Sunlight hit my face like a slap.
I jolted upright, heart hammering, sheets tangled around my legs. My own sheets. The cheap cotton ones with the tiny hole near the bottom left corner that I kept meaning to replace. The familiar smell of stale coffee grounds and unwashed laundry filled the room. My room. One-bedroom apartment, third floor, rent two weeks late. The same peeling paint on the ceiling. The same water stain shaped like a distorted skull in the corner. The same half-dead succulent on the windowsill that I watered maybe once a month.
I was breathing hard. Sweat cooled on my skin. My cock was half-hard, still slick, as if I'd been stroking in my sleep. The golden light was gone. No hum in my veins. No power coiled in my balls. Just the dull morning ache of a body that hadn't moved in hours.
I rubbed my eyes. Hard.
It had been a dream.
Of course it had been a dream.
The Haven. The women. The Titan. The ash. The locked door. The hooded man. The Hollow Gallery. All of it. A fevered, pornographic, violent fever dream cooked up by a sleep-deprived brain that had spent too many nights scrolling hentai and falling asleep to isekai reruns.
I laughed once. A short, cracked sound that died in my throat.
Relief flooded me first. Sharp. Almost painful. I wasn't dead. I wasn't displaced. I hadn't killed a world-ending monster or fucked my way through a civilization of desperate sorceresses. I was just Alex, sitting in my own sweat-soaked bed, morning wood fading, alarm clock blinking 9:47 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Then the relief soured.
Because the dream had felt real.
Not just vivid. Real. The weight of Liora's small body against mine. The exact texture of Kaia's heavy tits in my hands. The way Lirien's cunt clenched when I came inside her. The smell of ash after the pyres. The cold bite of the stone under my bare feet when I jumped from the window. The silver glow of the hooded man's eyes. The perfect stillness of those enthroned figures in the gallery.
I pressed my palms to my face. My hands smelled faintly of pussy. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Wishful, desperate thinking.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Bare feet hit the cold laminate floor. The same floor that had been cold last night when I stumbled to bed after another 14-hour coding session. I stood. Walked to the bathroom. Pissed. Washed my hands. Looked in the mirror.
Same face. Same tired eyes. No golden glow under the skin. No enhanced muscles. Just Alex. Ordinary. Loser Alex.
I leaned closer to the glass. Searched my own pupils for any trace of silver. Nothing.
I exhaled hard through my nose.
It was a dream.
A really fucking good one. The kind you wake up from and immediately want to fall back into. The kind that makes real life feel like punishment.
I shuffled to the kitchenette. Started the coffee maker. The machine gurgled like it always did. I stared at the drip, drip, drip while my mind kept replaying fragments.
The locked door.
The voice outside the window.
The jump.
The forest.
The maze.
The cavern.
The thrones.
The man saying "the crack chooses."
I shook my head. Hard. Like I could shake the images loose.
Coffee finished brewing. I poured a mug. Black. No sugar. Took a sip. Burned my tongue. Good. Pain was grounding. Real.
I carried the mug back to the bedroom. Sat on the edge of the bed. Stared at my phone on the nightstand. Screen dark. No notifications. No one wondering where I was. No one missing me.
I picked it up anyway. Unlocked it. Opened the browser. Typed "isekai symptoms" into the search bar. Deleted it. Typed "vivid sex dreams meaning." Deleted that too.
I set the phone down.
The dream had been too coherent. Too consistent. No shifting locations like normal dreams. No impossible physics that resolved into nonsense. Every detail had held together. The pain in my ankle after the jump. The exact smell of the ash. The weight of the women's bodies. The taste of their skin. The sound of their moans. The way the golden light felt when it looped back into me—hot, electric, addictive.
I stood again. Paced. Four steps to the window. Four back.
What if it wasn't a dream?
What if I had been there? What if something had pulled me through, used me, then spat me back here when the job was done? Or when I started asking too many questions? Or when the hooded man decided I wasn't ready for the gallery yet?
I stopped pacing.
No. That was insane. That was cope. That was the part of my brain that still wanted to believe I was special. That wanted to believe there was a world somewhere that needed me. That wanted to believe I wasn't just another nobody jerking off alone in a shitty apartment.
I sat back down.
The coffee was cooling.
I drank it anyway.
The dream lingered. Not fading like dreams usually do. Every detail still sharp. Every sensation still fresh. I could close my eyes and feel Liora's small hands on my thighs, hear Kaia's husky laugh, taste Lirien's jasmine-scented skin.
I set the mug down.
I wasn't going back to sleep.
I wasn't going to jerk off to the memory either.
I needed to move. To do something. To prove I was still here. Still real.
I pulled on yesterday's jeans. Same hoodie. Same sneakers with the frayed laces.
I grabbed my keys.
Opened the door.
Stepped into the hallway.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Boring.
I locked the door behind me.
Walked down the stairs.
Out into the street.
The city smelled like exhaust and wet concrete and distant food carts.
I started walking.
No destination.
Just movement.
Because if I stopped, if I let myself think too long about the dream that refused to fade, I might start believing it wasn't a dream at all.
And that thought scared me more than anything.