It was just another day, another stream, more mods installed out of pure curiosity.
Kael Vernier, his face illuminated by the blue glow of the monitor, mumbled between clicks. The artificial light accentuated the fatigue on his features, contrasting with the digital energy of the worlds he explored.
The stream had been going for hours. His voice occasionally broke the silence with wry comments, frustrated sighs, or faint laughter. Most of the time, only the constant typing and bursts of combat music could be heard. The viewers, scattered and silent, threw comments like stones in a still pond:
"Kael, try this one. Add flying fish."
"This one introduces the mechanic of drinking different 'liquids.' What do you think?"
"This one has no description or pictures, but they say something strange appears at the end."
He gave a crooked smile.
—"Flying fish, huh? Next up, we'll have colonists singing opera while growing explosives."
True to form, he downloaded them all without hesitation. The appeal wasn't in winning, but in discovering: finding something broken, something strange, something that pushed the limits of the game toward the absurd or the sublime.
He started a game.
He colonized, built, researched.
Everything seemed normal... until the stream ended.
And so did the game.
The screen faded to black.
Then, a silent flash.
No message. No system error. Just white light, intense and enveloping.
Like that moment before waking up, where everything is a burst of emptiness and clarity.
His vision disappeared.
His body became light, almost hollow, as if it were being drained from within.
His consciousness, torn from reality, dissolved like uncompiled code.
---
Cold.
Absolute silence.
Lights flickered in the darkness of an impossible-to-decipher space.
His mind was a broken swarm, floating between frayed memories and sensations that didn't fit.
Time distorted, without rhythm or direction.
He didn't know if he was asleep, dead, trapped... or in the process of installing himself.
His body... was different.
He was no longer in front of his computer.
The hum of the fans, the faint sound of the street, even the chair beneath him... all were gone.
And something... or someone... was waiting for him.
A presence. Not visual. Not auditory. But there. Watching him. Measuring him.
The void wasn't absence.
It was density.
As if forgotten lines of code tangled around the edges of his thoughts.
---
Kael woke up.
The first thing he saw was the sarcophagus: shiny, angular, constructed of an alloy that seemed alive.
It pulsed with a faint internal glow, synchronized with his breathing.
He floated in a large but spare room. There were no visible panels or consoles, but the walls emanated a sense of silent vigilance.
As if they were scanning him, trying to classify him… unsuccessfully.
He tried to sit up.
His body responded without resistance. But it wasn't his own.
The skin, smooth as liquid crystal, moved beneath the surface.
Each inhalation altered its shape.
His heart beat with turbine precision, silent but powerful.
Every muscle readjusted according to the environment, anticipating invisible threats.
He looked at his hands: they resembled polished metal, yet retained the suppleness of modified flesh.
No scars. No history.
And he understood.
This body wasn't human.
It was something greater.
Something designed to adapt, not age.
He stood.
The floor was soft to the touch, as if responding to his presence.
He slid to a door at the back of the room, made of an opaque, light-absorbing material.
No handles, no locks. Unbreakable to the eye, impregnable to the touch.
He felt something on his back.
A vibration.
As if something inside him were beginning to activate.
He closed his eyes.
And he saw it without seeing.
No interface appeared, no floating HUD.
But his mind was beginning to understand.
He looked at the sarcophagus.
He knew—without reading or analyzing it—that it was composed of a metal with regenerative channels, designed by a technology superior to Archotech.
It wasn't data.
It was sensations transformed into instant knowledge.
An "identification ability."
Not mechanical, not digital.
Mental. Pure enhanced intuition.
As if his thoughts were now capable of reading the universe.
He walked a few more steps.
The door didn't open.
But something behind it pulsed.
Not with urgency. With intent.
Kael stopped.
His thoughts spiraled, but not with fear.
It was a mix of confusion, reverence, and excitement.
Was this RimWorld?
An extreme mod? A deep simulation?
Or… something else?
Then he remembered.
The nameless mod.
The ending screen.
The hidden message:
*"Thanks for playing. Click to start the immersive experience."*
And he did.
And now he was here.
---
He approached the center of the room.
The silence wasn't empty.
It was anticipation.
He felt the weight of the surroundings.
As if every object recognized him.
As if space remembered all the steps he'd never taken… but was always destined to take.
He looked at himself in the blurry reflection of the door.
He was no longer Kael Vernier, a streamer of endless curiosity.
He was the result of years of mods, games, failures, and discoveries.
A body forged by what he played, what he dreamed, what he imagined.
He still didn't know why he was there.
But he was alive.
And the universe he'd shaped with mods and fantasies—that chaos he'd once only shared for entertainment—now stretched out before him like his battlefield…
…and his home.