He looked around again. Aside from the annoying glare of the screen in front of him, his situation looked as dire as it had before. He hadn’t stopped trembling, but his sanctuary seemed secure enough to move around in. He began shifting his weight, attempting to get a peek under the stall wall like he was peeking on other people in other stalls. The other side of the stall was also covered however, and only a small space was open to see through.
He could see that there was a path to get out of the bathroom, but it was through a playground of concrete and rebar. Seeing just that, though, gave him a sliver of hope. He didn’t understand what this floating screen was, but he knew that if he didn’t get out of his current predicament, he would die. He grunted as he shifted his weight again, this time to move to the opening to his concrete cave. The screen moved with him, but despite its insistence, he did his best to ignore it. He put his hands against the concrete covering the opening to his cave, and gave it an experimental push. It was wet and jagged, but he realized that the concrete covering him over wasn’t a single large piece. They were large chunks piled high. He couldn’t tell while covered in darkness with nothing but the System window to see, and he felt his hope rise again.
He began trying to push and pull pieces out of the wall blocking him off. The smell of sewage made itself known again as he successfully pulled a small piece free, causing a small avalanche. He knew this would take a very long time but kept at it, hope and fear both consumed by determination.
Arthur pulled himself free from the concrete death trap with difficulty. As his legs finally came out of the hole he dug out, he flopped to the ground and gasped for breath. He coughed, as the atmosphere outside of his hole was just as bad, if not worse. As he pulled himself up to one knee, he looked around, still gasping for breath. The bathroom was an utter mess, nearly unrecognizable to when he’d entered no more than an hour ago. The sinks and toilets were crushed, the walls had holes in them, and the mirror was covered in fractures. Arthur was surprised it was still there at all, and when he walked over to inspect it, his already unremarkable visage was further marred by the fissures. This was, of course, ignoring the additions of dirt, dust and tears in his clothing from getting caught on rebar while digging his way out. The lack of a reflection of the screen floating in front of his face brought him back to the elephant in the room.
Congratulations!
Your universe has just been conquered by The System.
Rejoice, as your new life begins now!
Arthur was struck anew by the bizarreness of it. When he’d finally gotten free of the debris, he had looked around for a projector of some kind. None were present. He reached out with his hand, but his fingers reached through the screen to touch the kaleidoscopic fractures in the mirror. He had no idea what it was, but could see that there was a sliding bar on the top right of the screen. He reached for that instead, and was able to scroll down.
You are now a member of the Macrocosm involved with the System. Do not celebrate yet, however, as true citizenship must be earned.
Macrocosm? Arthur knew the general idea of what that meant, but in this context, it could mean anything. He kept reading.
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Once you reach Level 2, you will be allowed a class and stats appropriate to your class.
Class? Stats?! Was he in some kind of video game? Arthur’s grip on reality became looser and looser as he read on.
However, any and every species in your universe that dies at Level 1 will be recycled by the System.
Grow your power and claim your place at the top!
Good luck!
Arthur attempted to back away slowly from the screen, but it remained in his face. He stumbled, and his back slammed against the wall as his breathing once again became ragged. No matter how much he tried moving away from the screen, it remained large and in his personal space, as though mocking him.
Arthur began questioning his own sanity. What was going on, and why? Was someone running some kind of cruel and elaborate experiment? And if so, why was he subject to it? What did “recycled” mean? And were there people in danger of dying?? He understood drugs were not an explanation for this madness, as the ceiling collapsing on his head was entirely too real. He had no way to rationalize the impossibility in front of him, but had no choice but to play along. There was a green check-mark on the bottom of the screen after he’d scrolled all the way down, and he pressed on it. The box disappeared and was replaced with a different one. Where the last box was horizontal, this one was vertical. It was the same color throughout, but the text it held was the biggest difference.
Name: Arthur Lindow
Title: N/A
Class: N/A
Level: 1
Stats
STR: 3
VIT: 4
DEF: 3
DEX: 3
INT: 5
Accord: N/A
Link Mates: N/A
Feats: N/A
Arthur stared at the screen incredulously. How did this screen have his name? What was this “System” that the previous screen spoke of that it had his personal information? Was it somehow connected to the internet or his phone? As with everything else that’s happened in the last hour, he did not know. He felt like he was stranded in the middle of the ocean with how confused he was in this situation. Nothing made sense, nothing that was happening with these screens should be real, but he decided that none of that mattered right now. He was still in a building that was falling apart, and it could fall the rest of the way any second. He needed to get out, now.
He looked at the exit to the bathroom. It was half caved in, but luckily it wasn’t as bad as the mountain of debris he just escaped from. The other walls in the bathroom were pockmarked with holes and some were even collapsed completely, but the exit was the only one with an opening large enough to accommodate him easily. He moved towards it, sneaking peeks out of the holes in the walls on the way. Through the holes was nothing but more destruction, and some holes were blocked off by rubble just as his cave was. Once he made it to the exit of the bathroom, he looked out at the situation on the other side of the rubble.
There was shattered glass absolutely everywhere, to where it even piled up in some places. The debris was not as prevalent, however, as if the main corridors of the aquarium were somehow protected. That didn’t make any sense, but at this point, so many impossible things had been happening that Arthur dared not question anything until his safety was secured. There was another oddity that was not as obvious as the rubble, and it was that all the fish that had to have fallen to the floor were missing. The glass that now coated the floor like a carpet had mostly come from fish tanks, lining the hallway for guests to look at. If the tanks had broken, then they would’ve had to drop a whale’s meal worth of freshwater fish. But there were none to be found.
Arthur looked at the impossible screen again. It floated right in front of him, as if flying in the face of everything he knew to be possible wasn’t enough, and it had to fly in his face too. It showed his name, his “title”, and more. He had no idea what most of the things on this screen meant, but he remembered what the previous screen said.
However, any and every species in your universe that dies at Level 1 will be recycled by the System.
If he were to entertain this madness, it would mean that every living thing on Earth has just been inducted into the System, just like him. If those fish were also Level 1, and every fish had just died due to the lack of water to breathe in, did that mean they had all been recycled? But what did that mean, and would it help him get out of this situation somehow?
Arthur thought of Puffy and felt sick with fear all over again. He knew that Puffy’s tank had to have been destroyed just like all the rest, but he had to know for sure. He knew that risking his life for a fish was questionable, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave him behind. Maybe with all the impossibilities going around, he could find just one more.
With a face of reluctance, determination and fear all in one, he slid his way through the breach in the rubble.