1 Annoying Popup Ads

Hale was your ordinary college graduate in the 21st century. He went to school, joined a few clubs, made some friends, and graduated. While he was studying, he would finish his homework and studies, before getting on his computer to play video games.

However, Hale made the mistake that many college graduates made. He didn't make enough effort to apply for internships or relevant part-time positions in his field while he was still in school. Every summer would pass by and he would think to himself, "I can always start applying next year."

Once he had graduated as a Business Management major, he realized that no one was willing to hire someone to be in a management position without having an prior work experience. The realization that he had taken $60,000 in student loans with no stable career ready for him upon his graduation hit him at his core. There was no choice for Hale except to take the humiliation and become a barista at his local coffee shop, near his apartment, in order to survive while looking for a career.

To his detriment, he was unable to even obtain a manager position at his local coffee shop as he had no previous work experience as a barista or anywhere else. The lack of experience and his overall laid back attitude while he was at college had come back to haunt him.

A year passed him by and Hale had still not put in enough effort in order to find a stable career. He would spend his eight hours working every week day and then go home and play random video games to pass the time. His weekends were also spent wasting his time away, as he would start applying for jobs for an hour at a time, before he would get bored and would go back to playing random games.

Hale was playing his current flavor of the month, Legends of the Stone, a single-player fantasy RTS-RPG hybrid on his desktop computer, when suddenly a popup ad appeared on his screen.

"Do you want to live a life greater than this one!?"

Hale annoyingly clicked the X button to try and exit the ad, but it appeared to be more than a simple ad and wouldn't allow for him to close the annoying popup.

"I know what you want deep down anyway, so stop trying to close this ad!"

Hale was astonished at the words that popped up soon after on the screen. A second later, another sentence caused him to stand up in shock.

"Hale Edwards, you are destined for a life beyond your current world. In order to best place you within our system, please click below to fill out a quick survey."

Hale didn't know what to do for awhile. He stood there staring at the screen, wondering if there was someone who had hacked his computer or if he had become a victim of identity theft. He sat back down after his initial shock and tried to close out the popup ad using all the methods that he knew how. Despite his efforts, the popup wouldn't close and remained situated on his screen. Hale was getting annoyed with this popup and decided that he had to do a manual reboot of his computer.

As he was reaching down to press the power button on his desktop, a booming voice roared out of his computer speakers, "HALE EDWARDS, CLICK DOWN BELOW TO DETERMINE YOUR FATE!"

Just as he was about to shut off the computer, he fell backwards with a startled expression on his face and let out a quick gasp. The annoying popup ad even had a deep booming voice in order to get someone to fall for its trap! At this point, Hale had just about had it with the popup and went straight for the power button.

After holding the power button for a few seconds, the computer fortunately turned off and the popup ad that had been tormenting his screen disappeared. Hale let out a sigh of relief as the screen turned dark and his room once again was enveloped in a quiet darkness. He waited the customary ten seconds before clicking the power button again, but right before he was about to turn it on, the screen suddenly turned on with a message.

"Hale Edwards, please click this button to determine your fate, I beseech you to comply!"

Hale was taken aback once again, as he checked once more that his computer was truly off. Upon seeing no lights within the desktop tower and no noise coming from the internal fan, he realized that something was truly amiss with this annoying popup ad. He deliberated with himself for a minute before sitting down and clicking the button.

"Greetings Hale Edwards! Please fill in the blanks for the following choices:

Race

World

Ability

Hale stared at the screen for a minute while looking at these weird options. How did this have anything to do with his fate? Humoring this mysterious survey, he chose to go through with filling out the survey on the off chance that something magical or mysterious might actually happen. Otherwise, this may very well just be an elaborate prank or sick joke that someone was playing on him, and who ever it was appeared very persistent in making him go through with their plans. It seemed as though he could decide on things, so he thought about each choice carefully.

Well, seeing as though he was a human, he would probably like to stay as a human so that he could adapt quickly in a human environment. Hale felt pretty confident that he would be able to adapt to any human environment or culture due to the many movies, tv shows, and video games that he has played throughout his life.

Thinking about the world, Hale would prefer to stay on earth so that he would be familiar with the environment. Suddenly going to a planet where they had aliens or weird cultures would put him on edge.

There were many abilities that Hale would have liked, such as super strength or super speed, but a practical one that he had always wished for while he was in school, was to be able to read minds.

after going through these choices in his head, he skeptically reached for the keyboard to type them all in, and was stunned to see the powered off keyboard respond to his inputs. The text appeared on his screen:

Race: Human

World: Earth

Ability: Mind Reading

After typing he clicked on the finish button at the bottom of the page. The screen went blank and an announcement soon appeared.

"Hale Edwards, thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey. While you were busy thinking of the survey, our system analyzed your life and has determined the most suitable life for you. Please review:

Race: Demon

World: A land of magic, fantasy, and adventure.

Ability: Random Summon

System: Worldwide Leveling System

"Huh!?" Hale thought to himself as he realized that the results were entirely different from what he had entered. The "survey" had turned out to just be a ploy to get Hale to begin, but he ended up with no control over his supposed "fate". By this time, Hale knew that something unnatural was happening right now and braced himself for anything.

"Thank you for waiting! Please step into the portal behind you."

Hale turned around and was shocked to see that a black hole had appeared in the middle of his room. He immediately backed away and hit his back to the wall.

"Failure to comply in three seconds will activate a penalty!" the voice boomed out from his powered off computer speakers.

"3!"

Hale had no idea what the voice was talking about and immediately sprinted for the door to his apartment.

"2!"

He reached for the bolt lock mechanism and managed to unbolt it vert quickly in a practiced manner.

"1!"

His hands reached for the door handle and began to turn it just as the voice rang out, ending the countdown. Suddenly, felt as though his arms and legs couldn't move. with a look of horror on his face, he turned his head slowly around only to see big black tendrils of darkness reaching out towards him.

A sense of fear gripped his heart, as he felt the tendrils coil around his body. With a sudden jerk, he was pulled backwards and his vision suddenly blurred to darkness.