Pain shot through my body as consciousness slowly returned. I groaned, blinking against the harsh light. Was I… covered in sand? What the hell happened?

  Carefully, I peeled my eyes open, wincing as sand threatened to sting them. I shoved my arms under me and struggled to sit up, every movement slow and deliberate. The world around me was a blur, but as my senses began to sharpen, fragments of memory surfaced—the storm with Elliott, the violent waves, nearly drowning… and now this.

  I cursed under my breath. “Well, shit.”

  Slowly, I wiped the sand off my face, my skin tight and burning with the beginnings of a sunburn. My throat was parched, and I was pretty sure I’d swallowed enough sand to taste it for days. My mouth felt dry, gritty, and altogether disgusting. The joys of being human, right?

  But then there was her. The woman…

  I squinted against the sun, trying to clear the lingering haze. I turned to my left, where I was certain I’d seen her lying before. My brows furrowed. She wasn’t there. Had I imagined her?

  It seemed possible, but doubt gnawed at me. I scanned my surroundings. The ocean stretched endlessly in front of me, waves lapping rhythmically against the shore. The air was sticky with humidity, but there wasn’t much of a breeze to offer relief. To my left, the beach extended toward a cluster of rocks, and just beyond, I could make out the tops of trees swaying gently—palm trees, maybe.

  Slowly, I turned my gaze to the right, this time tilting my head upward instead of focusing on the ground. Massive boulders jutted out along the beach, their jagged edges weathered by time. Further still, a hill—or possibly a cliff—loomed in the distance, though from my angle, it was hard to tell.

  Then I saw her.

  She was sitting there, partially obscured by the rocks, her gaze locked onto me. Her expression was a mixture of fear and something else I couldn’t quite place.

  And then my vision flickered.

  “Notice.”

  The disembodied voice rang in my mind, clear and firm. My body froze, a surge of adrenaline pushing me to backpedal across the sand, away from the woman. Had she spoken? No, it wasn’t her voice—it was in my head.

  “You have discovered a Mysterious Woman. Interaction Required.”

  My breath hitched. “What the hell…”

  I stared at the woman again, but she hadn’t moved. If anything, she looked more startled now, like she was watching me lose it.

  The voice continued, unrelenting:

  “New Quest Assigned: Stranger on the Shore

  Objective: Establish communication with the Mysterious Woman.

  Reward: Unknown. Penalty for failure: Unknown.”**

  Great. Either I’d completely lost my mind, or the universe had decided to drop me into some twisted game. I didn’t know what scared me more—this so-called quest or the fact that the woman hadn’t stopped staring at me.

  Did I die and end up in some kind of gamer purgatory? Or was this like all those books I’d devoured on the road, where the main character fell asleep or died and woke up in another world or a video game?

  The glowing notification floated stubbornly in front of me, refusing to vanish no matter how many times I blinked. I stared at it, trying to process everything. Quest or hallucination—did it really matter?

  Okay, it did kind of matter. I’d prefer to be alive, obviously. But whether this was Earth or somewhere else… was that the biggest concern? Maaaaaybe? I mean, it’d be nice to know if Elliott was okay, but my parents? Let’s just say “estranged” didn’t even begin to cover it. When was the last time I’d spoken to them anyway?

  I shook my head. Focus, Ronan. Wherever you are, whatever this is, the facts are the same: I’m here, I’m alive, and I need to take stock.

  If this was like all the isekai or regression stories I’d read—and maybe commented on in forums when I had Wi-Fi—I should see how much interface access I had and how much control I could exert over it.

  “Uh… menu?” I ventured aloud, feeling more than a little ridiculous. Nothing happened.

  I frowned, and wondered if I had a character sheet, that would be vitale know actually.

  And this time a new window popped up.

  “Name, Ronan Vaughn. Age, twenty-eight. Gender, male. Level One. Race, Human. Hair Color, Turquoise (hair dyed). Eye Color, Baby Blue…” I began to zone out looking at everything I was. It had interesting facts about me, I wouldn’t have even thought about. But I did find the race thing interesting.

  Mentally I adjusted and moved the windows in my vision, and looked at the woman, who seemed to have calmed, and now just looked sad and lost. Her chocolate brown eyes only had a hint of life even with the fear I saw initially.Now I couldn’t see her eyes as she hugged her knees. Was she hear all alone? And if so, how long?

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  And if race was on my character sheet, did that mean those on this island were not human? That was fascinating considering all the mythology this planet had, and then if I included all the lost history and the history archeologists were still discovering, what did this mean? How much truth did all we were learning actually merit?

  Briefly I wondered what her story was and then I remembered the quest about… establish communication?

  The phrasing gave me pause, as I looked between my first quest and the woman. What did that even mean? Talk to her? Wave? Offer a handshake. I mean, I was certain we made eye contact, was I supposed to decode her story from that? And what happens if we don’t even speak the same language.

  Another window popped up at that moment. And I took a moment to focus on what it had to say.

  “Notice. You are on the island of Ogygia. Due to the nature of this island, communication between all inhabitants will be processed through the interface. Language barriers are void until you leave the island.”

  Language Barriers are… void? Well isn’t that convenient, guess I can speak all languages while on this island. Well that should make… establishing… communication, easier. I couldn’t help the sarchasm in my thoughts.

  Whelp. Time to try talking. Hopefully, I was enough of a people person not to scare her off like a startled cat.

  Shakily, I got to my feet, brushing off the worst of the sand. My body protested, stiff and sore from who knew how long of unconsciousness. Food, water, and shelter could wait—this quest, or whatever it was, couldn’t.

  I took a careful step forward, then another, keeping my movements slow and deliberate, as if approaching a wary animal. She flinched when I made eye contact, her gaze darting away. That flicker of blue returned for an instant, leaving me unsettled.

  Finally, I stopped at what felt like a safe distance—not too close, not too far. Definitely out of striking range.

  “Uh… hello?” I called hesitantly, feeling more awkward than I cared to admit.

  A glowing “Quest Complete” notification popped into my vision.

  But I minimized it, I needed to focus, if anything she was the key to preventing me from passing out again and allowing me time to heal and get my thought in order on what I wanted to do next.

  I watched her though, as my thoughts ran a mile a minute, as she opened and closed her mouth. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It looked like she wanted to talk, but was… was she scared to talk? Why would she….

  If this was taking into consideration video game mechanics, would magic be a thing?

  I was really curious in how much Earth got magic correct with their gaming mechanics, verses what I was currently experiencing. It was a weird thing to be considering in my mid twenties. I shouldn’t believe in magic, as magic didn’t exist on Earth except in fantasy. A dream.

  And it gave me a slight headache trying to wrap my mind around this, so instead I redirected my thoughts, and focused back on the woman.

  “My name is Ronan.” I said, scratching the back of my head in this awkward conversation. I watched her eyes flash blue, and she froze mid fish impression, and her hand flew to her mouth, and tears begin to well in her eye.

  “Warning!” the system log forced open in front of my gaze again, “Sirens’ wind… Siren’s… magic failed.” And the window blinked out.

  What the hell? What was Sirens’ wind…. And it was magic? I couldn’t even remember what a siren was, it definitely wasn’t what a normal person would think, a loud noise. I scratched my chin attempting to remember what siren would have meant in this context. Wish I had Internet access.

  I was staring at the sand trying to think, almost forgetting I was meant to be talking to a woman of unknown origin, whom I didn’t even know her name,and a noise wrested me from my thoughts and the woman was gone.

  “Well that’s just perfect.” I mumbled looking around, and there she was running away. Was I that intimidating?

  “You have a new quest.” Another system notification popped up, and this time with a question. And mentally I sighed, mentally cursing this quest system, it was like a survival dating game. Am I going to have role play and make the girl fall in love. I cringed at that thought. Dating games sucked.

  But I mentally opened the Quest notification to figure out what I needed to do. If I wanted to get back to society, if I wasn’t dead or unconscious, I was going to have to play the game. Pun intended.

  “New Quest: Basic needs.” I began reading, as I stood awkwardly on the beach, “You have found yourself on the mysterious island of Ogygia. To keep yourself strong and healthy to break the island curse, you need to find food, fresh water and shelter. Success, question mark, question mark, question mark. Failure, Mind, minus three. Physical, minus ten. Emotional, minus ten.”

  I paused, and reread the quest and sighed. So this is a cursed island. I suppose if nothing else, the number one key to getting back to travels and vlogs was breaking the curse. But what did the question marks mean for succeeding the quest? Also did I have stats and attributes? Because those penalties for failing sounded a lot like those.

  “Character Sheet, Name, Ronan Vaughn. Level Two.” I mentally shrugged at the thought of just saying hi, gained me a level. “Attributes: Strength, thirteen; Dexterity, fifteen; Intelligence, nine; Charisma, eight; Wisdom, eight; Agility, sixteen; Vitality, ten.”

  Ok, my stats look alright, considering I’m a human. And I’ve spent more time traveling the world than hitting the books. But I still feel like my intelligence could be higher, wonder if leveling will allow me to increase these, or if I’ll have to put in hard work.

  I kept reading my stats though, I needed to figure out what mind, emotional, and physical meant. I could make a guess based on context and what failing to have proper basic needs met would mean. Starving would cause my body to go into a stasis, or energy conservation mode, where I’m tired and sluggish as my body eats itself from the inside to stay alive. And my muscles and strength would be the first to go.

  I’d become weak. But as long as I had fresh water, I could survive a long time, but if I didn’t find fresh water, I wouldn’t last a week before death took me. And without food, fatigue would make logical thinking a struggle. I don’t do well being Hangry. And Starvation would cause desperation to overcome me, probably depression and anxiety a big issue.

  An image of a skeletal me, just skin over bone caused me to shuddered.

  “Notice, you have gained an insight skill, basic human survival. Due to your travels of the wider world, this skill is immediately bumped to ten. Your wisdom attribute has gained one point. Name, Ronan Vaughn, Level Two. Attributes: Strength, thirteen; Dexterity, fifteen; Intelligence, nine; Charisma, eight; Wisdom, Ninet; Agility, sixteen; Vitality, ten.”

  “Ugh.” I groaned. This was going to be one of those games wasn’t it? “Interface, if I’m on Earth still, do I have internet access at the very least.” And now I was talking to a system that was seemingly in my head. Great.

  “Notice, the Island of Ogygia is on the planet Earth. Due to the nature of the curse, you have access to the internet, but all social media, and social media accounts of all types are inaccessible. The Internet can only be used in conjunction with your quests.”

  I could live with that, and closed that notice. There were still some other notifications I needed to finish looking at before I started my survival. I kind of wished I stayed in bed this morning.