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Coil

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With a thud I fall out of bed. Great, just great. Without opening my eyes I try to crawl back into my warm sanctuary, but my arms go through open air. Where is my bed, and why is it so bright? I roll onto my back before cracking open my lids. All I see is white. I open my eyes all the way and look around. There’s still only white. 

…What the hell? I stand up and try to make myself some clothes with shadows, but none appear. Then I notice there’s light coming from every direction, so no shade to work with.

“God dammit.” 

A clinical voice abruptly invades my mind.

What the hell?

Excuse me? I look around for whatever is doing this. It sounds just like the system, but it’s acting odd. 

 Children? Is that damn Crag behind this? I swear I’m gonna kill them.

Two dark shapes appear in the white forever. One I instantly recognize, the lumpy mess I made. The other figure is smaller, almost like a… is that a baby? I stare down Crag, who avoids my eyes.

“Crag, why the hell is there a baby?” I point at the thing. What have they been doing?

I let out a long groan. “Fine.” A second later a large rectangle fades into view. It reads out the statuses of the two shades.

Another groan stretches out across the sea of white. I rub my eyes. What is going on? I didn’t make this kid! 

 I nod, too annoyed to speak. The words on the floating geometry quickly rewrites itself.

I sit on the ground. This is too much. Fathershade? Really? Couldn’t I at least pick something cooler? Less flashy? I bet that idiot Crag picked it. I’m gonna kill them so dead.

 Huh? Reward? 

“Hey, why am I getting a reward?” I ask the voice in my head.

Holy shit, this could be good. “Yeah I’ll take that now, thanks!” I keep the excitement from my voice, or I try at least.

The rectangle fades out of sight, slowly replaced by a large scroll. The scroll floats into my hands.

I sit on the ground, if white nothingness can be considered ground, and re-read the list many times. The choices on this thing are truly mind numbing, the implications horrifying. And Scarlet also chose one of these? What the hell did she pick? How’d she even get- Oh, her daughter. Why don’t I remember any of this? 

It answered me, it used an automated response, but it answered me. This is so weird. I’ve honestly been ignoring the system so far, it’s just so… odd. I’ve tried to do things without it as much as I can. 

Some of these choices don’t even make sense. ‘One piece of absolute information’? What the hell does that even mean?

Huh? Administrator? Tell me about that. 

Of course…

Alright then, guess I should check more of these out if it’ll explain them to me. I spend a good hour reading through the list and listening to each of the descriptions, eventually narrowing it down to a few. I ignore the useless sounding ones, or the ones of low value. ‘Immortality’, ‘Raise class', 'Change class', ‘Master level in a craft’, and ‘dinner with a god’ are all immediately rejected. I’m happy with my class, and I can increase my skills on my own. I’m functionally immortal as far as I’m concerned and I have no interest eating with one of the eight.

That leaves me with two groups. Permanent abilities, and consumable ones. The consumable ones, like ‘one perfect resurrection’ are all insanely strong. But… The appeal of a permanent upgrade is extremely tempting, especially when it’s being equated with such crazy feats. 

The finals on my personal list are ‘rewind time’, ‘resurrection’, ‘custom ability’, ‘truesight’, and ‘shapeshifting’. I’m also interested in ‘a favor’ but the description is uselessly vague. 

That sounds great, if I knew who owed me it. Since I don't, I'll choose one that I understand. The custom ability is edited by the Administrator before I actually get it, so I can’t just give myself time travel powers. Resurrection has the caveat that the soul of your target has to still be intact, which seems fair.  Rewind time is only once so it’s a bit weak comparatively. Truesight is impressive, it doesn’t give you the ability to see through illusions, instead it gives you the ability to see people’s basic status. The longer you’re near them, the more their status tells you. It’s high on my list for sure. Shapeshifting is pretty self explanatory, but I’m already having my body changed a lot as it is.

I mull over my final options, realizing that Crag and the baby are gone. How long ago did they leave? Focusing on the list again, I decide on what I want. 

I choose a custom ability. The scroll in my hands dissolves into nothingness instantly and the now familiar presence enters my mind.

Hmm… I didn’t really think this far. I’d really like to be able to move through shadows I guess.

Huh, I got that when my race changed then? That’s pretty neat actually. Can I move other people or things through shadows? 

“Yes!” I say excitedly, this could be really strong.

Hmm, that’s a pretty heavy restriction. It’s also still stupidly strong, so why not? 

Without being able to ask any questions I fall back asleep.

 

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Overworked Volunteer

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God damn these people. They keep giving me extra work! Don’t they know how much I already have to handle? Shameless little twits. 

I sigh, taking a drag from my smoke. Why do I even do this? I do so much work, for next to no credit. I walk over to my fridge and pull out a can. With a pop the thing opens up. I chug the whole damn can without closing the door. 

I slam the fridge and walk back to my desk. The thing is littered with trash, but I don’t really have the time to clean. It’s gotten pretty bad though. Using my arm I sweep all the trash off the table and onto the floor. 

There we go, outta sight outta mind. My attention returns to my computer. An absolute monster of a rig hooked into… I don’t know how many monitors. At least ten, let's go with ten. Each monitor displays totally different information. One has weather projections, another has current events, one has some cartoon on. 

My gaze passes over each of them, picking out the useful information from each. Another invasion force in New York? That’s unfortunate. I start clacking on my keyboard to deal with a request from a client. I swear I can’t go twenty minutes before I get some kind of request. 

“Please design this for me?” or “What do you think is going to be popular this year?” and other such inane requests. But what the hell, I’m not doing anything else anyways. This current message is requesting ideas on how to reward an exceptional employee. Why do I get these kinds of questions, I’ve never had an employee! 

I just sigh. I know I’m gonna answer, I always end up doing it. As I mull over my reply I turn my attention to a monitor with some sport or another on it. I’m not into sports and there’s so many I lose track of which is which. The guys on the screen have like… are those sticks? Why do they have gloves on the… spears? Whatever. 

I finish up my reply and send it off. I wait a few minutes, hoping against hope I might get something in return. Even just a thank you. After an hour I stop waiting and take another hit off my smoke. Soon enough another request pops up.

Man, I need a hobby.