I stumbled out of my apartment, wearing only my pajamas. The chilly winter air swirled in the darkness of the stairs’ landing, where an unlabeled, anonymous package had been placed.

I clicked the light switch and sluggishly shambled towards the box. As I stood over it, I noticed something scribbled on it in permanent marker: “Lorenzo Ori”. Yup, that was me alright.

The thing was incredibly heavy, and after a couple of tries I simply opted to slide it beyond the threshold to avoid slipping a disc. After closing the door behind me, I moved the box to the living room. Barely managing to lift it onto the table. Sometimes I hated being a fat, inept idiot... Well, to be frank, I hated it constantly.

I glanced at the clock quietly ticking away on the wall: half past three in the morning... Who in the world would’ve gone up to my doorstep in the dead of night, just to deliver a stupid package?

I was a twenty years old recluse, I could think of barely a dozen offline people who knew I was even alive and I never shared my address with any of my online friends. The only two explanations I could muster were that it was some sort of mistake or some “genius prankster” (or serial killer) actually picked me as a random victim.

Knife in hand, I hesitatingly cut open the cardboard box and disposed of it, revealing something that looked like the science fiction version of a safe. The silvery object sat on four stubby supports, its surface completely smooth if not for three diagonal slits on each side and a smart phone sized screen placed squarely on the front.

I scratched my head and yawned, circling the thing to investigate it from various angles. It didn’t seem to have any sort of electrical plug or battery compartment, not to mention the complete lack of seams, rivets or screws.

”Whoever made this had way too much time on their hands,” I mumbled, prodding the small screen with my index finger, genuinely curious of what would happen.

The thing started to buzz quietly, as if something inside it was whirring, and the slits on its sides began to glow with reddish light. The screen itself did not display anything for a minute or so, then the noises grew slightly louder and a series of low resolution characters began to scroll by.

They moved far too quickly for me to make any sense of them, especially since I didn’t know squat about any sort of programming. Still, after a good three minutes, the screen went back to being pure black, until finally a logo reading: “Eidolon System v1.08” blinked in green, red, and blue, and soon faded to reveal a simple menu of sorts.

It only bore two options:

---CUSTOM CREATION---

---GUIDED GENESIS---

I sat in my old gaming chair, gazing at the static, unflinching words. Something about them reminded me of a video game of sorts, though how exactly I was supposed to play eluded me. I tapped on “custom creation”, only to be greeted by an ear piercing screech and a jumbled mess of lines on the screen.

---COMPLETE INTERFACE UNAVAILABLE---

---PLEASE PROVIDE INTERFACING CREDENTIALS---

”God, that was loud!” I said, still holding my head in my hands.

The screen reset to the initial menu in a couple of seconds, and since I had no idea how to turn off the damned thing, I pressed on “guided genesis”, hoping to get something else out of it. As I did though, I found that my finger was stuck on the screen, like it was glued to it.

I felt electricity move up my arm, numbing it immediately. The screen began to display a series of pulsating three dimensional shapes: simple at first, then more and more complex and bizarre.

When the thing finally relented and let go of my finger, my arm fell limply to my side as I cursed under my breath, utterly bewildered. A new set of messages flashed by, one after another, as the buzz from within the device rose to a higher volume and pitch.

---DEEP KARMIC SCAN COMPLETE---

---BASIC IMAGO PROGRESSION DEFINED---

---USER LOGGED---

---TRANSFER SYSTEM ENGAGING...---

My vision blurred, and I barely noticed that I had fallen from my seat as everything began to spin. My whole body twitched and convulsed, my sight dissolved into darkness, and I was ultimately plunged into oblivion.

I felt as if I was floating aimlessly in a black void, my senses smothered by a cold, unreal atmosphere. Almost immediately, a soothing but indistinct voice echoed inside me: “Welcome to the Imago Karmic Assignment Network. Your access terminal has identified you as a Premium member, though it seems your access point is currently outside the area of our service coverage. A new spawn point inside the network has been assigned, based on the provided Karmic Parameters and relative adjustments due to Premium membership. Logging in three, two, one...”

(...)

Air rushed into my lungs and my eyes shot open as I coughed roughly. Every part of my body was numb, though the uncomfortable feeling faded quickly. An industrial light fixture flickered on, blinding me for a second and revealing the room around me. I was lying on a cold linoleum floor, beside a simple single-sized bed. As I got up and looked around, I realized the place was some sort of apartment. Other than the bedroom where I woke up, which had a desk and a computer setup, there were a small kitchen, an even smaller water closet barely fitting a sink, a toilet, a shower, and washer-dryer. Finally, what I assumed had to be the living room was completely empty save for a metal table with three matching chairs.

As I went to open the door, I noticed my arm was completely enveloped in some sort of dense smoke, in fact, my whole form was completely hidden from sight by the same substance. Somehow, it didn’t feel uncomfortable or weird, even though I still found my sensations to be somewhat muted. Suddenly, a translucent screen flickered into being in front of my eyes.

---YOU MUST COMPLETE YOUR GENESIS BEFORE LEAVING YOUR SECRET BASE. PLEASE ACCESS THE NECESSARY INTERFACE AT YOUR SECRET BASE TERMINAL---

The bits of information I had collected in that brief time clicked into place: had I been sucked into some sort of virtual reality? I was almost sure humanity didn’t have any technology even remotely approaching the power necessary for a simulation like this, and yet a menu had just popped up. Was I hallucinating? Was it a dream? It certainly felt dreamlike when it came to my senses...

Contemplating it all, I moved to the bedroom and sat in front of the computer display, since it was the only thing in the house that could be defined as a “terminal”. With a click of the power button, the device booted without as much as a whisper, and I was presented with a white desktop.

A solitary icon stood in the middle of it, named: “CALIBRATION”. I shrugged and clicked on it, not expecting the monitor to shine an excruciatingly bright flash in my eyes while emitting an ear piercing whine from the speakers.

My body shook, and as it did I saw the smoke covering me dissipating in rapid bursts to reveal my new form beneath. Apparently, whatever had made me a new body didn’t bother to clothe it, so I felt the need to postpone any other study of my situation and plunge into the nearby wardrobe.

Reflected in the closet’s door mirror was a very young man I could hardly recognize as myself: slim, tall, even somewhat muscular in an athletic sort of way. My eyes shone a dim green light, contrasting with the curious lack of any other pigmentation in my skin. Even my hair, which fell a little beyond my shoulders, was stark white. On the other hand, every single one of the various outfits inside the wardrobe was completely black... I was almost shocked at how this whole scenario had been tailored for the secret goth inside me.

Silently, I put on a simple button down shirt, trousers, and formal shoes. “Might as well dress nicely for once, since I have the physique for it now,” I muttered to myself, shooting another glance at the figure in the mirror.

Guessing I had completed the “calibration” part of this game correctly, I moved back into the living room, hoping to find the door unlocked and, to my delight, I found the bulky key set inside the lock, ready for me to take it and leave. Still, despite everything, I was surprised that this scenario was playing like some sort of virtual reality video game... It had been a while since I had grown out of that.

Almost as if on cue, the moment I went to open the door, another screen appeared in my view: “Warning: the Imago System Network is unavailable outside of nodes. This is in accordance with our current privacy policy. Exit the Personal Node to enter your Selected World?” The “yes” button flashed as I twisted the doorknob.

Surprisingly, the display disappeared, but the apartment itself remained. Had the system disconnected? Nothing seemed different, even as I peeked beyond the threshold. All I could see was an apparently mundane corridor. Pocketing my keys, I moved through the long, windowless corridor, barely noticing the series of rooms labeled as either some sort of “storage” or “maintenance” until I reached an elevator.

I pushed the only available button and silently ascended.

The elevator doors slid open, letting the chaotic buzz of chatter inside. The place I emerged in looked like something similar to a hotel hall. Stepping out, I looked around, my eyes pausing on a few men and women with peculiar skin and hair colors, not to mention the ones who barely looked humanoid, if at all. At least I wasn’t the only freaky one.

A young man with purple hair stepped out from a reception desk, handing me a metallic red card with a white diamond stamped on it. “The Finz Establishment is glad to welcome you into the Coil, Mr. Ori! Here is your DIP”.

”Excuse me... my what? I’m sorry, I’m completely new here,” I answered, genuinely confused yet determined to roll with the whole bizarre scenario.

”Ah, sorry, we thought you were a returnee due to your Premium status. Quaint,” he muttered. “Please, follow me to the reception, I will explain your current situation as a Delver,” he said, placing the card in my hands and gesturing cordially for me to follow him. Trying to ignore the handful of people staring at us, I placed myself in front of the desk, eager to know more.

”You see, the place we call the Coil is the hub the Imago System uses to connect to various worlds all across the multiverse. No-one knows where the System itself originated, but wherever it appears, the very structure of the worlds changes to incorporate connections to the Coil and, as they gradually open up, the laws of that reality adapt,” he explained.

”Uh, I must be one of the first to get here from my world then, I didn’t hear anything particularly outlandish happening in my backyard,” I commented.

”It appears so, the only times a low ranking Delver gets granted Premium membership is when he’s labeled as a tester of sorts, you’re very lucky!” he giggled happily. “The card I have given you identifies you as a Delver: one chosen by Imago to explore and expand the Coil. Since your world isn’t yet fully connected, you won’t be able to access its full features for a while, at least when it comes to your Premium stuff. Still, you just need to connect the thing to any terminal node, and voila!” he gestured theatrically.

”So this thing is basically an adventurers guild card, right? Good, where do I get my first quests?” I asked the receptionist, handling my card excitedly.

”For that, you will need to wait some time. All the terminal nodes to the Inner Coil are currently occupied, so I suggest returning to your home world through your personal node and working to expand the System access for a while, familiarizing yourself with it, since the functions and features change depending on the individual, the world and, in your case, the rank of membership”.

”Th-thank you”, I mumbled, stunned. I had never even considered the possibility of returning to my world. I fantasized a lot about becoming an adventuring hero in a different, alien world, leaving all the misery and boredom of my old life behind... I had nothing to come back to anyway. Maybe though, just maybe, with the power this “system” promised, I could change everything.

Before returning to my new apartment, I tried exiting the building, but found no doors, just windows overlooking a vast plain of glowing blue grass, spreading to the horizon. Were the terminal nodes the only way out? If so, where exactly was this “establishment”, some other universe or planet? Shrugging, I kept ignoring the gossiping creatures hanging around and descended again.

Once I had my passport, I understood that the thing itself was more like an impossibly thin smart phone than a magnetic ID. It interfaced with the terminal in my base the moment I passed beyond the threshold, and an holographic screen blinked into existence from the diamond on the card itself.

[User ID] “Lorenzo_DO#9977”

[STRENGTH] ✥✥

[DEXTERITY] ✥✥

[CONSTITUTION] ✥✥✥✥

[INTELLECT] ✥✥

[WISDOM] ✥✥

[CHARISMA] ✥

[NO TALENT UNLOCKED]

If the system used five stars ranking as a base, my statistics were mostly average, though I had no idea where the hell the surprisingly good CON was coming from. The other screens detailed the “area” I was in (Finz Establishment, Outer Zone) with a small map, and finally a series of terminal nodes and their destinations. As the receptionist said, all of them were marked as “unavailable” or “private” with the exception of the one in my base. Sitting in the depressingly empty living room, I pushed the “exit zone” option, my senses flickering out for a brief moment.

---TERMINAL NODE UNREACHABLE---

---RE-ENTRY COORDINATES UNAVAILABLE---

I stared at the message for a good minute before I finally turning off my DIP, the card folding back on itself until it disappeared, the diamond symbol on it appearing on the back of my left hand. Around me, half destroyed buildings towered, the light of dusk stretching their shadows ominously. I recognized where I was, but it made no sense... It was Shibuya’s Scramble Crossing.