Chapter 1: The Fool's Awakening
**Part 1: A Life Without Echoes**
Saferu L. Goldmoon was thirty-eight, a middle-aged Filipino man who carried extra weight around his middle like an uninvited guest who refused to leave. His face was round, cheeks soft, chin doubled when he looked down at his phone. He moved with the deliberate slowness of someone who had long ago accepted gravity's terms. Sweat came easily in the humid coastal air, but he never complained. He just wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve and kept going.
He lived right against the outer wall of a small public passenger port in one of the provincial coastal cities of the Philippines—a modest harbor where daily ferries and outrigger bancas shuttled commuters, market vendors, and occasional tourists to nearby small islands. No massive cargo ships docked here, no international cruise liners. Just local vessels tying up at the single main pier, ticket window buzzing with passengers buying tickets for the next island run, a few benches under tin roofs, and parking for maybe sixty cars and tricycles. The port was sleepy, functional, essential for the island-hopping life of the region. Saferu's home was a half-studio unit tacked onto the concrete wall decades ago: one open space serving as bedroom, living area, and everything else, plus a tiny separate bathroom and kitchen nook. The rent was low enough to ignore the salt stains on the walls and the distant horn of departing ferries.
Everything in the room was blue.
The thin mattress cover was navy. The single plastic chair was cobalt. The chipped mug for his morning hot water was a faded royal blue. Curtains the color of a summer sky blocked the narrow window facing the service alley behind the wall. Even the cheap second-hand laptop had a blue shell he'd stuck on years ago because it felt right. Blue was safe. Blue was quiet. Blue didn't demand attention.
He woke at 5:00 a.m. without an alarm. Three minutes sitting on the mattress edge, breathing slow. Then routine: kettle on the small blue Gasulito stove (a portable blue cylinder unit he'd bought because it matched), tap water boiled and poured into the royal-blue mug for plain hot water sipped standing at the counter. Next, instant black coffee—no sugar, bitter as always—brewed in the same mug. He drank it slowly, scrolling his phone, screen dim.
Uniform: navy security shirt (one of three identical), black cargo pants, heavy boots, ID clipped. Presentable. Invisible.
No breakfast. Fasting window: noon to eight. At work he'd eat instant noodles with an egg or canned sardines on discounted pandesal from the port-side vendor.
The ten-minute walk along the inside of the wall took him to the main entrance gate—metal arm, small booth with a rattling electric fan. His job: civilian security for the port authority. Check passenger IDs and tickets at the gate, glance at manifests for delivery vans, write parking violation tickets for tricycles or cars blocking yellow zones or overstaying in short-term spots. Quiet shifts. He roved the perimeter when bored: past the pier where ferries rocked gently on the water, through the parking lot smelling of diesel and fish, back to the booth. Radio crackled with routine chatter. He answered in single words. "Clear." "Patrol." The other guards—mostly men in their fifties who smoked during breaks and talked about pensions—had long stopped expecting conversation from him. He was reliable. Invisible. That was enough.
No expectations. No one needed him beyond the shift. Freedom was being unnecessary.
Family existed somewhere. They barely called—only for rare obligations. Short answers, then silence again.
No friends. Acquaintances were nods from shift change or the ticket seller asking about the weather or the next ferry delay.
The phone was everything.
After 3:00 p.m. he lay on the blue mattress cover, let the screen glow fill the dim blue room. Short videos, forum threads, anonymous noise. Light novels occasionally—isekai tales where ordinary men were summoned to other worlds and given meaning. He never finished them.
Once a week, the night before his day off, he drank while watching movies.
Cheap local gin—Ginebra San Miguel, the "gin ng bayan"—from the sari-sari store near the port entrance, mixed with blue soda that turned the drink an electric turquoise in the chipped blue mug. Laptop on the floor—cracked screen, blue shell—played old action films, anime, or whatever autoplay suggested. He sat cross-legged, back against the wall, pouring steady measures. One glass, two, three, four. The movie softened at the edges. Thoughts drifted loose. The blue liquid glowed faintly under the laptop light. He drank until the room spun hard and he passed out—sometimes on the floor, bottle upright by miracle, laptop still running, blue soda bottle tipped beside him.
The first day off was recovery. Hangover thick as fog. He stayed inside, curtains closed, blue room dim. No going out. No contact. No people. Just sleep, water, maybe instant noodles when hunger cut through the nausea. Gathering introvert energy, he called it silently. Recharging in the only color that felt like home.
Groceries happened on the second day off. He'd walk to the nearby palengke or supermarket—blue reusable bag slung over his shoulder—buy rice, noodles, canned goods, more blue soda, another bottle of gin for next week. Quick. Efficient. Back home before the afternoon heat and rain. Everything done on the second day so the first could remain empty.
By 11:00 on drinking nights he rarely made it that far. Sleep came sudden, black, merciful.
Tomorrow: 5:00 a.m.
Hot water. Black coffee.
Ten-minute walk.
Booth. Tickets. Patrol.
Back by 3:00.
Phone.
Blue quiet.
He told himself it was freedom.
Most days, the lie held.
**Part 2: Echoes of What Was**
Tonight the gin hit harder than usual.
The fourth glass went down without thought, the turquoise swirl catching the laptop's faint glow like something alive. The rom-com on screen had reached its predictable peak—rain-soaked confessions, easy laughter, the kind of endings that never happened in real life. Saferu snorted once, the sound swallowed by the hum of the ceiling fan. Easy. As if anything ever was.
He leaned his head back against the cool concrete wall, the room tilting in slow, familiar circles. The blue quiet pressed in, but tonight it wasn't enough to keep the past at bay. The alcohol had loosened something—old corners, buried faces, younger versions of himself he'd spent years trying not to remember.
The boy he used to be surfaced first.
It started in high school, back when life still felt like a straight path forward. Saferu was fifteen, second year, all gangly limbs and unchecked energy. He wasn't the star student or the athlete, but he had that spark: a quick laugh, a way of drawing people in without trying. Classmates clustered around him during breaks, sharing lumpia or trading stories about weekend escapades to the beach. He was the one who organized impromptu basketball games in the quadrangle, the one who helped the quiet kids with their math homework without making them feel small. Cheerful, his teachers called him. Dynamic. Full of life, despite the hand-me-down uniforms and the long walks home from school because jeepney fare was a luxury some days.
That's when she appeared. Love at first sight, or whatever the songs called it. It was during the school festival, second semester—booths lining the corridors, the air thick with the smell of grilled squid and cotton candy from the vendors outside. He was manning the class's haunted house setup, dressed in a cheap ghost costume made from old bedsheets, when he saw her across the hall. She was in the parallel section, a girl named Angelie—long black hair tied in a simple ponytail, eyes that crinkled when she smiled at her friends. She laughed at something one of them said, head thrown back, and it hit him like a wave crashing on the shore. His heart stuttered. Who was she? Why hadn't he noticed her before?
From then on, Angelie was everywhere and nowhere. He'd catch glimpses in the hallways between classes, her uniform skirt swishing as she hurried to her room. He'd trail her from a distance sometimes—never too close, just enough to watch her walk with her friends, laughing, carefree. Once or twice he slipped anonymous love letters into her locker: folded notebook paper with clumsy poems about her smile and the way the sunlight caught her hair. No name, no signature. Just hope. She never replied. Maybe she never read them. Maybe she laughed them off with her friends. Their classes never overlapped, no group projects or shared lunches to force an introduction. He told himself he'd do it tomorrow, next week, after exams. But he never found the courage to face her directly. The school year ended, graduation came, and Angelie faded silently from his life—different schools after that, different paths, different cities perhaps. Like they say, first love never dies. Even now, in quiet moments, the memory of her laugh could still tighten his chest, a dull ache that refused to fully heal.
High school faded into the rearview. Graduation was a blur of plastic chairs and wilted flowers, his parents there but distant, already eyeing the future. College was the prize—they'd scraped together enough for him to apply, and miracle of miracles, he got into that high-end private university in the city. Glass towers, air-conditioned classrooms, students who smelled like expensive cologne and drove cars with tinted windows. Saferu arrived on day one with his backpack slung over one shoulder, heart pounding but grin in place. He was still that dynamic kid, chatting up anyone in sight: the guy next to him in orientation, the group at the canteen sharing notes on the best professors. Humble family or not, he fit—or thought he did.
And then there was her. Apple. Not love at first sight this time, but something pushed by the crowd around him. His new friends—mostly guys from well-off families, the kind who threw parties on weekends—noticed her first. "Look at that one," one of them said during lunch, nodding toward a table of girls. Apple was stunning: porcelain skin, designer bag slung casually over her chair, laughter like wind chimes. Rich, beautiful, from one of those families with beach houses and drivers. The guys egged him on. "Go for it, Saferu! You're the charmer here." Peer pressure, plain and simple. He played along, flirting lightly in passing—a wave in the hallway, a shared joke during a group study session.
Sometimes they'd hang out in small groups after class—canteen runs, waiting for the rain to stop under the covered walkways. A few times he walked her partway home, the two of them chatting about nothing important while jeepneys honked past and the afternoon sun slanted through the trees. Back then, no smartphones, no apps—just those simple Nokia-style candybar phones with tiny monochrome screens, basic calls, and text messages that cost per character. He got her number somehow, probably from a group chat or a casual "text me if you're late tomorrow." He'd send her short messages now and then: "U home safe?" or "Did u finish the assignment?" or "Good luck sa exam bukas." She'd reply politely, sometimes with a smiley face or a quick "Thanks! 😊" But he never showed any real motive to pursue her. Never asked her out alone, never confessed anything deeper than friendly concern. Deep down he was still hung up on Angelie, that high school ghost who never quite faded. And Apple felt out of reach anyway—he wasn't worthy, not with his faded jeans and counted pesos. What could he offer? A walk to the jeepney stop? A text message that never escalated?
He didn't push it. No dates, no clear advances. Just light moments that felt close but never crossed the line. And anyway, college was crumbling around him. Grades dipped—not because he was dumb, but because the pace was brutal, the expectations sky-high. His parents' support trickled to nothing when they saw the first semester report card. "We thought you were smarter," his father said over the phone, voice flat. "Can't keep funding a lost cause." The money stopped. The calls turned to blame. He scraped by for the rest of the year on odd jobs—tutoring underclassmen, washing dishes at a nearby carinderia—but it wasn't enough. Dropped out quietly, no fanfare.
Back home, the real curse set in. Random gigs at first: loading crates at the market, helping with construction sites, anything that paid scraps below minimum wage. It covered his share of the rice and viand, since he was still under his parents' roof. But the looks started. His father's friends would drop by, glance at him sweeping the yard or lounging in the sala, and shake their heads. "Tsk, such a shame. Your other kid's doing so well." His sibling—the overachiever, always top of the class, scholarships piling up—became the sun, and Saferu the shadow. His father made it a ritual: every small mishap pinned on him. Spilled water? "If you weren't so lazy..." Late dinner? "Because you're useless." The curses chipped away, day by day.
Worse, they kept him around like a pet. Fed him, housed him, but with zero expectation or care. No pushes to improve, no real anger even—just indifference. They poured everything into the sibling, leaving Saferu to rot in the background. He became the symbol of worthlessness, the story his parents trotted out for pity from neighbors. "Pray for us, ha? Dealing with that one."
The jobs didn't last. He'd show up rattled from a morning scolding, mess up an order or drop a tool, get fired. Rinse, repeat. Eventually, he stopped looking. NEET life swallowed him whole: ten years of days blurred into video games on a borrowed console, nights staring at the ceiling, the weight of failure pressing down.
One sibling graduated, landed a decent job as a teacher, and quietly paid off Saferu's old college debt. It wasn't kindness—it was pragmatism. With the debt cleared, his parents had no excuse left to keep him from trying again. At twenty-eight, they pushed him back to college. "You spend all day on the computer anyway," his father grumbled. "Might as well make something of it." IT course. Four years.
The age gap was brutal. Classmates seven, eight years younger—fresh out of high school, full of energy and social circles he couldn't touch. He was the old guy in the back row, the one who'd been a NEET for a decade. An invisible wall stood between him and them: his silence, his outdated slang, the way he flinched at casual jokes about "boomers." No friends. No love life. Just attendance, notes, and grinding through code he barely understood at first.
Miraculously, he graduated at thirty-two. The school wasn't strict—perfect attendance and a passing thesis were enough. His classmates carried him through the group thesis, patient with his rusty skills. He was surprised himself. For once, something hadn't crumbled.
Then COVID-19 hit. The world locked down, jobs vanished, and he was forced back into the house, back into NEET limbo. One morning, his father scolded him again—this time for not cleaning the feces of their forty-plus cats. The pets had multiplied endlessly during the pandemic, a hobby turned obsession for his parents and sibling. The smell was choking, the litter boxes overflowing, cats scattering underfoot as his father's voice rose in familiar rhythm. Something snapped. For the first time in years, Saferu talked back—words sharp, raw, spilling out like they'd been dammed up for decades. He grabbed what little he had—a small bag, some clothes, his old phone—and ran. His father didn't stop him. As always, he didn't care. "You'll come crawling back," the old man probably thought. "You have nothing."
He wandered, slept in parks, ate from whatever he could scrounge. Days blurred into despair. At thirty-something, old and empty-handed, confidence shattered, he decided to end it. But his mother found him—talked him down with pitying words, found him a small place tacked onto the port wall. She was the original worker there, a janitor. With her support, he tried to live a little. Applied for IT jobs—failed, age a silent killer in interviews. Tried call centers—never passed the second round, his quiet character a mismatch for the high-energy scripts.
Before the year ended, his mother suffered a stroke. Paralyzed. The family suggested he replace her at the port. He grabbed it instantly. Not as janitor—they needed security more. Civilian guard. Uniform, booth, tickets, patrol.
That was the turning point. Not dramatic. Just steady. The blue room. The routine. The quiet.
The laptop screen blurred. Saferu wiped at his eyes, surprised by the wetness. The gin bottle was half-empty now, the turquoise dregs in his mug mocking him. Angelie's unanswered letters, Apple's polite texts on that old phone screen. Loves that hovered just out of reach, never quite landing. A degree that came too late. A life that kept resetting to zero.
He set the mug down, the clink loud in the silence. The movie had ended, credits rolling in white text against black. He told himself it didn't matter. Those versions of him—the shy boy trailing from afar, the hesitant texter, the late graduate, the runaway—were gone. This was him now: blue room, blue quiet, no echoes.
But tonight, the lie cracked just a little.
**Part 3: The Blue Invitation**
Saferu's real life happened mostly on the cracked blue laptop screen.
After shifts ended at 3:00 p.m., he'd collapse onto the mattress, prop the machine on his stomach, and disappear. No social media scrolling anymore—that had dried up years ago. Instead: video games and stories. Single-player RPGs mostly—old Final Fantasy ports, indie pixel titles about lonely wanderers, anything where the protagonist started broken and slowly rebuilt. He finished few of them. The endings felt too neat.
Reading came next. Light novels, manga, manhua, manhwa—downloaded PDFs and scanned chapters piled in folders labeled by genre. Isekai dominated. Ordinary men yanked from dead-end jobs into fantasy worlds, given cheats, harems, revenge arcs, second chances. He read them the way other people drank: steadily, without joy, chasing the numbness of someone else's meaning.
One series stuck deeper than the rest. *Mashouko Tensie*—he never bothered correcting the title spelling in his head; the fansub group called it that, and it fit. Jobless Reincarnation. A thirty-something NEET, overweight, shut-in, failures stacked like unpaid bills, dies pathetically and wakes up as a baby in a magic world. Same age range as Saferu when he'd dropped out, same invisible weight of regret. The protagonist—Rudeus—kept his memories, his shame, his knowledge of a wasted life. He swore to do better this time. No more hiding. No more excuses.
Saferu watched the anime episodes he'd pirated years ago. The animation was clean, the voice acting earnest. He'd pause sometimes on Rudeus's early scenes: the baby body with an adult mind, staring at the ceiling, whispering promises to himself. It hurt in a familiar way. "This time I'll be different," the character said. Saferu never said it out loud. He just drank more.
Tonight was one of those nights.
Gin bottle open, turquoise soda fizzing in the royal-blue mug. Fourth glass down. Laptop balanced on folded knees, volume low so the neighbors wouldn't complain. Episode 3 or 4—Rudeus training magic in the backyard, determined little face set against failure. Saferu sipped, eyes heavy.
The room shook.
Not hard. A low rumble, like a truck passing too close. Glasses rattled on the counter. The laptop wobbled; he steadied it with one hand. Earthquake—maybe 4.0. Common enough here near the coast. He waited for it to pass. It did.
Then the phone buzzed once—sharp, emergency tone. He glanced over. Screen lit: WARNING: METEORITE APPROACH. SEEK SHELTER. SIGNAL DISRUPTION EXPECTED.
He stared. Laughed once, dry. Meteor? In the Philippines? Sounded like clickbait. But the alert repeated, insistent. He tapped it—nothing loaded. Internet gone. Wi-Fi dead, mobile data bars empty.
Electricity stayed on, though. Ceiling fan kept spinning. Good enough.
He shrugged, turned back to the laptop. Episode still playing—offline file, no buffering needed. Rudeus was casting his first fireball now, small hands trembling with effort. Saferu poured another measure. The turquoise liquid caught the screen glow. He drank faster. Thoughts loosened. The room tilted gentle.
By the time the credits rolled, the gin was half-gone. He didn't bother closing the laptop. Just let his head fall back against the wall. Eyes closed. Sleep came black and fast. No dreams.
Morning arrived with the usual hammer in his skull.
5:00 a.m. habit broke him awake. Head floating, mouth cotton-dry, stomach sour. He groaned, rolled to the side. Phone first, as always. No messages—never were. He thumbed open the work group chat anyway. Security team announcements: shift changes, ferry delays, the usual. Nothing new.
But something else caught his eye.
An unfamiliar app icon sat on the home screen. Blue castle silhouette, simple, glowing faintly. No name below it. No download history he remembered.
Saferu blinked hard. IT graduate instincts kicked in—old muscle memory from debugging code and spotting malware. Phones were personal. Sacred, almost. This thing shouldn't be here.
He tapped Settings → Apps. Nothing listed. No permissions granted. No install date.
Weird.
Delete it. Simple.
But curiosity—stupid, drunken curiosity from last night—won. Finger hovered. Then pressed.
The icon opened. Screen went full blue. A soft robotic voice filled the room—not from the phone speakers, but everywhere. Calm. Genderless.
"A Fool has connected. Would you like to be transferred?"
A panel appeared mid-air. Floating, translucent blue. Two buttons: YES / NO.
Saferu stared. Hangover fog made everything soft at the edges. This had to be a hallucination. Or a prank app. Or the gin finally breaking him.
He pressed YES.
Blue light flared. A portal ripped open in front of him—swirling azure vortex, pulling like gravity. He had no time to scream. The force yanked him forward, boots leaving the floor, body tumbling through cold nothing.
He landed hard on… something soft. Blue fog everywhere. Endless sky above—clouds the color of faded denim. Two moons hung close: one large and pale, one small and sharp, like mismatched eyes watching.
No ground horizon. Just mist and sky.
He pushed to his feet. Shouted once: "Hello?" Echo came back thin, helpless.
No answer.
Nothing to do but move. He picked a direction—random, forward—and walked. The fog parted slowly. Minutes stretched. No fatigue came. No thirst. Just endless blue.
Then a path appeared.
Shimmering blue-stone road, like polished jewelry laid end to end. It snaked away, no beginning or end visible, but it had direction. He followed.
Time blurred. Hours? Days? The body didn't complain.
Finally, the path ended at a ledge. Two figures waited there.
One small—a child, voice high and impatient. The other adult, same rough age as Saferu, tone deeper, steadier.
They spoke in a tongue he didn't know. Melodic, alien. But familiar somehow—like the moons above. Faces hidden behind swirling bluish smoke. He couldn't make out features.
They noticed him.
The child switched to English: "What took this fool so long?"
The adult: "Be patient. He's new."
Before Saferu could speak, a force seized him—stronger than the portal. Invisible hands dragged him forward. The two figures stepped aside smoothly.
Cliff edge. Nothing below but endless abyss—blue fading to black.
He fell.
Wind roared past. Moons receded above. Darkness swallowed everything.