Awakening (02)

"...live?"

"That is correct."

"Is Alban my name?"

"That is correct."

"How do you know that?"

"Unauthorized query."

Alban was still alert. In fact, he was so aggravated he could taste it. He didn't know if this strange voice was lying to him, he couldn't even tell if that name was truly his or more of a pacifying gesture. Nonetheless, the name...felt right. Made him feel a little more whole. Slightly comforted by this, he prepared to bombard this mysterious voice with questions, as it seemed to be a bit more aware of his situation.

"Live? What do you mean by that?"

"Acceptable query. To live is to continue existing. Should the subject accept, he will be given the ability to do so."

"Did you do this to me? Did you put me here?"

"Alban, do you want to live?"

"You're not gonna answer me until I accept will you..."

Silence.

Attempting to wait out the far-away sounding voice, he felt a bit like an idiot. Maybe he was hallucinating all of this because of how tense he felt. He spent five minutes on his fruitless endeavor before finally deciding to try it out, see if it was real after all. When he attempted to open his mouth in order to voice his consent, the voice suddenly interjected.

"Acknowledged. Analyzing. Subject is now the user. Please wait while analysis is in process. Would you like to be notified when analysis is finished?"

Alban was sure that whoever the voice belonged to, it could see his movements or at least know what he was thinking. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to interject just as he made up his mind. Nodding yes in slight frustration, he decided to sit around and wait for it to finish.

A minute. Now five. Ten minutes later, Alban was feeling pretty stressed, looking up at the blood red sky while counting down monotonously...he couldn't do much else after all. He couldn't even remember why he knew how to count. As he was about to reach 15 minutes, the voice finally rang inside his head once again.

"Analysis finished. Determining user to be someone unfit to survive. Reasoning: specialization in relying on others. Compiling a unique system based on user. Loneliness System initialized."

'Ah, system. It's nice to know what that ringing voice is, I mean I almost thought it was that...creature from earlier doing something.' Alban sighed and started to mumble under his breath at the system, wondering what kind of analysis lead it to thinking he relied too much on others. There wasn't even anyone near him!

"Now that System has obtained basis for system functions in the future, {Basic Knowledge Rights} may be restored. Allow restoration?"

'Oh I don't know maybe I'll wait another 15 minutes...yes! Yes you're allowed.'

And then, it all went black.