"I… I will not die! It doesn't matter! Anybody, everybody, they can all eat shit! Even the gods!"
—
—
—
"What?"
His eyes fluttered open, then shut again. The ground beneath him was uncomfortably hard, and the air felt thick in his lungs, carrying a sour, metallic smell that wrinkled his nose.
He continued blinking several more times, but nothing changed. Each of his five senses were perfectly intact.
'Am I… alive?'
But… how?
He rummaged his mind for answers but stumbled across something useless instead.
Apparently, the brain would shoot off a bunch of signals in its final moments—
Yeah, it was useless.
'Ah, whatever…'
He had much more important things to worry about.
His back was pressed against a cold brick wall, and he noticed that two similar walls sat on either side of him, enclosing him within an alleyway. Rusted garbage bins and plastic trash bags lined the narrow space, some overflowing with filth while others were empty.
"Hmm?"
He felt a sense of kinship between himself and the trash.
'Okay, what the hell am I thinking?'
But truly... It was warming, like they were family, one in the same, but he couldn't put a finger on why. Perhaps the shock was messing with his head. Or maybe…
He looked down, and his breath caught in his throat.
"Oh."
He was wearing a trash bag, the same type as the ones in front of him.
'No wonder…'
Wondering if he had been reborn as a jobless bum, he tried remove it. But soon, to his horror, he realized that underneath, he was wearing nothing but a pair of worn and ripped underwear, and after a moment of internal debate, he decided to keep it on.
Okay, what the hell was happening? He died, woke up in some random unfamiliar area, and was wearing literal trash.
'Could this get any worse?'
Standing up, he scanned his surroundings once again, this time exploring more thoroughly with his hands rather merely his eyes.
'This… doesn't feel like Earth,' he thought. 'It definitely looks like it, but there's this strange unfamiliar essence in the air…' He peeked out of the alleyway, and the people passed by without sparing him more than a glance.
He noticed a few important things from this interaction. Firstly, a few people wore combat-oriented outfits; thicker fabric, belts with weapons, and for some reason nobody was worried about being spontaneously stabbed to death.
Secondly, the buildings felt more robust than the ones he was used to, as if reinforced by something beyond his comprehension.
'Alright,' He sighed. 'Let's assume the worst and say I transmigrated.'
If that was the case, then what world was he in—and why was he dumped in some filthy alleyway in nothing but uncomfortable underwear and a trash bag? Was this a humiliation ritual? What's worse is that one passerby shot him a sharp look of disgust, forcing him to retreat back into the alleyway like a frightened animal.
"Ugh…"
Sliding down the wall where he had woken up, he brought his knees to his chest and hugged them like an overstimulated child.
"I'll just… think for now."
—
—
—
Time passed, but he couldn't tell how much.
Fatigue slowly crept into his body and mind, eyelids growing heavier as his head began to droop.
Even his thoughts became sluggish.
'I should probably stop thinking—'
Then he heard it…
"—Nightmare Creatures—"
The words drifted casually from somewhere in the nearby crowd, but his heart dropped despite the common tone.
Nightmare Creatures…?
"No, no, no..."
It must have been a coincidence…
"..."
…nope, he wasn't that dumb, why would anybody say those two words together if this wasn't the case?
'Ah shit.'
He was in the popular WebNovel, Shadow Slave.
'I'm tired too...'
Judging by the feeling of his body, he was roughly 16 years old. And if what he heard was true, then he was almost certainly infected by the Nightmare Spell—given his current fatigue.
"For the love of God…" He slammed his head against the brick wall behind him a few times, both to wake himself up and to distract his nerves. "...or I suppose it would be: 'For the love of the gods,' right?"
He chuckled, then sighed bitterly in defeat.
—
—
—
**Chapter Notes**
– Word Count: [938]
– I'm sorry if this was short, but I figured it was fitting for the introduction. Later chapters will not be this short, don't worry.
– I already have a perfect idea for his Aspect, and for a few other things, but one thing I'd like to ask is if you'd all like me to follow the original story's timeline or for me to make my own. My original motivation for this story was to take the mechanics of Shadow Slave, but entirely change things like history, the areas in the Dream Realm, Etc. Initially, I'd feel guilty because that would basically be taking G3s story and attempting to make it my own but I think if I list it as fanfiction and have "Shadow Slave" in the title, that it'd be fine. Of course, I could always just follow the original story, but I'd feel much more restricted and I'd be more inclined to give up because it's an unfinished WebNovel.
– If you see any grammatical errors or spelling problems please comment on the paragraph where it is so I can fix it—this goes for any errors regarding the Spell as well, as if I am tired I might make mistakes.
– Please comment a lot, I don't care about whether or not this gets popular, I just want to know that people are reading :)
– I hope you enjoyed.