It is dark. Very dark. My back is pressed against something cold and hard as stone. Thoughts fill my head 'Where am I? Who am I?' are only the most prudent of them. I can't move my body, but I can move my fingers and toes, so I am not paralyzed. I can feel the tips of my fingers pressed against the cold surface I am lying upon. A word springs into my mind.

Floor.

I get the feeling that I am in a room, though I have no idea how I know that. My mind seems fine and I feel alright, though it seems as if I'm simply missing pieces of information such as my name and where I am.

A sound enters my ears, breaking me from my thoughts. It is muffled but constant, stopping and starting in random moments. It takes my brain a second to recognize the sound.

Words. Someone is speaking, though it seems to be a distance away from me if it is muffled. First I try to speak, to call out for some help, but my lips won't move, just as the rest of my body. It is an aggravating thought, but at the same time I feel calm.

This time I strain my ears, trying to pick out the individual words that are being spoken. It is faint, but I'm able to pick out some.

"...intermittent....system....begin sequence"

Words I am familiar with, but at the same time, I don't remember why I am familiar with them.

Unfortunately, I don't have much time to ponder this new information. Another sound enters my ears, one that is much closer. A soft humming, coming from directly behind my head, constant and comforting.

Fear. That flashes through me. I'm afraid of this sound...but I don't know why.

Then a flash, but not from around me. It is as if the flash came from behind my eyes. From there, it traveled down throughout my body, combined with a soft heat.

Pressure all around me, pushing on every inch of my skin. I'm being compressed, slowly pushed more and more into a tiny little ball. It isn't painful, just slightly uncomfortable.

Then I'm standing, the pressure, heat, and humming all gone. I'm not even in the room anymore, though I'm not sure I'd recognize it even if I could see it. But this is different, I'm standing in a forest...or at least what my memory tells me is a forest.

I can move as well. Not just my fingers and toes, but my arms and legs, my head, everything! Elation runs through my body like a wild fire and I laugh. I take a deep breath of the clean, slightly cool air and stretch.

My arms come into view as I do so. It is not a skin color my memory is familiar with, though my mind tells me of similar colors. My skin is black, but it isn't a shade, it is the same abyssal black as my previous dwelling. Part of me doesn't know if it is even reflecting light.

I touch my arms, the skin is smooth and soft to the touch, underneath I can feel muscles defined and well built, even though I don't have any memory of exercising to produce these.

My nails are a slightly lighter shade, more grey than black and slightly pointed, like little knives, though they weren't sharp at all.

I shake my head. I feel so good, even if I don't remember much about myself. A flash of silver falls in front of my eyes, catching me by surprise. Then I chuckle and reach up, touching the soft feathery substance that was draped over my eyes. It is hair. I have silver colored hair. Running my fingers over my head, I can gauge it's length.

Not too long or short, just barely brushing along the nape of my neck and just long enough to fall over my eyes, but not to hinder my eyesight.

Turning my eyes away from myself, I begin to look around my surroundings. I seem to be in a grove of some sort, surrounded by trees. Light dances all around me, bouncing of the dark green leaves of the trees. It is very beautiful.

The ground underneath me is a much lighter shade of green, a moss of some sort. It is very soft on my bare feet.

It was only this moment that I realized that I was nude. Part of me said I should be alarmed, but the rest of me didn't seem to care.

"Oh wow...never seen a monster like this before"

A voice enters my ears and I immediately turn to face the direction I heard it come from.

Standing there are five people, two women and three men. My memory informs me of their genders and affirms that mine is male, as indicated by the appendage between my legs.

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"It is the first time anyone's gone this deep into the Alare Forest, there is bound to be some that no one has seen before" a higher voice came from one of the women. She was wearing a sort of robe, black with red trimmings. It clashed with her bright blue hair and green eyes.

"It's kind of...big" the other woman said staring at me. She was a little bit normal, black eyes and long brown hair tied into a pony tail, though her choice of clothing was still strange. She was wearing leather armor, a padded piece over her chest and a black shirt underneath that. Her leggings were of a similar leather as her armor.

She was right, even at this distance I could tell I was taller than them by a good foot. Then again, maybe they were just very short. My memory is of being the same height of everyone else, so I don't really know.

"Not bigger than me!" the first voice, coming from what I assume is their leader. He had black hair, nearly as dark as my skin and bright blue eyes. What was strange was that he was wearing a full set of armor. A large sword was resting on his waist, the hilt a mixture of silver and gold. His face was slightly red and he looked angry.

Upon looking them over, he noticed that they all had a weapon of some kind. The girl in the robe had a wooden staff with a small jewel on the top. The girl in the leather armor had a bow on her back and two small daggers on her waist.

The other two men seemed to be wearing the same armor, with a eagle painted on the front. The word 'Hired Help' entered my mind.

"Feeling inadequate?" the girl in the robe said grinning at her companion. It was at this moment that I realized that they hadn't been speaking of my height.

"Lets just kill it!" the man said with a deep frown "Maybe it'll drop something good"

"Yeah, maybe it'll drop an enhancement" the other girl laughed, though they began to get into position, each drawing their weapons.

[Danger!]

The word this time, didn't appear in my mind, it appeared at the corner of my vision.

[Hostility Detected: Initializing HUD Readout]

Strange bars appeared in the left side corner of my vision, each a different color. Red, Blue, and Green. Each also had a word underneath them. The red was Health, the blue was Mana and the green was Stamina.

The memory of something called a 'Game' filled my head. This was like that, breaking down life and abilities into numeric value.

I wondered if I could do other things, but I didn't have the knowledge or time to figure it out. I was already being attacked.

The battle was quick and painful. The girl in the leather armor pinned my feet to the ground with her arrows and made it impossible for me to move as their leader rushed forward and buried his sword in my chest. The pain in my feet was completely ignored as the greater pain in my chest grew.

I could feel my heart be pierced. Though by this point I was on the ground, the arrows had broken in my feet and let me fall when the man removed his sword.

Blood gushed from my chest and my vision faded.

"Wow...he was really really weak" the man chuckled, his voice filling my slowly fading mind "How did something this weak even survive out here?"

Weak..that is what I was. Anger filled my body, but I couldn't move it.

"...failure..." and then I was back in that dark room, unable to move as I had before. Fortunately the pain was gone and I could breathe properly once more.

For the longest time, I couldn't hear anything. Whoever had been speaking was either too far from me or wasn't speaking anymore. This quiet gave me time to think. I understood some things.

I had died. I remember that feeling, of my consciousness fading, my heart no longer supplying blood throughout my body. It was a terrifying experience, dying. I didn't want to experience it again.

Then the humming began again. Now I understood the fear I had felt before. It seemed to be the fear of death. It was here I resolved myself not to die, I wanted to live.

Even as I was crushed into a small ball once again, I continued that thought, like a mantra.

'I will live. I will live. I will live!'