Sunlight streamed in through the window, landing on Zen Lee's face. He seemed to be frowning in his sleep. He opened his eyes with a gasp, his chest rising and falling. The ceiling, with its mildew and peeling paint, came into view. He pushed himself up, turning his body sideways until his feet landed on the floor.
"What a weird dream," he thought, still feeling hungry. In that dream, he had felt an uncontrollable hunger, with no food in sight other than the orbit.
Feeling groggy, he dismissed the dream as just that—a weird dream. He rubbed his face with his hands, chasing away the grogginess. Stretching his arms above his head, he stood up.
He looked at the rectangular patch of sunlight on the table. He sighed. "This place doesn't have running water."
Disappointed, he turned his head sideways and crouched down. Reaching out his hand, he retrieved the containers from under the bunk bed and stood up, bringing them to the table. He placed them side-by-side on the tabletop.
He lifted the lid, a silent dread settling in his gut. Inside, nestled on a bed of crumpled paper, lay his meager meal: two slices of bread, hardened to the consistency of cardboard, and a tube of edible paste.
'It's better than nothing,' he thought as he sat down on the plastic chair and picked up a slice of bread with his left hand and the tube of edible paste with his right. Squeezing the colorless paste that tasted like mud onto the slice, treating it like jam, he picked up the other slice of bread, putting it on top of the slice with the colorless paste, making it a sandwich.
"More like a muddy sandwich," he said. He picked up the muddy sandwich, bringing it closer to his mouth. He took a bite; the bread was hard to chew, and the paste tasted like mud, as expected. The muddy sandwich almost made him throw up.
He realized his taste buds were accustomed to muddy paste and cardboard-like bread. After a couple of gulps, he finished the muddy sandwich. His hands, of their own accord, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.
He sighed. "Why couldn't I have transmigrated to the body of a young master. Surrounded by cute maids serving luxury meals like those protagonists in novels and webtoons?"
After putting the lid on the empty container, he lifted the lid of the other container. He reached inside with his right hand to the bottom of the container, grasped the orbit, and pulled it out.
To carry out his plan of transmigrating back to his world, he didn't want to stick around any longer in this bizarre and horrifying world, living as a slum rat, barely surviving and potentially dying of hunger. Death by starvation was one of the worst deaths he'd heard about in the documentaries, and facing the brutal trial of the orbit was even worse. His soul would die, and his body would become a mindless monster if he failed the trial.
And on the off chance he survived and passed the trial, he would receive a boon and prepare for his first visit to a planet in the Singularity Realm at a certain time of the year. Nobody knew what kind of planet he would end up on. The Singularity Realm encompassed a galaxy; if he ended up on a planet with no oxygen, he would die within the first few seconds.
He resolved himself as he remembered yesterday how he had nonchalantly made a plan about becoming an orbiter if he didn't get back home, without thinking about the details. It was understandable because he wasn't in the right state of mind yesterday, having just transmigrated.
"Here goes nothing." He turned the orbit to its pointy edge using his fingers; the edge was reflecting sunlight. He brought his left thumb closer to the edge. He flicked his right wrist upward, creating a slight cut. "Ahh—"
The pain was bearable, nothing compared to the pain he went through yesterday checking the orbit. It had a small bit of blood on its edge.
"Is that enough, or should I add a bit more?" he thought as he rubbed his left thumb on the smooth surface of the Orbit. Ignoring the stinging pain, he didn't remember the amount of blood that stained the orbit back home.
He put the Orbit on the table. He couldn't recall how long it took him to transmigrate here; he just knew it was the time he had taken to bandage the cut, go to bed, and fall asleep.
"Ten to twenty minutes? No, I'll wait half an hour." He muttered as he took the wallet from the bottom of the container. Turning it on, he checked the time: 11:35. So, he should get back at around 12:05 or even earlier than that.
With nothing to do other than wait, he entertained wild thoughts like eating meat skewers and ramen, playing League with his bro's and roasting them on their ability to play, going to his job, hearing his manager's nagging, and trying to be a bit more social with his colleagues.
After what felt like five minutes, he glanced at the wallet, checking the time again: 12:11.
"Whaaat?" he almost jumped from his seat in disbelief. What felt like five minutes had actually been thirty-six minutes. He didn't believe it.
"It must be broken because of its old model," he said while counting the seconds in his head until it reached 12:12.
He counted to sixty seconds in his head and looked at the wallet again, and it showed : 12:12.
The flame of hope extinguished in his heart. Despair crept in. He felt as if he had found the light at the end of the tunnel, then reached the end of the tunnel only to find the light wasn't at the end of the tunnel but in the sky, unreachable. Then, he took a step forward, thinking he could reach it, and fell down into the abyss of despair.