Have you ever seen a plane explode on TV? Have you ever been on a plane exploding? I have. I watched as the plane crumbled into pieces. I watched as people screamed and cried. I watched people die. In fact it's all I remember. All I remember before this started, before I became whatever the hell I am and before I made my home in wherever the hell I am.
I woke up, battered and beaten with no breath in my lungs- and no clue who or where I was. I clenched my hands and pulled up fists of dirt. At first, I just lied there waiting to die. Yet, after only what seemed like minutes I felt at my prime. I felt in the best shape I had ever been, which was strange considering. In fact, the only thing that hurt was the back of my head. I stood and immediately noticed something was wrong. There was no wreckage, no bodies, and no signs of a crash at all. I was in a heavily forested area; surely there should have been some fire or smoke. I climbed a hill and scouted what I could of the land, picked a direction and just started walking.
It must have been at least two hours, before I started to give up hope. Maybe it was sadness or anger but whatever it was I swung at the closest thing to me, a tree. Suddenly, I heard an electronic pinging noise and a computer voice said, "Initializing: Strength Protocol." When my fist made contact with the tree I watched a huge chunk of it pop out, but my newfound strength wasn't the weirdest part. The rest of the tree just hung there, defying gravity. I walked underneath the suspended part of the tree looking up in bewilderment. How could it just stay there? As I got closer to the piece I broke off, I heard another pinging noise. "Initializing: Storage Protocol."
I felt my back break and skin rip open as something burst out of it. The pain made me fall to my knees. I reached up in agony and clutched at my back. To my surprise I felt something, a small metal cylinder. The pain stopped and I opened my tightly shut eyes only to hear another ping, "Initializing: Inventory Management System." It felt like an electric surge running through my eyes. I closed them again and grasped the back of my head, almost instantly regretting it. I had brushed my hand against the wound that was hurting earlier and felt it, it was healed over but tender. That's when I noticed the lump underneath the skin. Something was in me, in my head. No doubt it was responsible for the strange changes in my body.
When I could open my eyes again, I saw the world differently. The first difference I noticed was the heads-up display I now had in my vision. No compass, just a bar with a picture of a cubed piece of wood. Then, it occurred to me. Everything was cubed, as square as it could be. I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't just suffering a concussion, but it stayed the same. The wood-cube in my heads-up display was highlighted, and I heard another ping. "This. Is a block. The world around you is made of them. In order to survive, you must use these blocks. Use them to build: shelter, defense, or even tools. You have been asleep a long time [PLEASE SAY YOUR NAME]."
I thought for a bit, and mostly out of confusion I answered with a question, "Uhh, Steve?"
The voice repeated my "name" with the same questioning tone, "Steve?, the world as you knew it has changed." No shit, I thought. "Steve?, please do not use profanity." Holy shit it heard me? "I can hear you perfectly fine, Steve?. Please stop swearing." Well this is going to be fucking wonderful. "I'll be monitoring your progress, Steve?." Well, la-di-da. "Steve?, it's almost nighttime. It is not recommended you stay out past then. Please, find or build a shelter." So what did I do? I did what any guy with a computer voice and the world's strangest fucking powers would do. I punched trees.