Inside a dirty alleyway cluttered with oily pipes, tangled electrical wires, and crumbling walls, a young man sat slouched against the concrete, his back pressed to the filth-streaked stone.
Above him, the sun struggled to pierce through the thick, polluted air, its light dim and sickly like a bad omen hanging in the sky.
He sighed, then forced his weak, frail body to move. As he stumbled through the narrow alley, his thoughts were far from calm. But they weren't panicked either, mostly because he was an idiot. The kind of idiot people usually called "a disappointment to his grandparents."
This was the world of Shadow Slave.
And this bum? He'd transmigrated into the body of some outskirt rat.
He didn't know his exact age, probably around fifteen or sixteen.
Now, if someone from Earth transmigrated into Shadow Slave, you'd expect them to aim high: conquer their First Nightmare, awaken some overpowered Aspect, dominate the world, blah blah blah.
But this guy? How the hell was someone who spent all day scrolling TikTok and playing Call of Duty supposed to pull that off? Not happening. No way.
Sure, he hadn't always been this dead inside. Back when he was younger, he was a proper menace, a fun one. He used to play football, basketball, tennis. He studied too, got good grades, actually enjoyed life. School was fun for him.
Okay… there was that one time he accidentally started a fire in the chemistry lab. And yeah, maybe he "helped" a few of his friends pass by adjusting their grades a little. He almost got expelled for that. But hey, his friends passed, didn't they?
He wasn't stupid about it either. He didn't just scribble in random numbers. He filled in the dates, memorized his teacher's password, and even copied her signature. They couldn't even change it without blowing the whole system up.
Honestly, most of his teachers liked him.
He studied hard, paid attention… but his pranks and constant troublemaking? Yeah, those drove them up the wall.
But hey, he was still a great student...
Well, if you ignore the time he threw a fan heater out the window from the fourth floor.
And the time he shattered a classroom window.
And the time he grabbed a fire extinguisher and drenched his classmates in foam like it was a snowball fight.
Oh, and skipping class to sneak off to another city, at twelve years old, to watch a football match.
Also, the heart attack he gave his teacher.
And the time he stole a ball, got into a fight with kids from another class, and… gave his other teacher a seizure.
Yeah. That one was rough. Poor grandma swallowed her tongue and blocked her airway.
As an honourable student, naturally, he tried to help. He ran to save his beloved teacher, even tried to pull her tongue out so she could breathe again. She bit his finger. So... he kind of left her there.
And that's not even ten percent of shit he pulled.
...
Okay, maybe he was an asshole.
But maybe... just maybe, it was because he'd done all that crazy shit. He'd tried everything he liked. Broke all the rules. Laughed, caused chaos, got burned, and burned others. And somehow… after all that? He felt hollow. Unmotivated. Like the fire inside had just flickered out.
He stopped living and started just... going through the motions. Scrolling endlessly. Playing games. Lying around. Reading novels he'd forget in a day. Drinking. Smoking. Basically all the crap that slowly ruins your life while convincing you it's fine.
So when he realized he'd transmigrated into Shadow Slave?
Yeah, no sunshine and rainbows. No spark of hope. No "finally, my new life begins!"
Just panic. And dread. And maybe a bit of quiet acceptance, because he was already used to feeling like shit.
He wasn't one of those delusional motherfuckers who thought they were better than everyone else. Okay, maybe a little delusional but not when it came to his own survival.
He didn't want to experience Nightmares.
He didn't want to see the Dream Realm, face tragedies, or lock eyes with some writhing abomination. He just wanted a comfortable life. A quiet corner where nothing tried to kill him.
Yeah... Good luck finding that in the Outskirts.
Smiling faintly, he looked at his home... a small shack cobbled together from bits and pieces of discarded, rusting metal.
"I'm fucked."
he muttered in a self-deprecating tone, chuckling quietly as he stepped into his so-called "house."
Inside, there was nothing but dust, a bunch of scraps, trash, and a few miserable-looking chairs. And a table, if you could even call it that. Just a chunk of synthetic wood he'd dragged out of a garbage heap.
Still, the situation wasn't entirely hopeless. There's a saying... something like, if someone else is drowning with you, it doesn't feel quite so bad. Or maybe he made that up. Whatever.
Point was, he wasn't the only one living this garbage-tier life. Someone else out there was stuck in the same rot. And somehow, that made the stench of survival a little easier to breathe.
"I'm home, honey,"
he called out with a bright smile.
But the warm tone wasn't returned with the same enthusiasm. Instead, it was met with a string of profanity so vile, you'd never believe it came from the mouth of a delicate-looking girl.
"Who's your honey, shithead!? Get that garbage inside and stop pulling crap like that, or I'll rip your balls off and feed them to you!"
He froze mid-step, blinking rapidly, then silently placed down his hard-earned spoils which was a couple of dead rats and a half-used pack of synthpaste he'd stolen while two idiots were busy beating the hell out of each other.
Benefits are most important, he thought wisely.
As our spiritual goat Fang Yuan once said:
"Victory and defeat are irrelevant. What matters are gains and losses."
"I'm so Fang Yuan, fr fr..."
He whispered, wiping away an imaginary tear like a proud disciple of demonic pragmatism.
And then-WHAM!
A chair slammed into his face, flipping him over like a broken NPC. He collapsed to the ground, a fallen warrior. A martyr. A legend who died heroically… In a battle he didn't even start.
Yep. That's what happens when your roommate is a Black girl raised in a Slavic household.
Sighing softly, he dragged his sore, bruised body across the room and collapsed onto the "bed"-just a slab of metal with torn clothes thrown over it to kind of mimic comfort.
"What's for dinner?"
She shot him a glare, kicked a piece of metal scrap, and cursed under her breath.
"Blyat! What do you think? Get your ass off the bed and sit the fuck down."
He stared up at the ceiling, which had more holes than his will to live. His cheerful smile slowly warped into something more... forced.
Tsk, tsk. I can't even lie down to rest. Such a harsh wife.
"I know what you're thinking," she growled. "And if you don't want me to destroy your future kids, then get the fuck up."
He blinked, shifted awkwardly, and obediently sat up.
"Yes, ma'am."
He started eating with an annoyed grunt but the irritation faded as a quiet, content smile tugged at his lips. The food might've looked like something scraped off a bunker floor, but after a day like this?
It hit the spot.
"Nothing like salt water soup… and sugar water for dessert. We're going all out tonight, huh?"
"Of course," she said dryly. "I put my love in it."
Silence settled between them. Both stared at their bowls, defeated, drained, and too tired to pretend anymore.
"We're cooked," he muttered.
"Stop reminding me of that."
After their "dinner," they cleaned up the room and headed out to scavenge for food.
He was oddly excited. It felt like a quest, and he threw himself into it like some low-level RPG character. The stakes were life and death, sure, but that just made it feel more real. More important. So he dedicated everything he had to completing it, even if that wasn't much.
"Hey, Luna... what do you think we should do?"
Luna sighed, her crystal-blue eyes narrowing in thought.
She wasn't what most would call attractive. Her body was malnourished, skin stretched over sharp bones, and dirt clung to every inch of her dark skin. She smelled just like he did-like smoke, sweat, and garbage. But still... her eyes. Deep and ocean-like. And her soft, white hair-unusual and ghostlike-could catch anyone's attention, even in a dump like this.
"I don't know, Amon... Our situation's shit," she said bluntly. "We're stuck in the Outskirts with no way out, and since we're both around sixteen... the Nightmare Spell could hit us any day now. If we can't survive the trial, we die. Simple as that."
Amon nodded slowly. A faint, curious smile curling on his lips, mostly out of habit. But deep down?
He was scared shitless.
And who wouldn't be? This wasn't a game. It was the Nightmare Spell. A trial that could break your mind or rip your body apart if you weren't strong enough. And neither of them were fighters. They had no training, no mentor, no support. Just two kids who woke up in the bodies of starving slum rats.
With a quiet sigh, Amon looked at his reflection in the cracked and dusty window beside him.
Just a skinny young man with curly black hair and deep, empty eyes. He wasn't strong. Wasn't brave. He looked just as frail and worn as Luna.
"What do you think? Where did that lunatic disappear to?"
Amon frowned, staring into the narrow, shadow-choked alleyway. Somewhere inside, faint and sickening, came the sound of bones breaking.
Luna was about to step forward, but Amon grabbed her arm and yanked them both down into a pile of trash. They crouched low behind the garbage, covering themselves with scraps of tarp and rusted metal.
The Outskirts weren't a playground. If you weren't careful, you died. Simple as that.
Luna struggled for a moment, clearly annoyed until she caught the sound too.
Her eyes widened in realization, and she froze beside him, her breathing growing slow and quiet.
Minutes passed. Then someone staggered out of the alley.
It was a young man. Tall, but hunched. His clothes were torn, one sleeve soaked in blood. His face was a mess. Split lip, swollen and blackened eye, nose crooked and leaking red. He limped forward, dragging one foot, his body trembling with every step.
If Amon was honest... he looked pathetic.
Beaten, broken and barely alive. But the way his lip twitched, the way his eyes darted around with paranoia and rage... it made Amon smile.
Who the hell did that to him?
That was a bad habit of his. In serious, tense, or hopeless situations... Amon laughed.
Not out of joy, but because his brain short-circuited. Panic turned to absurdity, and absurdity to laughter.
He once laughed at his neighbor's funeral. Got cursed out by half the street and nearly exiled from the wake. But it wasn't his fault. His mind just broke in situations like that. And right now?
One look at Luna's dirt-covered, rage-filled face sticking out of a pile of trash was enough to send a snort bubbling out of his nose.
He tried to hold it in. He really did.
Then, as the tall figure limped out of the darkness, Amon's laughter died mid-choke. His eyes widened in disbelief.
"Medici…?"
It was him. The third piece of their miserable, half-dead and barely-functioning Transmigrator trio. Bruised, bloodied, and limping like he'd gone twelve rounds with a gorilla.
"What the hell happened to you, dude?" Amon hissed. "Don't tell me you got your ass kicked again, you fucking fraud."
Medici blinked slowly, staring around the alley with vacant confusion until he noticed the two sets of eyes peeking out from a pile of trash.
He sighed. As if he was already tired of being alive today.
"We need food," he muttered. "Those fuckers over at Redlight Square pay decent coin to watch kids fight. Easy money."
Amon and Luna exchanged a slow, horrified glance.
"...We're so cooked," Amon whispered.
"Don't start that again," Luna growled.
Amon and Luna crawled out of the garbage heap with synchronized sighs, brushing filth off themselves with all the dignity of sewer rats in denial.
Without a word, they each grabbed one of Medici's arms and started dragging him back to their beloved dump of a shack.
Medici groaned but didn't resist. He was too far gone to care.
Amon, meanwhile, was grinning like an idiot. Somehow, despite everything, the three of them were back together again. Beaten, starving, probably cursed but still breathing.
He chuckled as they walked, remembering how it all started.
TikTok... Yeah. That cursed app.
That's where they'd found each other. Three random weirdos making dumb posts about novels like Shadow Slave, Reverend Insanity or Lord of the Mysteries.
They eventually made a group chat to talk about theories and argue over who would win in a fight: Nephis or Klein.... Fucking ragebait!
Somehow, they all ended up inside Shadow Slave. Maybe fate had a messed-up sense of humor. Or maybe God was a bored mod.
Either way, here they were. Trapped in trash with two people he used to send memes to at 3 a.m.
Naturally, they decided to give themselves new names because if you're going to suffer in hell, you might as well sound cool.
Amon had named himself after that Amon. The one from Lord of the Mysteries. Our glorious blasphemer who gave an entire fandom PTSD.
Medici, being the wannabe edgelord he was, picked his name from the Red Angel of War. He liked the vibe, the chaos, the blood.
Luna? She kept her name.
Because she knew damn well that if she let either of them name her, they'd come up with something like "BloodMist420" or "MoonQueen69."
Smart girl.
As they walked in dirty, dark alleyway, Amon sighed dramatically.
"We're failures. We're gonna die. This is the end of our bloodlines..."
"Shut up!" Luna barked.
"I'm gonna kick your ass," Medici added weakly, voice muffled by a mouthful of blood and dirt.
Eventually, they reached what was supposed to be their home.
Amon had built it himself. If piecing together rusty scrap metal, rotting wood, and stolen tarp counted as construction. Still, he was proud of it. In a world like this, where nightmares lurked and survival was a daily gamble, having shelter meant everything.
He'd read enough novels to know: First step to surviving the apocalypse? Build a base.
What Amon forgot, however, was a painfully obvious detail. In a world full of nightmares, abominations, and horrors that should've never crawled out of the abyss...
...the most dangerous monsters were still humans.
And their "home", the shack he bled and sweated to build was gone.
Their home was gone. Flattened. Torn apart. Scavenged down to the last nail.
Everything was just… gone.
Amon stared in silence, mouth half-open, at the words written on ground.
"Tornado duo was here!"
Then he sighed deeply and muttered:
"…Told you guys. We're so cooked."
"Bastard! You jinxed it!"
Luna and Medici shouted in perfect unison.