1 Awaken! Midnight's first gleaming.

Somedays are always better than others. And as the case is, today was not a good day for a young man named Kano Hoffstedder. A geeky nobody with few friends and fewer female companions. Life for Kano consisted of getting up late, eating his parents food and then hiding in his room until he passed out again. His father constantly berated him for being a layabout and lazy good for nothing, and his mother had even given up on trying to encourage him to do better.

So Kano awoke again, like any other day, in the dark of his parents basement, alone. He rubbed his face and stretched. A hard surface met his hands... 'That's odd. My bed is aligned with the wall, maybe I rolled around last night.'

He shrugged and sat up, fumbling around for his phone to light up the room. He kept leaning to the side to find his nightstand until he over balanced and fell to the floor. A fine sandy substance covered him and a puff of it flew into the air. Coughing, he sat up once more, thoroughly confused.

'I know I swept recently, at least in the past month.' he thought to himself as he felt the ground around him. His hands found only more of the dust and not a trace of his area rug. 'Something is not right.'

He decided to try and find his light switch, 'It should be on the wall just over here.' And so he felt his way along the floor until his head bumped into a hard surface. Kano brought up his hands to discover what it was and recoiled in fright at what they had felt. Slowly his trembling hands returned and started to trace the lines he had felt before. It was some sort of base relief set in the wall, and he had nothing like that in his room.

"This is not my room," he spoke the terrifying truth aloud. The words echoed in the darkened chamber. The first thought that came to mind was the possibility that he had been kidnapped.

"Hello?" he called out into the darkness. He listened intently for a response, yet only a faint ringing touched at his hearing. It had been doing that for a bit, but he thought it was just his own hearing in the dark playing tricks. Now, however, it seemed to have a definite tone and rhythm to it. He started crawling in its direction. 'Might as well investigate. Like I have anything better to do.'

He scrapped his knees as he inched along, slowly and blindly feeling outward with his hands. After what felt like an eternity, yet surely was only a couple of minutes, he reached a small stand. It felt like marble and metal, possibly both. His hands moved higher as the ringing almost seemed insistent. Suddenly, he felt smoothness, unimaginably smooth and curved. It was ball shaped, and roughly the size of a bowling ball. He marveled at its warmth, not uncomfortable at all, but rather pleasing to touch.

It started to emit a soft glow, teal in color. Slowly it grew in strength until he could make out his hands and then his arms, yet it never grew any warmer. He pulled his hands back but it started to dim. 'Well, I guess I have to hold it till it's full. Or done. or something.'

He returned his hands to the orbs surface and it continued its gradual glow. Suddenly, like a timer going off, he heard a ding. A small menu filled his mind.

***

NAME: ???

RACE: ???

CLASS: ???

***

PHYSICAL: 1 (unallocated)

MENTAL: 1(unallocated)

SPIRITUAL: 1(unallocated)

***

INVENTORY-

robe

***

With a start he recognized it. It was the character creation screen for Scarred World, but there was no input. Everything was greyed out... 'Robe?! Why do I have a robe and nothing else?!'

Kano quickly looked down at his body and indeed, he was wearing a tattered looking robe. 'Eww. Disgusting. It's like what the... starting characters wear.'

A realization slowly dawned upon Kano.

"No. No. No! NO!" His stuttered response turned into a scream of disbelief. His eyes frantically looked around at the now poorly lit room. It resembled the starting dungeon of Scarred World, the character creation tutorial dungeon. Except, this room was The Chamber of Decisions and the ball was The Orb of Finality. The end room of that dungeon in which a player would decide their class and race and gain some starting gear. Except this room should be where you accepted and teleported to the actual game. But he has no class, no race, not even a name, let alone skills and gear.

Kano screamed in frustration and raged at the room around him. He flailed his arms and threw his legs about as he bemoaned his current situation. He stopped short as his elbow hit the stand and pain shot up his arm.

"Gahh! My funny bone! That hurts and it's never funny!"

He stopped short and the pain was forgotten as he came to a new realization. "This isn't a dream. That hurt. This is really happening. I'm stuck in some crazy upside down topsy turvy game dimension. I'm in a freaking game!"

Kano had daydreamed about such things, of being a valiant warrior or powerful mage in the various games he had played, but he had never thought about it actually happening. "It can't be. There is no way."

Tears threatened to fill his eyes. They were already welling up and pushing to fall down his cheeks. "I can't be in a game. This isn't happening! I had to have been kidnapped... kidnapped and thrown in some kind of sick torture dungeon! Yeah, yeah!"

Confidence surged forth and into his chest, "That's right! If this was a game, if this was Scarred World, why, Bonesy would be here!" he yelled triumphantly into the void.

Just then, the base relief he felt earlier started to shake, Kano glanced at it nervously. He watched in horror as the wall started to crack and began revealing bones. They fell to the floor until it was a small stack of ivory and armour pieces. They continued shaking and rolling over each other, building on the stack until they were in their own places. A human skeleton in old and rusty armour.