Extra Rank

The headache arrives before the room does. Fluorescent light on an unfamiliar ceiling. When I try to lift my head, it meets the hard edge of a desk.

A lecture hall. Seats dropping in rows toward a blank board. Bags, notebooks, marker dust, the dry ordinary scenery of a class. A projector’s low hum. This is not my room. This is not home.

The body is already sitting. A pocket at the hip holds a phone. The screen wakes against my thumb, and the glass catches a face I do not know — a man, plain, undistinguished, no one a story would stop for. Not mine.

Blue light unfolds over the desk. A hologram. Windows, not a voice.

[System]
Registration complete.
Welcome, player anda.
Rank: Extra

[Bonus Supply]
20 points granted.

[Ability Split]
Remaining: 20
Might: 30
Looks: 30
Technique: 30
Luck: 30

The last pane does not wait for agreement.

This extra vanishes soon. That is the original schedule. The vanishing has not begun. Use the granted points. Strengthen. Twist what was written. Survive.