Tobias coughed.
It was a weak sound, barely enough to stir the stale air of the hospital room, but a little bit of blood dribbled down his chin as he did.
The taste of iron should have been sharp, bitter and unpleasant except he couldn't taste it anymore.
'Fuck…'
Even his inner voice sounded faint, like it was being whispered from somewhere very far away.
He could barely hear himself.
It had all started when he was seventeen.
Back then, he'd been a boy with plans, with a life, with the reckless certainty that tomorrow would always be there.
But tomorrow had betrayed him.
A new disease, something no doctor knew how to cure, had turned his promising life into a small cage.
They gave it a name that sounded clinical and detached: Neurosensory Lockdown Syndrome.
It was cruelly fitting.
The disease was a thief that worked in stages.
First came numbness, a gradual dulling of sensation.
Then paralysis, creeping in from the fingers and toes, until even breathing felt mechanical.
Later, the senses began shutting down.
Touch, taste, sight, sound — all stolen one by one until nothing remained.
The final stage was the cruelest: the body still lived, the heart still beat, but the person inside no longer knew if they were alive at all.
By now, Tobias had lost almost everything.
He couldn't feel the air on his skin, couldn't taste food, couldn't see the white walls around his bed.
He wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed anymore.
Sometimes he wondered if the nurses avoided looking at him.
He had no idea what his face looked like now — sunken? Hollow? Something grotesque most probably.
All he had left was his hearing. And even that was fading.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The slow rhythm of the heart monitor kept him tethered to the world.
That, and one other thing.
"…I know you can hear me, Tobias," a familiar voice said, breaking the silence.
The chair beside the bed creaked as someone sat down. "Anyway, I finally finished the game. It was a good one."
Lukas.
His younger cousin.
The only person who still visited him, who still spoke to him as if he were… there.
Tobias couldn't see him, but he imagined the boy's usual posture — leaning forward, excitement lighting his otherwise quiet face.
Lukas had been playing that stupid game for months.
Five?
Six?
He'd lost track.
But at least it made the kid talk. And Tobias needed that.
"I know what you want to ask…" Lukas continued, voice carrying that boyish grin Tobias couldn't see. "About the Final Boss, right?"
'No, you little shit,' Tobias thought, bitterness and humor mingling faintly in his fading mind. 'I wanted to ask about the Princess…'
But he couldn't speak. He hadn't been able to for months.
"The game's Final Boss has a good backstory," Lukas said, as though the silence was an answer. "Like… really good. Better than the hero's, honestly."
His cousin's voice grew more animated as he began to explain, but Tobias's hearing faltered.
A dull, suffocating void crept into his ears, swallowing the words whole.
He tried to hold on, tried to cling to Lukas's voice, but it was gone.
Just gone.
Tobias froze.
Panic clawed at him, but there was nothing to panic with.
No heartbeat racing in his chest.
No hands to grip the sheets.
No tongue to bite.
No tears to cry.
Sound was gone.
The world was gone.
For a moment, he thought he had finally died.
Then…
[Ding!]
The noise rang so sharply it hurt, slicing through the void like a blade.
Tobias jerked or thought he did.
He could hear.
He could feel.
He could… blink.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in a hospital bed.
He was suspended in shifting darkness, weightless, as though he were floating in a sea of shadows.
Words burned into existence before him.
[The God of Shadow has given you an opportunity.]
[This opportunity must not be wasted.]
Tobias stared, dumbstruck.
'What the hell…? Why does it sound like something out of a bullshit fantasy game?'
Another screen unfolded in front of him, made of light that didn't illuminate the shadows.
[You are allowed to pick 3 skills from here.]
[Please hurry; there's not much time left.]
A scroll of text cascaded downward, longer than anything he could possibly read in a lifetime.
Each name showcased some strange power, names and descriptions of abilities that looked like something pulled from an RPG menu.
Infinite regeneration was just one of them.
'What the… every single one of these is broken,' Tobias thought, his hands trembling as he reached forward instinctively. 'It's like the God of Shadows is trying to make me some OP main character.'
For a moment, he forgot his disease, his body, his death. He was seeing, moving, choosing again.
But the screen flickered.
[Your time has been exhausted.]
[Your skills have been automatically chosen.]
[…Good luck.]
'Good luck for what?'
His thought never finished.
Something hooked into his chest and yanked, pulling his consciousness into a spiraling abyss.
He couldn't fight it, couldn't resist. Darkness swallowed him whole.
And then…
Pain.
Blazing, searing, all-consuming pain ripped through his body.
Tobias gasped, his first real breath in years, and nearly choked on it.
His hand flew to his chest only to meet the impossible.
A sword.
A sword was buried deep in his torso, its hilt jutting out from his flesh.
Blood poured hot down his side, soaking the ground beneath him.
Above him stood a young man with wild eyes, his teeth clenched like a rabid dog, both hands gripping the weapon he had driven into Tobias's heart.
His whole body shook with effort and fury.
The rage on his face was inhuman.
The hatred burned brighter than the flames crackling all around.
And Tobias screamed.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The sound tore out of him raw with a power that he didn't know he had… yet it only seemed to accentuate that mad grin on the bastard's face.