Chapter 1-part 1 New life

I wouldn't say I have the hardest life; I wouldn't say it's easy either, but sitting here with this burning white light of a monitor just seems to not only decay my eyes but my sense of purpose at times. Iv grown so uncomfortable sitting under office lights for 10 hours a day, ends meet grows further the more I chase after it. If I were to stop where would I be then?. This thought rings in kacey's head every time she feels she wants to quit always unsure of her purpose or goal she can never make the choice, fear prevents her from the jump; thus never moving from her position.

Kacey smith, age 26, she lives alone in her apartment and spends her days working at an office that handles stock and distribution for a supposedly corrupt food packing company. Starting out was kind of fun, hours were at a median, and she had time to indulge in her hobby's, quite often visiting the local game shops for ttrpg sessions. And using holidays for convention visits. But now, her managers ride on her like the cash cow they think they have.

"Ugh.. why does he need these forms tonight." Kacey shuffles through the stack of sheets and forms trying to discern some kind of sense behind the layout.

" I don't even cover this section of accounting why is the form on my desk!!?.

Kacey cries out with soft rage. She sits the stack back and turns to the monitor and begins clicking at some keys and scrolling through files, a nightly occurrence.

30 minutes later she just stops for a moment, doesn't move her hands, doesn't type nor does she think about anything, she does however then turn to look at a photo at her desk, sighing as doing she does so. She sees in the photo something she has longed for, for a while. Her parents and her best-friend Michael, standing all together in her parents front yard for Christmas, she looks at each individual person for what felt an hour, the picture holds but the memory of a now empty space. She quickly glances to herself in the centre,she's smiling, Something that looks common but feels unfamiliar. She thinks to her self

"I've gotta get out of this place"

was she talking about her job? This city? This situation? She wasn't sure what; but she felt something needed change. Holding back tears she decided the sooner she finishes the sooner she's home, the clock already reading 10:11.

"Geez another late night here, they promised last time was the last, but well.. here I am I guess."

Several more minutes of work ensued but she is interrupted. On her monitor a pop up she tries to click away but nothing lets eager, she doesn't turn off the desktop in fear of restarting the work. On closer inspection it's an ad reading

SIGN UP NOW: inter-dimensional travel and a journey to die for. Fill out this free form today and start your new life tomorrow

Ts&Cs apply

She decides she will click the sign up button just to get the pop up off screen, clicking it the pop up changes to a terms and conditions page 1000s of words long with 10 pages, Kacey sees a couple lines but otherwise skips the most part. Finally a new page, "enter name and date of birth, as well as your reasoning for to want a new life."

Name: Kacey smith

Date of birth: 24 | January | 1993

Reasoning: why not, sounds fun?

Kacey types this all in knowing it's just some malware hoping it will go away once she's done, she'll bring it up with IT in the morning.

Next

The next page is a lot different it resembles a character sheet for but unlike one for any system she's played with maybe closest to dungeons and dragons in a way. Up the top it writes

"all information is final, excluding items in green which are interchangeable to suit customers wants".

All the boxes in green include name, age, height, starter weapon with a little drop down box with all the available options, and then there's a checkbox with the word "Starter-pack" next to it, Kacey fills it out kind of excitedly as she really wnjoys writing up new characters,

NAME: Kacey Ashfen

AGE: 18

HEIGHT: 5'11"

STARTER WEAPON: Katana

Kacey always loved her name but felt smith was boring so Ashfen seemed fun, her age being 18 is due to the memory's and happiness correlated with the age, and her heigh she increased by an inch just for a bit of a laugh having always wanted that extra inch; finally a katana for the simple fact it was cool and she was a bit of a seen but who cares it didn't matter anyway.. did it?. Before checking the box for starter pack it does read under the word, "free 6 month starter pack trial, no card needed" well a trial is kinda weird but not costing her anything meant no risk until she put in anything more personal but it hasn't even asked for an email or anything so it seems like a gag at this point.

She checks the box.

After this she pays attention to some of the aspects she couldn't change, Sp well, Sp str both have nothing corresponded just "?" Put below them, for her attributes, which are weirdly correlated to what she also believes of herself, at least how low the charisma is anyway, she lets out a small laugh.

Charisma:6

Strength: 10

Intelligence: 13

Dexterity: 10

There some other boxes but there glitched only reading errors, seems this person gag is faulty. Hitting next one more time, and finally the last pop up appears, "congratulations we guarantee by morning your new life will have begun, please confirm you agree with the terms and conditions one more time to finish the process. She does so and the monitor goes black for a second, kind of freaked her out as that was all for nothing, but it turns back on to her work, everything is as normal. Kacey finally leaves the building by 11:30, although she might have finished quicker had she not been so focused on how cool a new life would be. She admits she doesn't exactly hate her life, in fact leaving here would kind of feel like she was leaving something important, not referring to the job but the people she's lost and met, could be forgotten which feels wrong.

Her apartment dark and cold, the air conditioner she had installed doesn't turn on so the musty air remains. Goances at her game system considering filling the void of the room with the sound of video games but deciding not to as the time of the night starts to set in on her badly. Kicking off her tight clothes and shoes she can finally relax. The apartment feels empty, her bed, her fridge, even the sound of the quiet tv next door sheds more life into the apartment, but kaceys mind at the moment though exhausted and groggy is full of something she hasn't thought about for a while, a direction. She had been in the same position for so long which way she had to go was not relevant so thinking about a direction and what lies beyond that path was as terrifying as it was exciting, quoting her job, moving to a new city all seemed like an adventure so so far out of reach. Deep down she wished that pop up meant something, at this point her life was finished in this position, and the direction she has to go is unclear.

"By tomorrow whether at night or day, I'm going to start walking and whatever I meet down that path will not turn me back this way." Kacey finally passes out from exhaustion inspired for change".

A cold ground and clanking iron, feint smell of blood and damp cold air. This is what Kacey awakens to, opening her eyes she sees she is in a small jail cell, very old looking rusted iron bars, stone ground and the toilet looks ancient at best. She lays on a creaky bench that's is chained up against the wall, Kacey hears a man he seems to be talking to someone inside down the hall, muffled grunts and a loud painful slam into a wall, the cell shuts and the man locking it laughs to himself and yells to everyone else "soon you maggots in here will have to deal with boss directly, you thought I was bad you just wait" he speaks with what seems and old times British accent, he sounds very serious, a loud steel door is heard slamming along with keys jangling with what one can assume the door out of the prison cell room.

(Continues in part 2)