Chapter 1 - Welcome

He had gone to bed hours ago hoping to keep his sleep pattern somewhere near the realm of what other people might consider normal.

But he just couldn ’t drift off to dream land.

After about an hour he had resorted to pulling his tablet from the side table where it typically lived over night, charging with his phone, earbuds and ebook. His little digital haven of distraction, his connected to others and the world outside his mundane life.

With the brightness dimmed down as much as possible he lay there on his side and doom scrolled through one social media app after another for another hour or two.

He had been at is so long one app refused to show him anything more from the people he followed. It insisted he use the ‘for you’ page because there was nothing more too see from who he chose to follow and the “following’ feed.

He ignored the fact that that wasn ’t remotely possible. He followed about a thousand active content creators, there was no way he had seen ‘everything’ as the app insisted he had, no matter how hard he tried to reset the feed to get fresh content.

Not one to argue pointlessly with an inanimate object he took it as a sign to try and get to sleep again.

So he plugged his tablet back into charge and rolled over switching to the cool side of the pillow as he went.

But more time passed and sleep still avoided him.

Something just felt off. Different then normal. Being unable to get to sleep was unfortunately a common occurrence for him.

But he wasn ’t struggling with a bout of existential dread his depression could bring to bed from time to time.

Nor did his mind race with thoughts he couldn ’t quiet or anxiety he couldn’t quite resolve.

Yes, he had been feeling low lately. But not so low it was near the level he considered bothering anyone with.

When he looked back It had actually been a good day.

Making a point of not giving in to himself and taking a long nap he had managed to do more than the usual with the extra time.

He even managed to be productive for once. He had sorted out the dirty dishes and get some laundry done.

That is to say he had filled the dishwasher but not emptied it whilst also putting some clothes through the washing machine and dryer but not folding them or putting them away. Why use draws when a clean laundry basket would suffice for all your clean clothing needs.

It was the small victories that could keep you going. So he didn ’t worry about doing less then most people would consider normal and still being happy about it.

He wondered why after a full nap-less day like he had had the usual lethargy that typically came over him hadn ’t made itself known to help carry him off to dream land for the night.

No, for some annoying reason he was wide awake.

It was frustrating. In his opinion sleep was the fastest way to get from one life event to another without facing what lay between.

He new if he didn ’t get to it anytime soon he would mess up his sleep pattern again. Sleeping all day and tiptoeing about at night as he tried not to disturb the next door neighbours.

He wondered if finding something to read might help. Deciding it couldn ’t hurt he rolled back over to get his ebook from the side table ad paused as he noticed something odd.

A weird flicker had swept from one side of the room to the other.

He sat up, trying to get a good look at whatever had triggered one of the most primitive parts of his brain.

But as he moved it moved and then it was just gone.

Well that ’s weird , he thought. almost as if …

And just as he tried to process what he had seen it was back again.

This time it was slightly larger than before and much easier to pick out in the gloom of his unlit room.

Whatever It was floated in the space before him, just within his reach, moving as he moved his head. Somehow fixed within a specific spot that seemed to be relative to the postilion of his head. He could look about and so long as he didn ’t move his head it stayed where it was.

Doing what almost everyone would do when noticing an odd visual bug he blinked a few times to see if it would do anything clear the hallucination.

A few seconds of exaggerated blinking passed but nothing changed. It remained where it was even after he closed his eyes and gave them a good hard rub. He still saw the damn thing when he closed his eyes tight and pretended he was not seeing things.

Giving the thing a good look as it seemed to refuse to leave him alone something dawned on him as he had a moment of clarity.

“What the-“ he’d be damned if that wasn’t a loading bar, symbol? icon?

It was a little white circle that pulsed gently as it outer edge slowly filled up. For lack of a better word it was pinned in the top right corner of his vision. Exactly where he would put a loading symbol he wanted to be visible yet also out of the way if he was designing a heads up display for a game or …

He grinned as hope for something new and life changing had just appeared out of nowhere.

If he hadn ’t played hours of virtual reality games he might have found the little visual disturbance more disconcerting. Worse if he hadn’t read hours of admittedly unrealistic but still entertaining LitRPGs, he would probably be freaking out right about now.

Although he could have finally gone mad. That was a possibility. A possibility best ignored.

All but jumping out of bed he decided to get ready. He wasn ’t going to face his potential madness in just a pair of boxers.

Thanks to the fresh laundry basket tucked out of sight out of mind in the corner of his room It wasn ’t long before he was dressed in a clean pair of jeans and wearing a plain black t-shirt. He had even thrown a few serviceable pairs of socks and some extra underwear into backpack that had been tucked away in his closet.

Thinking that the next thing he needed was some serviceable footwear he made for the door of his room to go get his boots from downstairs.

It was then that his plans to go around his place collecting things that might be useful came to an abrupt end.

The door wouldn ’t budge, he couldn’t even get the handle to turn.

Taking a glance at the little circle and giving the door one last tug he groaned.

“System fuckery already?” he asked no one, “Its not even halfway done doing what ever this thing is doing to me. And I’m hit with fuckery. ”

It was then that it occurred to him that this might not just be happening to him.

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Dashing back over to his side table he picked up his phone and “yup of-course, system fuckery it is.”

He checked everything, his phone, tablet and even the ebook. No matter what he tried they just would turn on. Didn ’t even pop up that they were charging when he messed with the cables a bit.

This was definitely some kind of system fuckery because despite his collection of mobile devices refusing to be useful the lights in his room still worked. His old rarely used desk computer also refused to do anything, the power button mocking him as it just clicked at him when he pressed it. Unlike the other stuff that had batteries his computer was technically connected to the same source of power as the lights.

Fuckery indeed, he thought to himself.

It was a little amusing, it confirmed something was actually happening and he hadn ’t just lost it. It was wishful thinking at this point, considering madness as the alternative he held onto what he could. Reasoning that there was no real point worrying about things now.

Sure he couldn ’t contact any family members, but they lived close by.

So he assured himself that once this was over he would do everything possible to contact them then … if he survived, or wasn’t mad, and things happened to play out as he was hoping they might.

Putting his thoughts on hold he sat down on the end of his bed he put on his crocks and lamented his walking boots being stuck downstairs instead.

At least they were all terrain crocks, with the reinforced rubber covering the foam soles. Sure they didn ’t have the famous sports mode strap, but this design cupped the back of his heals anyway, so technically they were always in sports mode. More expensive then the typical crocks and even better, he had got them on sale. They were a tight fit with his socks still on but he would worry about fashion when he had a better idea about what was actually happening.

Once again he decided to check on the progress the odd little pulsing circle had made. It seemed painfully slow but there wasn ’t much more he could don then wait for it to do its thing. Especially with him being stuck in his bedroom as he was.

Maybe it wasn ’t such a bad idea to have a zombie survival go bag after all… too late now.

Lost for something to do he got up and pulled the curtains aside to take a look outside. Something about the street outside felt off.

It was late, or early depending on how you looked at it. At around 2 am in the morning none of the neighbours had their lights on and at first glance everything looked normal. But he couldn ’t shake that feeling that something was off as he looked up and down the street as best he could.

He had half expected to see other people peering out of their windows. Maybe trying to get someone ’s attention or even out right panicking. It was actually peaceful.

but surly if he could hallucinate his room he could also hallucinate the rest of the house.

Would be nice if he could get his damn boots, that and other some other stuff, rope?, who was kidding no he had no rope in the house. Would twine or sting be useful? he thought. There was probably a hundred things he could might find useful but he had no way of getting to ant of it.

As he tried to squash the pointless thoughts racing through his mind he finally realised what was wrong with the street outside.

Just up the road was a black cat, hard to see in the low light. The cat was frozen in place, not just sitting still as it minded its own business. No this cat was stuck in the air. The feline must have been jumping down from the neighbours fence when the fuckery started.

Nothing outside was actually moving, not even swaying in the breeze. It went beyond the calm stillness of a windless night.

That ’s it, he might need to give the possibility he had gone absolutely mad some serious consideration.

But in that moment, much to his relief, the painfully slow loading circle did that thing all loading bars and loading symbols have done since their first conception. It pulsed bright and the last quarter completed all at once.

Welcome to the multiverse!

‎Compatible Sapience Found.

A light blue box filled with white text appeared. The message floating out in front of him as he ungracefully fell back trying to avoid it only for it to follow his retreat to where he now found himself sprawled back over the end of his bed.

He sat there reading the message in front of him, fresh lines of text populating the blue window just as he finished the last line of what was displayed.

Planetary Analysis Complete.

‎Results below Minimum System Standards:

‎Planet grade: F

Well that ’s harsh. He thought.

But not knowing what this System actually considers standard he knew he shouldn ’t really comment.

Eather levels below minimum requirements for Immediate integration.

‎Eather investment required …

‎Requesting Eather…

All Requests denied.

Again that was harsh, he didn ’t even know what this ‘Eather’ was, but it must be important if it was one of the first things it checked for.

And apparently no one wanted to help out with an investment.

Initialising Rift Protocols.

Assessing Sapient Life:

‎ Sapient life below Minimum System Standards.

Assessing Dominant Civilisation:

‎ Dominant Civilisation below Minimum System Standards.

He was beginning to sense a pattern here.

Life Expectancy of Dominant Sapient Civilisation:

‎ 1.23%

That ’s- that’s bad, very bad!

Time until Life Expectancy Meets Minimum System Standards:

‎

‎Extinction / Total Collapse of Civilisation Exceeds Requirements.

He Shrugged, he couldn ’t argue with that.

Everything seemed to be on a tipping point, with the way things were going he was actually surprised something hadn ’t happened already. But then again Joe Public seemed to me more apathetic then they had ever been.

Re-Requesting Eather Investment …

‎All Requests denied.

‎Offering Rewards…

‎All Requests denied.

Stingy.

But could he really Blame whoever it was for not investing in a grade F world that was already on the edge of total collapse. Not worth the investment, or rewards apparently.

Assessment:

Tutorial Required.

Finally! This was what he had been waiting for, what he had been hoping for.

It was only fair to get a tutorial, that ’s how the books typically did it anyway, that and computer games. No, he shouldn’t think like that. If the books said anything, people who treat this situation as a game usually died fast, or became really really overpowered…

Standard System Integration Tutorial Survival Rate Bellow Minimum System Standards.

“Shit!” at this point it was beginning to look like system integration was going to kill all life on the planet or leave humanity to wipe itself out.

Assessment: Tutorial Calibration Required.

“Oh thank god… Wait, thank System?!? ”