The darkness didn't last long.When it finally dispersed, dreams came to me. Dreams filled with happiness—memories I cherished more than anything else. I didn't want to wake up. But even that dream came to an end.
I snapped my eyes open and realized I was in my apartment.
My breathing was erratic. My chest felt tight, my heart pounding as if I'd just been running nonstop.
The first thing I did was look at my laptop.
The screen was off.
And then the keyboard made a sound.Something was typing—on its own.
The typing was slow, as if someone was carefully choosing their words. With every passing second, symbols began appearing on the black screen. Moments later, the monitor turned on by itself, and the text formed a single line:
I recoiled. My thoughts tangled into a mess. Everything happening felt wrong—unreal.
Stumbling, I made my way to the bathroom, turned on the light, and looked into the mirror.My face was pale, my skin slick with sweat, everything looked blurry.
I slapped myself.The pain was strange—almost fake.
I looked into the mirror again.
And there I was—covered in blood. A pale corpse with a hole in its head.
I jolted upright on the couch.
Lack of sleep and the nightmare had scrambled my mind. I rushed toward the bathroom again. On the way, disoriented, I smashed my pinky toe against the cabinet.
Fuck. That hurt.
As I convinced myself over and over—The pain is real. This isn't a dream—I repeated it like a mantra. Holy shit, it hurt like hell.
After washing my face with cold water, I looked at my reflection again.
A completely unremarkable young man, about twenty-five. Hair slightly darker than brown. Large dark-brown eyes. A lean build. At first glance—just an ordinary American guy.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
And then a window appeared before my eyes.
Strength: 9Endurance: 10Agility: 8
Skills:???
I froze.
For several seconds, I just stared at the lines, unable to move.
"A hallucination…" I muttered.
But my memory betrayed me, supplying the details.The numbers. The format.
They were familiar.
I had seen them before.
In the novel I had written myself.
My hands began to tremble. A wave of nausea hit me, and I barely managed to lift the toilet lid in time. When it was over, I washed my face again and looked back at the window floating in the air.
It hadn't disappeared.
Half an hour later, I somehow pulled myself together. One thought took shape in my mind. I returned to my room and turned on the laptop.
The text from the dream—the one that had typed itself—was gone. I opened the file editor and saw a novel.
But it wasn't the novel I had written.
I scrolled through the file, anxiety tightening in my chest. The title was unfamiliar. I went online and searched for my novel by name.
Zero results.
Somehow, the novel I had written had vanished.
The system window before my eyes. The strange dream.Everything felt surreal.
Out of habit, I opened Reddit, reading post after post, hoping to find some kind of explanation.
And the first thing I saw made me freeze.
"I awakened a skill. How do I level it up?""I'm a fourth-rank hunter. AMA."
There were dozens of posts like that.Hundreds.
After spending about half an hour online, I finally understood.
This time, it wasn't a dream.And it wasn't a hallucination.
The world had changed.
Or rather—I had