'Why?'
'Why am I falling?'
'Why am I in this endless darkness?'
A beautiful pair of pure white wings was all Isaac Martell could see in the darkness.
The sound of the wind rushing past his ears made him nauseated. His mind was a complete mess of jumbled thoughts.
Isaac did all he could to regain control of his falling body, but all he could do was stare at the wings.
'Does this wing belong to me?'
With how the wings were placed, Isaac felt the answer was obvious. But he couldn't understand one thing:
'Why would I have wings?'
For as far as Isaac remembered, he was just an ordinary person living a paycheck-to-paycheck life of a corporate slave.
Having wings as beautiful as the ones he had was nothing short of a fantasy. Wings like these should belong to an angel, not him.
'Is this a dream?'
A sense of relief washed over him at the thought.
If this were a dream, then perhaps he would wake up anytime soon.
But the passing time did not help; all it did was hurt Isaac's mind like a hammer slamming ruthlessly.
'Did I drink a little too much last night?'
'Mom was right, I should stop using alcohol as a way to escape reality.'
Isaac tried to sigh, but he couldn't even do that.
After an unknown amount of time that felt like an eternity to Isaac, something finally happened.
His body broke through something, and the sound of glass shattering into pieces echoed in his ears.
Isaac finally blinked as a different reality settled around him. He was free, but he wasn't where he thought he would wake up.
He was in a garden, with his back against a tree, and a myriad of different people stood around him, talking to their associates. What stood out was that every one of them had a blurred face.
Like they were part of a memory long forgotten.
'What…?'
Isaac blinked once again, and the world shifted around him.
The pain in his mind slowed, letting him have a clear picture of where he was, and all he could see was an unknown ceiling made of wood.
He turned his head. A cleanly arranged set of herbs and medicine sat on a table inside a tray.
Confusion and shock had Isaac rooted in place like a living corpse. The scent of medicine did not help at all.
Isaac abruptly sat up and almost lost consciousness. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to balance a body that didn't feel like his own.
Still too shocked to think, Isaac looked around to understand the environment he was in.
The room was of decent size with a single door and no windows; a chimney sat on one side, simple and plain.
A single oil lantern cast warm, unsteady light across the floorboards.
Isaac also found a mirror on one side of the room. Horrified, he slowly walked towards it and blinked, registering himself in the reflection.
Silver hair, blue eyes, a thin, malnourished body, and a rather handsome face with hollow cheeks.
What stood out the most was the ears.
Isaac slowly raised his hand to touch the elongated ears.
'Elf…?'
The thought lingered in his mind for a long while.
'D-did I transmigrate as an elf?'
Isaac wanted to laugh at the absurd situation he found himself in.
He had grown up reading fantasy novels, light novels, manhwa — he knew exactly what was happening.
Even though he had fantasized about something like this many times, he found himself lost for words.
'Which deity did I manage to offend badly enough to end up here?'
Isaac was desperately trying to keep himself calm so as not to cause a scene; he didn't want everyone to doubt him on the very first day.
But as his thoughts settled for a moment, memories began to enter his mind.
They weren't an entire set of someone's life memories, but a small portion of them.
Isaac Elowen was the body's name. He had lived in a hidden elven settlement near the borders of a human kingdom called Angmar.
His father and mother were unknown, and so was the rest of the family.
For the first six years of his life, Isaac had lived with the tribe leader's family, who had taken care of him as their own.
The last memory of the body was of a fire, and after that, there was nothing — as if he had been in a coma for a long time.
Isaac panicked even more as the memories settled.
'Don't conclude anything right now.'
With the help of the bed, Isaac moved towards the table that held the herbs.
He didn't recognise any of them, and almost all of them felt foreign.
'Did anyone feed me herbs?' Isaac slowly tried to touch one.
A chill ran down his spine as he stepped back from the herb mixed with other medicines.
'What was that feeling!?'
He turned to look at the mirror once again. There was nothing wrong with him.
'But why am I an elf?' He swallowed hard. 'Is this some lucid dream?'
Before he could think of anything else, the door of the room swung open.
An elf wearing an odd, baggy full-body outfit walked inside, only to freeze in place.
Isaac tried to speak, but the woman let out a soundless scream before running out of the room.
"H-hey!" Isaac dragged his body towards the door with difficulty.
Holding the door frame, he took a few seconds to steady his shallow breathing.
But as he looked out, he lost his breath once again.
He was in an elevated house from where he could see an entire town built around a giant red tree.
Isaac held his breath at the beautiful sight.
It was, objectively, one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
But his gaze dimmed as more and more elves walked out of their houses to look in his direction.
As the morning sun shone its first light on him, an elf fell to his knees with a reverent smile.
"Messiah!"
Like a chain reaction, more and more elves knelt in his direction.
"Messiah!"
"Messiah!"
"Messiah!"
Isaac watched speechlessly as, before long, the entire city was on its knees.
"Oh! Messiah! Born from the World Tree itself!"
A voice echoed, drowning out the cheers of the entire city.
"Lead us to paradise!"
'...Did I just accidentally become the leader of a cult?'