Chapter 2

Eric falls to his knees and throws up on the floor.

"W-What happened?"

He looks down at his arms and they're in perfect condition. His right arm isn't scratched or bruised or hurt and his sword is still in his hand.

"Oh, my god… either that was a dream or I'm immortal."

Eric looks down where the vomit was and it's gone, can't even smell anything. He looks forward and sees the two doors in front of him. He hesitantly walks forward and opens the right door to find the moon..?

The ground is made up of greyish rock with craters for as far as the eye can see. He can see the darkness of space in all its glory. "Woah" Is all Eric says as he steps through the door and onto the rocky ground. He stumbles a bit as the moon's gravity isn't very strong.

"Wait, shouldn't I be dying right now?" Eric asks himself. "Yes, if this were your planet's moon you would be dead," A monotone voice replies to Eric's question.

Eric jumps in fright at the sudden voice and falls to the ground. "Who's there?!" Eric screams. "Not who, what. I am an AI tasked to assist you" says the voice.

"Oh. Why didn't you say anything before?" Eric questions. "I was still activating and only just came online" The AI tells Eric. "I see. Am I immortal?" Eric asks. "Anytime you die inside of a universe outside of the system's main world you will be respawned in the hallway, so yes, you are immortal." the voice tells him. "Ok well, now I got a lot of questions. First, what do you mean by "system's main universe"?".

"Let me tell you a story. One day God was bored, so he created a bunch of universes. Well, God created an AI to make universes because he was too lazy to do it himself. The AI made an infinite number of universes, and then made it to where anytime a sentient creature thought of another universe it came into existence. The AI did this so God would never get bored again. God wasn't bored anymore, but it didn't last forever. God told the AI to make the universes connectable, and so it did. But only randomly chosen beings may travel between them. The first-ever being chosen to become a Player, that's what we call the travelers, was a human named Jack. It has been around 2 eons since the hallway connected the universes." The AI explains.

"So God is real?" Eric asks, to which the AI responds with "yes. He's not a God worshiped on earth. God hates being worshiped. In fact, he has his omnipresence turned off, so he doesn't have to hear prayers."

"Ok third question, what is the system?" Eric asks. "The system is the main world that God made for any being that has earned their freedom. It was made to be a pub for any free Players to mingle with other Players. You can join up with other Players to tackle strong universes and such. There's even a gladiatorial arena for Players to fight one another. But there's no point in telling you this right now because you have yet to earn your freedom."

"Um, how do I earn my freedom?" Eric didn't like the thought that he didn't have his freedom. "You must become stronger. You will earn your freedom as long as you go through the doors." The AI replies with its monotone voice.

"What happens if I don't go through the doors and stay in the hallway forever?" Eric asks. "Nothing. You cannot go insane, the AI made it so but no being has ever chosen to." The AI explains to Eric.

"So-" Eric is cut off by an explosion next to him. He falls to the ground screaming, only hurt by pebbles that were launched by the explosion. Eric crawls behind a crater trying to take cover, waiting for his ears to stop ringing.

"It's behind the crater!" A green humanoid with two antennae, with gray-black power armor, yells at an identical humanoid. "I know I'm not blind" It yells back. Eric pulls out his sword and readies himself to charge.

Eric can hear two sets of approaching footsteps from both sides of the crater. They're trying to flank him Eric realizes. He charges out of cover to his left and thrusts his sword right at the face of the humanoid. Its face contorts into fear as his sword slides into the alien's glassy black eye. It falls to the ground with a screech and drops its gun. Eric grabs the alien's gun and swings around and starts shooting at the other alien.

It puts up its hand and a blue see-through shield appears in front of it blocking all the green lasers. The alien snarls and points his rifle at Eric. Eric sees this jump for cover only for a laser zoom by overhead. The alien jumps, soaring over the crater and onto Eric. Before Eric can shoot the alien, it grabs his throat with its right hand while ripping the rifle out of Eric's grasp with his left. The 6'8 alien lifts Eric off the ground by his neck.

The alien stares into Eric's eyes while he tries to pry the alien's fingers off of his neck. The alien that Eric wounded gets up off the ground, and yells "son of a snorkback, why the eye?!" and punches Eric in the stomach knocking the air out of him. The alien that's holding him promptly drops him to the ground and slaps thick handcuffs that are connected by weird green energy. Eric can feel his energy being sapped.

"Why is there a revolutionary with a sword by himself out here?" The wounded alien asks the other alien. "Why would I know, idiot? He doesn't look like any revolutionary I've seen" The other alien snaps back. "Let's just take him in for a mind-reading and execute him" The wounded replies while walking away. "No, please! I don't want to die I'm too young!" Eric pleads with the aliens.

Both the aliens go wide-eyed. "How can we understand him, we don't have translators?" The unharmed alien asks his friend. "I, uh, don't know… we should take him directly to the commander. He'll tell us what to do." Says the alien with a bleeding eye.

Eric loses feeling in his legs and falls face-first onto the ground, hitting his head on a moon rock. "Well fuck, we better take him to a med bay. We got no idea how frail it is. It could be dead!" And without another word, the unwounded alien throws Eric over his shoulder and starts running back to base.