Neil Goyal woke up with a sharp inhale. A familiar ceiling greeted him when he opened his eyes. An old ceiling fan was circling in front of his eyes attached to the ceiling with a creaking sound which was absolutely not pleasant to hear.
His heart was thumping blood continuously in his whole body as his body was not yet accustomed to the scene he just went through some moments before.
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Night had settled over the quite street, the kind of silence that made small towns feel frozen in time. Neil Goyal walked with quick steps, earbuds dangling uselessly from his fingers. He had pulled them out the moment he heard the scream.
A sharp, panicked cry. Neil deduced the voice to be of a girl.
He arrived at a nearby corner alley and saw the girl: a teenage schoolgirl pressed against a wall, bag thrown aside, a tall-fat man looming over her like a psycho possessed.
Neil didn't hesitate.
"Hey, What are you doing?" he shouted, voice crackling from adrenaline. "Get away from her!" he roared.
The man turned, annoyed, not threatened.
Neil felt something not right. The man seems to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol from first glance.
Neil stepped in front of the girl, body acting before his mind could catch up.
"Run", Neil whispered to the girl behind him.
She ran away from the psycho, but the man didn't act.
The knife just flashed in front of Neil, Neil reacted too late. A sharp pain tore through his stomach. The man pushed the knife deep down in his stomach and then pulled it out.
Immediately blood gushed out from Neil's body. His legs collapsed, the world collapsed in front of his eyes as he fell to the pavement.
He heard sirens in the distance, but the psycho immediately fed away from the crime scene. He heard footsteps fading, voices echoing and felt everything blurred.
He blinked slowly, trying to stay awake, but the edges of his started closing slowly.
Is this how it ends..? After everything that happened in my life..
I never took advantage of others, always tried to help others, forgave those also who tried to take advantage of me.
But life never had a happy ending for me it seems. I was destined to lead a life full of misery until the end.
His breath grew thin. His eyes completely closed now. Darkness embraced him wholly.
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After remembering the past events. Neil sat up so fast that he felt dizzy.
"No way... this isn't real."
He scrambled to the mirror on the wardrobe door.
A young face stared back at him, belonging to someone who has not experienced any hardship yet, presumably of someone who has not entered the workforce yet.
He looked like when he was 18 years old, Clear skin, no stubble. Then he noticed the area around his stomach, no knife wound, no blood.
He checked the digital clock on the desk.
1 April 2014.
He was in a state of shock, he stumbled back onto his bed, chest rising and falling rapidly.
2014. Ten years earlier. The year everything began changing for online writers. The exact year Webnovel launched globally for the first time.
He ran to his old second hand laptop, pressed the power button, and the screen flickered to life after buzzing like a flying mosquito just before you are going to sleep.
He opened the browser with trembling fingers and the headline hit him like a punch.
"WEBNOVEL opens to Global Authors: New era of online Fiction Begins."
Neil stared at the screen. His mind raced.
Something was wrong. or right, or.. impossible.
As he surfed the browser more he observed that:
There were no Marvel movies trending.
No anime forums.
No game trailers.
No manga discussions.
No fan arts.
No fantasy universes.
That he knew of from his previous life.
All the cultural giants of the world were missing. Completely missing.
His breath caught. "This world.. doesn't have any of them?"
He leaned back, trying to process it, but as he squeezed his eyes shut, something strange happened.
A flood of memories. Sharp. Crystal Clear. Perfect entered his mind.
Every detail of the previous world.
Every story arc that he had followed.
Every movie and anime he had ever seen.
Every manga panel he had ever read.
Every webnovel that he had ever binged-watch.
Every game that he had played.
Every plot twist.
Every villain motive.
Every theme and background songs.
Every magical system outline that he saw.
Every fictional universe ever created in the original world.
All of these information was now present in his mind. Like he had lived a thousand lives and remembered every one of them flawlessly.
He gasped, grabbing his head.
His mind was limitless, sharp, overflowing.
Not chaotic, just unbelievably clear.
It wasn't a system or a divine voice. There was no panel, no quest, no cheat menu.
Just memory and perfect, complete memory.
The ultimate creative weapon for a world deprived of Fiction.
He opened his laptop again, hands steadier from before. He understood something, in this world imagination was empty, untouched. The canvas was completely blank.
He had the entirety of another world's fictional history stored inside his mind.
Every universe, character, epic idea.
And this world had none of it. No One Piece, Naruto, Pokemon, Harry Potter.
A slow dangerous, ambitious smile grew on his face.
"If this world contained not one of this fantasy", then it was his moral responsibility to introduce this world to the absolute masterpieces from his previous life.
He would reintroduce imagination itself.
Neil placed his fingers on the keyboard. The cursor blinked, waiting for him, and with perfect memory guiding him, he began typing the opening line of a story that would change everything.
A story this world would have never seen if not for him.