The sharp, cold bite of his beer felt like the only honesty left in the world for Brisky. He leaned back against the bench, gazing at the horizon where the black water kissed the black sky. The moist salt of the sea mingled with the bitter aroma of his cigarette smoke.
He exhaled a plume of smoke, his eyes fixed on the ocean. Freedom—that was what he had always chased. But now, each step felt like another chain.
Damn it! he cursed internally. Just another day of chaos.
Hah... He flicked the cigarette butt away, drawing a deep breath, savoring the cold sea wind, the crash of the waves, and the silence of the night.
Phew... he let out his breath. How did my life end up like this?
Tch! Freedom? Bullshit! In this world, there was only one master: Money. Always Money, eternally Money!
"The con artists were right. Money is a god," Brisky whispered, his voice tight. "And we are all the priests, serving with blood and sweat."
He clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white. The cold sea smell now felt sickening, like the stench of false promises. Humans merely worked like hogs lured by promises of prosperity, waiting to be slaughtered and devoured by the greedy few in expensive suits. The promise of wealth, the promise of financial freedom—all of it was pure nonsense.
He stared at the phone he had just snatched. His face soured, recalling the theft.
"Influencers? Motivators? They're just scammers selling empty hope! They're nothing but mouthpieces for the suited Capitalists up there!"
Whoosh! With a furious grunt, he hurled the phone toward the sea.
Shit! I'm caught in this cycle too! Hah... He massaged his temples, calming himself.
I used to be just a cheerful kid, full of dreams, motivated by so many things.
He smiled bitterly, lifting his face to the sky, self-contempt etched across his features. Look at me now!
A thirty-year-old man, completely lost!
Ugh!... Damn it! If only I hadn't believed the words of those rich old men. I really was an idiot. They didn't just exploit me with their promises; they also destroyed my life's purpose.
He leaned back on the bench.
Yes, they gave me a lot of money. For a while, I enjoyed life, splurging alongside those fake influencers. Unwittingly, I became their loyal dog, doing the dirty work for those cursed people: insider trading, crypto scams, and more.
A long sigh escaped his lips.
Bastards! Those old men promised to protect me. Now they've washed their hands of it, throwing everything on me.
Hahaha. I'm a hog, fed only to be slaughtered!
Shit, every day I have to move, a fugitive, risking my life in underground fights. Every bone in my body screams in exhaustion.
Phew! I want to go home, to eat my mother's cooking! A slightly mournful look crossed his face.
His eyes closed, recalling a warm moment at the dining table during his childhood with his family—the cheerful laughter of his younger siblings watching anime on Sunday. He offered a bitter, tiny smile.
If only what happened during school hadn't occurred, Brisky sighed.
A flash of memory crossed his mind: the disappointed gaze of his father when he entered juvenile prison.
His gaze swept across the star-studded night sky, his hands outstretched as if to grasp the stars.
Father... If only time could be turned back.
He took another drink of his beer and observed the wallet he had snatched from the teenage girl. The ID photo reminded him of his younger sister.
Ah, Brisky sighed. How is my sister doing now? I heard she got married. My niece or nephew must be adorable. A thin, bitter smile hung on his lips.
Hahahah, he relit his cigarette and took a swig of his beer.
His eyes were fixed on the sky, savoring the stillness of the beach.
***
A few moments passed before Brisky frowned, looking at a bizarre phenomenon. A golden light in the night, sometimes fading, sometimes shaped like an aurora.
"What is that phenomenon?" he muttered. "An aurora? But the shape is weird. Far, yet close?"
He saw the sky seemingly twitch, leaving a wave-like trail, then crashing into the aurora. He watched it like a falling star.
His face was etched with astonishment at the bizarre event. He observed while smoking.
Then, he saw a transparent, glowing light streaking toward him.
"What is that?" Brisky exclaimed. "Appearing and disappearing in flashes?"
Slap! He slapped his own cheek. "Am I drunk?" he asked himself in bewilderment.
***
In the sky above Brisky, an unrecognized entity spun, as if avoiding the gaze of a higher being. Sometimes its form was slender and golden, sometimes only a silhouette.
From a place thousands of universes away, an attack came. It was not a laser, but a manifestation of Cosmic Law: a bolt of energy stretching across space-time, pure and unstoppable, aimed at erasing the entity's knowledge and existence.
The unrecognized entity knew it couldn't run. With its last remaining strength, it created a barrier, exerting its greatest power. It spewed a wall of energy, a shield of exotic particles. The Cosmic Law energy chasing it collided with a silent swoosh. The barrier exploded like a giant crystal scattering across a rift in reality, causing the ordinary eye to perceive it as a shooting star.
However, the attack still struck it. Its body began to fade, erased from reality, turning into dying stardust. Despair faded, replaced by the certainty of the end.
With its last reserves, the Unrecognized Entity funneled its entire essence into a sphere of code—its final testament.
It fired the code.
It was not light, but a shockwave that tore the canvas of dimensions. The wave bore down upon him.
Before Brisky could react, the transparent light instantly slammed into him with a violent thud that resonated deep in his bones.
Instantly, a cold wind spiraled around him, creating a micro-storm. Brisky's grip on his beer and cigarette broke free, lost to the blast.
Behind him—scratch!—reality tore, like old cloth ripped apart. A black, pitch-dark hole, spewing faint blue light, formed, pulsating like an open wound.
Brisky didn't have time to scream, not even to take a breath. He was wrenched from his seat, pushed toward the black, gaping hole.
He felt an agonizing pain. Not a blow, but a cold, foreign power coursing into his veins, like liquid electricity or burning ice. His head rang loudly. It was the entity's testament code being implanted into him.
Inside, a cold voice—not through his ears, but directly at the core of his soul—spoke. The voice was fragmented, like a broken signal, leaving only a single, drifting word:
'S O R R Y.'
Then, in a brutal wrench, Brisky was shoved away from the closing hole.
He was thrown into the Vast Emptiness, leaving the beach, his problems, his family, his home—Earth.
Brisky was hurled at a speed beyond light. His body distorted into strange shapes, before he finally lost consciousness.
In front of him, a small rift shimmered. He was vomited out of that rift, into another world.
***
His consciousness returned with a painful jolt. Floating in the air, he coughed violently, spitting out blood, and felt the strange, cold sensation still flowing within him.
Thud!
He fell. His body skidded across the ground. He groaned in pain, enduring the friction with the earth, the sound of twigs and leaves scraping against his body.
Suddenly, he slammed into a giant tree.
CRASH!
Red blood spurted from his mouth. The physical pain was immense, but it was the alien cold in his core—that vile electric ice—that truly paralyzed him. His lungs felt like they would burst; every breath was a sharp stab. He forced his eyes open. Strange, colorful plants released shimmering spores that merged with a thin, bluish fog. Giant trees lined up, their tendrils dangling down, creating a mystical yet beautiful atmosphere.
He groaned, clutching his chest, his breath ragged. Before he could even process what happened, he heard the sound of several footsteps approaching him.
From the dense growth of luminescent, strange plants emerged four figures, tall, bulky, and blue-gray skinned, carrying wooden weapons.
Brisky's eyes widened. The figures—tall, muscular, with blue-gray skin—seemed to have leaped directly out of a nightmare or an old fantasy book. "Blue Orcs?" Brisky muttered, his voice barely audible.
The group of Orcs spoke in a monstrous language. Their tone and voices seemed to mock Brisky: "Weak creature."
One of the Orcs tossed its weapon away, then stalked toward Brisky. Its hand clenched into a fist, a clear challenge.
Brisky's eyebrows lifted. He understood the Orc's gesture.
"Damn it. Seriously, no rest," Brisky muttered.
He winced, ignoring the pain throughout his body, wiping the blood from his mouth, forcing himself to stand.
The Orc swiftly lunged toward Brisky. Its right hand punched straight toward Brisky's head.
Quickly, Brisky blocked with both hands, shielding his head. The sound of the punch heavily impacting Brisky's arms rang out. He was thrown backward several meters.
He tumbled to the ground, then knelt, his hands turning bright red and trembling violently.
"Damn, hand or sledgehammer?" he muttered. He struggled to stand. His body cried out in protest. No rest yet.
The Orc ran toward Brisky again, leaping, both hands clasped together, raised high as if to hammer Brisky.
Brisky rolled to the right, dodging it.
The Orc's hands struck the ground, boom! creating an echo, and the earth cracked loudly.
Brisky quickly grabbed a handful of dirt, hailing it into the Orc's eyes.
The Orc screamed in rage, rubbing its eyes.
The other three Orcs prepared their weapons, about to charge Brisky, but the forest suddenly shook from its depths. A giant, slithering monster, its scales white as marble, its eyes blood-red, Boom! Crash! seized one of the Orcs and devoured it whole. The two other Orcs were thrown off by the sudden attack. They rose, snarling at the monster, and then charged to fight it.
From a few meters away, Brisky watched the scene.
"Damn it. What is this now? A giant snake?" he muttered.
He quickly saw that the Orc who had hit him was distracted watching its comrades fight the snake monster.
Swiftly, ignoring the pain in his body, Brisky grabbed a thick vine from the giant tree. He then lunged at the Orc from behind, wrapping the vine around the Orc's neck, squeezing it with all his might. Brisky gritted his teeth, veins popping in his neck as he fought through the agony of his newly battered body, forcing every ounce of strength into the bind. He didn't have minutes—he had seconds before the marble-scaled leviathan finished its meal. The Orc choked, its massive frame struggling against the flimsy vine, but Brisky held fast, driven by animalistic desperation, not heroism.
The Orc slowly went limp. Its eyes bulged, and it died of asphyxiation. Its knees dropped to the ground, its lifeless body falling forward.
Brisky stared at the Orc's corpse. A smile of victory spread across his face. The damn bastard! he cursed.
However, when his gaze fixed on the giant snake monster, the monster had also finished its business with the two attacking Orcs; both Orcs had been swallowed whole.
The giant snake monster's gaze—its blood-red eyes the size of car tires—met Brisky's small, desperate brown eyes.
The snake's eyes—now hubcap-sized in his vision—regarded him with a hunger that eclipsed all the greed he'd fled on Earth. He was just another piece of meat in a new system. He swallowed.
"You've got to be f**king kidding me," he whispered, the absolute despair finally coating his voice.