Despite the blistering heat and musty smell of the panel van, Stew Vos felt pretty good about life as he made a crisp right turn and accelerated toward his last delivery of the day. He was about to make his first perfect run.

  On his dash, the routing app glowed a cheerful green.

  He let himself savor the solid four minute lead he had managed to accumulate through the day. That was how he missed the somber-looking young man until the man stepped off the curb right in Stew's path.

  The shockingly handsome college student had his head deep in "Quantum Physics For People Who Think Other People Are Dummies" and was absently flipping a wicked looking balisong knife in his free hand with what appeared to be hard-earned skill. All of these details seemed oddly clear to Stew as some subtle influence urged him to drive straight over the young significant personage to be.

  Stew was too experienced a driver to let that happen. He swerved with all he had, tapping the brakes to avoid skidding. He managed to barely miss the young student.

  In his mirror, the student continued on with no indication he had even noticed the van.

  Stew had just enough time to look back to the road from the side mirror before slamming into a phone pole head-on.

  The cheap, frayed seat belt separated, releasing.

  Momentum carried Stew through the windshield. Shock carried him through the traumatic loss of important body parts and fluids.

  He could smell the sharp scent of his relief bottle emptying itself somewhere nearby.

  As he lay on the sidewalk, he saw his shattered phone screen, the app was red, registering a delay and deviation from the one true route.

  The last thing he heard was a warning tone, indicating his pay had been automatically docked.

  Then, for a long time, there was nothing at all.

  In the nothingness, text appeared.

  Stew found he had no mouth. He thought his name toward the nothing.

  What? 6.

  This is ridiculous. 5.

  5.

  A long time passed again.

  It was hard to stare with no eyes, but Stew stared at the list with his mind. He wasn't stupid, he could see what this was. He hoped his disappointment came through. Am I just cursed? I'm supposed to work my tail off every life, just to make somebody else's numbers go up?

  There was no answer, so he reluctantly thought "4" at the menu.

  Now you're just messing with me. That's it? These are all the options I have? Do these options have anything to do with me at all?

  The menu blinked away. After a beat, it returned.

  This was just like the time he had taken those extra Christmas shifts because his boss convinced him it would look good when promotions came around. He had worked himself sick, then ended up with a "satisfactory" and a cost of living increase. His boss got a bonus and a Caribbean Cruise. Enough was enough. If he had to live another life, he was going to pick easy mode this time.

  "5"

  The System didn't even bother to reply. He felt a rushing sensation like falling backwards in a chair in the dark.

  Then.

  Another menu.

  OK then, "1"

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  Something. There was something now, rather than nothing, but he wasn't sure exactly what. He had a sense of being in a particular place and having a body of some sort, but he wasn't able to move or see. He couldn't breathe. He started to panic, but realized he wasn't feeling any urgency about breathing, just an absence of something he knew he needed. It wasn't air, but what? Am I a dungeon core now?

  "1"

  "1"

  He clicked until he had 10 mana.

  "2"

  "What?"

  "I have to wait a day just to click again? How do I even know when a day is done?"

  The System didn't answer.

  He tried asking for different things, hoping to unlock some secret option to generate more actions or show the time, but he finally gave up. Maybe I can just get some rest. It's been a really long, weird day.

  That was when he realized he wasn't tired and he had a strong feeling he didn't need to sleep, ever. He still didn't have any eyes to close, but he could feel something. His body felt dense and compact, rigid. A dungeon core was probably some sort of crystal then, just like he imagined it when he thought about the name. Was he buried in some mountain somewhere? The thought made him feel panicky again so he decided not to think about it.

  Instead, he tried to zone out and not think for a while, but time started to feel strange. He checked the menu and nothing had changed. He could swear it had been a week in the dark. Without even a heartbeat, he couldn't tell if time was passing in seconds or eons.

  I'm going to lose it if I don't keep track of time somehow. All he could think to do was count. "1. 2. 3." He tried to wait one second for each, but he couldn't be sure if he was going fast or slow.

  He just kept counting. How many seconds in a day? He stopped counting and tried to do the math. Why had anyone ever thought sixty was a good base for time?

  Stupid Sumerians.

  He got the number of zeros wrong then caught himself and tried again.

  He really wished he had a notepad or something. He tried thinking about notes, journals, logs, but nothing happened.

  Multiplying 3,600 by 24 was another pain.

  He reminded himself he didn't have anything better to do. 14,400 plus 7,200. No 72,000. So 86,400. He did it over again just to make sure, then started counting. He checked the menu every 10,000, just in case something changed.

  Nothing had changed by 90,000. He told himself he was just counting a little fast, but all the panic he had pushed down since the accident surged up and smothered him. He couldn't move, he couldn't see, he couldn't breathe and maybe the menu was never going to change. Maybe time worked differently. Maybe it was all some cruel joke. Of course it was a cruel joke. How could it be anything else? He couldn't even scream.

  He had no sense of how long his panic attack lasted, but it did end, or at least fade enough for him to check the menu one more time.

  One! I have one action point!

  "No!" He stared again at the menu. "I didn't mean to select 1. Give it back! Undo! Undo! No!"

  He felt the panic rising again, but pushed it back hard. He'd had enough of that. The first day had passed. So would another.

  He started over, deliberately counting slowly. "1. 2. 3."

  By the time he hit 80,000 he had another action point and he found something in himself he had never felt before. A sort of grim glee at the stupidity of his situation. He genuinely didn't care how long it took, he wasn't going anywhere, and he wasn't going to let the System wear him down. He was ready when he saw:

  "2"

  He felt an openness all around him, though he still couldn't see. His sense of touch was so sensitive and precise he could feel an empty cube of space around him and knew it was three meters on each side. Waves of freedom and relief broke over him. He still couldn't move, but he no longer felt what he now realized had been the rock pressing against him on all sides. He could also smell the dusty scent of the rock and even taste it. I'm a rock taster now? I taste rocks.

  Any selection just gave him the "You do not have any remaining actions" message.

  He began to count again, finding it easier and easier to keep the count going, even when he let his mind wander. It was half way through the second day while he was pondering the difference between a minion and a monster, when an unexpected message appeared.

  So there are other ways to unlock achievements besides sitting around and waiting? He left his stats up and watched the clock tick for long enough to find that it was a 24 hour clock. Whatever world he was in had a 24 hour day. Did that mean anything?

  He waited, accumulating mana and actions until he was ready to burn all but one action point on mana.

  He selected "Summon A Minion"

  Milk? Either that, or I'm supposed to be responsible for a little green person that worships me and might die defending me? What good is milk?

  He made his choice and just like that, he could see. He was standing in a small room made of pale rock so smooth it glistened in the reflected glow emitted by a small crystal in the middle of the floor.

  He swung his head around and saw that his body was broad and his side was splotched with white and black. Past his flicking tail he could see a broad doorway. Bright sun shown outside on grass and wildflowers. Thick-trunked trees surrounded the glade on all sides from what he could see.

  He turned back to the crystal and bent down to it. It had no scent. Without thinking, he reached out his tongue and wrapped it around the stone. Cool to the touch, but thrumming with some inner power. It didn't budge. It was fixed to the floor.

  So this was his core. It was faceted, pointed on the top and flat on the bottom like an upside-down gem emoji. It was hard to tell with the light from the open doorway, but he supposed it could possibly be gray. He left it and turned around carefully. The small chamber was a tight fit.

  He sniffed the air at the doorway. His stomachs growled at the smell of rich grass, but his back tensed at another scent. Acrid. Dangerous.

  He stood staring and sniffing out the doorway for a long time. The grass and leaves and sky all looked to be different shades of blue. Bright yellow and pale tan flowers dotted the ground.

  I was a rock. Now I'm a cow. He concentrated on being back in the core.

  He could no longer see, but he could sense the cow as if he was touching it from every angle. He could also taste it. He couldn't stop feeling or tasting it, so he switched back to the cow's perspective with a shudder that came out as a wet snort. He realized he could feel the mind of the cow beside him looking out of the same eyes. She wanted a bite of grass.

  This was going to take some getting used to.

  He found he could back off his control and let the cow drive. She took one dainty step forward and began cropping at the grass. Her ears flicked, listening for any danger and her tail swished with mild anxiety.

  Was she worried about that scent? Some sort of predator?

  "I don't like wolves, but I'm more worried that you haven't bothered to add any defenses, not even a door," the cow said.

  He had no eyes of his own to goggle, so he goggled figuratively and fled back to his core. "You can talk? Wait, can you hear me?"

  "What use would I be as a minion if I couldn't talk to you?" She didn't turn her head or pause in her chewing. Her voice came only in his mind, sounding patient, maternal and feminine. The voice of a nanny or a kindergarten teacher. "Are you going to offer me a contract or what?"

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