I looked down at the river before me and started to try to remember my name. “I know who I’m, but I don’t know my name,” I muttered again. It was like it was on the tip of my tongue but not quite there. Oh, I could remember working, school, and hiking. I could remember the names of people I worked with and my best friend from college who took me kayaking, but my name was gone.

“Hell, they took more than just the past 9 months or so of my memories they took my name,” I yelled out.

I sat and stewed as the light was leaving. My name was gone…

Anytime I thought about a memory where I should remember someone saying my name, it was like my name was overwritten. Even roll call at school, everyone else first and last name me just blank air and then a pause that was too long. Heck, I could even see people’s lips move for a name just couldn’t hear it.

I could remember who I am or was or at least what I was before waking up in the forest. I was a call center supervisor for a cable company, and a good one at that. That being said, my bosses were dumb and micro-managers. When I thought about that job, all I could feel was my heart tense up and just this feeling of loathing.

I knew that the role I’d moved across the country to take was bad. I’d left a great center where they loved to drive competition, and we worked together to help get all our reps better. Then when I moved, I found out all they wanted was their supervisors to be mindless robots that worked more than 40 hours filling out paperwork. They didn’t like that I could understand data and see how things worked so I could make my own decisions. They wanted me, a very not micro-manager, to become a micro-manager, and they wanted me, a supervisor who developed people, to work on getting rid of people who weren’t doing great instead of working to make those people great.

I could even remember talking with one of the managers who wasn’t that bad on the last day I remembered. I told him that I was just hating everything. After that, I didn’t remember anything until I was in the forest.

I tried to force my brain to remember something. My name or something from the past few months. The closest I could get was some odd memory of a neat office with lots of books and odd baubles. I had No idea if it was a real memory, an implanted memory to lead me off the right trail, or something I made up on the spot. Right now, I was just nameless and lost.

I’d some weird heads-up display messing with me. I’d something that showed up from time to time as a red bar which seemed to show how I was doing, and a green one also. If I was going with game ideas, I’d say that the red one was a health bar and the green stamina. Of course, those were guesses, but that is what they looked like.

Now for those messages from the books and for leveling skills when I fell asleep last night. I guessed that I was now in one of those game worlds that I used to read, or perhaps in a full game or the HUD was integrated that way. The pop-up was similar to the one that I’d be used to seeing when I was playing a game, but I figured that I’d see more of that type of thing with the world and not just at night, right when I was in bed. If this was a game, then perhaps there was an interface that I could use to see what was going on. It might even have built-in help files to tell me where and why I’m here. If I wasn’t in a game but being tested, then perhaps there might also be something built in to help me understand what was going on.

I remembered how hard it was to try to use the books that I couldn’t use. I closed my eyes, thought real hard, and said, “menu, display, help, wiki, status report, progress, testing, stats,?” that last one got me an eye full. Popping up in front of me, I saw a Character sheet that I guessed was me, but it was in very small type, like it was zoomed out. I had in front of the sheet a pop-up that said.

Verbose or short?

Like I’d think everyone would do, I said, “Verbose.”

However, once again, nothing happened. So I looked as hard as I could at Verbose and thought Verbose and still nothing, so I looked at Verbose and thought select still nothing, and then I looked and kind of used my eyes to focus like I was squinting at verbose, and then I got my sheet.

Name

Arn

HP

20

MP

40

Race

Wild Human (0)

SP

30

Defense

1

Primary Class: Enchanter*

Level: 0

Secondary Class: Linguist* (ancient languages)

Level: 0

Strength

14*

Intelligence

8

Vigor

10

Dexterity

12*

Willpower

9

Vitality

10

Wild Humans have a plus 3 to strength

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to dexterity

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to all survivalist and warrior class skills

Wild Humans have a negative 3 to all Language skills and can not start as the linguist class

Wild Humans have a negative 1 to all Magic class skills due to low intelligence and cannot start as a enchanter class because of linguist issues

Wild Humans are all illiterate

Skills

Skills

Level

Racial

Spear**

1

Survivalist**

3

Tracking**

1

Primary class

Enchanting

1

Script*

*

Ink making

1

Etching

1

Power imbuing

1

Socketing

1

Secondary Class

Ancient languages*

*

Non class skills

Hiking**

0

Climbing**

0

Primitive tool**

0

Natural Shelter**

1

Snake handling

0

*due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until literate.

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, effective levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

Current Gear

Fire hardened spear

Water skin

2 quills

Fur Armor/Tunic

Fire Horn

1 etching rod

Fur Cloak/Sleeping Roll

Stone hand axe

1 small hammer

Fur pack

2 Ink wells

1 book of Script training*

Fur Legging/Arm guards

10 blank scrolls

1 book of ancient languages Training*

*can’t use this until you unlock Literacy

The biggest thing that stood out to me was that I had a name. “Arn?” I asked the world. It didn’t feel right, like it was almost right but not truly right. My tongue didn’t feel right. “Arn. Arn! Are-IN.” Nothing I said or tried seemed like it was the right way to say my name to make it seem correct. Like the name was me but also not how I was used to responding.

Perhaps the name slot was a filler. If I were a test subject, it could be the project name or something like that. I have no idea what it would mean, but that might be right, or it could be my initials. Which still would leave me without knowing my name in either of those two options. While it didn’t truly feel right, it seemed closer, so that was helpful.

I laid down as best I could and looked up at the sky as I listened to the night. The past two days were messed up, but at least I could remember them. I’d been worried that whatever had messed with my memories would have been ongoing, but it appeared, at least for now, that it was done. It felt odd that I was able to do things that I’d not done before. Yet, it also felt nice to be able to take care of myself.

Whatever system this was, it wasn’t perfect since it thought I couldn’t read. Perhaps it was a Russian leveling system that was put in my brain. I had just read that DR. V. Mahanenko and Mikhailov managed some sort of built-in H.U.D. and increased power of muscles. If that was the case, it would make sense since I couldn’t read Russian. On the other hand, I knew that they were at the forefront of doing things to people to make them better soldiers, so perhaps something from them was tested on me just because. If so, some of the nuances of the interface were lost on me. Of course, there was the mad scientist Jez or Jax something in England that was caught experimenting on people. He said that he was trying to fix them.

I was looking over my skills when I drifted off and got yanked back to being awake by a new pop-up.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

survivalist! (level 4)

Hiking! (level 1)

Climbing! (level 2)

Spear! (level 2)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Spear fishing sub skill unlocked (level 0)

Primitive cooking unlocked (level 0)

Right as I was drifting back off to sleep, I could've sworn I saw two moons in the sky. But, when I tried to focus on where the second one was, clouds moved in, and I couldn't figure out if I was just tired or if it was a second moon.