Hinesia's eyes fluttered open with a dry groan. Her neck ached. Her back ached. Even her eyelids seemed to ache.
She was half-slumped over her gamer chair, her arms dangling over the armrests, and the faint bluish glow of her monitor painted the room in cold light. On the screen, Masquerade of Dreams Shattered, the game that had consumed far too much of her free time, was paused at some late-night survey prompt about "player satisfaction."
"Oh, come on. Even in my dreams, I'm a beta tester."
Her tongue felt like sandpaper. It felt strange for her to talk in Japanese, as if she hasn't spoken it for a while. She rubbed her eyes, blinking at the pixelated words: 'Thank you for participating in the MoDS Beta Survey!'
Wait. Dream?
Hinesia frowned, stretching her legs under the desk. Her blanket had slipped to the floor, tangled with empty energy drink cans and two pairs of socks that had somehow found each other like loyal companions. She glanced at the digital clock on her keyboard:
08:46 AM.
It was morning already.
She turned in her chair, the wheels squeaking faintly against the littered floor. The soft hum of her refrigerator mixed with the faint sounds of the city beyond her window like muffled traffic, a distant announcement and the ordinary buzz of life. She stood up slowly, her bones popping as if she hadn't moved in days.
Her eyes drifted to the monitor again.
A vivid image shot through her mind. There was a city, a pit, a strange light and faces she couldn't quite name but felt like she should know. There was someone calling her name.
She rubbed her temples. "What kind of messed up isekai dream was that?"
The words tasted awkward coming out. Still, she shook it off. A dream's a dream after all.
When she turned toward her window, she saw the skyline of Harajuku, washed in soft morning haze. Her apartment was high up, probably too expensive for someone like her, but she'd inherited it from her aunt, so she never questioned it. he sighed and took in the room behind her. Her apartment looked like a small landfill.
Plastic bottles, ramen cups, chopsticks, loose receipts, a dozen opened snack wrappers, tangled cables, unopened mail, it was all scattered like someone had detonated a "lazy bomb." Hinesia pressed her lips together.
"Right. Guess today's that day."
Why did she feel strange talking in her native tongue?
She gathered her hair into a messy bun and rolled up her oversized T-shirt sleeves. The shirt itself had some faded text on it: 'Respawn. Retry. Regret.' Fitting.
She started by collecting the bottles and energy cans in the floors, then an entire cluster under her desk. By the time she had filled a garbage bag, she was sweating slightly, her hands sticky from spilled soda. Her small recycling bin overflowed before she even finished half the room.
"Why do I do this to myself?" She muttered, glaring at a pile of ramen cups.
She picked them up carefully, stacking them. The chopsticks, half of which were still wrapped, went into another pile. The smell in the kitchen hit her like a slap. There was old soy sauce, something vaguely chemical, and a note of despair. She scrunched her nose.
"By the Goddesses, that's horrifying."
She rolled up her shorts a bit and got to work. It took nearly an hour just to get through the dishes, and when she looked at the drying rack, the sight was almost surreal. There were clean plates. The countertop gleamed for the first time in weeks.
The floor though, was different story.
She grabbed the vacuum cleaner and sighed as she dragged it out of the closet. Dust bunnies puffed up into the air like tiny ghosts protesting their eviction. Every pass of the vacuum felt like reclaiming her life from entropy, but it was so much work.
The low mechanical sound drowned out her thoughts and she liked that. For a few hours, it was just her, the hum of the machine, and the quiet satisfaction of doing something normal. When she finally turned it off, the silence was almost heavy.
She walked around. The trash bags were neatly stacked by the door, the desk was cleared of junk except for her keyboard and monitor and her bed was visible again under layers of blankets she hadn't folded in months. The air smelled faintly of detergent and lemon cleaner.
"Not bad. I actually did it."
The clock now read 12:36 PM.
She grabbed a mop, dipped it in a bucket, and started on the floors. Each stroke made her shoulders ache, but it was a good ache, not the dull ache of sleeplessness or the hollow one from staring too long at screens. By the time she was done, the reflection of sunlight shimmered faintly on the wet floor. Her apartment looked almost alive again.
She stood in the middle of it all, sweaty, tired, but oddly proud.
"Good job to me," she said aloud, like congratulating someone else.
And that's when the headache hit as she was on her bedroom.
Hinesia dropped the mop and stumbled back, clutching her head as if someone had just driven an icepick through her skull. Her vision blurred. Her ears rang. The air seemed to twist.
"W–what..."
The room rippled around her. The sunlight distorted, bending in unnatural curves. Her legs buckled and she collapsed to her knees. Her computer screen flickered on again to Masquerade of Dreams Shattered. The title gleamed. Her breath came out ragged. Then the memories slammed into her like a wave; falling, Phaser's voice, Xaessia, Verdamona, a door in the ground—
"Stop it!"
But the flood wouldn't stop.
She saw their faces again though she couldn't remember how. The fragments, the glowing sphere, the moment they fell...
She screamed again. Louder. Her voice cracked and her body convulsed. She felt wet warmth trickling down her cheeks. When she wiped it, her fingers came away red.
Her eyes were bleeding. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts.
"Why....why does it hurt so much?"
The walls trembled faintly, though maybe it was just her. The monitor flickered again. This time, the screen displayed a single, glowing sentence in the same soft blue light that had haunted her dreams:
'WELCOME BACK, HINESIA.'
She froze.
Her heart stopped for a second.
"Wait... I'm back in my real world?"