by David Burke
Descend - First Steps
by
David Burke
edited by
Celestian Rince
cover art by
Abbey Hermiston
beta read by
Ashus, Honestbird, GaiusPrimus
License Notes This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Descend: First Steps Copyright © 2020
David Burke
Cover art copyright © David Burke
Chapter 1 - Pleasant Dreams
Jay woke up with a start, staring dumbly around the room, feeling out of place. He struggled to get his bearings. As awareness returned to him, he realized he was in his own small dorm room, the same as always. His mind and heart were racing though as if seeing which one could explode first. In one hand he held his itchy cotton sheet and his other hand brushed against the spine of the bio-chem book that he had been studying when he fell asleep.
“Wow, that was all too real,” he said out loud as he patted around on his small bed almost as if expecting to find another warm body next to his. “Yeah, like that’s ever really happened,” he mused while recalling the indisputable fact that he was now and always had been the sole occupant of his tiny twin-size mattress, if that was a proper term for this collection of springs that seemed to poke him in all the wrong spots.
Still, he could barely catch his breath. The dream, even though its crisp images were already starting to fade, had been amazingly vivid. It was definitely a dream though. He wasn’t that lucky. Jay Pearce was a floundering history major struggling to make his way through his last year of college with little vision and fewer prospects. Whoever he had been in that dream was someone else. He could still feel the soft, warm skin against his. Something which was an all too rare experience for him and never with anyone like the pair of beauties he had been dreaming about.
It wasn’t that Jay had no luck with girls, it was more that it was sporadic at best and he was more likely to spend Friday night gaming with friends than he was in the company of the fairer sex. He was buff and had been told he had a great smile so he often got looked at by girls. He just wasn’t very good at converting those looks into something more. Given his background though it wasn’t really that strange that he had always been a bit awkward around girls. The death of his mom and little sister had left an indelible mark on his life.
Now though he wanted to focus on the dream. He wanted to remember every little detail and commit it to memory. The internet couldn’t provide him with better material than this dream had. Heck, he didn’t even know that girls were willing to do the stuff those two had been doing with him. Thus it was no surprise that he was still sitting there shivering in his bed, basking in the most detailed dream he could ever recall and certainly the most pleasant, when his alarm rudely went off.
The odd thing was that if his alarm was going off now then what had woken him up earlier. Oh yeah, he remembered. Just when his best ever dream was getting to the best ever part a voice had spoken out of thin air to him. Dream him had wanted to ignore the voice but had been unable, even as his enthusiastic dream partners had been oblivious to the voice, continuing what should have been impossibly distracting acts. Yet strangely, he hadn’t been able to ignore the voice in his dreams, not then and not now.
Even as the good parts of the dream faded in the assault of sunlight through his tattered blinds, the voice lingered. If anything it became clearer. “They’re coming. Time is short. Only given 1000 cycles. All depends on descending. Take charge. Don’t be distracted.”
Normally, Jay would have ignored such cryptic statements as coming from a B-rate movie but the thing was he recognized the voice. It had been his own.
Chapter 2 - Hum drum
The day went by in a blur, but that was how much of Jay’s life seemed to be. He and most of the rest of the student body of his oversized public university had been initially overjoyed when they were finally able to return to school. 2020 and 2021 had been lost years and those in the middle of a degree were even more lost than most. The universities had attempted online classes, but it wasn’t the same. Rapidly spreading viruses and then waves of riots finally followed by an almost-complete economic collapse had reshaped life for Jay’s generation.
College had always been the thing to do. From early days of school he had been told that it was the way to get a good job. Never mind that jobs were in short supply. At least the one good thing that had come out of it all for Jay was that the government had started paying for education. Maybe it was just a way to keep the younger generation occupied, idle hands being the devil’s workshop and all, but whatever, he was just happy not to have the student loan debt which had crippled those before him.
Walking out into the quad from his bio-chem exam, Jay was cursing the dream he had been so fond of that morning. Science had never been his thing, but based on how he felt after that test he would be lucky to end up with a C. Not that it was really the dream's fault. He was the one who had put off studying and then had fallen asleep while trying to cram, but it was easier to blame something other than his poor time management skills. Something was odd though. He was leafing through his notes trying to find some of the answers that had evaded him during the test and desperately checking others to see if his educated guesses had been right, when he noticed that everyone around him was staring up at the sky.
There were lights in the sky. Not like little green men, flying saucer lights and certainly not like fireworks. No it was more like aurora borealis but on steroids. Wave after wave of undulating light bands in a kaleidoscope of colors flashed across the sky, the pulses coming in three or four-second intervals. Then he heard first one scream followed by another. Tearing his eyes away from the sky, Jay looked for who was screaming. He saw what was her name, oh yeah, Kara. He knew her vaguely from around campus, but mostly because her best friend was a certified hottie.
“Trina! Trina! Someone took Trina,” Kara cried out frantically.
Not wanting to be completely useless, Jay ran over to her along with a handful of other students. He heard someone ask, “What happened? Did something happen to Trina?”
Flustered, Kara responded, “She was just here. I was standing right next to her. We were watching the lights and then she was gone.” The pitch of Kara’s voice rose with each word.
“Are you sure she didn’t just walk away?” Jay asked, trying to be comforting.
“What and left her backpack and purse, you dumb ass?” Kara snapped back while pointing at the aforementioned items on the ground.
Jay recoiled and thought, “Jeeze, what did I do to deserve that. I’m just trying to be helpful.” Then it dawned on him. “Oh yeah.” Before all the shit went down in 2020, he had been hanging out with a group that included Kara and Trina quite a lot. Kara had been into him, and for a while he thought about asking her out. Really though like most of the guys in that group he had been fixated on Trina, with about as much chance as a snowball in hell. That explained things, the fury of a woman spurned and all.
Now wasn’t the time for that though, as more and more people were gathering and reporting that other students had disappeared. One of the professors was trying to get some sort of order out of the chaos but no one was really paying any attention to her. Everyone ju
st wanted to know who was missing.
Then right before their eyes, Jared was gone. Like literally, one second he was there and the next he wasn’t. That was the fourth person to go missing in as many minutes. Enough people had seen him poof that real fear was spreading. It was like a switch got flipped and almost everyone went from trying to help to running. Scrambling in the relative directions of their dorms or for the off-campus students, the parking lot, everyone was running. Well most everyone. Jay didn’t see much point to it. He had no explanation for how Jared had disappeared and if the same thing had happened to Trina and the others then what did it matter where he was. If an invisible hand was coming for him, it could get him in his dorm room just as easily as in the quad. Maybe it was his past but the inevitability of life had been beaten into Jay.
Looking up he realized that the pulses of light were coming faster. Now they were flashing across the sky one per second. He had the odd thought, “It’s almost like a countdown.” Before he could think about that any further, everything went white and he heard a whirring sound like a large machine. Then Jay was gone from the quad, without another person even realizing it.
Chapter 3 - Well, This is New
The next sound that greeted him was the rhythmic beating of waves against the beach. He was lying flat on his back in what felt like sand. Finally daring to open his eyes, he winced at the bright light. As his eyes adjusted, instead of pulsing colors he saw an idyllic blue sky with wispy white clouds floating across his sight and a bright sun overhead. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, it was either mid-morning or late afternoon. Since he didn’t know which direction was east, he wasn’t sure if the sun was rising or setting.
Managing to sit up, he felt stiff all over like he had been lying there for a long time. He clearly had made an indentation in the beach but nothing leapt out at him to indicate how long he had been there. As he looked around he saw other people up and down the beach, always single individuals and everyone seemed to be just as disoriented as he was. Here and there someone seemed to find their feet and stood up just as Jay did.
People started moving to those closest to them as Jay scanned up and down the beach. It went for as far as he could see in either direction. Then looking out to the ocean the blue waves went on to the horizon. The more he looked though the more he started to notice a common theme amongst all the people that he saw but his thought process was broken by a loud voice speaking out to everyone. Jay looked around and saw that everyone else must be hearing it too based on their reactions. So he wasn’t going crazy.
You have been selected for the experiment. Parameters of experiment cannot be disclosed. Identification of experiment criteria is essential for your survival.
You may not leave the island. The only path to freedom is to descend.
All participants have been assigned an identification number.
Prepare for initial awakening.
“Awakening…” Jay started asking out loud what that meant, but never managed to finish his question as he and everyone other human present suddenly convulsed and fell to the sand.
Once again, Jay didn’t know how much time had passed but he found himself staring at a blue screen inside his head. He couldn’t feel his body and while that initially freaked him out he felt it would be in his best interest to learn as much as he could so he looked at the blue screen.
Error…. Searching parameters…..
Outside influence noted.
Trace failed.
Excess Psi distributed as additional stat points
Greetings, M1789
You have undergone the initial awakening. You have survived and adapted.
Go forth and prove yourself worthy.
Learn what the awakened you can do. Obtain credits to purchase necessary goods from the shop. All M-class subjects have been gifted 1000 credits to begin with. Shop can be accessed at any terminal. You have been provided with an implant. This implant will track your progress to the goal and create an interface for you to see that progress displayed. The interface may be accessed by simply saying the word: Status. Further upgrades to the interface will become available at future levels.
“Well that wasn’t very helpful,” Jay thought. Not to mention that the whole idea of an implant being placed in his body while he was unconscious was more than a little creepy. Still he had watched enough Isekai anime to understand what was happening. Combining the weird warning he had gotten in that dream with what had happened, and either he was having dreams where he dreamed or this was actually for real.
Now that he was conscious again, the first thing he did was call out, “Status.” No sooner had he done that than a blue screen popped up in his vision. It was impossible to see anything else. “That could be dangerous at the wrong time,” he thought but then focused on the screen.
M1789
Level: 1 (increased from 0 as part of the consequence of awakening)
Awareness: 5
Precognition: 5 - 0%
Durability: 3
Hardened Body: 2 - 0%
Enhanced Strength: 1 - 0%
Kinesis: 2
Kinetic Bolt: 1 - 0%
Accelerate: 1 - 0%
Metabolism: 5
Regeneration: 4 - 0%
Enhanced Speed: 1 - 0%
Formation: 17
Body Modification: 1 - 0%
Psionic Construct: 1 - 0%
Temporal Manipulation: 15 - 0% LOCKED
Psi Pts: 230
Stamina: 80
Shop Credits: 1000
So it wasn’t the usual strength, agility characteristics that he would normally have expected. This was going to take some experimentation. He tried mentally zooming in on the various terms on the blue screen and nothing happened. It looked like the voice was very serious about having to figure out how things work. Once he realized that, Jay decided the best thing to do would be to go and talk to some of the others.
After willing the screen closed, Jay tried one more thing and said, “Store” and then “Terminal” out loud. Nothing happened either time. “Figures, I will have to find a terminal I guess. Nothing can ever be easy,” he mused.
Chapter 4 - Fumbling for Words
With that he walked over to the first person he saw. She was a cute blonde, probably a couple years older than him. She was still sitting on the sand. Her arms were wrapped around her legs like she was hugging herself and as he got closer, the unmistakable sound of crying became apparent.
Kneeling down next to her he opened with the lame, “Are you okay?”
At first she just ignored him and after repeating the question and still not getting a response he put his hand on her arm. That caused her to look up at him. He had no idea what to do with a crying girl. Her tear-streaked face prompted him to say, “It’s gonna be okay.”
“How? How is it gonna be okay? I don’t know where I am. Do you?” Jay was surprised by the sharp edge to her voice, but he guessed it wasn’t too far out there for her to be scared.
“I … err... I guess it’s just the thing you are supposed to say.”
“Says who? Never mind. Just leave me alone.”
Jay was stunned. Maybe he was more in shock himself than he had realized. It was nothing unusual for him to put his foot in his mouth with a girl but apparently even in this bizarre situation he was unable to say the right thing. “Look, you don’t have to be rude about it. I’m just trying to help you,” he said but didn’t bother to wait for her response. Instead he stood up and walked away.
All around him were groups of people gathering together. Some were crying. Some were yelling at the sky. Some were hugging each other. Actually, he once again noticed that it wasn’t groups of people. They were groups of girls and not just any girls but all girls around his age. All of them rather on the cute side at a minimum and ranging all the way up to downright 10’s. The more he looked the more he wondered if this wasn’t further evidence that this was a dream rather than a reality. In the end tho
ugh he figured it didn’t matter.
When he looked a ways down the beach he did see a couple of guys. Part of him thought he should go talk to them. It was always so much easier talking to guys but he stopped himself. What kind of idiot would leave a cluster of hot girls to go talk to another dude? So he braced himself and went to make attempt number two. This time he walked over to a group of four girls who at least seemed to all be talking without any hysterical crying.
“So, does anyone know what is going on?” he asked.
They all looked at him and just like every time with girls, he felt like he was being measured and found wanting but he just took it. Finally, a cocoa-skinned beauty said, “No we were all wondering if you knew. Was that some kind of video game thing?”
Jay jumped on that one. “The blue screen definitely had that feel to it, but I’ve never been abducted by a video game.”
“Who could have done this to us?” she asked back.
“Well maybe so that I don’t have to keep thinking of you as that gorgeous girl, how about we trade names. I’m Jay by the way.” Whew. He had managed to get the line out without fumbling over himself, even if it didn’t sound as cool coming out as it had in his head.
She flashed him a big smile full of pearly-white teeth so she must not be too upset with him. “Hi Jay, I’m Jasmine and this is Emma, Ava, and Charlotte.” She struggled with the names indicating that she probably didn’t know these girls and had only just met them but they all nodded confirming that she got the names right. “Oh and you aren’t so bad yourself, but what I’m really trying to sort out is where we are and how we got here.”
“Wait, did she just compliment me? No, focus. The voice in my dream had said to take charge and not be distracted.” So apparently now he was listening to dream voices but either way, it was right. “I think those are good questions, but I think more importantly we need to figure out our immediate needs.”
