Chapter 1 – Exceedingly Average Beginnings

Chapter 1 – Exceedingly Average Beginnings

It had all changed at some point yesterday. It had been the average birthday for John Newman – that was to say, his mom had congratulated him and he had spent the rest of the day gaming. Pleasant, all things considered. A bit anticlimactic that 18 began just like 17.

The day after his birthday though, that was a different story.



John rubbed his eyes. ‘Must still be asleep,’ he thought and stretched. He pinched his leg and winced at the pain. Then his eyes drifted across his dirty room. Neither factors were anything short of real. Still, this couldn’t be right. ‘Might as well?’ he pressed accept and then played out whatever else this strange dream would have to offer.

Out of the bed and up to his closet. The integrated mirror in the door showed a reflection of himself. A lanky and thoroughly unimpressive specimen of a man – he knew that much. John didn’t care much about sports and what little interest may have remained was thoroughly killed by Frank’s efforts to humiliate him.

More interesting than himself was the little description floating over his head though.



John Newman

Lvl 3: Student.

The Gamer.

His name, a level, a class, a title, it was like this world just turned into some MMORPG. ‘The dream at least sticks to the theme,’ he considered and flexed his mental muscles. If it was an RPG, then certainly there should have been a...



The dream was getting ever stranger. The little snipes the system took at him were oddly personal, as was the degree of detail it knew about his life. This could be associated with his subconscious telling him to at least clean up his room, but... wasn’t all of this a bit too true to life?

John scanned his room. His figurines in the shelves, dusty but still valuable – particularly that A2 one with the production error. A true collector’s item, that one. There were scattered paper towels and snack packages he hadn’t cleaned in days or weeks and they were all exactly where they were supposed to be.

And wasn’t it supposed to be impossible to read in a dream anyway?

John scratched the back of his head. There was no oddity to the sensation. His fingers grinded through short, slightly greasy hair. He clawed a little harder and again felt pain. He took a step and moved. He dragged the boxer’s back to his character and they appeared again. Then they disappeared again when he reversed it.

He looked at his alarm. It gave him the same time of day he usually woke up on a school day. A Monday, a blasted Monday, and he was roughly three minutes behind schedule. Not that it mattered much if he was exactly on time. Ashcroft was an unusual school in many ways – mostly that it was a prep school more closely resembling a typical day school. Private, extended education.

And he had all of these thoughts, all of the dread of going there, without waking up. Nothing in the room was unusual. Nothing about his state indicated he was still asleep.

‘Which means... this is real life?’ John thought, then laughed. That couldn’t be it. Good things didn’t happen to him outside of video games. ‘But what if my life just became one?’

The question sent his mind whirling in all directions. Metal parts creaked when he half fell into the bed again. Endless possibilities drifted by his mind’s eye. If this wasn’t a dream... if these system messages were real and told the truth... then he could become whatever he wanted.

‘I just need to practice and grind and I can master anything I want to, even stuff I suck at,’ he thought. ‘Just like professions in every last MMO grindfest.’

The sane idea that this was still a dream wrestled with his wish that it was real.

‘Screw it, I’ll just assume that it’s real. What’s the worst that could happen? I wake up and then nothing’s changed,’ John said and jumped to his feet. ‘First step, getting that Quest done. Easy EXP and a little bit of a view into how this works in practice.’

The life of the Gamer had just begun.