Chapter Text
Shutting off her garish truck in the school parking lot, Bella tried not to notice the nosy stares of her future fellow classmates. She took a deep breath, steadying herself. It was already too much, new school, new schedule, new people. There were too many unknowns and too much expectation. Her truck stuck out among the regular banged up family cars owned by the average student, the only exception, she noticed, being a shining silver Volvo.
The world froze.
‘VAMPIRES DETECTED, GAME MODE UNLOCKED’, black text appeared at the corner of her vision in a glowing blue box. As she moved her eyes, the box moved with them, always visible and legible.
Was this psychosis? A brain aneurysm? Had she recently, unknowingly, dropped acid? All she knew was that she was happy to be alone in a parked car for this terrifying moment.
Outside the truck, people who had been hanging out in clusters of friends were frozen in place. Up in the clouded sky was a single frozen bird, suspended in flight despite its unmoving wings. In front of her was more peculiar text.
‘PAUSE
MAIN MENU’
Hesitantly, she reached out her hand, grasping for the words. Her hands brushed through the air even as she leaned in all directions, no matter how hard she tried, the words were always out of reach. It was a hallucination, a terrible and convincing hallucination.
She snorted, saying “Pause,” with sardonic derision.
The world moved again. Birds flew and teenagers yelled. She couldn’t help herself and laughed at the absurdity. “Pause,” she repeated, and the world froze again. “Pause! Pause! Pause! Pause!”
The blue box hung in the air in front of her, always at the forefront of the quiet, frozen world.
‘PAUSE
MAIN MENU’
“Main menu,” she attempted aloud, and suddenly she wasn’t in her car anymore, but in the middle of her light blue room at Charlie’s house, staring back at herself in the floor length mirror.
‘ISABELLA ‘BELLA’ SWAN’, more text read over her reflected head along with more options.
‘Statistics
Inventory
Map’
“Statistics,” she said aloud, feeling as though she were getting the hang of whatever this was, as more text filled her view. This time a long list, with each absurd line followed by an eerily accurate personal fact.
‘Level 6
Status: Highschooler
Class: Human
XP: 560/1000
Bank: $687.70
Health Points: 100
BASE
Strength: 5
Speed: 10
Intelligence: 40
Wisdom: 10
Dexterity: 6
Charisma: 15
Points to spend: 18
SKILLS
Cooking: level 5/10, +3 cooking speed, +4 cooking flavour
Cleaning: level 6/10, +4 cleaning speed
Driving: level 5/10
Reading: level 9/10, +8 reading speed, +6 retention
Play to unlock
TRAITS
Attractive
Bookworm
Clumsy
Curious
Focussed
Good
Hydrophobic
Insecure
Kind
Lawful
“Mature For Your Age”
“Not like other girls”
Responsible
Romantic
Sun loving
Shy
Teachers Wet Dream
Your traits affect gameplay
Bella stared for a while at her statistics, drinking them all in - although what is ‘a while’ when clocks didn’t move.
The stats annoyed her. She was in no way surprised to see her strength and dexterity so low, she knows herself and what she can handle. In fact those abysmal numbers gave her a frame of reference for how high the other stats actually were, which apart from intelligence, they weren’t. The wisdom grated on her, by what measure could these words, this game, determine how wise she was.
And surely she had more skills! If the system considered cleaning a skill, then she was good at lots of things. She could sew to an okay level, and she could ride a bike. Thinking about what she could actually do was kind of disheartening, but surely she has more.
Also, what kind of trait was “mature for your age”. Why was it in quotes? Bella was mature for her age! She was certainly more mature than Renee, a grown woman, and she wasn’t like other girls.
She looked curiously at the “Points to spend” area. Eighteen points. Three for every level?
“Spend points?” She asked the void. ‘BASE’ glowed faintly. “Wisdom?”
Wisdom: 11
Awesome, she thought, repeating ‘Wisdom’ aloud a few more times, hoping she would feel a change, but perhaps it was the kind that couldn’t be felt. It was all so sci-fi, she smiled, voice activation and teleporting.
Wisdom: 20
Glancing at her low charisma, she felt her superficial mind take over, and placed a few points in there too. God knows she needed people skills. She wasn’t the kind of girl who needed to lift or to run, talking was her battlefield. Dexterity could also take a few, maybe she wouldn’t fall half as much. Was this wisdom making her decisions?
Charisma: 20
Dexterity : 9
Satisfied she exited the area.
“Inventory,” she announced, and the words vanished, replaced by images of everything she owned.
Under her personal inventory was simple things like her clothes, books and car keys, while “STORAGE” was literally everything she owned. Everything she had packed to move to Forks, and everything she had seen in her new room. There was even an area for food stuffs in the kitchen that would definitely be useful for shopping trips.
Bella liked admin. She liked knowing everything she owned and seeing it in front of her. What she didn’t like was the Game, or God or whatever, calling her insecure, even if it were true.
The ‘Map’ area held, predictably, a map of Forks. The diner and little shops were all marked with labels, while houses held little ‘?’s over them, except for Charlie’s house which said ‘Swan’. There were labelled roads and arrows pointing to areas like Port Angeles, Quileute Nation and Seattle. She had no excuse to get lost now.
She also had the map of Forks High School that the woman in the office had given her five real minutes earlier when she registered. Her vision of it was exactly the same as though she were holding it.
She wouldn’t have to walk around school with her nose in a map! She could just pause, determine her path, and carry on! Any opportunity to not draw any attention to Bella as an outsider was a plus in her books.
“Pause.” She was back in her truck, the sudden change in surroundings strangely didn’t give her whiplash, it was like blinking.
Absently she saw the initial notification fading away.
‘VAMPIRES DETECTED, GAMEMODE UNLOCKED’
She had been so caught up, understandably, over the game mode thing - she still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t currently having a mental episode - she hadn’t noticed the word vampire .
Bella’s class read as Human, sure, but vampires weren’t real, right? Blood sucking, coffin sleeping vampires? As she added Dracula to her reading list, another notification appeared.
QUEST: Read some Bram Stoker.
Reward: 100xp
Taking the developments in stride, the Arizonan took a deep breath, pulled on her hood, and followed the other students through the rain and into building three. Bella supposed she must just be good with weird, any other girl would likely still be hyperventilating in the truck. She kept her eye out for pointy teethed Victorian’s, but daylight and high school didn’t strike her as a good hunting ground. Besides there were more real dangers here than fictional monsters.
Thankfully, the first teacher didn’t make too big a deal of her introduction. As she noticed his desk plate said Mr Mason, the same words flashed over the man’s head.
“Pause,” she said under her breath and the classroom froze. She didn’t want anyone to see her surprise at words hanging over the teacher's head, feeling satisfied at her own quick thinking.
‘MR MASON, relationship : 0/100 NEUTRAL’
She resumed the game, no, the world. She resumed time, life wasn’t a game, no matter what the flying words said.
Moving to her empty desk at the back, she felt the eyes in the room turn to her. She was the new girl in a year of less than 100 people. She couldn’t be invisible here if she wanted.
There was a glowing ticking clock in the left corner of her vision with the time remaining for the English period. On the right read a new notification.
‘School Hierarchy : Newbie
Hierarchy Points: 0’
At least she would always be self aware.
She focussed on the reading list the teacher gave her, noticing she has already read them all.
QUEST COMPLETED: read Jane Eyre.
REWARD: 50xp, +2 relationship with Mr Mason
QUEST COMPLETED: read A Midsummer Nights Dream.
REWARD: 50xp, +2 relationship with Mr Mason
QUEST COMPLETED: read The Canterbury Tales.
REWARD: 50xp, +2 relationship with Mr Mason
QUEST COMPLETED: read As I Lay Dying.
REWARD: 50xp, +2 relationship with Mr Mason
Quickly she glanced up at the teacher, who was currently droning on about colour symbolism. He pressed his lips together at her in a small smile.
‘MR MASON, relationship 8/100 CORDIAL’
Wow. If she got points for every assignment, by the end of the year that man would want to marry her. Gross.
If she got Renee to send her essays Bella had done in each of these books in the past, Bella would pass this class and have the love of Mr Mason effortlessly. Renee would probably think it was cheating. Bella spent the rest of the period imagining different arguments she could use against her mother.
The bell rang at the very moment the clock in her vision ticked to zero. A moment later a gangly, black haired, acne ridden boy leaned into the aisle.
“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?”
“Bella,” she corrected, with a friendly smile on her face that definitely didn’t feel like something it would normally do. She refilled her bags, eyes cast downwards.
“Where’s your next class?” He asked, with an eager white grin while his own bag stayed unpacked and forgotten.
“I have government with Jefferson, I think it’s building 6?” Everyone in the vicinity watched them speak with rapt attention.
“I’m headed towards building 4, I could show you the way…,” he was definitely the helpful type, “I’m Eric.”
‘ERIC, relationship 5/100 INTERESTED’
She ignored the new words, lest she look crazy, and replied her thanks with a smile.
QUEST: befriend Eric.
REWARD: 100xp, +1 hierarchy point, +1 Charisma
Eric walked her all the way to the next classrooms door, babbling happily about known Forkes information.
Mr Varner made her introduce herself in front of the Trigonometry class. She thanked every star in the sky that she placed those points in Charisma, without it she would have surely fainted. She managed to even say her full name without stuttering, only blushing a little. This was the sweetest victory, as far as Bella was concerned.
As she began writing her notes she was relieved to discover that as soon as her pen hit paper, her skill in Handwriting was unlocked to a level 6. She supposed she had already cooked and cleaned and drove this morning so those skills were already unlocked, and she would just have to do things to add them to her roster.
JESSICA, relationship 5/100 FRIENDLY
Jessica introduced herself in Trig and followed Bella into Spanish, prattling on about the school and the teachers in a way that filled all necessary conversation and reminded Bella of her mother. Lots of people introduced themselves, more than Bella could ever usually remember the names of, but luckily she didn’t have to, because names appeared over their heads as soon as they announced themselves.
QUEST: befriend Jessica
REWARD: 100xp, +5, hierarchy points, +1 charisma
The befriending quest appeared for every person she met, with the only variance being how much clout she received for being their friend, likely for their popularity.
Jessica was a more than helpful guide, taking Bella from one class to another, and then to the cafeteria for lunch, giving her a seat at her table. All the usually anxieties about who to sit with were smoothly taken care of.
She leaned over and spoke to Jessica in a small voice, “Thanks for taking care of me, I really appreciate it.” She meant the words, she was just surprised she actually said them. That was way too verbose for her.
JESSICA, relationship 10/100 FRIENDLY
The short curly haired girl winked and , said warmly, despite looking very pleased, “Don’t mention it.”
Maybe verbose was good.
She was distracted when she noticed, sat in a dark corner of the cafeteria, five beautiful strangers. She stared for a while, because she could, because they weren’t looking at her. She stared at their pale faces and their dark eyes, and their angular features and was absolutely floored. She could stare at them all day and not get bored.
“Who are they?” She asked Jessica. Jessica glanced at the table in the corner, already knowing that was who Bella was talking about.
The boyish bronze haired beauty glanced their way, meeting both their eyes for an instant.
Bella blushed at having been caught staring, but was soon distracted by a new notification in the corner of her vision.
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: Mind Block
Huh.
All the Cullens had 20 hierarchy points attached to their friendship. If Bella befriended them all she would be at the top of the food chain in school. That seemed like a cheat. She didn’t really play games but she still knew that felt like a cheat. Maybe they were just impossible to befriend, they did have 500xp as reward.
It wasn’t like Bella had many friends before either. If it were a cheat, she wasn’t the girl to exploit it.
Angela, one of Jessica’s friends, took her to Biology, after unnecessarily reintroducing herself. It endeared her to Bella immediately, because old Bella would have surely been hopeless at remembering her name among the others.
She, unfortunately, couldn’t sit next to Angela in Bio. The only available seat was next to Edward Cullen. Between introducing herself to the teacher and having her slip signed, the auburn haired boy went rigid in his chair and looked completely furious.
EDWARD CULLEN, relationship: -15 HOSTILE
NEW TRAIT UNLOCKED: Delicious.
Bella sat in her chair, trying not to react to the terrifying information presented to her. His coal black eyes were staring her down, his fists clenched until the tendons stuck out.
NEW SKILL DISCOVERED: Composure Level 2
So she wasn’t very composed. She had a large, muscular man next to her who was literally hostile. She pushed her hair over her shoulder to hide the view of the terrifying boy.
She saw “EDWARD CULLEN, relationship: -20 HOSTILE “ before he was completely hidden.
What would he do at -100? Kill her? The thought stopped her blood. She took a deep breath and sat very still, trying to focus on Mr Banner’s words.
Composure: 1xp / 100xp
It was comforting to visually see improvement in her skills.
She whispered, “pause,” as quietly as she could, the world freezing again. In the quiet of the absence of time, she could breathe peacefully again. A careful glanced to her left and she was overjoyed to see Edward, too, was frozen. She could look at him in peace. His black eyes were glaring at her with such revolted intensity, it scared her even as time was frozen.
She felt disgusted at herself that she still found him beautiful. His perfect cheekbones and smooth pale skin and dark eyes with heavy eyebrows over them were just enchanting. His taught muscles under his crisp white shirt looked firm and well shaped. She tried to reach over and touch, but everything she touched she seemed to go right through, and try and she might she couldn’t leave her chair. So she couldn’t teleport then, that was a shame. She also couldn’t inappropriately and unconsensually touch the mean boy next to her, that was probably for the best. She was disgusted with herself for even trying.
Why did he hate her and why was she suddenly delicious.
It hit her like a truck. Pale, sleepless eyes, and thinks she’s delicious? It was ridiculous to think it. Supernatural things weren’t real, but she was thinking this currently with time frozen so perhaps she had to ignore reality.
It made sense with all the information she had. The notification from earlier was about Edward.
“Edward is the vampire,” She said to herself.
HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: What is Edward Cullen?
REWARD 200xp, +1 Intelligence, Hunted trait.
Ok so Bella wasn’t totally insane. She was totally terrified. Luckily with time frozen and all, she was able to scream and hyperventilate for as long as she wanted. Unluckily, she couldn’t run away.
Edward did do something good for her though. Without him, perhaps she would never have unlocked her new abilities and as distracting as they were, Bella felt more secure today than she has in years. It took all the effort out of social interactions, having information about people and their opinions in readable format.
Although she probably could, she didn’t want to spend forever in this paused void, staring at Edward Cullens furious face. She was totally in her right to be afraid of this boy, he did actually want to kill her.
So why didn’t he? Why didn’t he pop open an artery right now? Why did he go to school? Why was he fitting in. His whole family -were they vampires too?- were trying to fit in as highschoolers. They must have some care for societal norms. He couldn’t kill her because then he would be arrested.
She felt safe in her chair once again, having successfully negotiated with herself. He may want to eat her but he couldn’t.
“Pause,” she whispered again, under her breath.
He turned to look at her accusingly, “Did you say ‘pause’?” His voice was vitriolic but quiet.
How did he hear that? She thought, before a much louder thought asked, How dare he talk to her like that?
Even if he did want to eat her, he should try and be polite, as he was with everyone else. It was embarrassing, to be honest, having a class mate so publicly dislike her.
Pissed off, she put a finger on her lips, and pointedly went back to writing. When the bell went off, he shot out of his chair and out the door like a bullet.
Jessica was right to think lowly of him. As well as being a vampire he was also a dick.
She looked behind her at Angela and rolled her eyes, “What’s his problem?”
“I don’t know I’ve never seen him act like that before,” Angela replied.
“What a freak,” Bella announced, because although it was unlike herself, it was true.
In the top right corner of her vision she saw her school reputation go up. In the hierarchy she was now at 10/100. She had gained points throughout the day the more people she was introduced to, unsurprising with the power being the new girl seemed to give her and the obsession these people had with her.
Being mean about a Cullen also gave her points. That’s high school.
Angela frowned at her words but replied, “Yeah he was totally uncool. Anyway I’m sorry I gotta go to my next class.”
“Aren’t you Isabella Swan?” Asked a baby-faced boy with blond gelled hair. He was smiling in such a friendly way it made Bella smile too.
“Bella,” she corrected him with a warm smile.
“I’m Mike.”
“Hi, Mike.”
"Do you need any help finding your next class?"
"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it."
"That's my next class, too." He seemed thrilled, and the number above his head jumped up to a 5/100.
Some people were easy.
They walked to class together; he was a chatterer like everyone else seemed to be, but something about him was particularly easy to nod to. He'd lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how Bella felt about the sun. It turned out he was in her English class also. He was the nicest person she’d met today and easy to please. In their short conversation between the buildings he had risen to 10/100.
As they were entering the gym, he asked, "So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that."
So other people had noticed, and, apparently, that wasn't Edward Cullen's usual behaviour. She felt her anger from earlier become more vindicated.
"Was that the boy I sat next to in Biology?" She asked, playing dumb.
"Yes," he said. "He looked like he was in pain or something."
"I don't know," I responded. "I never spoke to him. I don’t remember killing his cat or anything, but I can’t be sure."
Mike laughed loudly at that. Louder than it deserved and she saw the number go to 15/100.
“Well, he’s a weird guy. If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.”
She smiled again, she was sure smiling a lot. “That would have been much more pleasant than what I just sat through. Maybe we can convince Banner to switch partners?”
He looked as though she had just offered him a new car, “ I mean- I uh I can ask? I doubt Jack would appreciate the switch, although his grades would get higher. Not that your grades would go down! It’s just Cullen is like, really smart.”
“Well a girl can dream.” She said, and walked into the girls changing room.
MIKE, relationship 20/100 Crush
NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: Flirting 1/10
No she wasn’t flirting was she? She was going for friendly. Damn. Not that Mike wasn’t cool, he was the nicest, it’s just Bella wasn’t interested in a relationship with him.
NEW QUEST: Seduce Mike.
REWARD: 200xp, 10 Hierarchy Points, level up flirting,+3 Charisma, Unlock Access Mike’s house, Unlock Access Mike’s Car, Unlock Access Newton Hiking Store, New Skill ?
Okay Bella didn’t want to seduce Mike. Not at all. But that was a lot of rewards. Would the rewards be like that for everyone? She thought really hard about trying to sleep with someone, trying to trigger the quest again, unfortunately the only person she could think of was the mean vampire boy.
NEW QUEST: Seduce Edward.
REWARD: 500xp, 25 Hierarchy Points, level up flirting,+3 Charisma, Unlock Access Edward’s house, Unlock Access Edward’s Volvo, New Skill ?, Unlock Character ?, Unlock Trait ?, +20 relationship with all Cullens, -99 health
Well. As enticing as that was, Bella decided to avoid sleeping with Edward. She didn’t particularly want to die.
After Gym, she was nearly free. She just had to go to the school office for one final bit of admin.
Of course the mean vampire was there, arguing to change his biology slot with literally any other subject. Bella would support such an act, it would be nice to sit through school without being hunted.
When the wind blew and he realised she was there, she began to wilt again under his glare. She was annoyed at herself, but then again, he was a predator, it was a reasonable act to be scared of him.
Wisdom: 21
It was nice when the Game Gods supported her thoughts like that.
“Nevermind, then,” he said in his velvety voice, “I can see that it’s impossible. Thank you so much for your help.” And he was gone before she could come up with something nasty to say to him.
It was a relief.
Charlie wasn’t home yet when she arrived. As soon as she walked through the door, a myriad of quests appeared.
NEW QUEST: clean the kitchen
REWARD: 10xp, +1 relationship with Charlie, +10 cleaning xp
NEW QUEST: buy food
REWARD: 10xp, +1 relationship with Charlie
NEW QUEST: make dinner
REWARD: 10xp, +2 relationship with Charlie, +10 cooking xp
NEW QUEST: clean the living room
REWARD: 10xp, +1 relationship with Charlie, +10 cleaning xp
NEW QUEST: clean bedroom
REWARD: 10xp, +10 cleaning xp
NEW QUEST: clean bathroom
REWARD: 10xp, +1 relationship with Charlie, +10 cleaning xp
It was going to be a long evening.