Frostbound

When the light finally returned, I could clearly see that I was not in my grandparent's backyard anymore. Everything I could see was white. White walls, white tile on the floor, and a white ceiling to top it off. The grout for the tiles was white even. It looked like an extremely sterile futuristic medical room and the only thing it was missing was the medical beds.

Before I could question why there was nothing in the room, I noticed that there was a humanoid creature standing in the center of the room. That's odd, I definitely would have noticed it standing there earlier. It's the only damn thing in the room, I thought to myself.

"Welcome to the multiverse human. I am HG-60743. My task is to introduce the status screen and help you select your starting class and skill before the tutorial starts." The thing stated in an unnervingly accurate human voice and looked strikingly like a human. The only thing that gave it away as nonhuman was the way it talked and the lack of facial expressions.

It just had a blank expression on its face and soulless eyes that stared ahead. It had short brown hair in a common haircut for men and had regular brown eyes to match.

"Where am I? What are you? Where is my family?" the questions flowed out of my mouth almost faster than I could think of them.

"You are in a System protected space to process incoming integrating populations before your designated tutorial starts. As I said before I am HG-60743, or Human Guide- 60,743, if you wish to be specific. I cannot disclose the location of any other system protected being to you." It said.

I guess this was what the words meant when they said 'prepare to be relocated'. My mind finally caught up to what the thing said before I bombarded it with questions. Classes. Skills. Status Screen. System.

Did I get transported into a video game or something? I had read books about something like this, but they were fiction. Keyword there being FICTION. As in make believe, in the same realm as fantasy and/or imaginary. Better yet, not real.

I started to freak out a little bit. This couldn't be happening. None of this was real. I had to be dead lying in a ditch somewhere and the universe was playing a trick on me. Before I could get too worked up and go down that rabbit hole of dark thoughts, a calming presence washed over me lowered my heart rate, and made my breathing even out.

"What did you just do." I demanded of the... thing.

"Heart rate and stress level exceeded natural resting values by a significant margin. Countermeasure calming spell activated." The thing said like it was explaining why water was wet, or grass was green. Not like it was explaining how it forcefully altered multiple natural processes of my body and stopped a near panic attack cold.

I wanted to start yelling at the thing for the blatant invasion of my body and mind, but I just couldn't get angry. Before the boat could get moving the spell pulled the wind from the sails and made me calm down. It was freaky.