I woke up to the kind of silence that doesn't just surround you—it presses in. It wasn't peaceful or gentle, like the quiet you get after rain, or the stillness of dawn before the birds start arguing. No. This was the kind of silence that felt wrong. Too still. Too hollow.
It felt like the world had hit pause. Like everything—every rustle of leaves, every distant breeze, every chirp, buzz, or hum—had been sucked out of existence.
I stayed where I was, half-lying, half-sitting, my back pressed against something rough and damp. My eyes blinked up into a dim canopy of leaves I didn't recognize, tinged with faint blue light that filtered through in specks.
For a second, I thought I might've gone deaf.
I shifted slightly, and a twig snapped under my leg. The sound felt like a firecracker in a church.
I wasn't home. I wasn't in my condo. I wasn't anywhere I should be.
And the worst part?
Even the silence seemed to know that.
Cold dirt dug into my palms, and when I pushed myself up, dried leaves clung to my shirt. I was in a forest. Or at least, something that looked like one. Towering trees surrounded me, ancient and gnarled, their twisted branches reaching like claws toward a sky stained with sickly orange light. It wasn't night, and it wasn't day either. Just... dim. Like a dying fire flickering in the sky.
My breath came shallow, shaky. My heart beat hard in my chest like it was trying to punch its way out. I looked around, still on my knees, afraid that if I stood up too fast, something would see me.
I've read this scene before. Dozens of times. Some poor schmuck wakes up in another world, forest backdrop, zero instructions, cue the monsters. And now it was me.
Me.
"Okay," I whispered, trying not to freak out. "Okay, okay, okay. Think. What do they usually do in novels? Uh… scream? Run in circles? Open a status window? Yeah, that always works."
I slapped both cheeks lightly. Then harder. "Ow," I muttered, blinking. "Cool. So I'm definitely not dreaming. Great. Awesome. Ten out of ten immersion. Would panic again."
I forced a shaky laugh, the kind that comes out just to prove you're still functioning. "Nice. At least the pain settings are on. Very immersive experience."
Silence.
Not even a chirping bird to humor me with pity.
"Okay. So this is fine. I'm probably just... hallucinating. Stress. Caffeine withdrawal. Maybe the soda I left in the fridge was cursed."
The forest creaked around me—trees swaying gently like they were listening. Judging.
"Right. That's not creepy at all."
I took one cautious step forward, then immediately backtracked with all the grace of a baby giraffe as my foot snagged a root. "Ah! Nope. Nature is hostile. Message received."
The wind stirred again, slow and deliberate, carrying with it the scent of damp wood, earth, and something vaguely… rotten.
I cringed. "Ugh. Okay, new rule. If I find a corpse or a magical deer starts talking to me, I'm uninstalling this reality."
Still nothing. No tutorials. No guide. No kindly old wizard descending from the heavens with exposition.
"Man, even cheap games throw you a skeleton NPC or something. What is this, hard mode?"
I hugged myself, feeling the cool air against my bare skin—well, except for the thin boxer I was wearing.
"Okay," I said again, louder this time, like volume could scare the fear back into the bushes. "Status window!"
Ding.
Something chimed, bright and far too cheerful for the current existential crisis, and then—there it was.
A glowing panel blinked to life in midair, crisp and translucent like a hologram pulled straight out of a sci-fi movie. I blinked. Then squinted. Then leaned in.
Skip name.
[Rank: Divine – Initiate]
[Level: 1]
[Sanctioned Hero Count: 0/1]
[Faith: 0]
I stared.
I kept staring.
"…Okay," I muttered, trying to keep my breathing steady. "That's not fan-made. This is not a prank. There is no way my siblings coded this in a week just to mess with me."
My stomach twisted, tight and cold.
"So it's real," I whispered, voice trembling. "It's actually real."
The words hung there, glowing silently like they were proud of ruining my life.
The fear didn't just trickle in—it slammed me like a truck. I felt my knees wobble, and my brain immediately offered a rerun of every fictional protagonist who ever got isekai'd. Except they always had swords. Or cheat skills. Or emotional stability.
I looked at the floating window again.
"Faith: zero," I muttered bitterly. "Wow. Even the divine UI thinks I'm spiritually bankrupt."
A dry laugh escaped me, cracked at the edges. "Okay. Breathe. This is fine. I'm level one. That's... not rock bottom. That's technically the start of a hero's journey, right? Right?"
The interface politely didn't answer.
I looked around at the silent forest. My breath clouded in the air. The chill had finally sunk past my hoodie and into my spine. The trees were still watching. Or maybe that was paranoia.
I took a step back and felt the fear bubble up again—sharp, sudden, choking.
"I didn't want this," I mumbled. My voice came out too quiet, too small.
My vision blurred.
"I didn't ask for this," I said again, louder this time, as if the system might hear and send a refund.
But nothing changed.
"I just wanted to play a game," I said, forcing a laugh that sounded more like a whimper. "I didn't want to be the game."
Not just fear—panic, grief, confusion. All at once, like my body was catching up to what my brain had been politely ignoring.
My knees gave out. I dropped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
"I didn't want this," I croaked, voice barely audible over the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. "I didn't… I don't…"
I liked games. I liked fantasy. I built fantasy. I spent hours obsessing over magic systems and level curves and party compositions.
But they were supposed to stay on screens.
Not crawl out and swallow me whole.
"What if I can't go back?" I whispered. "What if I die here? What if I die in the tutorial and it's just—'You failed as a divine, try again next time'?"
No answer. Not that I expected one.
My hands trembled. I stared at them—same fingers, same bitten nails, same little scar from when I burned myself with a glue gun in seventh grade. But everything else was wrong.
"I'm not built for this," I said, almost laughing. "I have noodle arms and a vitamin D deficiency. My greatest athletic achievement is dodging social interaction."
Tears welled up before I could stop them. I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth.
"I want to go home," I muttered.
No, not muttered. Begged.
"I want to go home."
And just like that—snap.
The world… glitched.
Colors bled together. The sky folded in. The forest warped like someone had hit the liquify tool on reality.
I was falling.
No wind. No sensation.
Just—drop.
And then—
Sniff.
"…Ugh."
The smell hit first. A mix of fabric softener, dust, and something distinctly curtain-y. The kind of musty scent that only came from polyester not washed since the dinosaurs.
I blinked.
The ceiling. My ceiling. I was lying on my bed.
Silence.
I sat up slowly, patting myself like I was checking for body parts. Boxers? Check. Legs? Still scrawny, but check.
"Okay," I croaked. "Okay. So that… happened."
I looked down at my hands again. No glowing UI. No phantom gods. Just me. In my room. Alive.
I slumped back into the cushions.
"…Am I hallucinating? Did I eat expired ramen again?"
A beat.
"…No. That was definitely real. And I definitely cried in a magical forest."
I groaned and pulled a pillow over my face.