OK this is an idea I've had for some time now, the life of our favourite hero as a game. The story will have a complex plot beyond being a gamer fic, and canon events will be greatly changed by the changes Harry makes in character creation. As the story will also try for in-game consistency i.e. the world still making sense, Harry is going to find what impact the ability to make choices about himself before being (re)born - and how. Regarding the update speed, it will depend on how well I can integrate plot and mechanics. It probably will be around once a week or so after the first few chapters are posted. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Did Harry pretty much announce his plan for defeating Riddle in Riddle's own face in canon? If yes, I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to JK Rowling and this story is entirely non-profit.

xxxx

He opened his eyes to white marble floor, white pillars, a vastly distant ceiling lost in the brightness overhead. For a split second he thought of the Hogwarts infirmary... then his memories caught up with his thoughts. Not the infirmary, no; like much of the rest of the castle it had been heavily damaged during the battle... and had not been nearly as grand and blindingly bright as this place. He was somewhere else, if this could be called a place to begin with. It looked like King's Cross, the superficial similarities reminding him of the gateway to the magical world he'd used these past seven years and then it struck him... It was a gateway too, was it not? And into a world far more distant and strange than the magical world had been. Unlike before, the pure white, endlessly extending facsimile of a train station was empty except for himself. He was alone here, as he had half-expected. He had already gotten a welcoming speech the last time after all.

Harry Potter came to his feet unsteadily, staring at the pristine clothes he now wore, clothes that had been dirty and torn and covered in blood not very long ago. His shoes that had been nearly fallen apart after a year of hunting Horcruxes and dodging Snatchers all over Britain, his glasses that had cracked for the last time right before he'd woken up in Limbo again, now whole once more but without Hermione with her friendly smile and skill in Charms that had fixed them for him too many times to remember. His memories were faded like an old photograph left too long under the sun, his thoughts sluggish and lost like a traveller wandering aimlessly through thick mist. All of them but those he had at the end.

Why had he spoken out? Why had he opened his mouth and uttered what even a dunderhead like himself should have known not to? Your magic is no longer binding, Tom! he had taunted. You were never the master of the Elder Wand! he'd said. Snape had been right all along; Harry did have a total inability to control his feelings. He did wear his heart where all could see, and had not resisted doing the one thing he should never have done; gloat. Dumbledore had warned him; however mutilated Tom Riddle's soul may be, his prodigious intellect and magical ability were more than enough to make him dangerous. And when Harry himself had so readily handed his worst enemy the greatest weapon of all - information - Riddle's response had been as simple as it had been brutal. Instead of casting the Killing Curse at Harry, he'd banished a five-foot piece of broken masonry at him at a speed far greater than any Bludger's. It must have weighed several tons - Harry didn't really know. He'd died too quickly to feel much of anything.

In one single moment of hubris to match any of Riddle's or Dumbledore's greatest failures, Harry had died at the hand of his enemy. The Elder Wand's allegiance would pass to Riddle now... but far worse than that, Harry had been the last of the Potters. With no-one that shared his blood still alive, his willing sacrifice back in the Forbidden Forest would no longer protect anyone from Riddle's magic and with it enhanced by the Deathstick, none would be able to stand against Voldemort. Harry's impulsiveness and raw stupidity had lost the war...

xxxx

He had been wandering around the empty station for some time now. Hours? Days? Months? He had no idea. Did time even have meaning in a place such as this? He doubted it. With the station being empty of all but himself, and deadlines of any form having been ended by his death, he found himself with nothing to do.

He'd entered the trains one by one, perhaps waiting to take them somewhere else, perhaps because nothing mattered any more. Only, they had no drivers. He'd walked around the empty reflection of King's Cross, searching for anyone that would visit like Dumbledore had done before, marking the passage of time by counting his own steps. In the end he had stopped and sat upon an empty bench to rest. Not that he needed it. The count of steps had just gone so high that continuing had been tedious; it happened when you reached nine digits. He did not get tired, he did not sleep, he did not get thirsty or hungry, hot or cold. He wasn't sure he even breathed. And he couldn't affect his surroundings. He knew; he'd tried. Even getting angry and trying to vandalize one of the countless benches had amounted to nothing. His wand had not come with him, either the broken Holly and Phoenix Feather that had been his first, or Malfoy's that he'd been using since escaping Malfoy Manor. The Elder Wand had obviously remained with Voldemort. Thus, no magic either. He wasn't sure he could do magic at all in Limbo anyway; his attempts to Apparate had worked, in a way; he'd appeared from one place to another... but with neither sound nor any other sensation at all.

With nothing to do and all the time in the world (and possibly beyond), his thoughts gravitated to regrets, past mistakes, and what-ifs, as they usually did. His grievous error of mouthing off to Tom had been far from his only one. The Malfoy manor, triggering the Taboo, forgetting to cast bubblehead and warming charms before diving for the Sword of Gryffindor, trying to find Bathilda Bagshot, not realising Ron was being so heavily affected by the Horcrux necklace, actually carrying said necklace with them instead of burying it in a remote place or leaving it in Grimmauld Place... so many mistakes in the last year alone. Some hero he'd turned out to be. So many things he'd change if he could... was this his punishment for failure?

He didn't know, and wasn't sure he cared.

xxxx

An indeterminate amount of time later, Harry stumbled upon the first interesting thing he'd found in Limbo in all his long second visit. Set upon a bench was a large, roughly square piece of cardboard, brown and worn with age. Upon it were the rows and columns of an improvised chessboard, written in ink faded with the passage of years to be all but invisible. Black and white pieces lay broken, strewn haphazardly around them as if the last players to make use of them had not a care in the world about their ultimate fate. The only piece still mostly whole was the Black King, standing proud and alone in the middle of the faded board, but far from intact. In fact, the onyx figurine was cracked and chipped in many places, entire pieces of it missing that could not have been the result of simple wear and tear. Still, it held the board and the prize, for elaborate letters carved into the cardboard far more artfully than the improvised chessboard had been proclaimed it 'The Game Of Life'.

His discovery's meaning was not lost on Harry, who snorted in exasperation. No wonder he'd made so many blunders over the years; he really sucked at Chess. Suddenly wishing that the pieces were whole, that he could play the game again, he sighed and sat heavily on one end of the bench. They weren't whole, and would never be again. His mood dismal, he started toying with the board and the broken pieces anyway. His mood was dismal all the time now, after all, and was no excuse for not enjoying his discovery. Which is how he came to his second discovery of the day... not that Limbo had days.

The board was not just an old piece of cardboard; it was a folder. And inside it there were pieces of parchment far too numerous to count. Many were rotten, blackened, or too torn to read. Others were entirely blank. A small but not insignificant amount were well-preserved and legible, but for some strange reason Harry's eyes slid over and around the words, refusing to focus on what the parchments contained. But one piece of parchment was both well-preserved and clear to Harry's eyes. It was also titled simply 'POTTER' in large, blocky, crimson letters that looked suspiciously like they were written in blood; Harry had seen and used a Blood Quill long enough to be able to tell.

The rest of the parchment was written in similar red-brown script and at first glance it looked like a short bio... but wasn't. Dim memories of his distant past surfaced the more he looked at it... something that had gotten him punished severely by aunt Petunia. He remembered something about a religious discussion, something that had happened in school... ah! Now he remembered; it had been the year before he'd gone to Hogwarts. Some kids had brought a strange new game to school, and had been caught by the teachers. Accusations of devil-worship had followed and the kids had never returned. He remembered it clearly because the memory was rather unusual and his punishment for his involvement totally unfair, and this sheet that described him after a fashion had reminded him of that strange game.

POTTER

Age: 18 Gender: Male Hair: Black Eyes: Dark Green

Concept:Half-Blood Wizard

Trouble: War Orphan

Benefits: Chosen One, Accidental Magic, Mother's Sacrifice, Great Fame, Inheritance, Dumbledore's Protection, Quick Recovery

Drawbacks: Enemy of the Dark, Unsubtle and Quick to Anger, Abusive Relatives, Public Scrutiny, Sins of the Father, Plots within Plots, Doing the Right Thing

Strength: 12 Agility: 200 Endurance: 35 Intellect: 60 Conviction: 500 Presence: 20 Destiny: 500

There was more to the sheet than that, much more, but he didn't care. He was actually furious. Was this some sort of cosmic joke?! In this so-called "Game of Life", being the 'Chosen One' and having 'Great Fame' was a benefit? Since when? As for his mother's sacrifice and the protection Dumbledore had given him... did the universe have some sort of sick sense of humour? The first thing of interest he found in this empty, impersonal, eternally bright Hell was a piece of parchment mocking him with his mother's own death being called a "Benefit" and fighting against the dark or doing the right thing a disadvantage?

What. The. Hell?

Furious at the mockery, angry with himself, and with the deaths of so many people haunting his thoughts he kicked the folder off the bench, spreading the countless sheets all over the place and sending the black king flying. Then he turned his back to it and marched off...

xxxx

It had been some time since Harry Potter started haunting Limbo, perhaps only months, perhaps too long to count. He always wandered, alone with his thoughts and regrets, unable to find peace. At times he thought he must be going insane, trying to talk to people that weren't there, or even himself. At others, he knew exactly who and where he was and why he deserved to be there. And there were moments he was angry at the unfairness of it all, that his entire life he had been Fate's little plaything. In the end, he found himself sitting in that one bench, the sheet of parchment mocking his life in hand. Playing a game did not seem so terrible at the moment, even one such as this. He had nothing else to do here anyway.

The problem with that was that he couldn't find any rules. There were just sheets of parchment ruined beyond recognition, those still intact but illegible to him, those empty of information, and his own. How did one play this game? What did the numbers even mean? The drawbacks and benefits he could guess at somewhat, but even there he couldn't tell how you'd use them in a game of any sort. Scowling, he glared at the word 'Strength' and the number beside it. He really needed to learn their meaning if he was to play this game, escape the intolerable, endless nothing. As he thought that though, the red-brown word and number written in blood gleamed as if freshly set upon the parchment, information pouring directly into his brain.

Strength: Numerical representation of the ability to apply physical force. Its rank is set as square root of maximum lift in pounds. I.e. strength 5 is about the strength of a 7-year-old malnourished Harry, strength 30 is about the maximum for muggles, strength 70 is at Hagrid's or a Mountain Troll's level, strength 240 would be a strong giant or a main battle tank. Muggles tend to have higher strength on average than wizards due to their reliance on physical labour, though this is slowly changing as muggle society is becoming more 'advanced'.

Of course, blood magic! That must be how the game worked, though how and why blood even existed in Limbo he had no idea. Best not to question it; he didn't want it to go away. He quickly 'read' about the other numerical attributes on his sheet.

Agility: Numerical representation of physical and mental quickness and coordination, reflexes, and perception. Its rank is set as number of intentional large-scale actions per minute, or half the number of intentional small-scale actions per minute. A troll would rave a rank of 5 to 10, a typical human would have a rank of 60, the guy who holds the world record for full-contact punches per minute would have a rank of 805, were the record due to Agility alone.

Endurance: Numerical representation of toughness. Arbitrarily set as equivalent of strength; a target with endurance equal to the attacker has 50% chance to be hurt by a hit, and can take 5 hits before being knocked out, 10 before dying. Human maximum probably caps higher than strength, as some people have survived exposure to 40+ gs, falling from 20.000 feet without parachutes, or being shot 50 times. Wizards tend to have higher on average endurance than muggles.

Intellect: Numerical representation of learning speed, memorization, information analysis and synthesis. Arbitrarily set as 100 being the intellect of a typical educated college student, with learning speed and analysis/synthesis varying linearly either way, while memorization/total information is also affected by how long you've been learning. Wizardkind has little use for Intellect (or so they believe), and most magical and nonmagical creatures are less intelligent than them thus Intellect is the primary attribute of muggles.

Conviction: Numerical representation of willpower, strength of belief, bearing, stubbornness and, if magical, the strength of your magic. Arbitrarily set to equal Strength when applied to spells that produce physical force; a first-year student levitating a 200-pound Troll's club in a second would need Conviction 14 if they knew the Levitation Spell well enough for maximum efficiency, or Conviction 63 if they successfully cast the spell for the first time (and thus had efficiency of ~5%). Other types of magic are affected in a similar manner. Muggles have little use for Conviction in modern society, preferring to rely on Intellect. It is the primary attribute of wizards.

Presence: Numerical representation of empathy, social aptitude, persuasion, and influence. The rank of an average social adult is arbitrarily set at 100. Total effect diminishes at square of rank under 100, and increases at cube of rank over 100 for the extent of the influence, but is linear for the strength of the influence when two people attempt social interaction in opposition. Harry Potter, with only 2 people close to him and less than a dozen people he frequently interacts with has Presence 20. A dictator or religious leader who personally manages to proselytize half a million followers through his speeches, acting skill, and guiding the masses despite his ideas being against social practices or even common sense would have Presence 1000. This is the primary attribute of dangerous beings such as Veela, Vampires, Politicians, and Lawyers.

Destiny: Numerical representation of your importance in the world due to circumstances beyond your control, such as your birth, inheritance, and the influence of magic - and the continued reinforcement of said importance due to fame, the machinations of others, or the influence of magic. Destiny progresses numerically similar to Presence. A person being born into middle class and wealth and inheriting the family name, contacts, and legacy would have Destiny 100. Someone who affects an entire community due to an active and revealed Prophesy would have Destiny of 500 or more.

xxxx

Well, Harry thought, the numbers made a lot more sense now. They even fit a few things about his life that had never made sense to him before, like how he could be perceptive enough to be a great Seeker while needing glasses, or why wizarding Britain was so quick to believe anything but the truth, or how he could cast Defence spells more powerful than Hermione's while still having trouble studying for any length of time. They also reminded him of all the differences between the muggle and wizarding worlds... who had written that commentary anyway? No, that wasn't important. Not with what Harry was about to do.

There! That was where the Black King had fallen. Picking up the last mostly-intact chess piece, Harry smiled like a maniac and run back to the stone bench with all the pieces parchment over and around it. If the chess piece represented Voldemort and the outcome of the life he'd just lived, and Harry was all but certain it did, then Harry's next action would constitute both poetic irony and a long-awaited turnabout; gritting his teeth, he pressed one of the piece's sharper edges to the underside of his index finger... then tugged it sharply. A brief stab of a sensation he'd not felt for so long it seemed like an old friend and success followed. Yes! He might not be capable of doing anything interesting at all here in Limbo but, as he'd hoped, the Black King could hurt him here as he had in life if Harry really tried.

Too eager for results to wait any longer, Harry picked up one of the empty pieces of parchment, pressed his bloody finger to it, and wrote 'POTTER'. The letters took. After a moment, they twisted and shifted upon the sheet until they were no longer a barely-legible scrawl but an elegant script identical to the one on his old sheet. What was more, his name disappeared from his old sheet as it appeared on this one. Harry Potter laughed then, even made an impromptu dance around the stone bench. It was a good thing nobody was around to see him; they'd have thought him insane.

If the only thing left to do in this place other than thinking about his failures was play this 'Game of Life', Harry would do so. But he wouldn't use his old sheet; it reminded him too much of past mistakes. Besides, all of this happened in his head, didn't it? Dumbledore had said so. His head, his life; he was no longer willing to be Fate's punching bag. His finger hovered next to the "age" bracket. What should he write here? Was it possible to change it, as he intended to change other things? And... would that start the game before his death, if he did? He shrugged. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and he was a Gryffindor; he wrote down a big, lopsided '7'. The number twisted and turned as soon as he wrote it down, as if it was resisting the change... but in the end settled down into that neat script, his real age vanishing from his old sheet. He didn't know if he succeeded because seven was the most magical number or because he'd simply decided to change it, but it had worked. Unfortunately, it was not the only thing that had changed. Twisting and turning before settling down, more numbers appeared below.

Strength: 7 Agility: 7 Endurance: 7 Intellect: 7 Conviction: 7 Presence: 7 Destiny: 200

Oh, no. Not just no but Hell no! He was not going to be Fate's pawn! Determinedly, he wrote a big fat '0' over the number 200. In a way that reminded him of Riddle's Diary, the bloody numeral was absorbed by the sheet, leaving the original number unchanged. He tried again and again, to the same result. Frustrated, he tried to tear the sheet apart but it proved just as invulnerable as Tom's first Horcrux. Then the word 'Destiny' gleamed as if freshly-written, and information poured into his mind.

Your Destiny score cannot be changed at this time due to your Benefits and Drawbacks being what they are.

He stared at the piece of parchment he was holding, looking at the empty brackets for 'Benefits' and 'Drawbacks'. What the... he glanced back at his old sheet, the offending words still there. Of course! The information on the old sheet must still count as his as long as he didn't change it. And the list of benefits and drawbacks had offended him even more than his so-called 'Destiny'. Determinedly, he wrote down "Accidental Magic" and "Quick Recovery" in Benefits, and "Enemy of the Dark" and "Doing the Right Thing" in Drawbacks, ignoring everything else on the previous list.

Seven drawbacks are required, and benefits may not exceed drawbacks.

He scowled as more information poured into his head. He didn't really care about the game's requirements. He wasn't about to copy those from his old sheet, and it wasn't as if a list of Benefits and Drawbacks was available to choose from... or was it? He concentrated on the two categories on his new parchment until the words gleamed new and - WHOA! Suddenly, hundreds upon hundreds of short phrases appeared in his mind, too many to count. The first was a list of Benefits probably, while the second was obviously one of Drawbacks; phrases like Terminally Lazy, Self-Righteous And Liking It, Pride Goes Before Everything, and many similar ones were kind of a giveaway. There were also some more unusual ones that Harry did not understand at first glance. Curious, he focused upon one of them and a description expanded in his mind.

Magical Core: Your magic is a separate, quantifiable metaphysical entity you're born with rather than an ability to overwrite reality via sheer will. You have a reserve of energy separate from your stamina and equal to Destiny x Conviction. Any magic you use comes out of it, the used energy replenishing slowly over time. You can boost this reserve with various means, but you're also susceptible to spells, rituals and events that can limit, bind, steal, or outright remove your magic.

Harry shuddered in silent horror. Nope. That was one drawback he was not touching with a twenty-foot pole and a full dragonhide suit. He immediately chose 'I Need to Know' and added it to his list; he'd decided he was not going to be left in the dark as he had about far too many things in his life. After a bit of internal debate he added 'Unsubtle and Quick to Anger' once more. He already was angry at lots of people and wasn't planning on changing that any time soon. Another interesting Drawback came up and focused on it to see the description;

Trouble Magnet: You get into trouble by accident or design as if you had a high Destiny score. Unlike actually having such a score, there are no other effects than the aforementioned trouble. You're either a prankster or a wild card, messing up the status quo without being part of it.

Why not? Trouble had always found him in the past and given the terminal boredom of Limbo, he could hardly see it as a drawback at all. Even if this was a simple game (however it was played), it should make things interesting. 'Loyal Friend' and 'Cautious' rounded up his list, though why this game counted them as Disadvantages he had no idea. Whoever wrote this thing must either have had a weird sense of humour... or been utterly insane. Not that those were mutually exclusive.

In his advantages he immediately added 'Happy Family'. Then, realizing forewarned was forearmed, he focused on Accidental Magic and Quick Recovery; their descriptions flowed in his awareness almost immediately;

Accidental Magic: You have performed accidental wandless magic at least once and have access to the relevant skill. You're definitely a witch or wizard, and your family knows it if they know about magic at all. If they don't know it, they might be surprised or worried by the unusual events that sometimes happen around you.

Quick Recovery: You bounce back from harm pretty fast, both physically and mentally... possibly aided by magic. Unless exposed to extreme trauma or dark magic, you'll eventually recover completely. Danger has less impact on your personality, both for good and bad; you are unlikely to become jaded or resentful, but far more likely to be reckless or naive.

Right, both of those were keepers which left him with four more. Looking through the Benefits list he'd found some interesting things, which he wanted to try. Three especially had drawn his attention from the start;

Uncanny Awareness: You know things you shouldn't. It might be Seer blood, another unusual magical ability passed down from your family, exposure to some deeper mystery, or even that silly Muggle belief about remembering past lives. Whatever it is, you know more than you have been told or could possibly find out, though such esoteric knowledge is not always reliable.

Harmless and Cute: An image is a thousand words, and looking both good and innocent is often better than proof. People that see the pretty face will often tend to underestimate you, unless you put effort in correcting their misconceptions.

A Thousand Faces: Your hair tends to shift shape and length or sometimes colour, especially if you're stressed... unless it is your eyes instead. Good news; you're probably a Metamorph by birth. You still need to develop the talent through practice and given its rarity, you're unlikely to find a teacher. Also, negative emotions can suppress this talent, especially over extended periods.

If whoever had put him here with this game liked jokes, Harry saw no problem joking back. All this was a big cosmic joke after all. So much for Dumbledore's belief in the next great adventure. Picking 'Lucky Escape' as his last benefit - surviving a deadly situation once a year was too good to pass on - he finally changed his Destiny score to zero with satisfaction.

The message he got when he did was... interesting.

xxxx

You have 200 points left. Would you like to modify your starting attributes?

Harry considered the message carefully. So... eliminating his Destiny score had freed up points for other attributes? Made sense; a game would have to be balanced in some way, fair. That thought made him pause for a few moments... then burst out laughing. Another joke. In his experience, life was anything but fair. Oh well... if whoever had put him here wanted to play 'fair', why not?

The attributes in his old sheet were much higher than the new one, quite accurate for his adult self if he understood the mechanics. What would a seven-year-old him have? Or a seven-year-old anyone? Well, Hermione would have probably been smarter at that age than he was now... Tom had definitely been scarier... and Hagrid had been as tall as his dad. Ah, forget it. He'd just put points where he wanted to. It was only a game, no reason to think things through too much and forget to have fun. And since playing an antisocial loner or blind fool would hardly be nice after having lived as one, making a decision was easy.

Strength: 7 Agility: 50 Endurance: 12 Intellect: 50 Conviction: 73 Presence: 50 Destiny: 0

Health: 60/60 Energy: 876/876

Physical abilities wouldn't help much in playing a wizard, however this game was going to be played. On the other hand, he found the idea of a Harry Potter that couldn't play Quidditch rather jarring, and quick reflexes had saved him a lot in his past life. And hey, if playing a smart, socially adept Harry Potter wasn't prohibited, he'd do it. Maybe whoever had set this game up would die of irony. But what were these two values that had just appeared below his attributes? A bit more focus - he really was getting the hang of this - brought up a description.

Health: Abstract representation of physical condition. How much punishment one can take before collapsing at health zero, and before dying at health minus maximum. Meter is equal to Endurance times five. Specific penalties for this meter being less than full depend on the type of attack that reduced the meter, and how big each individual reduction is compared to the meter; they are called wounds. The meter regenerates at 1 point per 10 Endurance per day for muggles, 1 point per 10 Endurance per 8 hours for wizards, and 1 point per 10 Endurance per hour for those with Quick Recovery. Certain penalties and effects may prevent regeneration or even apply degeneration, most notably poisons. Certain bonuses and effects may speed recovery, most notably medical care.

Energy: Abstract representation of physical and mental reserves. Meter is equal to Endurance times Conviction, ranging from maximum to zero. 1 second of intense activity, 10 seconds of moderate activity, or 1 minute of light activity cost a point of Energy. 1 minute of rest restores 3 points of energy. Having less energy than the maximum imposes progressively higher penalty on all actions called 'fatigue'. Certain penalties and effects may prevent regeneration or even apply degeneration, most notably disease. Certain bonuses and effects may speed recovery, most notably food.

Oh. Was it too late to increase his Endurance more? Less than 20 minutes of intense activity was not nearly enough for one of his typical outings. Then again, he doubted seven-year-olds did anything like that... he hoped. And yep, here came the Potter luck; he couldn't change his attributes once he was done distributing points. Whatever, he was done messing around with this piece of parchment. How was this game played anyway? Where was his opponent, if any? How...

Suddenly, Harry felt as if a massive invisible hook was dragging him from behind his navel, the parchments around him, the bench he was sitting on, the entire representation of King's Cross whirling madly as the monstrous hybrid of a Portkey and a Pensieve was activated. He fell down, down, down a tunnel of countless images, his past life playing in reverse.

He'd just found how the Game of Life was to be played, and fervently hoped he'd not messed up horribly with what he'd just done.

xxxx

In the now empty station of King's Cross, one piece of parchment yellowed, faded, and was covered with mould... but was still legible. They all were, and had always been. A strong wind blew, picking up the countless sheets of parchment and depositing them in the ancient folder in the exact proper order; an event not impossible, and a lot less improbable than the initial appearance of life.

The wind strengthened, carrying away the broken chess pieces and the worn Black King, grinding them to dust. The faded black-brown ink on the folder, who'd never been ink to begin with, was washed away, the improvised chessboard gone. Spots and mould was cleaned away, worn to nothing, all less durable than the folder itself. Even the patch of mould that had grown in the exact shape of letters, another event not impossible, however improbable it might be. The folder was left behind yellowed but spotless, and titled 'The Book of Life'.

The sudden hurricane became a great tornado, sucking in and grinding the black and white dust of the former chess pieces even further. When it was over, the result landed on the folder heavily. It was a dice with seven sides, all of which were identical heptagons, all displaying the number seven. Someone was about to play dice with the universe; of course they'd need something impossible to help them along.