No one quite knew the exact moment it happened. Sometime between 3 and 4 in the morning, I think. Anyway that's not the important thing, at least, not the most important. See, everyone and everything in the world suddenly got a new rulebook to play by. I'm not referring to tax law or school handbooks, but something much more severe. The world as we knew it was gone; replaced with the laws of physics straight out of Skyrim, Fallout, World of Warcraft, or any other video game world. (Honestly, I think they're all roughly the same anyway, but the news said that "Top Scientists" were working on figuring out exactly which game's rules were actually in effect, but that's another story.)

I was one of the lucky ones to be awake when it kicked in. Yea, yea, call me a gaming-addict-shut-in all you want, but this did help me a lot. You see, if you were awake during "The Change", (That's what the news was calling it.) a little envelope icon popped up in the corner of your vision, kind of like a mail message in any RPG HUD. And the info in that message was staggering. Now, I'm not going to go into how F***ing long it took me to figure out that the way to open it was to say "Command: Mail" but suffice to say I got it open, and was floored by the message.

"Congratulations!!

Your world server [EARTH] has been deemed as the first world to receive the "Fantasy Player Pack" expansion for FREE!! Every single player on your server now has access to this brand new expansion, so nobody will feel left out.

As a bonus to all of the conscious players who received this message, there is a bonus attached to this message to further improve your experience.

Thank you for playing!!"

Yea. That was the message. So while everyone was thrown into a tizzy by the fact that we're living in a hyper advanced simulation and God is a game developer, I decided to figure out the mechanics behind this "update". (I largely attribute this decision to a combination of shock, video game addiction, and an almost unhealthy love for anime.) Fortunately, the bonus they were talking about was a guide on how XP, Levels, and Quests worked with this "update".

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The most noticed part of "The Change" was that everyone had a health and mana bar above their heads, like most MMORPGs. Granted it freaked a lot of people out, but it also did have some unexpected consequences. Wars were now fought like PvP arenas, famous archaeological dig sites and ancient civilizations became raid dungeons, alchemy and magic were possible, and, most importantly of all, everyone would respawn if they were killed. Now, yes there were consequences if you died. You'd lose some money that you had on you, and possibly some equipment, but the worst part was the experience loss. Experience in the real world didn't work like in games. Everyone leveled up at the same pace; you gain 1 level on your birthday at the exact time you were born. Experience loss meant losing some of your memories of the skills you acquired, like bartering, marksmanship, stealth, etc. Also, your killer gained that experience for themselves, which is why everything went to s*** fairly quickly.

From the beginning, I knew I had to protect my family with my knowledge of how things worked in this new crazy world, and video games in general. Unfortunately, "The Change" happened in the worst timing for my family, a family reunion in Yellowstone National Park. Bears and wolves were scary before, but now that they are monster mobs that could possibly aggro to passerby, they became God Damn Terrifying. I had to work fast if we were going to make it back out of one of the most dangerous zones alive.

Message from the Author:

Hey this is my first time submitting a story here. Please let me know what you thought and if you'd like me to do a part 2. (or more) Thanks.