Before anything else, I would like to tell you all that this story is different from the stories I have written since I started writing back in 2016. Well, yeah, I'm 13 years old when I started writing a novel. And I've been writing stories for almost 8 years and there's still no happening in my life.
Well, this is just a hobby, though. I only write when I feel it.
But even before I got here, I wrote stories in other platforms, too. I got an award—luck by the stars above—and then some of my stories were published as a book.
I'm taking too much here, hope you don't mind it hahaha!
Anyway...
[Will you accept playing with the dreamers?]
[YES] [NO]
LOADING■■■
[UH-OH, YOU CAN'T GO BACK ANYMORE. I GUESS YOU PRESS 'YES' INSTEAD.]
[REDIRECTING...]
[RESURECTING...]
[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE BEEN RESURECTED TO THE OTHER WORLD!]
OBJECTIVE: Read the story 'til the end.
REWARD: ???
□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□
Death wasn't peaceful.
It was violence.
The kind that didn't roar but whispered like a split-second symphony of shattering glass and buckling steel, the wet gasp of air forced from lungs too slow to flee. The scent of gasoline and burnt rubber clung to the back of my throat, and it was as thick as regret. One moment, I was gripping the steering wheel, my phone buzzing with a hospital's unforgiving number.
Caller ID: St. Mary's, 3:14 PM.
And the next...
SCREEEECHHHHH!!!
The world fractured into a kaleidoscope of pain. Light bent. Sound warped. Time stretched thin as a dying man's breath before it snapped, swallowing me whole.
Then, I see nothing.
No light. No sound. Just an endless void where even time felt like a liar.
Is this it?
The thought was a dull blade twisting between my ribs.
No second chances? No last words?
My mother's face flickered behind my eyelids. Her papery skin stretched too tight over fragile bones, her fingers clutching mine with a strength that belied the machines humming around her.
"You'll be okay." A lie we both knew. A lie I'd wanted to believe, even as the doctors' silence grew louder than any diagnosis.
And then...
[Ding!]
The sound was saccharine and artificial. The kind of noise a game makes when it's trying too hard to be friendly—like a clown's grin painted over a mouth full of knives.
A screen materialized in the dark, its borders glowing an eerie cerulean, pulsing like a living thing. Words scrolled across it in jagged, too-bright text:
▷ SYSTEM ALERT!!
▷ [Let's Play, Dreamer!]
▷ You have been selected.
▷ Will you accept this invitation?
I stared at it.
Selected? By what? Some cosmic lottery? A bored god with a penchant for tragedy?
The options pulsed: [YES] or [NO].
I almost laughed.
No? As if death had left me a choice. As if I could walk away from the chance to claw my way back—to her, to that sterile hospital room with its wilted flowers and hollow promises, to the life I'd barely lived before it was ripped away.
My finger hovered. And the void held its breath.
I pressed [YES].
The darkness screamed in silence.
Fire erupted in my veins, molten and merciless. Muscles knit themselves back together with threads of agony. Bones snapped into place like puzzle pieces forced into alignment by a cruel hand. I gasped, lungs burning as they inflated for the first time, and my body hit the ground hard enough to bruise the soul beneath the skin.
Cool grass.
The scent of damp earth, rich and ancient. A sky so blue it hurt to look at, stretching endless and unfamiliar above the canopy of trees.
I rolled onto my knees, coughing, my fingers digging into soil that felt alive beneath my nails.
▷ [Welcome, Dreamer!]
▷ [Your story begins now!]
Golden letters hovered in the air, mocking in their cheer.
"What the hell is this?" My voice was raw and unfamiliar. Too young and too unbroken. A stranger's tongue in my mouth.
But I've got no answer.
Just the whisper of wind through towering trees, their leaves rustling like the pages of a book left open to a forgotten chapter.
Somewhere in the distance, a bird cried out—a sound like shattered glass and silver bells.
This wasn't Earth.
Or if it was, it was an Earth that had forgotten concrete and steel, trading skyscrapers for sentinel pines and asphalt for untamed wilds.
A new notification blinked into existence, its edges flickering like a dying star.
▷ [ERROR: Connection to Home World is temporarily unavailable.]
My stomach dropped.
Temporarily unavailable??!
"No!" The word tore from me. "No, you don't get to do that."
The system responded with infuriating calm.
▷ [Objective: Survive. Thrive. Dream.]
▷ [Reward: A Wish.]
A wish.
I exhaled, slow and deliberate. The air here was sweeter than I remembered, thick with the perfume of wildflowers and something darker beneath—iron, maybe. Or destiny.
Fine.
If this was a game, I'd play it. If this was a test, I'd pass it.
And if this world stood between me and home?
I'll burn it to the ground.