The Code of Survival

Marie and Erik were having a normal day, sitting at the table drinking coffee while Marie worked on her PhD thesis. She had been having strange headaches all her life, though, and the past few days seemed to be worse than normal.

Suddenly, her headache spiked - she saw strange words floating in the air and on her computer screen... Some kind of countdown...?

At noon, the system arrived with a message...

System Initialization Complete. Welcome to the Multiverse! Your planet has now been integrated into the system. Please review your status screen and familiarize yourself. If your health drops to zero you die. Good luck! Tutorial begins in 3... 2... ERROR... Tutorial Canceled... ERROR...

What did it mean? And why was her Cinnamon Conure suddenly able to talk to them? Was that sparks she saw in her cat, Curious' eyes?

While Lee and Jak desperately attempt to get to her, Marie, Erik, Curious, and Lewie have their own fights and adventures. This is their story.

Excerpt:
Marie furiously shot arrows from her bow, Curious and Lewie used their limited mana to help whittle them down. Two were left but they were now inside. Marie realized she had no close-in weapon and ran to grab a butcher's knife. One spider jumped at her and bit her before she could grab it.

A piercing scream was ripped from her as the spider bit down hard on her leg, which immediately started turning bluish-grey with redness surrounding the wound as she fell to the ground with one hit point left. Erik, seeing this, ignored the final spider and ran to her, swinging at the spider, removing its head in a single blow.

Curious pounced at the remaining spider, clawing and biting the final spider. His claws raked across it first, the electricity causing it to seize up as he bit into the creature's body. Lewie warped over, pecking at its eyes. Between the two, the spider quickly died.

"Ahhh, it burns! And I can't move my legs! The numbness is climbing up my body! Help me!" she cried, terrified. Her eyes started to turn glassy...