A Reborn: Apocalypse fanfiction

1. That's New

Kevin's eyes opened. He was a little startled because instead of looking at his dusty computer screen in his office at his excruciatingly boring office job for the military, he was now looking at a foggy landscape that reminded him of nothing so much as the horror-scape that was Silent Hill. Kevin looked around and realized he was standing on nothing at all.

"Well that's new." Kevin said with an even voice. He had always prided himself on being composed under pressure. It used to be more keeping his cool while his eight year old sister threw a temper tantrum, and less not freaking out when he found himself floating in death fog. Now a days the military had notched that up to 11.

Kevin looked back up as two screens appeared in front of him, also floating in thin air. Kevin mused on how this is what screens kind of looked like in those VR/AR games he had seen videos of. One screen was titled "Abilities'' the other "Artifacts"

Shop: Available Points 152,083

Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 152,083
Race: Human
Age: 19
Stats: Strength: 15
Endurance: 12
Recovery: 12
Soul: 13

Abilities: 0/7

"Please spend your allotted points until they are completely used up, you have one hour to choose. After that hour all remaining points will be discarded and you will be transported to the first layer." A feminine voice sounded all around as Kevin rubber necked around trying to see who spoke.

"First layer?" Kevin responded. "What layer? Where am I? Wait, does that say 'Soul'?"

A notification appeared answering Kevin's realistically rhetorical question.

— Soul Status: 13 —

The voice answered the last real question first. "You are in The Shop. You may purchase items from the shop with your available points. Please spend your allotted points until they are completely used up, you have one hour to choose. After that hours ..."

Kevin noticed the repetition to the first interaction with the voice and interrupted it.

"OK OK, stop. What layer, where's my unit?"

This time the voice answered the first question. "The First Layer of the Mystical Layers." The voice responded cooly. Kevin felt no emotion from the layer, like he was talking to one of those Chatbots.

"Where is my family?" Kevin asked a new question.

The Voice didn't answer.

"Fine." Kevin said with a huff. "Can you tell me what the layer is like?"

"The First Layer is your staging area." The voice responded.

"And?" Kevin pressed.

"The First Layer is your staging area." The voice repeated.

"Helpful." Kevin said. He looked around again, only a minute or two had passed since he found himself in this place. He was feeling rushed but also oddly at ease. He felt like he should be much more worried about what was going on, even for him, but he also felt like he was where he was supposed to be. He found that unsettling. Kevin did not like the notion of destiny or predestination, so feeling like he was where he was supposed to be when, where he was, was flowing in a fog-scape with two holo-screens in front of him did not make him feel mentally sound.

Kevin took a breath and landed on a decision. "Go with it."

First he tapped on the Abilities Screen. He scrolled through hundreds of abilities in a moment using all of his office workplace honed speed reading to browse the list as quickly as possible. He saw right away that most of the abilities on the list were WAY outside his spending limit.