In the dead of night, where the city's roar is swallowed by a haunting silence, the clock struck 3:00 AM—the hour when weary souls creep from their hiding places. Streetlights stretched along the highway like silent sentinels, spilling a sickly yellow glow that drew parallel lines on the cold asphalt, creating a cage of light and shadow.
Amidst this desolate void, a shadow emerged: a man in his thirties. He wasn't walking; he was staggering, fighting gravity in erratic lurches. His features were drowned in the darkness, but his "formal suit"—frayed at the edges—and the leather briefcase swinging in his hand like a heavy shackle told his story well enough. It was the tale of a salaryman ground to dust by the gears of routine.
He began to hum in a choked voice, his tone heavy with bitterness, piercing the silence with a strange, funereal melody:
"Day after day... on and on it goes,
Back and forth, in a cycle that never slows.
From six at dawn 'til the fall of light,
The soul is weary, suspended in flight.
My life is duty, and duty is a chain,
A stagnant world where only shadows remain.
No spark of newness, no joy, no gain,
Just hours added to a life of pain.
Hour by hour, the years slip away,
In service of misery, day by day.
My life is a crisis, forced and austere,
Far from the 'perfect' I once held dear.
Day after day... day after day... day after day."
Suddenly, without warning, he froze in front of a lamppost. With a desperate heave, he hurled his briefcase against the iron pole. It struck with a hollow, metallic clang that shattered the silence. His body collapsed over the bag, forehead resting against the cold metal. Raising bloodshot eyes to a starless sky, he whispered with a pathetic laugh that sounded more like a sob:
"Damn it.. I never imagined I'd fall to a rock bottom this pathetic. It never crossed my mind that this song—the anthem of my rebellious childhood, our innocent scream of mockery at the world—would turn, over the years, into a requiem played over the ruins of my soul. The only manual left for my crushed life."
He closed his eyes, while the yellow light above his head flickered rhythmically, as if dancing to the beat of his persistent failures.
An absolute silence reigned for seconds, as if time itself had paused to catch its breath, before the stillness was cut by a strange pulse of light from a neighboring lamppost. The bulb was dying, flickering in rapid, violent spasms. But it wasn't the malfunction that caught his eye; it was the color. The light was a pitch-black radiance—a light that absorbed vision rather than granting it. It condensed into a single spot around a crystal sphere lying on the cold pavement, shimmering with a diabolical allure.
His heart skipped a beat. A suicidal curiosity forced him to stand. Forgetting his exhaustion, he approached with the cautious steps of a man walking through a minefield. He reached out a trembling hand toward the mesmerizing orb. Just centimeters before his fingertips brushed its cold surface, the universe exploded.
From the heart of the crystal, a flood of "luminous darkness" erupted. It wasn't merely the absence of light; it was a brute, physical force. He felt as if space itself was folding its edges around him. In the blink of an eye, the void swallowed him whole. He vanished from existence, leaving behind only his "work bag" under the pale rain—the sole witness to a clerk who was once here.
Seconds after his disappearance, the earth woke with a terrifying roar. A massive cosmic earthquake struck. The lampposts committed suicide, collapsing like iron corpses. The ground cracked like a fragile eggshell, sending up plumes of dust and destruction. The world he loathed was literally collapsing behind his back, as if fate had snatched him from the claws of death at the last second only to hurl him into a greater unknown.
Our hero was falling.. falling into an infinite void. He screamed with all his might, but his voice bounced back muffled, as if the air itself had abandoned him. There was no up or down, only expanses of nebula and visual hallucinations. This terrifying descent lasted for a time he couldn't measure, until finally, he hit the ground.
But it wasn't a bone-shattering impact. He didn't feel his flesh tear or the cold bite of asphalt. Instead, it was a surreal sensation, like falling into a long dream—hitting water that doesn't wet, or a solid cloud.
He opened his eyes slowly, greeted by a warm sunlight he hadn't known in his "office cell." There was no asphalt, no dim streetlights. Instead, there was an infinite stretch of emerald-green meadow, waving in a gentle breeze that carried the scent of earth and freedom.
His limbs stiffened for a moment as he processed the scene. Then, suddenly, his face broke into a wide grin his lips hadn't known for years. He sprang up with a sudden burst of energy and screamed at the top of his lungs, a cry that split the silence of the fields:
"Yes! Yes! YESSSSS! It actually happened! To hell with my old life.. hello, world of fantasy!"
He began to spin around like a child freed from his chains, waving his hands at the clear sky:
"Finally.. I'm free from the shackles of routine and the slavery of the 6:00 PM clock! Where are they now? Where are the wizards? The wise elders in their majestic robes? Who summoned me? Show yourselves! Where is the person who will drop to their knees and tell me: 'O Hero, you are the Chosen One who will save us from the darkness of the Demon King'? I'm ready!"
He quieted down, scanning the wide horizon, but found nothing but the rustle of trees and the chirping of birds with strange melodies. There were no magic circles beneath his feet, no armies awaiting his arrival.
Rubbing his chin, he began to analyze the situation aloud, regaining a bit of his composure mixed with awe:
"Hmm.. a suspicious silence. It seems the welcome isn't as grand as I hoped. But.. something is off."
He looked at his hands, then touched the contours of his face and body. The texture felt foreign, as if his skin had donned a completely new suit:
"The soul was copied.. or perhaps completely transferred. This body.. it's not mine. It's lighter, more energetic, and maybe.. younger?"
His foot tripped over something hard lying in the grass. He bent down to pick up a transparent glass bottle. It was empty except for the remnants of a dark liquid, and next to it was a faded label bearing a sinister logo. He examined it closely, his eyes widening as he realized what it was:
"A poison bottle?"
He shook his head sadly, turning the bottle over in his fingers, and continued his thoughts aloud:
"Well, the threads are starting to weave together. It seems the owner of this body was going through moments even darker than mine.. perhaps he decided to leave at the same moment I was kicked out of my world, and we met halfway. I occupied the vacuum he left behind."
He tossed the bottle away and straightened his posture, brushing the dust off his new (or old, to the original owner) clothes:
"All of this is just theory.. and over-analysis won't put bread on the table here. I must move, discover where I am, who I was, and who I will become."
He walked with confident strides over the carpet of grass until he suddenly stopped at the edge of a deep abyss—a massive rift in the earth separating him from the other side, which looked even greener and more mysterious. He stood contemplating the vast distance, his eyes gleaming with the fire of challenge. A "hero's" smile, the kind he used to read about in novels, played on his lips.
He wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead and said with total conviction:
"Alright, hero.. if fate brought me here, it certainly didn't bring me to stand helpless before a hole! This body.. I feel heat coursing through its veins, a power I never knew in those dreary 'Oppression' offices. First real test: The Jump! Let's see how far this new engine can take me."
He stepped back a few paces, took a starting stance, and pumped all his excitement into his leg muscles, which felt like steel springs. With a muffled roar, he launched!
Our hero soared into the air, but it wasn't a normal jump; it was flight! He felt the earth's gravity vanish beneath his feet, the wind slapping his face with the intoxication of freedom. He found himself rising and rising, crossing the rift like an arrow shot from a divine bow. He raised his hands high into the void and screamed with a hysterical laugh that shook the corners of the forest:
"Ya-hoooooo! I'm flying! Look at me.. I'm not a clerk, I'm a bird! I'm a hurricane! What a legendary day! Goodbye gravity.. goodbye earth!"
But, as they say: "What goes up must come down." At the peak of his flight, just as the arc of his path began to curve downward with terrifying speed, his laughter vanished, replaced by an expression of existential dread. His eyes widened as he saw the ground rushing toward him like a ravenous beast. He whispered in terror:
"Wait a minute.. just a second! I'm flying, this is great.. but.. the landing? Where is the instruction manual for the landing?! How do I land?! Stop! Body.. do something!"
He began to flap his arms and legs wildly in the air, a pathetic display like a chicken trying to escape the butcher's knife. But physics was waiting for him.
"CRASH!"
He hit the ground with violence, tumbling like a stray ball over rocks and grass. He was only stopped by the trunk of an ancient tree, which greeted his face with a hard, wooden "hug." A horrific crunching sound echoed, as if a set of pottery had been smashed to bits.
He fell onto his back, arms outstretched, eyes spinning in their sockets. In a tragically hilarious scene, his teeth scattered from his mouth, falling beside him on the grass like broken pearls. Before he could grasp the scale of the disaster, his vision went pitch black. He drifted into a cold coma, leaving behind a dream that started "heroic" and ended with his "teeth" strewn across the land of fantasy.