Will stared at the man in the mirror.

“See, did you sleep in a mudhole?” the barber asked. Will nearly had but he was fixated on the light brown hair, green eyes, paler face, and light freckles under the dirt. He was half white, half Korean. His face should have had black hair with brown eyes and no freckles. That was beside the point though. The main concern was... that wasn’t his fucking face! It wasn’t even shaped the same anymore!

He touched his face and the man in the reflection did as well, mirroring his every move. Will just stared and touched with his other hand as well. The barber beside him stood up and backed away at that.

“You alright there, friend? Do I need to grab the doc or the sheriff?” the question brought Will back a bit. He lowered his hands and shrugged weakly.

“Uhh… yeah… yeah, I’ll, ummm come back after that ah… bath. You said the Saloon?” Will asked, realizing he could get himself thrown into the same cell as Marv.

“Er, yes. Right down the road,” The nervous barber said and Will walked out.

He didn’t head to the saloon and instead went for the bridge to the abandoned side of Silverstead. He walked through until he spotted a house that didn’t look like a fart could knock it down and went inside. It was full of cobwebs, dust, and dirt but the issue was, he needed time alone to figure it out.

“The fuck? The fuck? The fucking fucking fucks!” he hit the wall, “The hell did they do to me?”

He ran his hands over his face and took in the texture of his skin. He rubbed his ears and felt that they were different. He froze and looked down at his crotch.

When he’d first woken up he’d been severely dehydrated, he didn’t pee until he made it back to Silverstead and had gone in either the outhouse behind the jail or the one behind the saloon. Both were basically dark closets and he didn’t have the tendency to play with himself while pissing.

He took in a breath and looked down to see an uncircumcised penis where his circumcised one should be. There was also a lot of pubic hair rather than shaved. He really started to panic, it was a little bigger than his but it wasn’t his dick! It was his dick though… he touched it and could feel his hand. The nanites, the experiment!

“Why the fuck would the spooks reattach my fucking foreskin?” he was dumbfounded now. Even if the intent was to make him unrecognizable to anyone that knew him, how many women out there were big enough scanks to look at a man below the belt and realize he’d had intensive reconstructive surgery on his face. No one was about to say, ‘Oh my god! I recognize that! Is that you Remmy?!’

He wasn’t sure if anyone took enough poundings to do that but he was sure he could count the number of women he’d slept with that were even close to that big of thots, the number was ZERO!

“Oh my god! The body!” he gasped, “I might have known them. They really might have been a marine. I just wouldn’t recognize them if they did the same thing.”

He started freaking out and thinking rapidly while pacing in the house. He didn’t understand what was going on or why they would do this to him. There was no point to it!

“Okay, calm down… Think…” he closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. Focusing on the ins and outs of each breath. He stood there, perfectly still until his breathing stabilized and his pulse slowed. When he felt calm again he opened his eyes again.

Utility Skill Learned: Meditation-active Level 1

He dismissed the nanite message but suddenly thought of an idea on how to get answers. He opened his status, immediately searching for a clue.

Name: William Tempest

Race: Human-Variant

Age:19

Class: Prodigious Gunslinger lvl 1

Secondary: Vigilant Bounty Hunter lvl 2

Profession: N/A

Level: 2

Health: 130/130

Mana: 127/150

Stamina: 110/120

Vitality: 13

Active Effects:

Endurance: 12

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 14

Intelligence: 15

Attributes:

Variant Human: +1 Vitality, +2 Strength

Marskman +2 perception, +1 Dexterity

100+ Bounties: +1 Vitality, +3 Luck

Fear the Hunter: Provides fear effect against bounty targets-Active

Focus: 8

Perception: 10

Luck: 6

Utility skills:

[Identify] lvl 3

[Tracking] lvl 3

[Animal Processing] lvl 1

[Restraints] lvl1

[Hunting] lvl 1

[Meditation] lvl

After looking it over for a moment the only thing that could at all be relevant was the part about being a variant. He was human, they modified him, therefore he was a variant. He focused on that. A new window popped up and he read it as his jaw hit the floor.

Human-Variant

You are a member of humanity but sway slightly away from the pack in such a way that makes you notable.

Strength +1

Vitality +2

Hidden information:

Your very soul was removed from your body and returned to the body of another. This isn’t Coalition space…

Screw this, we fucked up. You’re not going to believe it anyway we tell it. So just know that advanced beings, that manage your lifeforce when you die, accidentally put you into the body of a 19 year old gunslinger with freckles. Your old body now belongs to Ronald Tempest, who’s body you’re now in. We switched you. Oh and there’s no fucking nanites, it’s magic and a universe encompassing System, dumbass!

You can’t go back. Blame that bitch, He-

The fool screwed up, you have my deepest condolences but I cannot alter your fate further. You will never see your home again. Rest assured, he will be punished severely.

“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever read,” Will said. Although he stopped at ‘Blame that bitch’. He read it again and as soon as he got to ‘the fool...’, it felt cold. By ‘punished severely’, the hair on his neck was standing straight up and he felt like something was coming for him. He fixated on those words. He felt a fear like he’d never felt before, it rose and spread throughout his entire body. A part of him knew it was beyond the ability of nanites to trigger an emotion that strong. It wasn’t the feeling of the skill that forced him to stare at fit legs and a nice ass.

It was something that went far beyond Kate Landry. It was terror. It was the thought that he’d rather slit his own throat than look the one who wrote that in the eye. That even then, he couldn’t escape their wrath and they could destroy the very essence of his being. A darkness, whose very presence was beyond imagining! That none could stand against! It came for them! It was coming for him! A being that has swallowed worlds! That could tear the stars themselves asund-

Will closed his eyes as he dismissed the window. It took him a minute to open them again. He realized he was now on the floor, he was crying and still shaking. There was a puddle of vomit nearby and it looked like he’d dug his fingernails into the floorboards. The two painful nails bent backwards proof enough that it was his doing.

“What… da fuck… was dat?” he said catching his breath and realizing he’d bitten his tongue. He felt sorry for whoever the fool was and hoped he was never within a thousand lightyears of the one that wrote that message. A shiver went through him when he felt that even then, the being was watching him.

Before he could look though, the door to the abandoned house suddenly flew open, nearly tearing it off its hinges as four men came running in with weapons drawn. They swung them around covering every corner of the room. Then they looked down.

“The fuck? Will, was that you?” Skunk asked and put his revolver away.

“Damn boy, we thought someone was getting murdered over here. The entire town heard the screamin’. You alright?” Victor asked with genuine concern. He wasn’t wearing his badge and looked to be in pajamas with a holster over top.

“A bad… dweam,” Will lied and made eye contact with the Sheriff. The man tapped his head, “I’d wather not ‘alk abow i’ now.”

The sheriff studied him for a moment and nodded. Will knew the man had just used his truth skill but he was glad that Sheriff Teddy was smart enough to realize it wasn’t something for the public to know, “You boys go tell the townsfolk it was the young soldier having a nightmare. Quicker you get done, quicker you can hit the saloon. Now, go on, git!”

The others exchanged glances but complied with their orders. Will didn’t even try to understand what they were thinking at that moment. Probably a surprise that they were being let off and an internal montage of planned debauchery. Will however, was still trying to recover from what just happened. He didn’t even know what exactly he was recovering from, and he was the only one to experience it. Once the deputies had been gone a minute. Sheriff Teddy crouched down in front of Will.

“Do you mind telling me what just happened, son?” He asked.

Will opened his mouth to answer but his eyes went wide when he saw the pale face of a beautiful woman form out of nothing, directly in front of him. Black hair floating around. It was weightless, like in the void of space. Then two eyes that made the void look bright opened to suck the light out of his own and the world went dark. She whispered in a beautiful voice... beautiful, eerie, seductive, and sweet,

‘You can’t tell them about me.’

Will let out a blood-curdling scream and crawled back as fast as he could. He gave up as the darkness followed and stood up to flee. He sprinted to the side, accelerating into the darkness as fast as his legs could move. He had to get away from her! The darkness!! He needed to get away from the eyes!