In a state of shock, he re-read the options, trying to gather his wits together about what was happening. I must be dreaming! thought Ahava. As he found he had no sensations or any feeling of his body, he could not even try to pinch himself to see if he could wake up. Anyway, does that really work?
He carefully re-read the text and his first inclination was that options one and two were definitely no-goes as he was not altogether keen on overly positive personalities. Also, he could not understand how anyone would want to choose an angry and self-righteous personality type for any system. More with a wish to proceed with whatever was happening than an actual belief in the reality of the situation, Ahava thought in his mind, Well, I guess I my only choice is the Comedian option. Upon his thinking this, option three lit up and a confirmation window appeared in his mind’s eye, confirming his choice. The world faded to black yet again, but just before Ahava lost consciousness he thought he heard a voice:
“Ok, hold tight, as we are off!”
Ahava woke up as the light slowly increased, but this time it was not shining through the bathroom window. The first thing he noticed, as he was coming back to consciousness, was the smell. It was hard to describe, but it was a dry, slightly musty heat. The smell stirred memories from his childhood of when he lived in parts of Africa. It smelt like the morning, when he had been camping with his parents and siblings. He could hear the early morning calls of birds, sharp twitterings repeated at intervals of different levels of pitch and volume. In addition, he heard the noise of what he thought sounded like crickets. This was the low undulating whistling sound that could be heard as a constant background noise.
As he opened his eyes, he could see the sun start to peek above the hills in the distance. The light level slowly increased as he started to see the shape of what looked like roots, sticking up into the air as if a tree had been planted upside-down. Others looked like jagged umbrellas of leaves on the trunk with twisting branches. The light level gradually continued to increase across undulating plains as they opened into waving grass in a slight wind. Below him, he could see a river flow into a large lake with deep green grass around the banks. He looked away from the view in front of him and found that he was on a slope, on a hill with craggy rock cliffs behind him.
Ahava realized he was currently sitting on the ground, with his back pressed against a rock and no idea how he had got there. He was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt that he had left the house in. His laptop bag was still on his shoulder by his side, as it had been when he exited the carriage. As he came to the slow acknowledgement of his surroundings, he felt his heart beat faster and a cold sweat begin to form on his forehead. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on his ankle. Roaring in pain, he jumped up from the ground he had been sitting on. Shuffling around, he found a small insect on his ankle between his jeans and his left sock. Quickly he flicked off the insect, which left behind a slightly red mark, still throbbing in pain. Rubbing the mark, he straightened up and walked around as he looked at the landscape again.
Confused in regard to what was happening, he remembered the last thing he saw: the system logo and options. A jumble of questions cascaded into his mind, the most pressing being: where am I, who is the ‘History System’ and perhaps the most pressing, how do I get back home?
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