…What?

  I’m not dead. For a second, I feel almost giddy with relief. Then I notice there is a floating text box in front of my eyes. Also the sky is green.

  …Maybe I am dead. I don’t remember it, but maybe it happened too fast or something. I was falling, then all of a sudden I stopped and now I’m just in midair and I can’t move. The waves are still crashing below me - they’re rather loud now, and they sound like they are right behind my head. The rain is still falling too, which considering the whole sky color situation is a weird sight to see. I guess all those religions were wrong. In the afterlife, you’re immobile and the sky is green. There are also text boxes that tell you things that don’t make sense. Greater cosmos? System? And mana? Like some sort of video game… is that how ghosts use their powers? I’m probably a ghost now, so I don’t have muscles to move with, so maybe I need to learn how to use mana to be able to move.

  The most intense pain I’ve ever experienced blooms in my skull. Whatever was holding me in place releases me at the same time. For an instant I think I’m about to get sent back to hurtling to my death and the fear resurges, but I drop into the water before I can even be truly afraid. Whatever stopped me must have somehow gotten to me a split second before I hit the surface and gotten rid of all my momentum without me feeling a thing - which should be impossible. I can’t think of it any longer though because now I’m floundering in the water and my clothes are dragging me down, all while it feels like an ice pick is being driven in through the back of my neck into my head. I scream out from the pain instinctually and water comes rushing into my lungs. I kick frantically and push myself through the surface of the water.

  I only have enough time to cough out the water and take a single breath before a wave crashes down on me, pushing me under with the sheer weight of it.

  The pain is unbearable now. I taste blood in my mouth from where I’ve bitten my tongue, although it quickly gets washed out with water. The competing urges to curl up into the fetal position and claw for air fight against each other, but flickers of black soon encroach on my vision as I desperately struggle. Slowly my kicks get weaker and my vision starts to fade.

  For the second time today, I realize I’m about to die.

  I slowly come to awareness. The glowing unmoored text box in a void of black is the first thing I notice. The second is that the burning hunger for oxygen is gone, as is the drilling pain I was experiencing in my… last moments. I can no longer feel my body, so maybe this time I am dead… or I died when I jumped and this has all come after that.

  Yeah... I have no idea what is going on.

  I float there for a little bit. The only thing I can do is look at the screen in front of me. The bottom line of text draws my gaze and holds it. Even if I am going crazy, so what? At this point, I figure, I might as well engage.

  I try to say ‘Yes’, but I don’t think I have a voice anymore. This causes an appropriate amount of confused panic, but, really, there is only so long you can maintain a heightened state when nothing threatening is happening. If the only agency I have is through thinking, then maybe I have to think it?

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  Feeling a little dumb, I try and think as hard as I can ‘Yes’.

  A sick feeling rises up inside of me. I guess that [ERROR] message means that not even an - AI? it seems like an AI - not even an AI expected me to be around for whatever it is that just happened.

  Wait, time, water, and darkness? And what’s an affinity type? Scratch that, what’s an affinity?

  Oh, shit. Yes! Wait, ‘Yes! I want more information.’

  My mental eyes grow wider as I read through the descriptions. Okay so, in the greater cosmos or whatever, magic is a thing. Your affinities determine what type of mana you have and what you can do. Water is pretty obvious, I could become a waterbender, although it looks like the power cap is way higher. Darkness… I mean I’ve seen enough media where people have shadow abilities to get a picture. The Abstract part is a bit weird though… what kind of fears is it referring to? And time? Would I be a time traveler then? Could I go… back?

  I mean, I did always want to be a waterbender. But my eyes keep getting drawn to the description for time. It feels a bit different from the other two. For one, it says I have to ‘nurture’ my ability and ‘bear the weight’.

  I float there, in the black void with the only thing I can see a blue box containing the path I’m going to take for the rest of my life. I’ve never been good at making decisions, and the fact that in Post-Integration lifespans are ‘potentially forever’ means whatever choice I make now I’ll have to live with… forever.

  This is not the best time to be paralyzed by indecision. Or maybe it is? Gah, I don’t want to make the wrong choice. And what counts as a high likelihood of success? Why would it even show me Darkness if I’m going to fail when adopting it. What does failure even entail? Somehow, I think that going into Post-Integration with unaffiliated mana isn’t the worst outcome here.

  My mind shudders as I recall the pain from the datamining. I was congratulated for surviving, and it did mention an insanely high casualty rate beforehand. Fuck.

  Considering that, it’s not really a choice, is it? Or it is, but clearly the smartest choice is the safest choice. Besides, time travel has to be OP.

  ‘I choose Time.’

  I tamp down the panic that rose when I saw the aborting message. I might have almost just died. For the third time. I’m afraid I’m starting to see a trend.

  The thing that stopped the process is… [Passed Down Through the Centuries]. Huh. I guess my grandfather always spoke about how he came from a line of watchmakers. Is that what it means by worshiping the altar of time? That’s a weird way to put it, but… thanks, Grandpa.

  I mentally blink away nonexistent tears as I struggle to control what I am feeling. From upset to suicidal to afraid to confused back to afraid to being in pain to now being grateful… it’s been a long… however long it’s been.

  Part of me was hoping I could pick up the other affinities after I got Time, but it seems like that isn’t going to happen. The thing is, how big of a burden is [Nothing But Time]? I hesitate, trying to think it through.

  I could decline this and try to take Water or Darkness, but considering how I almost didn’t make it for 88% I don’t have high hopes for 56%, and definitely not 22%. I’m also sure that there isn’t a hidden line of sailors or fucking ninjas in my ancestry. I give a mental sigh.

  Looks like it’s another choice that isn’t really much of a choice.

  ‘I agree.’