Arinna's day began like any other. The dull hum of the office air conditioner barely masked the monotony that filled her life. Staring at her computer screen, her mind wandered far beyond the spreadsheet she was working on, drifting to the fantasy novels she often read late into the night. Stories of magic, gods, and heroes—worlds far more exciting than her own.
She longed for something more, but reality was unforgiving. Arinna was just another overworked office assistant, invisible among the crowd in her small town. Nothing exciting ever happened, and her dreams of adventure were confined to fiction.
After work, she dragged herself to her small apartment, ate a microwaved dinner, and sank into her worn-out couch with a book. The hours blurred together, and before she knew it, exhaustion took over. Her eyelids grew heavy, and soon, sleep claimed her.
BANG!
A sudden, loud crash jolted Arinna awake. Her heart raced as she looked around in confusion. The world outside her window was bathed in an eerie red glow, and an otherworldly pulse throbbed in the distance. Disoriented, she stumbled toward the window and peered out.
A meteor? No, something far stranger. A massive, burning object streaked across the sky, hurtling directly toward her. Time seemed to slow as it came closer, growing larger and larger until—
BOOM!
The world went dark.
---
Arinna gasped for air as consciousness returned. Her head throbbed painfully, and she blinked several times to clear the fog from her mind. The cold, hard ground beneath her was nothing like the comfort of her apartment. She looked up, expecting to see her ceiling, but instead, she was greeted by a vast, unfamiliar sky filled with shimmering stars. The eerie red glow was gone, replaced by a hauntingly beautiful silver light that bathed the landscape in an otherworldly aura.
This wasn't her world.
Her heart pounded in her chest as panic set in. Where was she? How did she get here? Before she could gather her thoughts, a glowing blue screen materialized in front of her, floating in the air.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATED: Welcome, Candidate for Ascension.]
Her eyes widened in shock. What was this? A hallucination? A dream?
[System Booting… 1%... 10%...]
The screen flickered, and numbers began ticking up. Arinna frantically waved her hands, trying to dismiss it, but the glowing text stayed stubbornly in place. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of the situation.
"I'm dreaming. This is just a dream," she muttered to herself, taking deep breaths. She pinched her arm—hard. Pain shot through her. Not a dream.
[System Initialization Complete.]
The floating screen changed again, this time displaying a list of basic stats and what looked like… quests?
[Name: Arinna
Level: 1
Health: 100/100
Abilities: None]
[Quest: Survive for 24 hours.]
"What the hell?" she breathed, her pulse quickening. Survive? Her eyes darted around the alien landscape. The ground beneath her was made of strange black stone, jagged and uneven, and in the distance, she could see towering, ominous mountains. The air was unnaturally still, but the oppressive silence only heightened her sense of danger.
Suddenly, a new message flashed across the screen.
[Warning: Hostile Creature Detected.]
Her stomach dropped. Hostile creature? She turned around just in time to see movement in the shadows—a hulking beast, twice the size of any animal she'd ever seen. Its eyes glowed an unnatural green, and its snarling maw dripped with venom as it stalked toward her.
Arinna's mind went blank with terror. This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a game.
It was real.
The creature lunged.
---
Her body reacted on instinct, adrenaline surging through her veins. She dodged to the side just as the beast's claws slashed the ground where she had stood. Her heart raced as she scrambled to her feet, every instinct screaming at her to run, but the landscape offered no shelter. The system flashed again in front of her.
[Quest: Survive for 24 Hours.]
"Survive?!" she yelled, incredulously. How was she supposed to survive when she didn't even know where she was? The beast roared, and she barely had time to dive behind a rock before it struck again.
She needed help. Desperately.
And then, as if in answer to her thoughts, the system flashed once more.
[Activating Beginner Ability: Shield.]
A faint blue light surrounded her, just as the creature pounced again. This time, its claws slammed into the glowing barrier, sending sparks flying, but the shield held. Arianna staggered backward, trying to make sense of what was happening. Her mind was spinning, but one thing was clear: the system wasn't just some hallucination—it was giving her real powers.
Her eyes darted to the quest display. Survive for 24 hours. If she could just last until then…
The beast roared again, slamming into the shield with renewed fury. The barrier flickered under the force of the blows. Arianna's legs trembled, fear clawing at her insides. But amidst the terror, a strange thought surfaced.
This was real. All of it.
©Beersheba