The last images flickered through my head the multiple decisions, the possible endings everything was there.
At least everything I knew, because even though I loved the game, I wasn't a hardcore player; I had a job and responsibilities, so I played mostly to relax.
The black sea still surrounded me. Now that I thought more clearly, it wasn't water around me but simply a blackness, an endless, heavy, oppressive expanse, as if the whole universe had been swallowed by shadow.
Maybe it was because I felt myself sinking so slowly into this bottomless void that pressed against my chest like a curse.
The screen floated in front of me, still. Flat, cold, indifferent. It showed nothing. Nothing but a void darker than the rest.
"Why me?"
My voice echoed, muffled in that space. I didn't expect an answer, but the words escaped anyway.
"Why... why did it have to be me?" I kept talking, anger rising in me.
"In stories like this, the ones who get reincarnated are always the obsessed fans or the hardcore players."
"But I'm not like that. I never wanted this. Yes, I liked the game, but not enough to end up in this situation."
"Did you even ask me if I wanted to come, if I wanted to be in this world? And don't you dare say 'you wouldn't complain if you were the protagonist' — I don't give a damn."
My anger, brutal and desperate, disappeared into the black waves. The screen remained mute.
I opened my mouth, ready to scream again, when a glow suddenly pierced the darkness. White letters appeared on the screen.
[You're done whining]
I stood frozen. My breath stopped.
"What?"
That damned screen — not only had it sent me into an unknown body without my consent, and I was half-dead, maybe even dead, but it also wanted me to shut up?
It was normal for me to complain, and that damned—
[You are not dead.]
The screen changed its gleam, warped and twisted until a silhouette emerged.
Then, all of a sudden, the silhouette of a child stood before me.
It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening before I could recognize the figure.
It was a little boy of seven, black hair and a scrawny frame. Too skinny for a child his age.
His expression was blank and his black eyes were devoid of emotion, as if life were ready to abandon him.
Actually, it was. Life was ready to abandon him if no one helped, because I knew whose face this was.
"It's me," I murmured.
"Who... are you?"
The child smiled. A soft, almost tender smile. But there was something about that smile that chilled me to the bone.
[Everything will be fine]
"What do you mean? Why do you look like me?" I asked angrily.
[Everything will be fine as long as you follow your destiny]
I clenched my fists.
"My destiny? Elias Delight Veyra's destiny is to die! Is that what you mean? To be broken, forgotten, rejected... then disappear! I refuse. Do you hear me? I refuse!"
The child tilted his head, as if surprised by my vehemence. Then he laughed.
It was crystalline, innocent, but it sounded false. As if behind the innocence lay an implacable mockery.
Suddenly, the ground—if you could call it that—vanished beneath my feet. I was flung upward, tearing through the surface of the black sea. My lungs filled with icy air.
I looked around. Everything was black. Not a star. Not a flicker. Nothing but infinite void. And yet I floated, suspended above that ocean of shadow.
The child still stood before me, walking on the void as if it were solid ground. He opened his arms and answered:
"All of this is you, Elias," he said softly. "Everything is in place now. So you can follow your destiny."
I turned my head, looking for something, but there was nothing.
"There's nothing here."
"Of course. For now it's empty, but once everything has been synchronized, everything can finally begin."
A faint unease made me falter.
"What do you mean, synchronized?"
The feeling intensified and soon my head began to hurt more and more.
I tried to ask the question again but before I could form it, a sound rose from the depths of the black sea. A low, monstrous rumble, like a thousand voices howling in unison. The ocean tore open, and something surged out.
A colossal form.
It had no face or clear outline, only tentacles, fangs, shifting shadows that seemed to change shape with every heartbeat — a monstrosity born of the void itself.
I stood frozen at the sight of that abomination. I wanted to scream or run, but I couldn't; fear had paralyzed me.
I turned my head and saw that the child still stood there, but this time his lifeless black eyes had changed.
They were blue, or rather there was something like a circle filled with stars.
But before I could learn more, the form enveloped me.
I screamed as its shadows swallowed me, seeping into my skin, my bones, my soul. I fought, in vain. My cry echoed for a long time before being smothered.
[Next time, try giving it a form. He doesn't appreciate being formeless]
Then... silence.
---
When I opened my eyes, the blackness was gone.
In its place, there was a fire.
Flames crackled in front of me, their timid warmth contrasting with the cold still lodged in my bones. I wanted to move, but my arms wouldn't obey. Chains bound me, each movement producing a metallic sound.
'What is happening?'
I lifted my head.
Around the fire I saw silhouettes. They were the same armed men I had seen on the ship before the explosion. Their armor bore strange markings; their faces were hard, wary. They spoke in low voices, but each chuckle or grunted word made the silent forest vibrate.
'Forest? Wait a minute.'
I turned my head slowly.
Tall trees surrounded me. But these were no ordinary trees. They rose so high they seemed to pierce the sky. Their trunks, thick as walls, were covered in metal chains that climbed until they disappeared into the shadow of the canopy.
The Forest of the Great Oak.
I recognized the place at once. Well, not literally with oaks and chains, but you get the idea.
I tried to look around for a way to escape when to my left another silhouette was chained as well. Someone else captured. His steady breathing reached me in the darkness, proof that he was sleeping... or unconscious.
I raised my eyes once more.
The flames danced, casting distorted shadows on the trunks and the chains. The wind's whisper made the hanging links creak.
A shiver ran through me.
I had come back to life. Or maybe I'd just changed nightmares.
But one thing was certain: I was fucked.