I died. I never thought this day would come. Well... I actually knew it would come but I never thought it would be so soon. I found myself inside an empty space, it was dark and silent, devoid of any color other than black.
Suddenly, this... void seemed to brighten, leading to a rather drastic change in scenery.
"Hi there," a voice sounded.
It was from behind me, but I couldn't turn around since there was no platform for me to stand on.
At that precise moment, a platform formed, allowing me to turn around to finally discover who spoke.
But there was no one.
"Don't bother looking for me, I am beyond your comprehension."
What had I been roped in, for a being beyond my comprehension to talk to me. I had only lived a normal life, I had a wife, kids and a normal 9 to 5 job.
"Don't worry about that, I don't even know myself. I guess you can take this as me being generous... or malevolent."
"Anyway,have you ever heard of Stranger things?"
"No... Well yes but I've never watched it myself nor do I know what the story talks about," I answered truthfully.
"Okay... have you ever heard of unordinary?
"Oh yeah, of course. It's my favorite web comic on Webtoon!" I answered enthusiastlically.
"Great! Good for you. Who do you want to become?"
"Hmmm... Arlo, I think I will become Arlo. What do you say?" I responded after thinking for a while.
"I believe that's wonderful!" answered the entity.
"I mean... that's great right? In the stranger things universe I mean."
"Indeed."
"Okay, so I should be able to handle myself with arlo's ability; that's good."
"Uh huh... well about that, I'm a bit of a ' luck chooses' kind of guy. And just to make you stress out I've brought my beautiful ' spin the wheel' as you can see with numbers ranging from 1.1 to 10.0, just to spice things up a little." It chuckled.
When he said that the smile I had carried until now was quickly wiped off my face.
"Can't I just keep my original level, 6.5." I pleaded
"Nope, besides it's going to be fun don't worry."
I have a bad feeling about this.
The wheel suddenly started spinning. The Numbers were mixed all over the place meaning that numbers like 8.5 and other high numbers were right next to 1.3 for example.
As the wheel started slowing down, I could see the marker pointing towards various low tier and high tier numbers alike.
Until it finally stopped right after 2.1 into 8.7.
"You're so lucky the game was rigged from the start," It laughed maniacally. "The top dogs wanted you to be powerful." The entity further explained.
"Why though? I'm really happy about this but why me."
"For the same reason, Poseidon went after Medusa, because they like you. Why they like though, well I have no Idea. Now go away, I don't want to see your stupid face anymore, got it."
"You don't need to tell me twice."
A gateway opened at this specific moment, and, being faithful to my word, I bolted out of there without a second thought.
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Exiting the gate my eyes landed upon an apocalyptic and dystopian scenery.
The sky was dark with red lightning striking the ground occasionally whilst lighting up the clouds a crimson hue.
White particles, similar to snowflaxes permeated the atmosphere, and buildings, reminiscent of your classic 80s American neighborhood lay possessed by what seemed to be an infected nature.
A flood of memories, and information entered my brain, my azure blue eyes started flickering and a golden yellowy aura seeped out of my tall and muscular body.
I was in the body of Arlo from unordinary, and my ability was barrier; a construct generation type of ability that allowed the user to create and control barriers of varying sizes and shapes for various uses.
I could make multiple of these barriers at once, make them intangible, cause them to reflect damage, use them as makeshift platforms for flight, protect myself with them, see, hear and smell what took place inside of them, and even repair them in the rare case they got damaged, making this abilty much more versatile and powerful than the original ability (A/N: bonus chart at the end of the Chapter.)
All of a sudden, I noticed movement in the surroundings.
* Screech** Screech*
Two massive creatures leaped out of nowhere landing in front and behind me before screeching, their heads opening up in a flower pattern as they did so.
I was a little disgusted, surprised and of course a little bit nervous, to say the least, but kept my cool before activating my barrier, trapping them both inside a glowing yellow bubble.
What is that? Some new alien species?
Where did all the humans go?
These creatures immediately started hitting the barrier in an attempt to free themselves causing them to shatter their limbs in the process.
Tired from hearing their pained noises and driven by the need to protect myself against the unknown, I shrunk the barrier rapidly crushing them both and killing them in the process.
The numerous vines on the floor didn't seem to like that though as they attempted to grab my leg, only for it to be met in failure as I conjured a disc that swiftly split them apart.
It seems like I'm not welcome here, I should probably leave...
Bonus chart: