"Damn."
I muttered as I woke to see a scenery out of this world. My last memory was the sensation of falling and waking up with a hell of a hangover. I forced myself to sit up. That's when I saw it. The sky was fractured. Shattered clouds drifted across streaks of impossible light, bending in ways that shouldn't exist. Around me, ruins jutted from the earth like broken bones like in those apocalyptic movies, glowing faintly with lines of energy that pulsed like a heartbeat. Structures I couldn't name, cracked and glowing faintly like they were alive.
I froze, breath caught in my throat.
"What drugs did I take to make me see this shit, and where the hell am I?"
My first thought was drugs. A hallucination cooked up by too many sleepless nights. Maybe I'd blacked out at my desk or passed out on the street. I even slapped my cheek once, twice, hard enough to sting.
"Did I just get isekai'd? Wtf? How? Last time I checked, I didn't get hit by a truck and didn't see a goddess like in those anime and light novels. So I got transmigated or some shit?"
A nervous laugh escaped me, thin and hollow.
"No… no, this isn't right. This isn't—"
The silence pressed in on me. No cars, no voices of humans that I was used to. Just the faint whisper of wind through ruins that had no place on Earth.
Panic clawed up my chest. My hands trembled as I gripped the stone beneath me, desperate for something solid, something real. But the ground pulsed faintly under my palm, alive with a hum I recognized but couldn't place.
I forced myself upright, heart pounding from panic and unease.
This wasn't home. Not any place I knew on Earth. Not even close. I took a deep breath to calm my restless heart.
"Let's be rational about this and gather the facts." I looked down at myself. "I'm alone. I'm still dressed like I was heading to the office—a button-up shirt, black trousers, a watch, and sneakers. No gear aside from my wallet, no pack, nothing. And if my eyes aren't lying to me…" I swept my gaze across the alien horizon, "…this isn't Earth."
I scanned the ruins again, forcing my eyes to adjust. Wide field of vision. Elevated structures, toppled walls, and vegetation pushing through cracks in stone. Cover and concealment everywhere.
Instinct told me to move. Staying still meant being a target.
"Alright, recon first," I muttered under my breath, more to keep my nerves steady than anything else. "Find high ground, water, maybe signs of life."
I adjusted my shirt cuffs, the absurdity hitting me again—this wasn't field gear. No rucksack. No weapons. Just a pair of sneakers and whatever useless crap was in my pockets.
One step. Then another. This place is seriously giving me the creeps.
The air was unnaturally clean, crisp in a way Earth air hadn't been in decades. Every breath carried a faint metallic tang, like the world itself was charged. My footsteps echoed too loudly against the broken pavement, with no traffic noise or distant city hum to mask me.
"This is fucking surreal," I whispered, more to myself than anyone.
I explored and walked for 1 hour, finding ruins and unfamiliar landscapes. From what I observe so far,the biomes here aren't Earth's. Not even close. I tried to think like I was back on a mission: Water, Food, Shelter, and points of egress.
But my brain kept snagging on the same fact like a fucking broken record that none of this matched Earth. Not the sky—too pale, like a canvas washed of color. Not the air—too clean. Not even the ruins—they were alien, yet hauntingly deliberate, like someone wanted them left this way.
My watch was still ticking, but the hours stretched thin, uncertain. Eventually, I found myself moving uphill, following instinct more than reason. High ground meant perspective.
That's when I saw it, or to be more precise, her.
A girl lay across the stone right beside the pathway, motionless, framed by shattered ruins. Hair spilling over cold stone, clothes untouched by dirt or blood. At first I thought it was a statue. A monument, maybe.
Then her chest rose and fell.
Alive.
I froze, scanning the surroundings. No threats. No movement. Just her.
I stepped closer, sneakers crunching against the dust. My pulse hammered harder with each pace, some unease I couldn't name coiling in my gut. Then I saw her beautiful face—soft, peaceful, utterly out of place in this wasteland.
And my breath caught.
"No…fucking way."
Recognition slammed into me, hard enough that I actually staggered back a step. My brain scrambled for logic, denial, anything—but the features in front of me were burned into my memory. I'd seen them a hundred times before.
"…Rover."
The name slipped out before I could stop it. My voice cracked echoing against the ruins.
Not just some stranger. Not a random. It was her. The protagonist. The character. The one you wake up as in the game of Wuthering Waves.
My stomach twisted, panic and disbelief fighting for ground. I glanced at the ruins again—the terrain, the atmosphere, the way the sky looked weird asf. It wasn't just similar. It was identical.
Solaris-3.
I wasn't hallucinating and I certainly wasn't dreaming.
Somehow, impossibly, I was standing inside the game. With no way of knowing the logic behind it.
And The Lord Arbiter herself was right in front of my very eyes
"What the hell did I just walked myself into"