Chapter 5
"Wh… wh… where am I?" Zen could be heard asking as his blurry eyes slowly fluttered open. His head was pounding, as if a huge hammer had been used to bash it repeatedly, making the throbbing grow more intense with each passing second.
"Wh… what happened?!" Zen asked again as he tried to touch his head, only to feel his hands moving slower than they should have.
"Why does it feel like I've just been reborn? It's like I'm a child trying to get used to his new body or something," he muttered in confusion as his hand finally reached his forehead, attempting to ease the headache.
His vision began to clear, and as his eyes adjusted, he turned his head to look around.
"Huh? This isn't my house… and definitely not my room. Where is this place?" Zen asked, his voice filled with shock, as he slowly sat up to inspect his surroundings.
A foul stench immediately assaulted his nostrils. A nauseating mixture of sweat, damp straw, and something that smelled suspiciously like rotten cabbage and rat urine.
He blinked several times, trying to adjust to the dim light filtering in through the cracks of a ceiling that looked like it could collapse if someone so much as sneezed.
The shack was no more than a small, square box of rotting wood. Mold crept along the warped wooden walls like it was trying to escape the structure itself.
Spiderwebs clung to every corner, some so thick Zen could've sworn they sagged under their own weight. The floor was bare dirt, cracked in places and dotted with small holes that reeked of rat activity.
A rusty iron bowl lay overturned in the corner beside a pile of straw that seemed to serve as a pitiful excuse for a bed.
There was no window, just a crude hole carved into the wall that let in a narrow shaft of gray light and probably every insect within a three-mile radius.
The only door was a crooked slab of wood hanging from a single hinge, barely held closed by a frayed loop of rope.
Zen sat up fully, and the straw beneath him crunched like dry bones. He rubbed his temples, his head still aching.
"Either I'm in a shack… or this is someone's twisted idea of a tutorial-level torture chamber. What the hell is this?! This is a massive downgrade from my room. Wait… what even happened?" Zen muttered as the throbbing in his skull intensified, and the events from just moments ago came flooding back to him.
From the deal to play the new game and drop a review, to him actually playing it and thrashing it. Then came the call from the game's owner, the threat, the sudden earthquake, and finally, the VR headset incident that hinted at something far beyond virtual immersion.
"Wait! Transmigration?!" Zen shouted, shooting up from the ground. His heart thumped wildly, each beat louder than the last, as his mind raced through endless, frantic possibilities.
Glancing around the dimly lit room once more, he spotted a torn mat lying in the corner. The fabric was barely holding together, its once-vibrant colors faded with age and neglect.
Zen took a few cautious steps forward, still trying to piece everything together. As he moved, his foot bumped into something metallic. Curious, he bent down and picked it up.
The shiny surface reflected a blurry image and that was when it hit him.
His reflection stared back at him.
Zen glanced down at his hands. They were bony, pale, and covered in grime. His fingers were long and thin, like twisted twigs, the nails yellowed and chipped, with enough dirt underneath them to plant a small garden.
His arms were wiry, lacking any real muscle, and his skin had the sickly hue of someone who hadn't seen a full meal or sunlight in weeks. Even the breeze that seeped in through the wooden cracks of the shack made him shiver.
His torso was lean to the point of looking malnourished. Every rib jutted out sharply, his abdomen sunken in like a dried-up sponge. His body looked like a canvas of suffering.
Scars and bruises peppered his body, both faded and fresh, as though the previous owner had been used as a punching bag for sport. The bruises varied in color and shape, hinting at repeated abuse or harsh training.
His legs were equally thin and spindly, the kind that made walking feel like balancing on stilts made of broomsticks. He felt weak, and his knees threatened to buckle under his weight.
He wore what could barely be called clothing: a sleeveless tunic made of scratchy burlap, stiff with dried sweat and grime, and torn trousers cinched at the waist with a bit of rope. The cloth smelled of mildew and dust.
No shoes. Just callused, cracked feet that looked like they'd been trekking across gravel since birth. Each step hurt, and the coldness of the ground bit at his soles.
Zen reached up and touched his face. He felt sharp cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and stubble rough enough to cut stone. His cheeks were hollow, his lips cracked and dry.
His hair was an oily, unkempt mess, uneven like it had been hacked off with a dull knife. It hung over his eyes, matted in places, and sticky from sweat. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a cracked shard of metal hanging on the wall.
Hollow eyes stared back at him, sunken and ringed with dark circles, his irises a faded gray that looked more dead than alive. His expression was lifeless, worn out, and haunted.
He stared at the face for a moment longer.
"What the fuck?! Why do I look like a background character that dies before the tutorial ends?" Zen exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief as he kept staring at his reflection while occasionally pinching his cheeks to confirm if what he was seeing was real.
"Wait! How the hell is this even possible? If I'm truly in the game, how did the corporation pull this off? How can they transport me into the game?
What the hell do I do here? How do I return to the human world? How do I survive? What do I do now?" Zen kept bombarding himself with questions as he fell on his backside, tears streaming down his face.
'I wish I knew. I wouldn't have trashed that game. I wish I knew. I would have just apologized. Funny enough, I haven't even experienced the horrors this game promises, and already I'm scared.
Just staring at my pale features, I'm certain that I'm in the body of a weak and worthless NPC that won't amount to much. I think the game wants to totally kill me here. I'm freaking cooked!' he thought with a sigh as he turned toward the slab of wood covering the shack's entrance.
"There's no point locking myself in here and moping all day long. Let me go and carefully explore what this new world holds for me. Who knows how long I will stay here for? Who am I kidding? I might even die in a few minutes." Zen chuckled dryly as he picked himself up to head out so he could inspect what the world he was in was like.
Little did he know the horrors he was going to experience. Little did he know the battle he was going to face by stepping out.