The Floating Dream

Have you ever had a dream where you feel like you're floating in a dark pool of nothingness? You can tell that you're not standing or lying down, but floating, even though you can't see anything. And even though you're scared because you don't know where you are, there is that subtle calming feeling in the back of your mind that makes it feel like you're safe.

Almost like you're in a womb of some kind.

That's where I found myself when I passed out after the Parasite Hunter latched itself onto my side.

It felt weird to be unable to feel anything even though I knew I should be in terrible pain right now.

I think I opened my eyes, but it's hard to be sure since it was so dark. Even though I was sure I was floating, I couldn't tell what my body was floating on. It was a surreal feeling of nothingness.

I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I couldn't even feel the vibration of my voice box. Come to think of it, I couldn't feel any part of my body. Was I dead? Was this the afterlife? Was this hell?

I know I'm lazy, but even I would put more effort into making hell.

I was startled by the sudden intrusive voice that boomed everywhere around me — it even felt like it came from inside me.

Ping. A familiar notification sound played and a sentence in a familiar font appeared before me.

[Your soul has found itself within the dimensional realm of the System.]

The font was comforting with its familiarity, but its message raised so many worrying questions. The dimensional realm of the System?

[Answer: Where the System resides. Separate from, but still able to interact and mould the physical realm. You are currently interacting directly with the System AI as well as its creator.]

I was shocked. From what I've known in my lifetime — lifetimes — there has never been anybody who's been able to interact so directly —

Did the System just say its creator?

Reading your consciousness is so cliché, let me change the settings a little bit.

The voice came into being everywhere and inside me again.

Suddenly, there was light somewhere up above me. I looked up and noticed that I had a body once more. I could feel the muscles in tension, and I even did a double-take when I realised that I had a left arm once again.

I was under some sort of water, and I instinctively started to hold my breath and started to swim upwards towards the source of light that just appeared.

The light bent and shifted like it was shining through some sort of water surface and I quickly reached it. My face broke past the surface and I gasped in a huge gulp of air. Strange, my lungs didn't burn as much as I expected it to from how long I seemed to have held my breath.

For a moment I floated there as I wondered how I was going to get out of the water-like substance I had found myself in, but then I felt the odd sensation of the water retracting away.

My head was suddenly dry, almost like I hadn't just swam, then my neck and my chest. With the receding water, I felt a garment flop onto my skin. I was suddenly wearing clothes. No, I was always wearing clothes and only just now realised? I was extremely confused.

After the water completely disappeared, I felt a smooth, slightly cool surface beneath the soles of my feet. I looked down and saw nothing but black. It was more than black though, even though I could feel a solid surface, my eyes tricked my brain when they told it that there was nothing underneath my feet.

It was there, but the way the black seemed to absorb the light from somewhere above me made it seem like it wasn't.

[The System welcomes you to its dimensional realm.]

The blue writing from the System's message window shone in front of me.

[WARNING!

Since this dimensional realm should only be occupied by the System, you will be kicked out of the realm soon.]

We don't have much time.

The voice came into existence.

I realised I had a throat and voice box again when I instinctively cleared my throat and was surprised by the noise.

"What do you want from me?" I asked as confidently as I could, though my voice cracked so much that it sounded like I hadn't spoken in years.

I have a few questions I want to ask you, but I'm not quite sure where to start.

"Well, I have a few questions I'd like to ask too—"

What the hell is wrong with you?

The voice manifested itself over my own. The suddenness of it caused me to almost choke on my own words.

"Wh—What?" I asked feebly.

Not everybody gets a second chance like you do, and what do you do with my gift to you? You spend your time losing weight and get discovered by one of the others before you even do anything! So boring…

My jaw dropped in shock. Not because of how casually the voice revealed that they — it — gave me a "second chance", or whatever it meant when it mentioned "the others", but I was most shocked by its attitude.

"Excuse me?" I asked, barely constraining an anger that started to well up inside me.

I mean, woo, healthy living is fine and all, but when it comes to the beginning of an epic tale, it's kind of boring, don't you think?

"Wait, you're not making any sense," I groaned as a headache started to form, "Why don't you start at the beginning for me, where am I? And more importantly, who the hell are you?!"

Humans. I always forget how dense you lot can be.

"What's going on right now?" I practically yelled into the air.

I guess we do have a little bit of time for me to do a little bit of explaining here…

The light source above me suddenly shifted from a slightly warm white colour to a darker, yellow and what could only be described as a massive hologram appeared in front of me. The hologram showed a bird's-eye view of Anna and Aaron kneeling around me as they tried to apply emergency first aid on me in the cave camp.

There was blood everywhere and all over me, but the shiny pattern of the Carrabeen Bandage was visibly wrapped tightly around my torso. The tightness was probably to try and stop me from bleeding to death.

I couldn't see the Parasite Hunter anywhere, so I assumed they had already dealt with it. I shuddered as I watched myself dying.

You're on the verge of death right now, and since you were discovered so quickly, I decided to sneakily scoop you up so we could have a chat without anybody else around.

I'm the Game Master.