Book In A Bears Hands

That night having moved past the awkwardness of the tampon embargo Ari, her father and her aunt had dinner together.

Holding a glass of milk Ari passed by the guest room as her aunt looked through the door and the pair made eye contact.

Smiling at Wendy, Ari raised the glass and walked off not noticing her aunt's face drop when she saw the glass.

Having drank the glass Ari got changed into her pajamas and drifted off into the 4th Dimension.

Tossing and turning a cold shiver hit Ari's spine as her eyes shot open.

"Shit it's cold in here" she said wrapping herself in the fur blanket.

A loud banging noise coming from a nearby cabinet sounded as Buttons fell out through the swinging door.

A ceramic jar around his head broke as he hit the ground.

Chewing something he got on his feet and looked at Ari with a blank look on his face.

"Hey Ari" Buttons said once he'd swallowed the food and he walked over to a pile of papers on a rickety chair in the corner.

"You... always... just eating?" Ari asked while shivering in the covers.

"Hey I resent that statement" Buttons replied as he brought back an old book and threw it up onto Ari's lap.

With a pen in his mouth he used his stubby little legs and claws to climb up onto the bed.

"Okay so you finished your first mission. You got experience points and bonus points, now it's time to distribute those" he said handing her the pen.

"Eww that was in your mouth" Ari said grimacing towards it.

"I'm a stuffed animal Ari, I don't have spit" he said putting the dry pen into her hand.

"Oh sorry" she said looking down at it.

"Hang on!" she said as her head snapped to the side.

"You don't have any internal anything?" she said looking at him.

"You mean blood and gunk? No" he replied.

"... So why the fuck you always eating" she asked with an incredulous look on her face.

"I don't know, dream logic" Buttons replied with a shrug as he grabbed the book off her lap.

"Fine, what is that anyways?" Ari asked rolling her eyes as she fiddled with the pen in her hand.

"Lemme just-" Buttons said as he opened the book and Ari began squinting at the bright blue light projected from within it.

Adjusting her vision for the neon blue writing, she looked inside and saw her picture.

"This is your Dreamers profile" Buttons said.

"My what?" Ari asked staring at the page and the details it contained.

[Dreamers Profile]

[Name: Zariah Brooks]

[HP: 95/100]

[Strength: 1]

[Speed: 1]

[Stamina: 10]

[BP: 10/100]

[XP: 64/100]

Thinking back to all the role playing games she'd played over the years she made an assumption.

"Okay so that's my picture obviously, my name so then these are my stats in this world or something right" she said looking over at Buttons.

"Exactly right! That's you when you're here. Strength relates to your durability and how hard you hit. Speed is your-" Buttons said before Ari waved him off.

"Save me the tutorial I don't do those, what's with the bonus points, they a one for one thing? Can I use em on my HP cause this scar is annoying to hide" she said holding up her hand for Buttons to see.

"...As I was saying. Your speed is your overall agility, athleticism and reachion time. Your stamina is how long you can use your other stats before they start lagging and you start moving the way you normally would in a dream. As a gift for joining the 4th Dimension has given you extra stamina to help you save energy while you save lives" Buttons said enthusiastically.

"Was that a rehersed speech or something?" Ari asked sarcastically before continuing:

"Okay so then what do I do with this pen?" Ari said as she tapped it onto the page and the neon writing popped up in front if her in a hologram.

"Yo!" Ari shouted as the writing stood in front of her projecting from the book.

"That pen activates the book. Those bonus points can be distributed into any of your stats, any other questions or you already know what you're doing?" Buttons said with snark.

"Okay fine thanks for the help, I know you're just doing your job. Sorry for being an ass" Ari said in a soft tone before continuing:

"Yes I do have a question, how do I use this pen on that" she said tapping the screen with the pen trying to see if something would happen but the pen simply fell through.

"Oh" she said looking at it as she poked the pen through repeatedly chuckling to herself.

"Just use your finger" Buttons said.

"Lol pause" Ari said under her breath with a smirk as she put the pen down and tentatively reached out towards the screen.

Seemingly solidifying at the feel of human skin the hologram remained see-through but had the same feel and texture as a cellphone screen.

Looking at her stats Ari tapped her health and a bar with a plus sign on the right and a minus sign on the left appeared in front of her.

Within it was the numbers [95/100].

Tapping the plus sign she looked at her free hand that had the scar on it.

As she added points to her health bar she watched as the scar closed up and healed seemingly good as new.

"Alright that's pretty cool" she said looking at her hand seemingly good as new.

Looking back at the screen she clicked the confirm button that had appeared underneath the bar.

Pondering for a second she settled on adding her remaining points to her agility over her strength.

"Alright that's done now what" she said as she looked at her profile.

[Dreamers Profile]

[Name: Zariah Brooks]

[HP: 100/100]

[Strength: 1]

[Speed: 6]

[Stamina: 10]

[BP: 0/100]

[XP: 64/100]

"Shut the book and let's get going" Buttons said rising to his feet and taking the book from Ari shutting it.

"Go where? It's cold as shit in here" she said wrapping herself back up in the blanket.

"Relax it's barely snowing outside" Buttons replied.

"Do you realize how cold it is? Clearly not hearing me. Probably cause it's so cold my words are freezing in mid air and I'd have to defrost em for us to even have this conversation. It's cold, I don't do cold, piss off" she said through gritted teeth as she shivered.

"Fine" Buttons sighed as he closed his eyes and his head dropped.

Looking over at him Ari's face dropped.

"Okay I'm an asshole sorry I-" she said before her words escaped her as she looked and watched on as Buttons grew in size.

He became just about shorter than the roof of the cabin.

"Um what's-" Ari said before Buttons grabbed her in his paws and pulled her out from her covers and threw her straight into his mouth.