It was a sunny day with rich flora and fauna; butterflies and unicorns were all within the lush greens that were graced with marvellous flowers. Within the depths of the foliage was a man who was dressed in a nice blue and black striped shirt with a grey cardigan on top. The man also had grey pants and black and white tennis shoes. His kinky hair style with fades looked dapper as well as the shambala on his wrist which was a colourful mosaic of purples, violets and crimson colours. The man was unconscious and seemed relaxed until a unicorn pissed on his face.

This made the man wake up to the sight of unicorn testicles and a huge cock that was sprinkling piss without a care. The man quickly rolled away out of range, spitting and wiping away the piss with his cardigan. After clearing his face and adjusting his vision he got to see the unicorn, run away as his conduct had made it feel threatened. The vegetation and the undulating planes he got to see were very alien to what he had seen on television and in real life. There were unicorns with tails that had a visible glowing aura, the vegetation had glowing flowers and the sound of insects was peculiar. The man rose from the ground and began to scan his surroundings. There was a twilight gradation of green, yellow and red in the sky and he could see other planets from the horizon. It was as if he was in a science fiction film and this was his first encounter with alien life. The young man looked in awe and the suddenly checked his wrist which seemed perfectly fine. As a matter of fact the young man was really puzzled by his own physiology. He pulled down his shirt and cardigan by the sleeves to see the size of his arms.

They were slightly fleshier and slim as compared to his former scrawny disposition which puzzled him. He took a 360 degree final inspection of his vicinity and then uttered to himself, “Is this supposed to be heaven?” The man in question was Tanatswa who despite having a rather raunchy awakening, felt completely different and fine. He felt fresh and free, his mind wasn’t pegged with toxic thoughts. He had so much energy and his injuries were gone. His stature was incredibly balanced and he felt great. Suddenly something appeared in his peripheral vision. It was a status bar which had an avatar of his image as well as his name and 4 bars labelled health, stamina, xp and hp (xp for experience points and hp for mana). The experience of seeing it felt rather holographic. To his right peripheral he could see an icon written inventory. This reminded him of the JRPGs he used to play like Chrono Trigger and even games like Elder Scrolls Skyrim. He then tried to touch the icon but his hand phased through it.

Rather than trying to touch it, he noticed that when he tried to touch it, a text box faded into the centre of his vision saying. “Use voice command ‘inventory’.” Tanatswa did just that and a scrollable 4X2 matrix with headings accompanied with levels appeared. The 8 sets had headings labelled STRENGTH, INTELLIGENCE, AGILITY, WISDOM, LUCK, ARTISTRY, CHARISMA, TAMER, INFLUENCE and INFAMY. Strength was 5% at level 1, wisdom 0% at level 1, agility was 56% at level 1, intelligence was at 90% at level 1, luck was 1% at level 1, artistry 99% at level 1, charisma -5% at level 1, tamer 60% at level 1, influence 10% at level 1 and infamy 0% at level 1. Tanatswa wondered what these stats meant exactly but since the status bar on the left had his name and avatar he put two and two together and figured that these numbers numerically represented the values of his skill sets. Upon seeing the negative number for his charisma he got peeved and cursed inside. He didn’t mind at all the value of his strength but wondered what tamer even meant as a classification. The 1% for his luck also irritated him but at least his intellect was higher on the charts as well as his artistic aptitude. Tanatswa also noticed that if he wanted to select or in this case hover over a specific tab all he had to do was focus on it as if he was staring at it intently and then the icon would be highlighted.

When that would happen, a bar would appear below saying, “You need XP points to upgrade this feature.” His current xp as indicated on his left peripheral was empty as well as his hp. His life bar and stamina bar were maxed out so this made him at least feel assured. As he began to check each and every slot, his vision abruptly began to be populated by an empty background and a mystical being that was wearing a robe and holding a silver sceptre. Its skin was maroon like and its eyes were white as snow. It began to speak and its voice had a reverberation that made it seem as if Tanatswa had been put into a large room that echoed intensely. It felt like a POV mode in a video game and the experience of seeing it was visceral.

“Greetings mere mortal, I am the creator of this sector called Goshem. I believe that as a human being you may be under the impression that you have crossed over to the afterlife or are in a state of purgatory, but you are in neither. You have been chosen to be part of the 1000 select few who will occupy this installation. Though you decided to take your own life in the central realm, consider the alternative realm as a 2nd chance for you to be a better version of yourself. This realm has been designed to cultivate sentient species to the highest level possible.

If you are wondering why you are seeing a value bar with your name on it, its existence is to remind you of your progress in evolution as well as monitoring your well being. The experience points slot is there to be cashed out after you max it out. Experience can be gained by exploration or intense physical activities. Once you have enough points you can spend it on either your hp or your inventory. Your hp slot will only become active once your ability is unlocked at level 2. To advance to any other level at least 4 of your slots should max out within their respective levels. As you level up you will gain greater strength and vitality, thus aim to become strong. There will be a global objective and a personalized objective. Personal objectives will be customized to your desires and as such, will have speculative advice to make them come true. Aim to level up!”

The being vanished from his sight and his vision was back to normal. At the very bottom of his peripheral version were two available tabs that were pulsating. One was labelled global and the other custom. The global tab was immediately activated and the experience was akin to that of tutorial segments in video games. The global description read as, “Aim to level up by farming, hunting, taming wildlife, exploration, building, learning, training, interacting and battling. If difficult, form a party to handle higher level tasks as a group when individual goals are too high. You may be immortal but if your life bar reaches zero you will die. Level up and face things within your means.”

As soon as Tanatswa was done perusing, his vision immediately transitioned to the custom objectives tab. There it was written, “No available custom objectives please create one.” At the bottom of the description was a button like icon with a plus sign that stated ‘create’. As soon as he got a gist of that, the entire interface faded out of his vision as if was an FPS character dealing with a POV cut scene. Tanatswa immediately fell on his knees, huffing and puffing as he digested everything he just heard. He was definitely in another realm and an alien looking creature gave him a memo, plus he seemed to have peripheral vision that is occupied with things he would only expect to see in video games. He began to scoff at this idea and wondered whether or not this was just the beginning of hell, taking its time to marinate him before releasing its scorching fire, but then he remembered that only 1000 people were selected. This information was very important so that meant there were going to be others who died like him on this planet or where ever he was. But to him, 1000 didn’t make any sense since people died almost every day on earth.

Could it be that it was because of the fact that he committed suicide? A lot of people committed suicide in the world, and he even remembering the statistics of South Korea having the highest rate of suicide in the world. So if it wasn’t suicide was there some special reason? As all of this consumed his mind, he began to notice life bars with a level indication on each animal he could spot. The white ranged mostly from level 2 to 3. The insects barely had any headers but it seemed as if any moving life form had a level. The sky seemed like it was in a twilight zone and soon enough, if this place were to follow a day and night cycle he was going to be alone in the dark, in unknown territory. The young man double checked the global objective and recalled the emphasis on levelling up and getting strong plus a special ability he would be getting upon reaching level 2. Tanatswa wondered whether or not there were any infrastructures like buildings or homes, or maybe there were there but not in his immediate vicinity. All he could see is vegetation, large unusual trees and unicorns straight out of a fairy tale. The only ways to level up as it was pointed out by the being were farming, hunting, taming wildlife, exploration, building, learning, training, interacting and battling. Tanatswa barely knew any agriculture but only remembered some of the experiences he gained from chores he did when he was young. Hunting seemed out of the question unless he could find some place to fish. He wondered at all if building would be necessary if he could find a place to stay. As for food, he could try to find trees with fruits and salvage them for the night. With the taming wildlife part it became clear to him that the tamer slot was related to him domesticating animals but for now he just wanted to experience the world.

The rest of the listed activities seemed logical but he wondered when it would be really necessary to battle. The idea of sieging and marching as an infantry into battle seemed rather scary, but after all the speculation it finally dawned at him that he was going meet other people like him who died. This was all too strange for him and he began to wonder how he would approach it. He envisioned a scenario of an afterlife club get together where everyone discusses how they died and laugh about their past lives. The fact that he died and transitioned over to this world was just as fascinating as the encounter with this being.

He broke into laughter in a triumphal way, celebrating the fact that he had gone through with the suicide. For some reason he had no regrets and despite the fact that he was still shaken by the idea of this foreign world, he was eager to experience it all. He reclined on the ground and looked at the sky and said to himself, “I guess I really did die. This is oddly enough the best feeling I have had in a while. No more companies rejecting me, society viewing me as a loser, my mother treating me like shit and no more dealing with people who don’t understand me. I should have ended my life a long time ago!”

Tanatswa stood from his position and began to explore his environment: he walked past a heard of unicorns that looked majestic but didn’t mind him, and embraced his new home. For some reason he felt at home as his feet brushed against the ankle length grass which had a really soft texture. The unicorns were feeding and they seemed to be moving towards a river bed. Tanatswa began to wonder where he would sleep and decided to maybe try a cave or a large tree branch like what he saw in the movies. This was going to be a last resort in the event that there were no nearby houses. At the same time he was psyched to see new people in his life even if they were people who died in his past world.