When Stephan emerged from his unconscious state, he found himself in a dark forest. The girl who was with him wasn't anywhere and strangely, she left with a smirk on her face and it made him annoyed. Nothing was reassuring enough; everything was just foreboding and ominous. As he peeked from the corner of his eyes at the dancing silhouettes of the trees, his thoughts whirled in a war state asking all kinds of questions.
"How the hell am I supposed to have a clear understanding of this world where I have nothing? No memory of the previous owner, no explanation from the devil in disguise who pulled me here and left me on my own… Truly, I don't mind. She seemed like a nuisance. So, how can I make that window appear again?"
The sound of the bats overheard from afar startled him and he shut himself again. The taste of something made his mouth bitter, feeling the taint smell of iron that was accompanied by a nauseous smell of rotted blood. Nothing about this forest showed majesty; it was creepy, scary, and terrifying. It made his blood freeze and he had to recollect himself doing another effort to remember what he was supposed to do and where he would go.
Stephan closed his eyes and then opened them again, he wished for the darkness to engulf him again as he was having trouble distinguishing his surroundings area; it would be always great to move in the day… But wasn't it the day? How come everything is so dark?
There was something in him telling him to move, to hide because the forest at night always welcomed the shadows of the past. He jolted his body ahead, standing up on his two feet and looked around. He tried to move but it was hard controlling his new body. He fell immediately. After hours of trying to get to his knees, he gave up and lied on his back, observing the darkness around him.
He couldn't help but think about the life he had back on Earth. He played so many games and stayed days without a wink perfecting his playstyle. He had many followers on his pages, making money from his streams on top of the money his parents left for him. He made many players kneel down and beg for him to teach them with a snap of his finger. He outdueled many competitors from different countries. Yet, he couldn't think but a proud moment of what happened to him now.
"I can crawl! I can finally crawl baby!" he screamed at top of his lungs enthusiastically. His statement was met by the sound of crows. "I have never thought babies found it this hard to move their bodies. I will not speak ill of them, ever again."
Kraa!!
He immediately shut his mouth.
There were traces of a recent battle. He crawled slowly, but certainly, ahead trying to get a glimpse of something useful on the ground. Each time a branch cracked, a shiver travelled down his spine making him freeze on the spot. Hey! But it wasn't easy for a man who just turned his twenties to be yanked into a dark world where the day wasn't even there waiting for him to give him help to see around him.
"The first thing to do is to not show sign of existence, who knows what lurks around in this forest? I have a bad feeling about this whole thing. But I am a top player, I can do it! Like I managed to crawl, I can manage to walk."
He hand checked the area in front of him before he advanced. For a moment, something moved around him and he moved his hand putting it on something soft. It felt so soft that it was good to touch. He squeezed it a few times then realized it was flesh. It was certainly flesh and from the softness, it seemed it belonged to a woman. He retracted his hand immediately and crawled back immediately until his feet touched the root of a tree that was over the ground since the trees were huge.
"Oh, man! I never thought I could touch that this way," he sniffed.
There were dismembered bodies of several rotted corpses. His eyes widened at the sight and with his two fingers, he closed his nose because the stench was seriously sickening. He wasn't far from the corpses and it was as if he bled as well.
"I am regretting coming here. She said it was a world resembling a game… She scammed me!"
As he sat down against the tree and as if sensing his anxiety boosting through the mist, something appeared in front of him and a voice similar to the girl who pulled him to Masmoenia spoke in his head.
A blue window materialized in front of him. The voice resounded inside his head resembling a robotic woman. He knew nothing of the world but he still knew what the object in front of him was. It was a system window, the same one that appeared earlier. He thought she scammed him because the window didn't appear again but the thought soon evaporated.
"At last," he let out a sigh of relief. "I seriously thought she scammed. I am sorry pretty Lady for saying bad things about you," he bowed his head slightly rubbing his hands together to warm them because he started feeling the cold around him.
Stephen remembered what Aurora said and also his memories of playing for a long time. The window enlarged around him and pulled him inside a separate dimension. It looked like he was floating in a cyber world where numbers just travelled around him without stopping then he landed in a place where Five men that had the same face stood there, their eyes emotionless.
"What's this again? Are they doing some kind of fashion show?"
Stephen examined them intently then pulled back. He waited for a few seconds before another window appeared in front of him.
As he saw the window and the way the men stood, he remembered an old game he played. It was called Legend of the Past and it was only available as Beta Version. After that, it was cancelled due to an unknown reason. Unlike other games, Legend of the Past didn't lock you into one playstyle; it gave different way to play even when you chose one of the classes. You can invest in attributes as you level up, redefining the initial stats given by the system.
It was one of the first games he played and he finished the beta version with difficulties. As a beginner, he ended up putting points into attributes he didn't need and had a wrecked playstyle but by the end, he learnt how to move in the game and was finally able to finish it after many rounds of resetting.
Again, a class was only a starting point.
He looked again at the window and smiled.
"Was this the reason why it got called back? The Lady is sick."