The grandfather clock I had been given as a gift by my uncle loudly chimed to indicate that there was an hour till midnight. It stood out as a magnificently strange inclusion into my extremely modern room, but I loved it all the same. I sighed as I shut off the overhead light and reclined myself in my huge chair to look out the large window of my studio apartment. 

The moon was absent, covered by the recently omnipresent gray clouds. It was rather strange that it hadn’t snowed yet, but I guess nature was waiting for midnight to actually start. Of course, when I saw the first flakes of snow fall immediately after that thought, I snorted at myself; how typical of me to assume that things would go to my expectations. 

I marveled at the beauty of the year’s first snow regardless. It felt like a reminder that winter had truly begun, that the world was soon to enter a new era as the century would soon pass. I closed my eyes and pondered what that meant for me, if anything. As far as I knew, it wasn’t like much was going to change. After a week, I’d still be hiding from my father and his followers, still reliant on my uncle’s care, still trapped within this one room apartment with nothing for me to do but watch the sky beyond the window.

Opening my eyes after a good while, I stumbled over to the apartment window, leaning onto the cold glass. It was strangely cathartic to do so, despite the knowledge that the only thing preventing me from dropping thirty stories was a rather thin pane of glass. It was nice to feel weightless, a small escape from the cage I was trapped within.

I glanced at the mirror across the room and frowned at my image. Still the same, too short to be masculine and too broad to be feminine. My hair had grown quite long in the year I had been here, which was how I learned that my hair was curly. It had grown quite rough looking, greasy and unkempt, but I didn't have the motivation to fix it. 

Catching movement out of the corner of my eyes, I glanced outside to see a few girls entering the rooftop of the building next door. Although I could only barely see what they were doing, I couldn't help but sadly smile at the excitement and joy that their movements conveyed. I knew it was sort of creepy for me to just watch them play, but I figured that it would probably be fine in the end. I didn't have much entertainment when uncle was gone, so I couldn't help but enjoy the little levity they provided for me.

Admittedly, I even had a smidge of desire to be down there as one of them. It’s normal to want to have fun, right?

Leaving my window with a sigh, I plopped myself into my recliner once more. I preferred it over my bed, mainly because it was much harder to go to sleep; I can’t be taken while sleeping after all. I shivered at the idea of my father finding me, easily my worst nightmare. I couldn’t and very much did not want to imagine the sheer amount of pain I would go through if he did.  Of course, sitting in my chair isn’t a foolproof way to stay conscious, a fact displayed by my fluttering eyelids. It took all I had to stay awake; I had been awake for three straight days after all, and my body wasn’t in the best shape as a result. Before too long, my willpower is no longer enough, and the sweet allure of sleep draws me in as my eyes cement shut.

DONG… DONG… DONG…

I startle awake to the sound of the grandfather clock’s call, but what I see when I open my eyes isn’t at all what I expected. I was now in what seemed to be a town square with a gigantic grandfather clock in the center, surrounded by a large variety of multicolored floating wisps. I felt a tinge of panic rise, but as I tried to take a step back myself I found that I couldn’t. As a matter of fact, I found that I didn’t even have legs at all anymore, as I was apparently some kind of hot pink wisp myself now. It was disconcerting to say the least, and even more so was the fact that nary a noise besides the shockingly loud chimes of the clock seemed to be made.

Entered Lobby: System Square

The message declaring where I was came in a strange variety of ways. It resounded in my head as if I had thought it, but it also came in the form of text, both in my head and above the clock tower as if it had said it.  I had never experienced something as extremely complicated to my senses, but it was somehow simultaneously simple enough for me to instantly register what it meant. 

[G-22812]: Oh. What the heck?

From just behind me, a textbox and feminine voice appeared from a bluish green wisp, and I immediately recoiled as I felt what felt like thousands of eyes shoot to it. I could barely handle four or five people without having a small panic attack, so I couldn’t imagine having thousands look at me like that. Being dropped into the middle of a stadium, surrounded by people…

Was easily my second worst nightmare, behind my father finding me of course. 

I didn’t have to think about being the center of attention that long, thankfully, as the clock’s chimes suddenly cut out. My attention immediately shot to a beautiful swirling light above the clock, which slowly gained a physical form, or a strange facsimile of one at least. If I had to describe it, it was like someone had hastily created what they imagined a cherub looked like in a program but didn’t bother to give texture to the polygons. It was rather eerie to look at, as if I had completely left the reality I had been in and been dropped into a new one.

Greetings. I am Subsystem Seventeen, a recently developed part of the Great Defender System created to manage and assist the subjects of the Guide program.

A few text boxes appeared around us questioning the “subsystem”, but it seemed to ignore them as it continued on.

In a week's time, a war between many worlds will begin, and as a result a small group of governing gods that do not wish for it to be unfair have come together to assist the races that do not meet a baseline level of strength.  Their solution was the Great Defender System.

This system uses environmental mana to provide information and growth potential to the mortals it assists, to the level that in the best case scenario they could directly challenge the gods that created it.

Unfortunately, Earth is an anomaly. The production of mana on the planet was stopped due to the actions of a single man, and the drought that he has caused is unlike anything seen anywhere else. This drought has resulted in the system being unable to assist humans, and made the gods rush to come up with a solution before the war began.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Thankfully, they managed to create the guide program, and by extension, me.

The crowd was entirely silent as they listened to the subsystem “speak”. As ridiculous as it all sounded, as far fetched that it seemed, I couldn’t refute it. It just seemed to be telling the truth, and I couldn’t exactly explain why I believed it as much as I did. Perhaps it was the otherworld nature of the place we were in, the system’s unsettling body, or maybe even the fact that I didn’t seem to have a physical body at the moment myself. One thing was definitely certain about how I felt in this situation though; I wasn’t going to sit by and let humanity die.

To explain in the simplest possible terms, the guide program relies upon everyone here to function correctly. Using a rather gigantic amount of mana, the gods have forcibly dragged your souls to this demiplane and permanently connected them to it.

The new bodies that you will be receiving are essentially perfect mana generators, but the mana that would be produced by everyone here isn’t nearly enough to make a dent in it for quite a few years. 

The solution decided upon relies upon you and the rest of humanity. In order for a human to access the mana that you produce, you will have to sign a contract with them. In exchange for them defending humanity with you until the end and giving you a name, you must offer them something of equivalent value.

The greatest that you can offer is a wish.

The system cannot interfere with your contracts past limiting the rewards you can grant for them signing it, and cannot interfere with their actions not related to the contract. 

[G-00983]: So if guides and their contractors have a dispute, or two guides and their contractors face off, the system can’t interrupt?

The system immediately determined that this program would inevitably result in disputes, but it has decided not to interfere in them. As long as humanity survives, its role is complete. 

[G-00983]: As expected. I apologize for interrupting.

The fact that I could feel the self importance that guide felt with the system responding to his message made me not want to ever run into it again. I had a sneaking suspicion that wasn’t going to happen though. Nothing ever worked out for me in that way after all.

If more time was available, the system would simply allow for you to choose your first contractor. However, because of the distinct lack of time, the system has decided on a good match for you. In a few moments, you will be teleported to their side, though they will almost certainly not be able to see you yet. You must find a good time to offer them a contract, and upon signing it you will receive additional instructions and assistance. 

The next thing that I knew, I could feel the chill of the winter air around me. The sky was as gray as it was before I left, though considering that it was still dark, I doubt much time had actually passed while I was in the square. What actually surprised me was that I was actually in the same city as I was before I left; I could see my uncle’s building in the distance after all. I seemed to be on a snowy rooftop, though I didn’t get much time to really take in the environment before I began to move against my will.

Looking down a bit, I couldn’t help but gasp at the person I seemed to be attached to; the one I was likely to form a contract with. The tiny girl, probably no older than thirteen, stood with her wavy ebony hair brushing the top of her bare feet. The girl wore naught but a white nightgown, the hems of which were dirtied as if it hadn’t been washed. Her clothes, though strange, weren’t what bothered me the most about the girl though. What truly made me uncomfortable was how obviously terribly underweight she was. Anywhere you could see skin on her body, it was like it was straining to not allow the bone to break through. 

I hated it. I wanted her to eat. I wanted to help her.

But yet… 

Humming as she moved, the girl began to dance, her bare feet somehow not slipping on the snow that covered the ground. Her movements were obviously well honed, something that she definitely took pride in considering that she was doing this despite her sorry state. 

Suddenly the girl made a movement that let her eyes peek through her messy hair, and I couldn’t breathe for a moment. Though I was loath to admit it, I had seen many people like this girl in the time I had spent as a nurse. Their eyes and expressions all were dull, despondent to the world around as if they didn’t have anything to live for. 

I couldn’t say anything of the sort for this girl.

The girl’s eyes burned with a passion I had never seen before.

Moving her body in a way no one in her state ever should, the girl’s nearly orange eyes took my breath away unlike anything I had ever experienced. They seemed to tell a story of suffering, of perseverance, of defiance. 

And then the door to the roof slammed open. A female voice rang out from behind it.

“Thea!”

Nearly slipping from surprise, the girl (who I am now pretty sure is named Thea) managed to right herself and look at the two figures that had rushed out into the cold. To my surprise, one of the two was essentially a carbon copy of Thea but much healthier and clean; a twin most likely, though her eyes were a deep red. The other was an older boy, probably in his early twenties, who looked ready to scream in anger at a moment’s notice. 

“Dammit, Thea! Get over here!”

As the man took a step forward, I felt a burst of anger when I saw Thea begin to tremble. The entire time I watched her dance, she had not shown any signs of feeling the cold even with her light clothing, but now that this boy approached she visibly shook?

Something was seriously wrong here.

The young man stomped forward and grabbed Thea by the arm, causing her to gasp in pain.  Her twin’s face dropped, a few soft words filled with fear escaping from her lips.

“B-Brendan! N-not so rough!”

The man named Brendan scoffed but yielded, releasing Thea, who stumbled back a few steps to get a bit of distance. Brendan’s head aggressively twists to face Thea’s twin, who visibly recoils when he begins to yell at her instead.

“Carol, what the HELL gives you the right to order me around?!”

With any hint of her twin having a bit of confidence obviously fading, Thea scowls. The voice that then escapes her throat is shockingly hoarse and weak, to the point that it seems to make even Brendan flinch.

“If… If you kill me, Carol has no reason to listen to you at all. Don’t you need her for something?”

After a brief pause where Brendan turned to look at Thea with a look of surprise on his face, a smirk slowly formed as he began to approach Thea again. Backing away with a look of fear, Thea nervously checks behind her and finds that there is barely any distance between her and the edge of the roof.

“Thea, Thea, Thea. My dear sister.”

Brendan reaches out, grabbing Thea by the front of her dress, lifting her up into the air and causing Carol to audibly gasp. Tilting his head at the hanging Thea, the boy’s expression goes eerily neutral, as if all emotion suddenly escaped from him.

“The only reason you are alive is because you’re talented. Escaping like this doesn’t do anything to help your sister other than make it far more difficult for me to justify keeping you alive.”

Thea pauses in shock at her brother’s words, before looking over his shoulder to look at her sister. Carol, who has at this point fallen to her knees, has tears streaking down her face. Thea’s face softens from a glare to a look of resigned sadness as she gives her sister a soft smile.

“I love you, Carol.”

In one fluid motion, Thea somehow sharply kicks at her brother’s windpipe, who in surprise releases her. Kicking off Brendan’s chest, time seems to freeze as the twins look at each other in the eyes, their emotions mirrored. Carol screams as Thea drops and bounces with a crack off of a fire escape, falling a floor lower as a result. 

And then, time actually does freeze.