Earlier Today

Waking up in my room is where it starts—an average room with a desk, chair, and bed. The typical stuff for a twenty-year-old, I guess. Trash on the nightstand where I left last night's TV dinner tray. Who has time to cook when you're always at work?

Grabbing a shirt from the closet hanger and throwing it on before heading out the door. My phone rings, a call from work asking where I am, just your day-to-day routine. Grabbing my keys from the nightstand, I head to my car. Even as I step outside, I just want to go back to bed, but I have this feeling every day.

As I put my key in the ignition, the smell of burnt rubber and motor oil quickly fills the air. "Great, now what!?" Cursing into the heavens. "Can I just have a life where I don't have to struggle day-to-day?" The car sputters, my only answers from the heavens.

"Everything alright over there, David?" Hearing an elderly voice coming from outside, calling to me. "All good, Miss Withers!" Yelling back to my neighbor, a lady well into her sixties, maybe seventies. But it always felt impolite to ask. She would soon add, "You need a ride?" And just as quickly as she had asked, I turned her down with a "No thank you."

Though I might have lived if I had just accepted, I did not know this. All I was thinking at the time was the last time I rode with her. She hopped a curb, almost hit a cat, destroyed a mailbox, and that was just a two-block drive. I wasn't about to get in a car going on a busy street.

Quickly grabbing my bike from the inside, what I used before I saved up for a car anyway. As there was a hill and a lot of work to bike there and back. Starting my way to work, I pulled up my work's number with my phone in one hand, steering with the other as I pumped the pedals as fast as I could to minimize the time I would be late.

Getting to the top of the hill was always the hard part. I knew going into this my legs would be sore from having to do this again. But what choice did I have? Call in sick? I have bills to pay. As the bike started to drift in a downward pull, I was so happy to have gravity on my side.

The wind rushing by my ears. When I placed the phone to my ear expecting to hear my boss...

[Attention: Select a race]

"A what? Who is this.." Before I knew it, a cat ran out in front of me. "Fucking cat!"

[Attention: 'Fucking Cat' is not a playable race. Interpreting closest proximity to selection... Cat.. Selecting.. Catfolk]

[Attention: Select a Gender]

"John! I am almost there! Do not mark me late, Man! My car broke. I am on my bike!"

[Attention: 'Do not mark me late, Man' is not a playable gender. Interpreting closest proximity to selection... Not Man.. Selecting Female]

[Attention: Please select..]

"Who is this!" Was the last thing I said before the truck hit me. My body flying over a railing, and the ground hitting me from below. Not sure how high I flew, but all I know was the world spun a few times before I came back to earth. And thus, how I had my great fall.

[Attention: Emergency section fill process has begun.]

As I closed my eyes for the last time.