Chapter 1

When I opened my eyes, all I saw were noodles. Which was wrong in many ways. As I've found myself sitting in the chair, it all came back to me quickly.

I took another quick look around, with a few noodles sliding down my head in the meantime. The only things I noticed was that I was out for about half an hour, and the room was a mess - thanks to me turning my head so quickly and all the noodles spraying out.

Before cleaning up this mess, I just had to take another shower first. And learning from my earlier mistake, I took the towel, and re-confirmed it a few times.

The cold shower helped out a lot, the heat and noodles were getting to me, so I calmed down with water pouring over my face.

As I was absentmindedly standing there at the end of my 'adventure', only at that time did I notice a small blinking red dot in the corner of my 'sight', and it was there even when I closed my eyes.

Only then did I start paying attention to it, and suddenly a blue screen popped out. Before I had a chance to read it, the *ding*? sound scared the hell out of me, and I slipped and fell down in my tub. I absolutely didn't scream like a little kid at that moment.

No injuries luckily. While I was getting up, I stopped and took another look at the creepy blue screen now following me wherever I look.

****CONGRATULATIONS****

You are the 937th person to awaken an internal ability. You're getting a bonus 5% to ALL talent trees, 5 stat points, and a title 'The Pioneer'.

****CONGRATULATIONS****

You are the 8th person to awaken an internal ability in the space system. You're getting a bonus 10% to SPACE talent tree, 5 stat points, and a title 'Space noob'.

****CONGRATULATIONS****

You are the 1st person to awaken the skill 'Space gate'. You're getting a bonus 100% to skill experience, 3 skill points, and a title 'Dimensional Gatekeeper'.

Judging by these screens, and if I didn't go nuts, I'd say I hit the jackpot. I had to confirm it somehow, and do it soon, about me going/not going crazy, but I had to deal with the blue screens first. Considering my 'vast' gaming experience, I tried focusing on the screen and mentally saying 'close'. And that got the job done, but now there's a different screen in front of me, still colored blue.

****Time until world-wide notification: 17:31:27

And the timer was going down every second, which is kinda obvious. I focused on that one saying 'close' once again, but I saw it mentally 'minimalizing', going back approximately to where the previous blinking red dot was, only this time, it was yellow-ish, and it wasn't blinking.

When I closed this one, the first thing I did, before leaving the shower, and searching online, was internally saying another well famous word in my circles - 'status'.

Few seconds later nothing was popping up, so I tried a few more variations, 'menu', 'system', 'help'. The help screen sort of worked.

****Time until world-wide notification: 17:30:31

I guess that's as much of a hint as I will get. Before I decide whether to panic or celebrate, I had to check if there's any info online.

Since I had to start somewhere, I decided to search for the articles about the weather report today, and I found one instantly on the local news portal.

A person I found in the sea of comments wrote: 'Anyone else got almost killed because of those darned blue screens popping up?'

And that was my cue. I quickly made a new account there, used a vpn connection just in case(which later turned out was unnecessary) and replied back to that one: 'Nope, but the *ding* sound made me do a backflip in my tub.'

I scrolled down a bit more, to see whether I can find any other comments like that one, but no luck.

As I was about to visit some of the more popular sites, I got a private message from the guy in the comments list.

'So you got that weird screen saying congrats a few times as well? One heck of a day I say, I thought I'm going crazy.'

I replied: 'Yeah, that sure surprised me too, wonder what's gonna happen when the timer reaches 0.'

A couple seconds later, he wrote: 'Hell if I know, I just wish we don't blow up or something. I need to go, just needed to see whether I'm sane or not anymore. If something weird happens again, gonna text you here for a second opinion, that alright?'.

Guessing by the content, he's pretty weirded out too, and it would be in my interest to have someone else to contact as well about this. 'Yeah sure, had to do a sanity-check as well. And the same goes here, gonna keep in touch if I can, good luck.'

Now that that's taken care of, the timer made me rush to do some shopping, in case that a zombie apocalypse or something happens.

I went to the closest shopping mall, and made a few trips back and forth with a few bags of conserved food, and several packages of water, enough to last me about 3 months.

I had to do several round trips to fit all of that, and I tried to be as stealthy as possible while carrying it to my apartment.

On my last trip to the mall, I saw a woman, approximately 20 years old, doing pretty much the same thing I did. We shared a look when we noticed each other, and I decided to talk to her.

She was rather pretty I have to say, a nine at least. Long red-colored hair, and a pair of brown eyes staring a bit confusedly at me.

Coming closer with my cart, I see that she's a bit nervous as well, but she noticed that I'm doing the same thing as her.

"Hey there, this might sound a bit weird, but did you notice any blue colored screens popping up?" In case I'm wrong about this, and shes only buying supplies for whatever reason, I decided to say it like this, and blame my phone or something later on if she's not seeing those blue screen, so she might think I'm hitting on her in some weird way. I could live with that.

But as soon as I've said it, I could see her eyes sparkling a bit.

Girl: "So I didn't go crazy after all. I saw a few comments online, but being unsure, and after watching all those apocalypse movies, I just had to go and buy some stuff, just in case you know."

Jackpot, I guess. "Yeah, that's a relief for me as well. I found some people online commenting, but without seeing someone in person and talking about it, it still sounded a bit weird. Though I wasn't gonna risk not buying some supplies as well. My name's Evan by the way."

Girl: "I'm Daisy, pleased to meet you Evan. I guess I'll be buying some additional supplies now that I met you, and call my family to do the same before something happens."

Me: "Likewise, and this might come across as a very bad pick up line, but may I have your number? Just in case stuff happens, and I need an opinion or something. Also you probably already know this, but you should find a safe place for tonight with some relatives, as who knows what will happen when the timer hits 0. It might be hard to explain to other people, but you can call someone for a sleepover I guess."

Daisy: "That's a first for me as well hahah, but it's not a bad one though. And yeah Evan, I'd like someone to ask for info as well if anything happens. I tried explaining to my neighbour when I saw her, but she was looking at me weirdly. Also yeah I guess I'll call a few friends over, it could be hard to explain them that I can see a timer ticking down in my head."

Honestly, having met her made me do another trip for some other basic supplies, and having people to share stuff with always helps.

Me: "Thanks, I guess I'll be going to finish my shopping, also it seems that we're not the only ones pulling the carts now."

Daisy: "Thank you too, I wish this doesn't go bad. Good luck out there."

Me: "Good luck to you as well."

As we were talking, more people were entering and buying stuff as we did, but strangely no-one panicked, but I rushed to finish my shopping anyway. Who knows what's in store for us.

I didn't have anyone to call and ask them to sleep over at my place. I could ask my friends to drink a bit, but I'd rather be sober when the timer reaches zero.

I know I'm not crazy now at least, and usually a timer reaching zero represents something bad, but I don't have that feeling. It might be influence of those blue screens though, so I still need to prepare.

-----

Having finished all the shopping, I had to do some remodeling in my apartment. I placed all the furniture near my doors and windows, because I couldn't determine whether I'd need to run somewhere, or barricade myself inside.

I'd leave the town to a more familiar, remote location in the countryside if I had more time, but it's better to stay in a familiar place, moving my supplies wouldn't be quick either.

I rented a jeep for 2 days, not too expensive, but if the world goes to hell, no-one will care if that jeep's rented or really mine. I loaded it with supplies and some fuel, besides the full tank.

Also prepared a backpack, a flashlight and some batteries, a machete and an army knife, and I had an older glock-17 in my apartment already. Just had to buy some bullets, it's better safe than sorry, as always.

It was 6 in the evening when I finished all the prep-work, so I decided to order a pizza, as it might be my last one.

Finished eating, I went to bed, and set an alarm for 4am, to be ready.

Who knows what destiny might bring to us, but at the very least, I won't fall down without fighting back.