligence

15

Accuracy – Novice - Lvl 1

Wisdom

13

Dexterity

17

Constitution

11

Charisma

12

Special Skills

None

She looked at the screen and wondered what was going on. It was her name at the top, but what about the rest of the information on the screen? Then the realization hit her like a sledgehammer...she was in a video game.

FUCK YEAH!

Now that she knew what was going on, everything started to make more sense. Her bedroom must be her starting point and a place to recover. The room she was in gave her access to skill progression, except she wasn't sure what the mysterious circle on the floor did. Is that where she respawned from in case something bad happened? Maybe there wasn't a respawn option. She got a sick feeling in her stomach at the thought. Maybe it was a waypoint that let her teleport to different parts of the city? That thought made her feel better until she considered that things might be able to port into the room. A chill gripped her spine and she ran and pulled the blanket from her bed. She returned and fanned out the blanket over the circle, hoping that covering the circle would disable its function until she was able to discover its purpose.

Antoinette felt more secure so she turned her attention to the information on the screen. Her name was clearly on top, but what about the rest. She focused on her stats, especially her attributes. Antoinette let out a snort at a strength score of a 10. She flexed her right arm and felt her bicep. She flexed harder but her muscle didn't grow; maybe a 10 was accurate. The 15 in intelligence turned the corner of her mouth up in a smile, and the 17 in dexterity put a grin on her face. The 12 in charisma was like someone punched her in the ribs.

"Listen," she said to the empty room. "How in the fuck am I a 12 in charisma? I'm serious, what is the scale for reference?"

The shine on the walls let her get a blurry look in the reflection, but not getting a clean look at herself made her angrier. After several seconds of contemplation, she looked at the stats again and saw something on the bottom.

Click to assign attribute points: 3 Click to assign skill points: 2

She quickly forgot about complaining and tapped the attribute bubble. Next to each attribute a + appeared. She tapped the + by Strength and her score went to 11 and +/- now showed next to Strength. If the range was 3-18 then going from a 10 to 11 probably didn’t make much sense. She might be able to carry more gear, but if she was an Assassin, how much gear did she need?

She thought about what would make the most impact, and what she needed for her profession. Dexterity was the first thing to stand out and she tapped Dexterity, the score moved to 18 and a message flashed across the screen:

Maximum stat level reached

She tapped the – by Strength and her score returned to 10. She had two more to spend, but where to assign it. Her pride moved her finger to the + by Charisma, and she tapped the screen twice. The score moved to 14 and she felt her cup size increase. After several seconds she let out a long sigh and reset her Charisma to 12. She tapped the + by Intelligence twice and her score improved to 17.

Next she moved on to Skills and tapped the screen. She was surprised when she wasn’t able to level up any of her skills, but she was given a choice to learn two new skills. The choices were:

Weapon smith Inventor Treasure Hunter Tracker Trick Shot First Aid

She clicked each in turn and read the explanations; deciding on Weapon smith and Inventor as her two choices.

Antoinette looked at the screen to make sure she didn’t miss a chance to alter her statistics. Part of her was sad that she didn’t have any special skills. Most characters had special skills of some kind based on their back story. She wondered if she even had a backstory. She didn't even know some shitty additional language that she would never use. What about foraging? At least the ability to know which plants wouldn't kill her or make her sick; that could be a benefit at some point. No, she wasn't even interesting enough to have a useless special skill. Fuck.

Defeated, she tapped on the screen and it changed to a new screen. The following message blinked an invitation to Antoinette:

Scan to receive your weapons

That's what she wanted to see! She was excited to see what kind of weapon she would get to pick from. Should she pick an Assault Rifle or SMG? What about a sniper rifle? Until she knew what she was up against, she might want to keep her distance from the baddies. She put her palm on the scanner and the blankets were blown off the circle by an unknown source. The blue flickering increased to a strobe and she closed her eyes against the blinding light. A soft whoosh sound brought the light down to the soft pulse and she slowly opened her eyes.

Sitting on the circle was a Colt SAA revolver and a knife. There were also four boxes of ammo. There wasn't a choice to be had. There was no assault rifle. There was no SMG. There wasn't even a fucking grenade; just a shitty revolver and a knife.

Fuck this game.