I sat there on the ground, my back leaning against the cold wall, and my mind slowly processing the shock that hit me like a stone wall. That face… that face wasn't mine. It wasn't even close to me, but it was the face of that boy "Kyle."
"Damn… damn… damn…"
The words came out from between my lips like a desperate sob, as if I were trying to curse this reality in hopes it would collapse around me. I clenched my hands on my knees and tightened the pressure on them in a futile attempt to regain control, but the tears didn't stop. They were flowing freely down my face, as if mocking my miserable attempt to hold it together.
"I'm dreaming… of course I'm dreaming… how could something like this happen?"
I was murmuring to myself, trying to extract lost logic from this madness. A faint smile crept onto my face, a fearful smile, fragile, almost fading before fully forming. I was trying to calm myself, trying to believe that all of this was just a silly nightmare, and that I would wake up soon, I would return to my bed, to my room, to my real life.
But the place remained silent. Nothing changed. Nothing responded.
Doubt began to creep into my heart, its icy cold crawling across my skin… what if this wasn't just a dream?
"Come oooon! Someone answer me! Anyone!"
My voice echoed in the room, bouncing between the cracked walls without receiving any answer. I gasped, searching for my breath amid the chaos that stormed my chest, then I screamed with more despair:
"Speak, you stupid thing! Didn't you talk before? Say anything! Tell me this is just a stupid dream… and that I'll
wake up from it!"
But the silence was harsh. The emptiness remained as it was, as if my words didn't even get the chance to leave a trace in this desolate place.
The faint smile I was clinging to like a lifeline faded, and in its place came the tears, pouring relentlessly, mercilessly. I was trembling, not from the cold, but from the deep fear that crept into my depths like crawling poison.
There was no answer. There was no sound.
I stood on my feet, and my heart was pounding violently inside my chest, like the beats of war drums. But I could hear nothing but the sound of my thoughts, the sound of the chaos that destroyed everything around me. I took steady steps, like someone walking on a path with no return, until I reached the table — it was a decayed table barely held up by its wooden legs…
There, amid the chaos, was the knife. Lying there, in deadly silence, as if it were waiting for me. The knife's edge was shiny, glittering under the dim light seeping through the broken windows. It was sharp enough… sharp enough to do what I wanted.
I extended my hand slowly, as if I were touching something more than just a sharp tool. The thought circling in my head was becoming clearer, crystallizing before me like a dark specter I couldn't escape from.
I held the knife between my fingers, and my fingers were trembling while my eyes remained fixed on it, drowned in a sea of tears that didn't know their way out. My gaze was dark, full of loss, as if I were searching for a way to escape from this nightmare I had become a part of.
"Tsk."
The sound of the murmur came out with difficulty from between my lips, as I was trying to convince myself of what I was about to do.
"I must do it... I must return to my home. To see my mother. She might now be very worried about me."
I could not bear this feeling any longer, and I placed the knife on my neck slowly, as if I wanted to test the edge of death, or perhaps just regain a feeling of safety. I closed my eyes, ready to cross this harsh threshold.
Come on, do it if you want to return.
With the same movement in which I always hesitated, I cut, and the moment was drowned in terrible silence, then...
In one moment, the blood scattered on the ground in a terrifying way, like red threads that recognize no boundaries. The knife fell, and its harsh sound echoed when it hit the ground, as if it was announcing the end.
But... you are wrong dear reader, this which you think is the end is just a beginning... a beginning of madness, and a painful loss for those who do not know it like our foolish hero...
.....
.....
....
It was... silence wrapped the place, until I woke again, a sharp gasp tore the stillness of the room. My chest rose and fell madly, as if I was in a desperate race with oxygen, panting as if I had just come out from under water after a long drowning. Sweat was pouring from my forehead, gathering in cold drops crawling slowly on my cheek, but my hand did not move to wipe it.
Instead, my fingers rushed to my neck, feeling it eagerly, as if I was making sure that I was still alive, that my pulse had not stopped. The feeling was real, tangible.
"Tsk..."
The sound came from between my lips as I clenched my teeth in anger, I felt the taste of bitterness filling my mouth, as if frustration itself had become a flavor stuck to my tongue.
My hand was still tense, and my fingers dug into my palm as if I was trying to cling to something tangible amid this madness.
I muttered in a barely audible voice, but its echo rang in my head like a faint sound repeating endlessly:
"Why... why didn't I return to my home? Why?"
I raised my gaze to the rotten ceiling, to the cracked walls, to everything around me, but nothing was familiar. The place, the air, the smell... even the silence here was different.
At the moment my head sank into the whirlpool of questions, a faint light emanated before me, dancing on the edges of my vision like a mysterious call drawing my attention against my will. I turned slowly, my eyes wide with suspicion, to see before me a floating screen in the void.
Its color was black, but its edges glowed with cold blue touches, as if it pulsed with a life of its own. It was not just a screen, but something more complex... more strange. I looked at the top of the screen, where a line was clearly written:
"Player Statistics"
I froze in place. Player? Whose player? Did it mean me?
I felt a shiver crawling down my spine. Something unnatural was happening here, something beyond the limits of logic. I swallowed hard, while my gaze was fixed on the screen, anticipating the next step of this unknown puzzle.
. . . .
. . . .
I waited a little, and the air around me was charged with a strange feeling, a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Then, slowly, a new window appeared before me.
I stared at it with tense nerves, while the words began to form before my eyes.
(Name: Kyle Astorite)
(Gender: Human)
(Level: 1)
(Rank: E-)
(Category: Unknown)
(Ability: Unknown)
I frowned as I read the last lines.
"Rank and ability... unknown?"
I muttered with frustration: "This is strange..."
Every time I played this game, the characters had their specific abilities from the beginning. So why am I… I specifically, not given anything? Is this a mistake? Or have I not yet truly discovered in this world?
I looked carefully at the other words that began to appear before me, sliding on the screen one after another. They were not clear instructions… but rather scattered notes, written by a merciless sarcastic mind.
The first note:
"Whenever the player's level rises, a reward is given. And the higher the level… the greater the value of the reward."
The promise was tempting, but something in the way the sentence was written made me feel the price would not be simple.
The second note:
"The player will be given information… but according to the point price. If the price is high, the information will be direct. And if it is low… rely on your intelligence. (If you have it… hahaha)."
The laugh at the end of the sentence was not just a joke. The system was mocking me, frankly, as if I were a toy in its hands.
The third note:
"If the player fails to carry out a mission assigned by the system… he will be punished.
Either by an electric shock,
or by being sent to another dimension,
where monsters await him that surpass his strength by several classes… and so on."
The end of the note did not complete the punishment details, but it did not need to. The message was clear.
At the bottom of all that, a small sentence appeared in italic, shining with biting sarcasm:
"Good luck, you stupid player."
I muttered bitterly as I read the words appearing before me on the screen. Each sentence carried behind it sharp sarcasm as if a real person, not just a dumb machine, was writing me these messages.
I felt as if someone was watching me, sneaking into my depths through those words, delighting in challenging my mind and patience.
"Tasak…" I whispered to myself, trying to suppress the feeling of anger that began to rise in my chest. The words were becoming harsher, but I had no other choice if I wanted to return home I had to continue.
"What should I do now?"
As soon as I uttered these words, I felt something strange creeping into my body, as if an invisible wave swept over me. My head began to spin, and a sharp buzzing echoed in my ear, as if the whole world was reshaping itself around me.
I gasped, my voice came out trembling, mixed with pain:
"What is this... it hurts!"
I fell to the ground, and my body began to writhe as if something was trying to tear me apart from the inside. I clutched my head tightly, my nails digging into my scalp, while the pain grew fiercer, as if claws were mercilessly devouring my brain.
Memories… images… sounds…
Everything flooded my mind all at once, a ruthless chaos, scenes overlapping each other, voices I'd never heard before, names I'd never spoken, emotions that didn't belong to me… yet they seeped into me as if they were mine.
I gasped violently, as if searching for air in a whirlpool dragging me into the depths. Then suddenly…
I fainted and closed my eyes. I was there, thrown on the cold ground, my exhausted body resisting no longer. Darkness swallowed me whole, as if I'd drifted into the depths of a bottomless sea.
Time passed… passed… then passed…
I don't know how long I stayed there, submerged in nothingness, floating in suffocating silence. There was no light, no sound, only absolute emptiness.
But amid this stillness, amid this darkness… something began to change.
Faint whispers, as if sneaking through the walls of my mind, muffled, overlapping, incomprehensible voices. Then… I felt something approaching.
Something… was waiting for me.
A girl's voice rang in my ear like a gentle song, soft in a strange way, almost unreal.
"Kyle! Hey, Kyle! Wake up!"
Slowly, I opened my eyes. The light was dim, hazy, as if waking from a dream I could no longer tell was a dream or a nightmare. Before me stood a little girl, her features bright, as if she belonged to a world different from this wretched place. She was small… and beautiful, something gentle amid all this chaos.
Before I could comprehend anything, she moved closer, until her face was very near mine.
"Finally! You woke up, you lazy one!"
Her voice carried artificial annoyance, as if scolding me, but in her eyes was something different… joy? Or impatience? I couldn't tell.
She didn't give me a chance to respond. Suddenly, she grabbed my hand—her hand was soft, strangely warm.
"Let's go now!"
I understood nothing. I was still trying to grasp what was happening, where I was, who this girl was… but she didn't seem ready to wait for my explanation.
The girl walked ahead of me, leading me somewhere unclear, as if we were walking through thick fog, or as if our steps crossed between reality and illusion.
Then… the scene changed.
I was no longer there, no longer walking behind her. Suddenly, I found myself somewhere else entirely—amid flames.
My eyes widened in shock, and heat swept over me, like a blaze devouring everything around me. Tongues of fire rose, dancing wildly, as if trying to swallow me. I was trapped, unable to breathe, unable to think.
"Where am I?"
My words came out broken, weak against the roar of the flames. I couldn't comprehend anything, everything was too fast, too burning, too frightening.
My vision began to blur, the heat made my body—which was the body of a small child—collapse, as if I was melting amid the tongues of flame.
Then…
The door of the room was violently opened, and the silhouette of a tall person appeared. I lifted my head with difficulty, trying to see his face, a desperate attempt to understand what was happening.
But time did not allow me to see his face.
All that helped me was darkness, again.
"Are these the memories of the boy Kyle?"