It felt like hours before Terry felt himself coming to. He felt his head first, it was because of the splitting headache. Then he felt his chest, he tried to take a breath and went into a coughing fit, which shot pain through his ribs and pelvis. He groaned as he slowly opened his eyes once he was done coughing. He was upside down in the car, which was in worse shape than he was.

He reached up feeling for the seat belt and hit the release button. Bad idea, he realized as he fell onto his head and more pain shot through his body. The door window was gone and he could barely move his legs but he pulled himself through the window and out onto the grass of the ditch.

He laid on his back and looked up at the sky, it was dark out. Not a starry night with no moon but more like the pitch black of the dead realm he had been in, except now he could at least make out things. He rested his head as he thought what to do, he would need medical attention if he wanted to be of any use in this world. Wait, what about… inventory he thought and a window popped up in his vision but nothing was in there and it was only a 5x5 grid. I thought he said he was going to give me a health potion? Special inventory he thought, another window popped up in his vision and there in the box was one hundred full health potions.

Wow, I thought he would only give me one or two, not one hundred. He thought to himself as he reached out and tapped the potions. As he did another box popped up asking how many he wanted, he selected five and hit OK. As he hit the button the five he selected fell into his lap, making him groan in pain again. Reaching down he grabbed one, popped the top and downed the entire bottle.

As the first taste hit his tongue, he knew why Death had told him to chug them. It tasted terrible, like dirty socks sat in the hot sun and then were dipped in curdled milk. He couldn’t get the potion swallowed fast enough. When it was finished, he gagged and almost threw it up but he closed his mouth and took deep breathes trying to calm his stomach.

As he laid there deep breathing, the potion went to work and started fixing his body. In a minute there was no pain, no coughing, and no soreness. He sat up and tested his body, making sure that everything was healed. After he was done testing it out, he put the other four potions into his regular inventory, luckily, they stacked so they only took up one spot.

Now that he wasn’t in pain or in danger of dying again, he looked at the still open windows of his inventories. The regular one that he just put the potions in was a 5x5 grid while the other one was just an empty window with the ninety-five potions left in it and at the bottom the word “unlimited” was printed. Well that will certainly come in handy, though it would be nice if it was in a grid like the other one. With that thought the special inventory morphed into a grid with a search box in the upper right and a scroll bar on the right side.

Wow, that’s really nifty he thought as he scrolled through the grid and scrolled and scrolled. I guess it is unlimited so it would go on forever. “Close Inventories” He said and the windows closed. With them gone he saw what could only be described as a HUD or heads up display. It had his health, stamina and magic bars at the top. A flashing envelope was in the lower left corner and a minimap was in the lower right.

Concentrating on the envelope opened up a window with some messages in it. The new ones had a blue dot next to them, he concentrated on the top message and another window popped up.

Greetings from the other realm Terry. I hope the potions I gave you helped you out and will keep you from dying, at least until you want to come visit me. I would also try and keep the unlimited inventory a secret as well. It won’t show up when someone scans you though so you’ll be good there. I hope my class will serve you well and you’ll become powerful. You can send questions about the Clarity system through here, but only official ones. For any small talk or more “personal” issues use the ability I gave you. Don’t die too soon Terry and good luck.

Signed Death.

He read the message a second time and then took a moment to look at the things he could do with it. He starred it and them created a new folder called “Death” and moved it in there. Since he didn’t have any “official” questions just yet he didn’t see the point in replying. The next message was just labeled “The Clarity”, concentrating on that one it opened up.

Dear people of Earth,

You have just experienced the event called the Clarity. With it comes magic, monsters and loot. Things will never be the same for you and you should just accept that. When you wake up you will be able to pick a class which will serve you through the rest of your days, unless you choose to change it. You will be able to kill monsters and gain experience points that will level you up and make you stronger, smarter and faster. (There will be a one-year delay on exp points for killing other sentient life). If you do not pick a class right away you will only be able to level up to level 5 and any experience points after that will be lost until you pick a class. If you have any issues with the system please send a message to [email protected] Thank you and enjoy your new life.

He read through the message again and was glad he didn’t have to really pick a class himself, he was sure there were probably hundreds, if not thousands of classes to pick from. Creating a new folder and putting the message in there he looked to see what other messages he had. There was one more message with the title Class Selection, he opened it up and it read.

Congratulations, Earth User Terry James Roth

Your class, Battle Necromancer, has been selected for you by the Clarity Administrator Death. With this selection comes a permanent boost to your experience point gains by 200% as well as +3 stat points and +1 ability point per level. Use them well.

He felt giddy as he read the message and realized he would get double the exp points and extra ability and stat points per level. He moved the message to the Death folder and as that was the last message, he closed the window. Thinking of his status brought up a new window:

Name: Terry James Roth Level: 1

Race: Human of Earth Class: Battle Necromancer

Health: 120 Stamina: 120 Mana: 150

Buffs/Debuffs: None Unassigned Stat Points: 8

Constitution: 12 Strength: 11 Agility: 9

Intelligence: 15 Wisdom: 12

After looking at his status he figured they were about average for a level one. Even still though looking at the numbers he couldn’t help but feel excited about what things may come. He knew he should feel bad or guilty because so many people will probably die when things start going but it’s not like he would really be able to help all of them, he was just one person.

After he was done checking his status, he thought about his class and a window popped up:

Class: Battle Necromancer Rank: Novice

Perks: +200% exp, +3 stat points/level, +1 ability point/level, +100% mental resistance

Stat points: +1 constitution, +1 strength, +2 intelligence, +2 wisdom, +5 unassigned stat points per level

Ability Points: +2/level

Non-class abilities: Converse with Death, Resurrection,

Seems pretty standard, for a game, I think I can work with this, he thought as he closed the class window and then looked at his stats again and wondered what he should put his points in to start with. His mana seemed good so maybe not that right away. Probably a few points into Agility since that was his lowest stat, he put five points into that and one point into the others except Intelligence to bring them all up to thirteen. Making his stats like so:

Name: Terry James Roth Level: 1

Race: Human of Earth Class: Battle Necromancer

Health: 130 Stamina: 130 Mana: 150

Buffs/Debuffs: None Unassigned Stat Points: 0

Constitution: 13 Strength: 13 Agility: 13

Intelligence: 15 Wisdom: 13

Closing out the windows he looked around and wondered when the darkness would fade. He then figured he might want to see about some settings and what this HUD was capable of.

He was still sitting in the ditch next to his wrecked car while he looked through his menus and stats and fiddled with the settings, like battle displays and what things would appear when not in battle. After about fifteen minutes of just looking through his stats and menus he realized he was in the middle of nowhere with no food, no water and no one he knew nearby and it was still black out.

He got up and slowly made his way to the car hoping his things were still in good shape that he could use them. With it still being black out he had a bit of trouble with some glass shards getting in his hands and knees as he rummaged through the back seat looking for his backpack. Finally finding it, he opened it up and pulled out his computer and tried to turn it on but the screen was as black as the sky. He put the computer back in the backpack and then tried looking for his phone but couldn’t find it. Who knows if it would even work after this anyways. But it would’ve made him feel a bit better just having it.

After rummaging through the front and back seats of the car he went to the trunk, which was popped open and things were strewn about. He felt around the ground for a good fifteen minutes but didn’t find anything too useful. The tire iron that the car had was tiny but at least it was something, he figured. He did remember that he had his summon bone weapon ability for a weapon but then remembered he had to kill something first in order to use it.

Hoisting the backpack onto his shoulders and gripping the tire iron he looked left then right and figured he wanted to get home to check on his parents first. So, turning and heading back the way he came he started walking as best he could in the darkness.