RESPAWN

The soft light of the morning sun seemed very bright through her closed eyes. Aria didn't remember leaving the bedroom curtains open before going to bed last night. She spent several seconds wondering if there was any chance she could fall back asleep before she rubbed her eyes and threw back the covers. She might as well get up, pee, and then go find some caffeine. Aria opened her eyes and stared at the unfamiliar room while a wave of panic washed over her. She looked at the strange surroundings and thought for sure she must have been kidnapped.

"What the fuck is going on?" she whispered to the empty room.

A thin, translucent bar hovered at the edge of her vision, pale green and pulsing faintly no matter which way she turned her head. She blinked hard, certain exhaustion was playing tricks on her, but the bar stayed put, stubborn as a smudge on glass. Weird. She filed it away as a problem for later, right behind the much larger problem of waking up somewhere she didn't recognize.

The room wasn't exactly empty; she was sitting on a full-sized mattress. The covers appeared clean, but the metal headboard showed plenty of rust patches. The walls, painted sky blue, were in a sad state. The paint had started to peel, and she could see where small flakes had accumulated on the dirty tile floor. The room had the feel of a prison cell, though she couldn't remember what she'd done to earn such shitty accommodations.

Two walls featured a single centered window, but neither had drapes. Before she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she inspected the floor and was surprised to see a small pile of clothes. She reached down and lifted them to see what her captors had left for her. As defiant as she wanted to be, there was no reason to stay naked for when they walked in.

The pile contained a white tank top, hot pink boy-short underwear, khaki shorts, and white socks, all looking like they came from a second-hand store. Beneath the clothes sat a worn pair of brown boots. If she didn't know better, this looked like someone had set her up with a Lara Croft starter kit. Nevertheless, she dressed quickly, and the clothes fit perfectly.

Before stepping onto the floor and potentially alerting her captors that she was awake, she studied the rest of the room. There wasn't much to see. A wooden door stood in the middle of the wall to her left. She couldn't see any locks on it, but they wouldn't be on her side anyway. She was starting to wonder if she was actually being held against her will.

That was when she heard it - a distant, guttural roar rolling up from somewhere far below, followed by a long, ragged scream that cut off too abruptly. Her skin prickled. Whatever was down there, it wasn't a kidnapper waiting to interrogate her. It was something worse, and it sounded close enough to matter.

Slowly, she lowered her feet to the floor and stood. She walked to the closest window and looked out at a ruined city sixteen stories below. Figures moved on the streets and sidewalks, but no vehicles stirred. Gray ruin covered the landscape all the way to distant mountains, and smoke curled up from somewhere past the nearest block, thick and black against the pale sky. Another scream rose up, shorter this time, and then silence swallowed it whole. She thought about opening the window, but what if some toxin had caused all this destruction? No need to take a lungful of poison right after waking up - not when something out there was already hunting.

The pale bar flickered again at the edge of her sight, and this time she caught a second shape beside it - small, numeric, gone before she could read it. Her stomach tightened. First the strange room, now her own eyes playing games with her.

Aria patted down the pockets of her shorts, searching for car keys, a cell phone, anything to help her understand what was happening, but they were empty. With no other options, she tiptoed to the wooden door. Large cracks scarred the wood, as though something had tried to break through and failed. She wondered how much protection the door actually offered. Cautiously, she pressed her ear against it and listened, trying to slow her pulse and quiet the pounding in her ears, though a nervous excitement kept getting the better of her.

Nothing. She touched the round brass handle with the back of her hand first, testing it the way she might test a door for fire, though she wasn't sure what she expected to find - electricity, maybe, or some other trap. When nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she gripped the handle and turned it as far as it would go.

She counted to three and slowly pulled the door open. Once it cleared the jamb, it let out a loud screech. Fuck! She yanked it the rest of the way and stepped back, bracing for whatever might come through. Her eyes bulged at the stark difference in the room beyond. Half the size of the one she stood in, it was the exact opposite in cleanliness.

Numerous lights set into the ceiling gave the small room a sterile, medical feel. She poked her head in and saw that the white tiled floor was pristine, the walls made of polished silver metal. A matching door sat directly across from her, though it had no handle or hinges. On the wall to her left stood a computer terminal with a hand scanner. In the center of the room, a circle roughly six feet in diameter pulsed with a soft blue light, like a heartbeat giving the room life. The material was unlike anything she could place.

Somewhere beyond the walls, another roar sounded - closer now, or maybe just louder. She didn't have time to stand around wondering. Before entering, she looked left and right and left again, the way her parents had taught her to check before crossing a street. There was nothing else to see, just the terminal and the throbbing circle; no way was she stepping on that thing. The odds of being teleported somewhere worse than her current location felt close to certain. She tapped a boot against the shiny floor - nothing happened. She set her whole foot down - still nothing. Satisfied, she walked quickly to the terminal.

There was no option but to press her palm to the scanner and hope it would tell her something useful. She held her breath and pressed her hand into place. Seconds later, green lines of light swept up and down across her palm, and the terminal blinked to life. She read its contents:

Name Aria

Level 1

Profession Assassin

Race Human

Health 12

Strength 10

Intelligence 15

Wisdom 13

Dexterity 17

Constitution 11

Charisma 12

Skills:

Bloodshed - Novice

Stealth - Novice

Accuracy - Novice

Special Skills None

She stared at the screen, and the stubborn little bar at the edge of her vision suddenly made sense - a health meter, exactly like the one now labeled plainly in front of her. The realization struck her like a sledgehammer: she was in a video game.

FUCK YEAH!

Now that she understood the rules, everything began to make sense - including the screams. This wasn't some quiet tutorial zone; something out there was actively dying, or hunting, or both. Her bedroom must be a starting point, a place to recover. This room apparently granted access to skill progression, though she had no idea what the mysterious circle on the floor actually did. Was it where she'd respawn if something went wrong? Maybe there was no respawn at all. The thought soured her stomach. Or maybe it was a waypoint, a way to teleport across the city.

That idea comforted her until she considered that things might be able to port in through it, too. A chill gripped her spine, and she ran back to grab the blanket off her bed. She returned and spread it over the circle, hoping to disable whatever it did until she understood it better.

Feeling marginally safer, she turned her attention back to the terminal. Her name sat clearly at the top, but what about the rest? She studied her attributes. A snort escaped her at a strength score of 10. She flexed her right arm, testing her bicep, flexed harder - no change. Maybe a 10 was accurate. The 15 in intelligence tugged a smile to her lips, and the 17 in dexterity widened it into a grin. The 12 in charisma landed like a punch to the ribs.

"Listen," she said to the empty room. "How in the fuck am I a 12 in charisma? I'm serious, what's the scale for reference?"

The shine of the walls offered only a blurry reflection, and not getting a clear look at herself made her angrier. After a few seconds, she glanced at the stats again and noticed something new at the bottom:

Click to assign attribute points: 3

Click to assign skill points: 2

She forgot her complaints and tapped the attribute bubble. A plus sign appeared beside each stat. She tapped the one next to Strength, raising it to 11, and a plus/minus toggle appeared. If the range ran from 3 to 18, going from 10 to 11 probably wouldn't matter much. More strength might mean carrying more gear, but how much gear did an Assassin really need?

She considered what would make the biggest impact. Dexterity stood out first, and she tapped it, pushing the score to 18. A message flashed across the screen:

Maximum stat level reached

She tapped the minus beside Strength, returning it to 10. Two points remained. Pride guided her finger to Charisma, and she tapped twice, watching the score climb to 14 - and felt her cup size increase along with it. She sighed and reset Charisma back to 12, then tapped Intelligence twice instead, raising it to 17.

Next came Skills. She tapped the screen, surprised to find she couldn't level up her existing ones, but she could choose two new skills from a list: Weaponsmith, Inventor, Treasure Hunter, Tracker, Trick Shot, First Aid. She read each description in turn and settled on Weaponsmith and Inventor.

She scanned the screen once more to make sure she hadn't missed a chance to adjust her stats further. Part of her felt disappointed by the absence of any special skills - most characters had at least one, tied to some backstory. Did she even have a backstory? It stung, somehow, not knowing some pointless extra language she'd never use. What about foraging - at least knowing which plants wouldn't kill her might prove useful someday. No, apparently she wasn't even interesting enough for a useless special skill. Fuck.

Defeated, she tapped the screen again, and a new message blinked an invitation at her:

"Scan to receive your weapons"

Now that was more like it. She wondered what she'd get to choose from - an assault rifle, maybe, or an SMG. A sniper rifle, even, so she could keep her distance from whatever was out there screaming. She pressed her palm to the scanner, and an unseen force blew the blanket clear off the circle. The blue light surged into a strobe, and she shut her eyes against the glare. A soft whoosh brought the light back down to its gentle pulse, and she opened her eyes again.

Sitting on the circle: a Colt SAA revolver, a knife, and four boxes of ammo.

No assault rifle. No SMG. Not even a grenade.

She picked up the revolver and felt its weight, the metal cold and solid in her hand.

Fuck this game.

Somewhere beyond the silver door, something slammed against metal, hard enough to rattle the walls. She froze, revolver raised, heart hammering - because whatever waited on the other side clearly already knew she was here.