I woke up on a forest floor. I was in my high school uniform, a black polo with khakis. My back felt light with no backpack; my shoulders felt new. My phone, my student card--everything else was gone.

I pushed my fingers through the dirt and leaves on the forest floor. The wet feeling was indulging, but I had to get to school.

That moment, sitting in the dirt in the depths of the forest, was my first catharsis in so long:

RYAN: I... don't have to go to school.

I sat with that thought. It was as timeless as death had been. My vision, the sounds of the forest flowing into my ears, everything blurred together as I disassociated. What was I supposed to do now, I thought.

My ability kicked in.

MENU: Hi Ryan.

I bolted up, brushing the dirt off of me. Seeing no one, I turned in confusion.

MENU: No need to look around. I'm you.

You're me? Ryan thought.

MENU: Yep.

MENU: I have to explain the Gachapon Menu to you.

RYAN: ….

MENU: It's me. I'm the Gachapon Menu. Surprise!

RYAN: You're supposed to be me?

MENU: I am you.

MENU: You don't have to believe me? I hardly do myself. Hahaha.

RYAN: Um.

MENU: That's just a little Menu humour.

I looked up. The sky was completely obscured by dense leaves.

MENU: Your power revolves around desire and chance.

RYAN: ….

MENU: Not the racey kind. Desire as in wanting things.

MENU: You receive a free token each day, a silver token. You also receive three quests based on what you might want.

MENU: When you complete a quest, you receive tokens based on the difficulty. There are four rarities: silver, gold, platinum, and cosmic.

MENU: The completed quest is also instantly replaced.

RYAN: I am going to have a lot of quests at once.

MENU: You can only have three at a time.

I felt the inside of my pockets once again. The feeling of the lining was soothing. Sometimes I did this to stay level-headed.

RYAN: You said I got three a day.

MENU: You also have a maximum of three at once.

RYAN: That makes no sense.

MENU: Maybe it would if you let me explain it.

MENU: You may choose to delete any active quest. These will not be replaced until the next day.

RYAN: Why would I do that?

MENU: Preferences, mainly. If you know you don't want to do something, deleting it sends a direct message to me that you don't want to do that kind of thing.

RYAN: I already know what I don't want to do.

MENU: You keep forgetting that I am you. I am you, in every sense.

MENU: By telling me you don't want to do something, you are telling yourself you don't want to do it.

RYAN: But that's useless.

MENU: You don't have to use it, then.

Frustration was accumulating in my mind. I huffed a held breath.

RYAN: Okay. What else?

MENU: You can spend your tokens at any time.

MENU: Whenever you spend a token, you will get a random prize.

MENU: The higher rarity it is, the better your chances are at getting something good.

MENU: You'll mainly be getting silver and gold tokens though.

RYAN: That sounds about right.

MENU: The prizes come in little plastic balls that disappear upon opening. The balls are always the same size, so if the prize is bigger than the ball, it will appear in front of you.

RYAN: What kind of prizes are there?

MENU: All sorts of stuff.

RYAN: You don't know.

MENU: I am you, after all.

My face scrunched up.

RYAN: How does that work?

RYAN: I didn't know any of this other stuff.

MENU: I am just an abstraction of you that you created to help process the information.

RYAN: I'm just thinking to myself then?

RYAN: Why did I make you so lame.

MENU: Yes, why did you make yourself so lame?

RYAN: Touché.

RYAN: So I already knew this, but my brain is only unpacking it now?

MENU: Sure, if that's how you want to think about it.

RYAN: Well, I want to think about it correctly.

MENU: There is nothing wrong with that way of thinking.

MENU: Or... there is nothing inherently wrong with that way of thinking?

MENU: I'm sure there's some fallacies or something mixed in.

I gently shook my head.

MENU: Yeah yeah, laugh it up.

MENU: It's your own lack of understanding that's making this difficult.

RYAN: Anything else.

MENU: Oh. Yeah.

MENU: You can save up tokens limitlessly.

MENU: Only you can spend the tokens, but anyone can open the orbs. If someone else opens the orb, it's as if the prize was designed for them.

MENU: Like, if you opened an orb that said "shirt", it would fit you. But if a giant monster opened the orb, the shirt would fit them.

RYAN: What kind of shirt is it?

MENU: ….

MENU: Someone's enjoying themselves.

RYAN: Hahaha.

RYAN: Can you imagine a dragon wearing a t-shirt? Or one of those cythulus, with all the arms?

MENU: You mean Cthulhu? There's only one Cthulhu.

RYAN: He's not real, Menu.

MENU: Damn, you "got" me.