The Strange Tattoo

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

"Wake up!"

Bryan jumps up a little too fast and falls off the bed.

*Thud*

After a few seconds of laying there still confused, he hears the loud voice of his mother.

"You ok in there? Hurry up, your going to be late to school if you don't get a move on!"

Bryan gets off the ground, 'what the hell was that dream, too scary! Those damn thugs next time I see them I'll make them fall into a hole and die.' As Bryan gets into the shower the more he thinks about the dream, 'that dream was so life-like I couldn't even tell it was a dream at all, I could feel everything and I remember it like it really happened in front of my eyes!' While washing his body, he notices on the top of his hand, a tattoo of an upside down "T", 'what is this?' Bryan attempts to rub off the mark on his hand off with no avail, he starts scrubbing harder and harder till his weak skin almost breaks, giving him a red mark on his hand. Yet the tattoo is still there, even almost having a glow to hit and a faint cold wind coming from it. 'This was not here yesterday, and it won't come off, strange...", almost on command the mark sinks into his hand and disappears completely, leaving no trace. 'I must still be have asleep, weird.' Even though Bryan thought this, deep done he was scared, scared of all the batshit crazy events from his ultra-realistic dream and the strange mark on his hand.

"Hurry up, I have to shower too!" His mother yells from downstairs.

"I'm getting out right now!" Bryan proceeds to get dressed and heads to his school, North academy, which ironically was south of his middle of nowhere farm house. Growing up he worked with his father on the farm work, yet as time went on he got progressively lazy and put on weight due to the bullying he had to suffer from being from a poor farming family. His parents slaved away all to provide him with food and education, they even gave him his fathers hand-me-down truck. Yet over the years due to depression and overall laziness , his relationship with his family has gotten worse to the point of barely speaking. As Bryan is thinking about his horrible school situation and relationship with parents, he reaches the halfway point on his journey. Noticing nothing out of the ordinary, in complete contrast to his dream, he sighs heavily in relief, 'I should probably speed up, or I'm not going to make it.' As Bryan speeds up to 15 MPH over the speed limit he notices police lights turn on behind him.

"Shit." Bryan curses as he pulls over to the side as does the cop. The cop gets out of the car he recognizes who the cop is. Ed Kruger. The father of the main culprit of his tragic life, Harris Kruger. He watches Ed walk over to the truck with a smug smile and a look of disdain. As Bryan roles down the window he hears a deep and condensing voice,

"Looks like you were speeding young man, you know how dangerous that can be? God, what did your parents ever teach you. Just as useless as them." Ed says while writing what looks like a ticket. Bryan holds back his anger to ask what the ticket is about.

"Are you writing me a ticket Sheriff Kruger? You didn't even ask for my license." Bryan asks in a meek voice, mumbling the last sentence as to not anger the man you has it out for his family. Ed looks at Bryan for a second then says, "this might be your first offense but because you were speeding on a major highway I can only give you a ticket and not a warning." Bryan, right after Ed finishes spouting his lines, hears a loud ding in his head and sees a big floating, red "X" over Ed's head. 'What the hell is that?' Bryan's general confusion of the situation does not escape Ed's trained eyes however.

"What are you gawkin' at?" Ed says looking up from the ticket.

"You have something on your head sheriff." Bryan comments absentmindedly not realizing how strange the situation is.

"Huh? Where?" Ed proceeds to look into the reflection of the passenger window to see nothing but a full head of hair."Are you messing with me boy? You know I can take you down to the department for impeding a traffic stop right?" Ed spits out while giving a Bryan a glare.

'So he can't see it, just perfect, I am going crazy after all.' Just then he feels a pain on his right hand and looks down to see the upside-down "T" back, but this time letters on his wrist had appeared. The Letters, in the most beautiful handwriting said, 'You have gained one lie fragment for the other party believing your lie only 57%, you can use this to improve one stat of your choice.'

'Holy shit' Bryan starts to look more closely at the words when Ed interrupts his inner monologue.

"What the hell are you staring at boy, did you not hear a single word I said? Take this and get out of here before I have you arrested for stalling." Bryan takes the ticket and drives off. 'That old bastard! This ticket will put a huge dent in my spending money, damn it.' Bryan still fuming forgets about the writing unto he pulls up to school after a bit. 'What was that thing? its gone now but it said something about stats? like a game?' as Bryan thinks for a second he says,

"Status?" as and avid reader of web novels and player of games, he's seen this kind of thing before. Just as he utters the word Bryan feels another sharp pain similar to an ant bite. As he looks down almost trembling from excitement because he knows whats coming next.

Status:

Name: Bryan Elis

Race: Human

Title: Lazy Bastard Weakling(Gives a 20% higher chance of being disliked from a first impression)

Strength: 3

Endurance: 4

Vitality: 2

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 6

Luck: 1

Lie Fragments: 1

Lie Points: 1