2 - Who do you want to be?

  Surprised and more than a bit flummoxed, Joe sent a thought to the floating field in reply.

  ‘Ummm. I don't have much of a preconceived notion of what comes next. I always thought it was just lights out, nothing more. That makes the choice pretty easy, then. What is Illuminaria?’

  The text box hovering in the emptiness that surrounded him changed to read.

  ‘That might be the most leading question of all time,’ Joe quipped. ‘Yes, I choose Illuminaria over non-existence. What now?’

  The area around him changed subtly. A darkening below him suggested a floor. A circle of lighter gray appeared on the surface of the floor. The pop-up box now read.

  ‘Choose a race?’ he thought to the boxes. ‘What the heck is this? Am I joining an RPG for ghosts?’

  There was something strange about these boxes of text. Joe barely had to glance at them before he knew exactly what they said. He wasn't so much reading the words. It was more like automatically knowing them in one quick look.

  Joe sent back a thought of ‘Yes’ as he considered the ramifications of that statement. Joe was a huge fan of table-top role-playing games. He had played a couple of the more popular computer-based MMORPGs as well, but honestly, he was really terrible at them. Joe knew he was a klutz and had a bad habit of overthinking everything. Whenever he was supposed to quickly target the monster, attack, and then dodge away, he would invariably scramble up the keystrokes. This meant he’d typically open a random game window or emote some pointless gesture to the monstrosity before getting pounded into paste. His ineptitude with precision controls did not make him an attractive party member, which was fine by Joe. He preferred to play video games solo anyway.

  Pen and paper RPGs, on the other hand, were his second favorite things in the world. He loved these games because they allowed him to be all different people and let his imagination carry him into new worlds. Where he was a disaster with a game controller, with books and dice, he was a maestro. Even years later, after life had pulled him away from all of his gaming buddies, he heard tales of how they still told stories about Joe’s amazing characters and his antics in those imaginary worlds.

  If this was a chance to become a new character, one not riddled with responsibilities and disease, then maybe there really was some higher power out there looking out for him after all. Joe couldn’t imagine a better heaven than being given a second shot at life and a chance to experience the world, something his first life had denied him.

  The initial race option was unsurprisingly ‘Human.’ When Joe focused on the choice, the circle on the ground became occupied. There stood a Joe that Joe had never seen before. This Joe had his old features, messy brown hair, blue eyes, average height, roughly the same age of late 20’s early 30’s. Yet instead of the thin, stooped, bald form he had worn these last several years, there stood a well-built man. He was no Olympic athlete but had a decent array of muscles; he was standing up straight, looking hale and hardy. For all intents and purposes, here was the Joe he could have been without his cancer.

  He read the human description in the floating window.

  There was a lot to unpackage there. Skills were a common game element, but he had no idea what ‘melding a class’ meant.

  Knowing he would likely have tons of questions, Joe decided to flip through the races first before getting down to particulars, especially since he was almost certain he wouldn’t pick [Human] as a race. Humans were usually good choices for Min/Maxers, but that was not Joe’s style at all. He had always played for flavor over features. If he was going to get a do-over for his last semi-miserable existence, he wanted to try something fun.

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  Joe flipped to the following race and was not surprised to see elves were next. If a game had any fantasy aspect to it, you could count on elves and dwarves showing up in the mix of races. Sure enough, dwarves were right after elves.

  Followed by,

  While witnessing the elven and dwarfed versions of himself was fun, he was not sold on either of these two options. He had played plenty of elves and dwarves already.

  Having been a gamer for years and years, Joe was skeptical of finding a choice he would want from the standard list; he was a huge fan of homebrewed ideas. In middle school and high school, Joe typically played in multiple weekly games and went to gaming conventions whenever he could. He had played dozens of elves and dwarves, halflings and orcs, and all the other classic racial tropes, even humans, when he had to. While he enjoyed playing almost anything, none of the classic races were something he ever wanted to play exclusively.

  He spun through his options, hoping to find something that spoke to him. Gnomes were too tiny for his tastes. There were a bunch of gigantic races, such as Jotun or Fomori.

  The light-blue-skinned race brought to mind towering figures right out of Norse mythology.

  The fomori were more brutish in appearance and nature, somewhat ogre-like. While they both were interesting, Joe did not want to deal with ducking through doors or crushing chairs from now on.

  Joe found himself applying the phrase “from here on” to each race he viewed.

  Many of the anthropomorphic races meant he’d be shedding all the time. Joe had already spent one lifetime dealing with tumbleweeds of dog hair, so he was reluctant to sign up for dealing with mounds of his own shed.

  Some of the other animal-human hybrids had such strong pack-like or flock-like mentalities Joe felt socially claustrophobic just reading about them. He had been a part of a pack for most of his life, having had anywhere from two to seven dogs throughout his childhood and post-college years. Even so, there was a vast difference between being the caregiver for his four-legged hairy-herd and being confined to being one of the pack members.

  The insectoid races Joe skipped right over. They were way too alien for him.

  He stopped on what looked like a robotic race made of brass. Reading the description, Joe was tempted.

  After years of illness, being immune to disease was very enticing. Yet again, the more he thought about it, the more he knew he would not want to be a mechanical being forever. He’d miss food and drink, for one. Also, would he have the same sense of touch as someone with skin? He was a fairly tactile person and would miss the feel of the world if it was limited to just a few sensors.

  Continuing on, he flipped through the dozens of options several more times.

  Still, Joe couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not wowed by the idea of being locked into any one of these forms. How was he supposed to pick one thing to become for the rest of this new extension of his life?

  Having spent the last few years being locked indoors, trapped in hospital beds, and even imprisoned in his own failing body, Joe balked at the idea of being sealed into another box he couldn’t escape from.

  Joe realized that choosing was part of the problem. As long as he kept having the option to pick a race, he knew he would be able to think of a reason he might not want it.

  Accepting this unknown fate was far easier than making that immutable choice.

  Without looking at the avatar, Joe projected his thoughts to the unseen administrator, ‘Okay. Go for it. I accept.’

  An instant later, he found himself out of the gray limbo. He stood beside a large tranquil pond in a beautiful sylvan setting. The sound of a brook gurgled soothingly nearby. Joe gasped a deep breath of air and marveled at how easy and painless it was to make that inhalation.

  As far as he could see, his new body looked human, but more importantly, it was strong and healthy. The constant stabbing pain behind his eyes was gone.

  If this was all just his dying brain winding down, then he was fine with that. This moment, even if it was an illusion, was priceless.

  ‘Yet, what if it is real?’ he thought.

  Joe’s legs wobbled as that realization hit home. It was such a powerful thought that it made him dizzy. Joe swung his head between his knees, gasping big gulps of air. He debated sitting. While the soft grass around the pond looked inviting, Joe had already been lying around for too long.

  He snapped back upright and peeled off the simple garments he was wearing. Tossing them onto the grassy bank, Joe dashed forward a couple of steps before launching himself into a shallow dive, slicing into the lake’s cool water.

  As the liquid slid across his body, a single thought rang through his mind.

  ‘I’m alive!’