“What happens now?” Toby asked. “What is going to happen to me from now on?”

The questions hung heavily between them.

“That depends on you,” Alice said with a little smile.

“you are free to choose what you want. Do you desire a new life with a clean slate? Living a normal life in another world?I can give you that, but due to your strong self-identity, I can't take your memories away, so you can't start afresh.”

“That doesn't sound very pleasant,” Toby answered while nibbling on a cookie he couldn't even remember taking.

He didn't like the idea of having to deal with growing up from being a baby again.

“you are right, it wouldn't be,” she snickered. “Being an infant is not my idea of fun either.”

That's just not a realistic option then, Toby thought, I just can't do that and stay sane.

“Isn't there another option?” Toby asked, a slight tremble evident in his voice. What if all other options were just as bad? He shuddered, his imagination wasn't playing nice with him on this matter.

Alice gave him a big grin, making her face almost resemble that of the picture of the fabled Cheshire Cat that hung on the wall behind her. “How do you feel about forming a guild with me?”

Toby almost choked on his tea with the sudden change in direction.

On one hand, she probably wasn't human. No, He was absolutely certain. She was likely an alien of sorts disguised as a humanoid cartoon character.

On the other hand, Toby was in a world he knew almost nothing about.

One that he was going to be living in no matter how he felt about it if what she said was all true.

But she hadn't been inconsistent with the experiences he was having either.

The Alice in Wonderland setting supported her words perfectly. Driving the case home when anything with a lesser impact would have made him reject her as just being crazy.

He wasn't even sure that he was the real Toby anymore. No, he was sure that the original him was gone. Gone when they ended Earth. But who was he then? He felt like himself at least. Was he overthinking things? One thing he did know for sure, He needed friends if he was to survive with his sanity intact.

Toby tried pushing his worry aside for now and focus on the here and now. He needed to understand where he stood, and for that, he probably needed her help.

"What would you have me do?" Toby asked, "And what do you gain by forming a guild with me?"

The feeling of being completely lost in a world he knew nothing about grated on his nerves. And here this creature was giving him a preposterous, gaming like proposal.

"I would like you to party up with me and do quests," Alice responded, wiping cookie crumbles off her hands.

"Quests?" Toby narrowed his eyes and tried to study her closely. Was it possible to read some of her expressions the way he could do with a human?

"What quests? What is the purpose of it all?"

"It's easier to just show you." She answered him while drawing a circle in the air.

A 3-dimensional image full of stars appeared between them. "Each of these stars represents a virtual world."

She pointed to one particular star, and the image swooped in on It in a disorienting rush.

The star resolved into a planet that looked almost exactly like earth. "This is the current simulated world the entirety of your species resides in," she continued. "It has 7.6 billion people in it right now."

"That sounds familiar." Toby countered. "But what does it have to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with it." She sighed.

"Simulating true reality is much harder and far less stable than making a simulation from scratch with simpler physics. In fact, you are a symptom of that very instability in the simulation of your former home."

Toby considered her words silently for a while. "There are more people that have reacted like I have isn't there?"

"Yes there are", she replied with a wince as if someone had slapped her across the face. "Not a large number really, considering the population, but it's still a couple million people that are now feeling rather less than completely sane in there."

Alice was showing what Toby realized must be a clearly anxious expression before continuing "None of the others have passed the other criteria of being promoted to user status though. You are the only one thus far," She said lifting her eyes to meet his.

"So I'm different then?" Toby answered. "But why me?"

"You are different indeed." Alice looked straight into Tobys eyes. Her eye colors a distracting brilliant green, with horizontal slits rather than the round iris a human would have. Clearly showing off the fact that she was an alien creature in disguise as he had suspected.

"Promotion doesn't happen all that often," She started explaining.

"Although we do expect quite a few not too long after the System gains a new world full of people. New additions tend to have a short boost to their promotion rate."

Alice took another sip at her tea to wet her throat before continuing her explanations. "As to why you, I don't know. We simply do not know how the system decides these things, or what the criteria for promotion are."

Alice shook her head. "We do know it's benevolent, and that it sometimes requires us to do some quests here and there. But those are mostly directed towards growth for the people that live within the System. Making a new place for your people to respawn upon death is a major one given out to many of us admins right now."

Realization hit Toby like a bat to the head at her words. She had been using gaming terms a lot, why would she do that? Is this world just a game? He needed to know if that was the case. "Quests, Guilds, Respawn. Why all the gaming terms?" Toby asked. "Is this System a form of a game?"

"The System isn't a really a game, but it runs most of its simulated worlds as if they were games, so to interact with them, we have to play it by the rules of that world," Alice explained.

"While the Nexus, where we will be going now, is a fun place. Only those promoted to users or admins can live there. It functions as a lobby of sorts." she continued.

"If you accept to team up and do some quests with me, I can show you the ropes, come on. It will be a fun adventure for the both of us,” She finished her spiel with a bright smile.

Toby sighed as he caved in. He really needed a friend, and she did sound rather sincere. Going along with her was probably his best option for now. At least until he had gotten his feet on the ground and could make his own informed decisions.

One thing was certain. Game or not, true or not, For better or worse, He was stuck here for the duration. Possibly even forever.

“OK. I'll go with you for a while at least.” he finally answered. “So how does this work then?”

“Great!” Alice exclaimed. “Just hit the accept button on my friend request and we're good to start.”

A friend request from Alice received.

Accept

Reject

With only a slight hesitation, Toby mentally hit the Accept button.

Notice: Alice added to friends list