Jaime Reyes woke up to the sound of his neighbor's dog screaming at the sunrise again.
Not barking.
Screaming.
The kind of noise that made his soul leave his body every morning.
"Bro…" Jaime muttered into his pillow, voice muffled. "It's six. Six. In the morning. ¿Por qué?"
The dog barked louder, as if offended.
Jaime groaned, rolled over in his cramped one-room apartment, and stared at the cracked ceiling. A faint dust cloud drifted from above; his upstairs neighbor probably dropped a dumbbell again.
"…I should've gone to trade school," he sighed.
Another morning in New York. Another day of college classes he would barely attend. Another shift at a construction site where he'd spend hours sweating for barely above minimum wage. And another night waiting for his paycheck to hit just so he could blow a portion of it on [Borderline Heroes], the most predatory, addicting, heartbreakingly beautiful gacha game he had ever played.
He hated it.
He loved it.
He needed help.
Jaime slapped a hand over his face. "Alright. Let's get up, genius."
He dragged himself out of bed. His body felt heavy, not from laziness, but from the bone-deep exhaustion of a college student working two part-time jobs and running on caffeine and spite.
A quick shower. Clothes. A granola bar for breakfast because real food cost money. And then—
His phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.
[Daily login bonus available!]
"Already?" Jaime muttered. He unlocked his phone.
The bright splash screen of Borderline Heroes greeted him, showing the main cast — the protagonist, Caelum du Lys, all flowing white hair and armor polished with divine light. Probably French. Probably the reason half the game's female player base sold their souls for a chance at his ten-star version.
Jaime still remembered crying internally after fifty mistimed pulls before finally getting him at pity.
"Morning, Caelum," Jaime said dryly. "Hope you're having a better life than me."
He collected his login rewards, winced at the pop-up announcing "LIMITED TIME HERO BANNERS!", then shoved the phone into his pocket before he lost his entire paycheck.
Time for work.
…..
The job site smelled like dust, sweat, gasoline, and disappointment.
Jaime clocked in, grabbed his hard hat, and walked into the half-finished building skeleton with the other workers.
"Yo, Reyes!" called Darnell, a veteran worker whose arms were as thick as fire hydrants. "Morning, kid. You look like crap."
Jaime gave him a thumbs-up. "Thanks, man. That's my secret — I always look like crap."
Darnell laughed. "You on that phone game again? The one with the sword dudes and anime girls?"
"It's not anime," Jaime corrected automatically. "It's… stylized fantasy."
"So anime?"
"…Shut up."
Darnell laughed louder.
Jaime appreciated these moments. The friendly teasing, the jokes, the normalcy. If the rest of his life felt like a chaotic storm of deadlines and bills, work was the eye of it — exhausting, but at least predictable.
The morning passed in a blur of hauling, cutting, drilling, and trying not to die. Jaime was good at the job despite being scrawny; he had technique, not strength. And stubbornness. Lots of that.
Finally, lunch break arrived. He sat on a stack of wood planks, wiped the sweat from his brow, and pulled out his phone.
Time for his real job.
Borderline Heroes.
The one escape he allowed himself.
The game had everything: lore, strategy, an insane cast size, branching routes that took months to clear, and characters from every country imaginable. It mirrored Earth's modern world but with hero systems, monsters, and academies that trained superhumans.
It was ridiculous. It was dramatic. It was addicting.
And Jaime loved every stupid pixel of it.
He tapped open his save file — the one he had been grinding for nearly six months.
[Main Story Route: 'True Ending Achieved']
He grinned. He did it. After sleepless nights, rage-pulling, breakdowns, dozens of characters sacrificed for upgrade fodder, and spending a shameful amount of money he would rather not think about…
He finally reached the True Ending.
Caelum du Lys stood tall on the victory screen at level 350, ten-star rarity, dressed in dazzling celestial armor.
Jaime exhaled. "Man… worth every kidney I sold."
He hadn't sold any kidneys, but emotionally, he felt like he had.
Sure, he was broke. Sure, his bank app judged him every time he deposited money only to instantly spend some of it on gems. But the character designs were gorgeous, the gameplay was tight, and the story?
S-tier.
"Alright," he said, tapping the "Final Rewards" button. "Let's see what we got."
The screen flashed.
[Congratulations! You received: Short Glaive (Common) — Grade: ???]
A picture of a plain polearm appeared. A dull blade. A rusty, dangling chain. Nothing special.
"Aw, come on," Jaime groaned. "You give me a whole emotional masterpiece of a story, and the reward is a broomstick with commitment issues?"
He checked its description.
[Trait: ███████████████]
"You're telling me the only cool part is censored? Seriously?"
He tossed his head back.
Worst. Final. Reward. Ever.
He skipped through the rest of the text—probably filler—until another notification popped up.
[A new hero can now be summoned.]
"…Huh?"
Jaime blinked. "A new hero? They dropped a patch already? Didn't they just update last week?"
Curiosity, the natural predator of rational thought, grabbed him by the throat.
He checked his remaining gems.
He had enough for a ten-pull.
"Okay… one pull. Just one. If I don't get anything, that's it. I'm done. For real."
He said that every time.
Jaime opened the summon menu.
The starry background swirled on screen, a cosmic expanse filled with floating symbols representing elements and hero classes. It always looked beautiful, like someone tried to make a Disney fireworks show inside a black hole.
He tapped [Summon].
The animation began.
A comet streaked across the display. Colors shifted — white, blue, red, green, purple, gold —
His breath hitched.
Then the screen flashed a swirling, prismatic burst: all colors layered at once.
A mythical-tier animation.
"No way… no way," Jaime whispered. "Did I actually—?"
A glowing figure materialized on the screen. The signature text appeared:
[A Hero From Afar Answers The Call…]
The music crescendoed—
And then—
His phone erupted.
Not exploded, but erupted in a blinding surge of white light.
Jaime's eyes widened. "What the—?!"
The world dissolved.
The light swallowed him whole.
No heat.
No pain.
Just—
Nothingness.
Then silence.
…..
The construction site was lively again once lunch ended. Workers returned to their tasks, laughing and complaining about the heat.
Darnell walked past the lumber stacks. "Yo, Reyes! Break's over, kid!"
He waited.
Silence.
He frowned. Walked a little further. "Jaime? You takin' a nap or something?"
No answer.
Just a faint, acrid smell.
He stepped around the corner.
There, on the dusty ground, lay a phone. Jaime's phone — recognizable by the cracked case and the sticker peeling off the corner.
The screen was blackened. Smoke rose from it in thin wisps.
No Jaime.
"Reyes…?" Darnell whispered.
The device sizzled once, then went still.
And the young man who had been standing there minutes before…
Was gone.