"Where the hell am I?"
Leo sat inside a dilapidated bus, staring out the grime-streaked window with an expression of utter bewilderment. The air inside was stale, smelling faintly of old rust and dust. He checked his phone frantically, tapping the screen in hopes of a signal, but the bars remained stubbornly empty.
The time on the screen mocked him: 6:00 AM.
What exactly had happened?
Leo rubbed his temples, trying to piece together the fragmented memories of the previous night. He remembered getting off work, exhausted. The customer service rep under his supervision hadn't logged into the backend system on time to take over the shift from home. It wasn't until Leo was already on the bus, swaying with the rhythm of the city traffic, that they had called him, asking for a verification code.
Leo's response had been blunt. "What were you doing earlier? Go to the office and check it yourself." He had hung up immediately.
Minutes later, the manager had called, screaming into the receiver.
They argued. Loudly. It wasn't Leo's responsibility. He had let the female staff work the night shift from home out of kindness, yet here he was, being chewed out because they were incompetent and late.
Something in Leo had snapped. Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the injustice. He told the manager to shove it, rage-quit on the spot, and planned to swing by the office early the next morning to grab his favorite mug before disappearing forever.
He remembered sitting back in the bus seat, watching the neon city lights blur into streaks as his eyelids grew heavy. He had drifted off.
And now?
He opened his eyes to this godforsaken place.
Outside was a highway flanked by overgrown grass and dense trees, with a towering mountain looming in the distance. The bus itself was stopped dead in front of a pitch-black tunnel that looked like the gaping maw of a beast. This was definitely not the city bus terminal.
Most importantly, it had been night when he fell asleep. Now, it was broad daylight.
"I slept through the whole night?" Leo muttered, his voice sounding too loud in the silence. "Even so, the bus shouldn't have driven me... here. Where is here?"
After peering around nervously for a long minute, Leo finally stood up. Staying inside a metal coffin wasn't a solution, and the area seemed completely devoid of human life.
Stepping off the bus, the crunch of gravel under his shoes sounded deafening. He walked around to the front and froze. The entire front end of the bus was crumpled like an accordion, as if it had slammed into an invisible wall at full speed.
He glanced at the rusted bus stop sign nearby. The arrow pointing west read: To Calico Desert.
The arrow pointing east was just three question marks: ???
This didn't match any route on the Number 2 City Bus line.
"I just resigned; it's not like they need to put a hit on me," Leo mumbled, a cold sweat forming on his back. "Since when did the e-commerce industry get this cutthroat? Silencing me just for quitting? Are they that afraid I'll leak the product cost margins?"
He unlocked his phone again and opened his navigation app. Although there was no internet, the app had an offline mode that used GPS positioning.
"Huh..." Leo squinted at the screen. "Why does this map look so familiar?"
He zoomed in. The topography, the layout... it was uncannily similar to the game he played religiously to unwind. If this was what he thought it was, he could navigate this map with his eyes closed.
"No, there are still some differences from Stardew Valley," he whispered, "but now isn't the time to nitpick the geography."
Turning off his phone to save battery, Leo gripped his small messenger bag tightly. It contained his lifeline: a charger, keys, and wired earphones. He also had a stash of snacks for surviving the workday, but he'd tragically eaten most of them yesterday.
He fished around and pulled out his last ration—a lonely KitKat bar.
"Better than nothing," he sighed.
He chose the dirt path heading east. After walking for about ten minutes, the trees cleared, and a small town revealed itself.
The architecture was distinctly foreign—rustic, wooden, western-style cottages. But the most striking thing was the silence. It was dead quiet. No birds, no wind in the leaves, and definitely no people.
Leo stood at the junction where the dirt road met the cobblestone street, hesitating.
He was just an average corporate slave. Usually, when he worked the night shift in an empty office building, he'd sprint to the restroom and back out of fear of the dark. Now, standing in broad daylight in a ghost town, that primal fear seized his chest.
He checked his phone: 6:30 AM.
In any normal town, even if the streets weren't packed, the elderly power-walkers would be out by now.
Silent Hill? Leo thought, his heart rate spiking. Raccoon City?
He squatted by the roadside, trying to make himself a smaller target, and frantically scrolled through his phone.
Games? Useless. They all required a connection. He could play Solitaire, but preserving battery life was more important than boredom.
Strangely, his work's customer service backend app opened, but the inquiry list was blank.
Everything else was just bloatware that wouldn't work without the net.
Leo stood up and looked at the silent town again. A chill ran down his spine.
"Nope."
He turned around decisively and started walking back the way he came. Any idiot who had seen a horror movie knew not to walk into the silent, empty town. His life philosophy was simple: If you know there's a tiger on the mountain, don't go to the damn mountain. Cowardice was a survival trait.
Returning to the bus crash site, Leo chose the path heading west this time. If his theory about the map was correct, he should run into a dilapidated farm soon. That would confirm it.
He had... probably... maybe... transmigrated?
"Whatever," Leo grunted, kicking a pebble. "I'm a bachelor with no dependents. 'One mouth full, the whole family fed.' Why else would I have been bold enough to rage-quit like that?"
If he really had transmigrated, so be it. Stardew Valley was a safe game. It was a cozy farming sim. As a veteran with over a thousand hours of playtime, he could turn a profit in his sleep.
The only question was: Where did all the NPCs go?
After another ten-minute hike, Leo breathed a sigh of relief. Hidden behind a thicket of overgrown trees and weeds was a rickety, wooden shack.
Good news: He had definitely transmigrated, and the location was indeed Stardew Valley. Bad news: The silence was deafening. It felt less like a farming sim and more like a "Creepypasta" version of the game.
He navigated through the debris of rocks and logs—nature having reclaimed the land—and stood by the farmhouse window. He peeked inside.
It was classic starter gear: a single bed, a modest table and chair set, a fireplace, a chaotic old TV, and a wooden chest placed smack in the middle of the room.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
He shouted toward the fields. His voice echoed slightly, but there was no response.
Steeling his nerves, Leo pushed the door open. It creaked loudly, protesting the movement.
The inside was surprisingly clean. The bedding smelled fresh, like it had just been aired out in the sun—as if someone had prepared it specifically for his arrival today.
He glanced at his phone map again. His blue icon was hovering over the farm in the southwest corner. There were no other markers on the entire screen. Just him.
Feeling a fraction more secure, Leo approached the chest in the center of the room and threw the lid open.
Inside lay exactly what he expected: several packets of Parsnip seeds, basic farming tools, and a backpack. But resting on top of the tools was an envelope.
Leo picked it up and unfolded the letter inside.
Hello.
I believe you have realized by now that you have transmigrated. This place is the Stardew Valley you know.
If you do not accept this reality, you can lie down on the bed and have a peaceful sleep. I will send you back to your previous life. It will be as if nothing ever happened.
If you accept your transmigration, please continue reading.
"Read on?" Leo tilted his head, staring at the rest of the blank page.
Transmigration... what was there not to accept?
He was alone in his old world. He had just quit his job. He had no savings, no prospects, and no one waiting for him. Here, he knew the rules. It wasn't dangerous (usually), and it offered the rural, pastoral life that every burnt-out corporate drone secretly dreamed of.
A slow grin spread across his face.
"I accept. What's next?"